Forget the Germans. It’s the French who made classical music what it is

The poor French. When we think of classical music, we always think of the Germans. It’s understandable. Instinctive. Ingrained. But unfair. We forget that most of the heavy lifting — most of the intrepid leaps forward in harmony, colour, rhythm and form — was done by the likes of Berlioz, Debussy and Boulez.

The most completely forgotten of these Gallic explorers is Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764), who died 250 years ago this year. His operatic output, begun when he was 50 and comprising 30 works, is an acquired taste. I remember the exact moment I fell for him. The exact notes in fact. It was the opening aria of his one-acter Pigmalion. Three flutes, comforted by strings, sob in a corner. High above them, a tenor pierces the whimpering with an unbeatable piece of trembly vocalising. It’s knee-weakening stuff — one of the best curtain-raisers in all opera — and demonstrates why Rameau demands our attention.

He invented the French soundworld. In these few bars you hear what virtually every French composer has been obsessing over ever since: colour, melodic heartache and formal weirdness.

Pigmalion received its semi-staged UK première this October. Only 264 years late. And despite the performance being the product of an academic enterprise that meant there was a whiff of the lecture-room about it, there was life here, not just chin-stroking. It’s the hardest of Rameau’s operas to screw up dramatically, the story travelling in a straight line from desolation to dance. Even so, it was a straight line nicely followed.

Giving an outing to this little corker was long overdue. Elsewhere there were gaping holes. No Hippolyte et Aricie. No Castor et Pollux. No full productions of any operas at all. What kind of 250th anniversary was this? Instead programmers rooted around in the bottom drawer.