Until Rameau was fifty, he was known as an organist, a teacher of composition and a writer of many charming works for harpsichord and clavecin. He married a young singer when he was 43, and the year after, he made the acquaintance of a wealthy patron of the arts, at whose house he met artists, literary men, princes and embassadors. Rameau taught his patron’s wife, and had the use of his organ and private orchestra. Here he first found himself among friends who understood and appreciated his talents; here he met the great French writer, Voltaire, and the Abbé Pellegrin, both of whom wrote librettos for his operas. There is a tale that the Abbé made the composer sign an agreement about payment for the use of his book but after hearing the first rehearsal he tore it up—so pleased was he with Rameau’s first opera, _Hippolyte et Aricie_ (1733). Now Rameau met the jealousy of Lully’s followers, who tried to prevent the success of the work. They hissed it and wrote slighting verse about it: If difficulties beauty show, Then what a great man is Rameau. If beauty, though, by chance should be But nature’s own simplicity, Then what a small man is Rameau!— (Frederick H. Martens’ translation of _A History of Music_ by Paul Landormy.) It is curious how often a new style in music has been greeted with just such criticism and prejudice as the “Lullyists” showed for Rameau’s opera! They claimed that the work was not French, that he used strange chords, that his music was too difficult to be understood! In fact they said exactly the same things that are said today about new works which are different from what the public is used to hearing. Voltaire said that it takes a whole generation for the human ear to grow familiar with a new musical style! His third opera, _Castor and Pollux_, in 1737, was his first real success. With this work, he became famous, and was regarded as France’s greatest composer. An English noble in Paris at the time stated “that although everyone was abusing Rameau’s ‘horrible’ work, yet it was impossible to get a seat at the opera.” Although Rameau brought nothing new to opera, he was the step between the Lully traditions and the innovators who came with Gluck. The French composers today turn to him in their search for the direct road along which French music has traveled.