Rameau’s style is less delicate than Couperin’s. It is not only that there are fewer _agrémens_. The workmanship is more vigorous, more dramatic; the music itself less intimate. The first gavotte in A minor, the doubles in the Rigaudon and in _Les niais de Sologne_, the variations in the second gavotte in A minor, and _La Dauphine_, all speak of a technical enlargement. Yet a certain fineness is lacking. It will be noticed that he showed hardly more allegiance to the canon of the suite than Couperin had shown; and there is a large portion of titles such as _Les tendres plaintes_, _Les soupirs_, _L’entretien des muses_, and there are also many portraits: _La joyeuse_, _La triomphante_, _L’Egyptienne_, _L’agaçante_, and others. In the preface to the new edition of his works published under the supervision of Camille Saint-Saëns, there is the following quotation from Amadée Mereaux’s _Les clavecinistes de 1637-1790_, which summarizes his position in the history of harpsichord music. ‘If there is lacking in his melodies the smoothness of Couperin, the distinction, the delicacy, the purity of style which give to the music of that clavecin composer to Louis XIV its so precious quality of charm, Rameau has at least a boldness of spirit, an animation, a power of harmony and a richness of modulation. The reflection of his operatic style, lively, expressive, always precise and strongly rhythmical, is to be found in his instrumental style. In treatment of the keyboard Rameau went far ahead of his predecessors. His technical forms, his instrumental designs, his variety and brilliance in executive resources, and his new runs and figures are all conquests which he won to the domain of the harpsichord.’ Rameau is primarily a dramatic composer. It may be added that several of his harpsichord pieces later found a place in his operas, usually as ballet music. IV A glance over the many pieces of Scarlatti and Couperin discovers a vast field of unfamiliar music. If one looks deep enough to perceive the charm, the beauty, the perfection of these forgotten masterpieces, one cannot but wonder what more than a trick of time has condemned them to oblivion. For no astonished enthusiasm of student or amateur whose eye can hear, renders back glory to music that lies year after year silent on dusty shelves. The general ear has not heard it. The general eye cannot hear it as it can scan the ancient picture, the drama, the poetry of a time a thousand or two thousand years ago. Music that is silent is music quite forgotten if not dead.