Product Description: Around the middle of the eighteenth century the leading figures of the French Enlightenment engaged in a philosophical debate about the nature of music. This book traces the development of the ideas discussed, focusing on three different events that occurred roughly simultaneously: Rameau's formulation of the principle of the fundamental bass; the writing of the Encyclopédie, edited by Diderot and d'Alembert, with articles on music by Rousseau; and the "Querelle des Bouffons," over Italian comic opera and French tragic opera...read more