Denis Diderot 'Rameau's Nephew' – 'Le Neveu de Rameau': A Multi-Media Bilingual Edition

The first edition of this book was viewed 5,242 times.
This new edition includes:
This new edition includes:
* Additional online resources (see 'Additional Resources' tab above)
* Introduction
* Original text
* English translation
* Embedded audio-files
* Explanatory notes
* Interactive material
* 100 colour illustrations
* Introduction
* Original text
* English translation
* Embedded audio-files
* Explanatory notes
* Interactive material
* 100 colour illustrations
In a famous Parisian chess café, a down-and-out, HIM, accosts a former acquaintance, ME, who has made good, more or less. They talk about chess, about genius, about good and evil, about music, they gossip about the society in which they move, one of extreme inequality, of corruption, of envy, and about the circle of hangers-on in which the down-and-out abides. The down-and-out from time to time is possessed with movements almost like spasms, in which he imitates, he gestures, he rants. And towards half past five, when the warning bell of the Opera sounds, they part, going their separate ways.
Probably completed in 1772-73, Denis Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew fascinated Goethe, Hegel, Engels and Freud in turn, achieving a literary-philosophical status that no other work by Diderot shares. This interactive, multi-media and bilingual edition offers a brand new translation of Diderot’s famous dialogue, and it also gives the reader much more. Portraits and biographies of the numerous individuals mentioned in the text, from minor actresses to senior government officials, enable the reader to see the people Diderot describes, and provide a window onto the complex social and political context that forms the backdrop to the dialogue. Links to musical pieces specially selected by Pascal Duc and performed by students of the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris, illuminate the wider musical context of the work, enlarging it far beyond its now widely understood relation to opéra comique.
Read Marian Hobson's analysis of Diderot's interdisciplinarity on our 
Denis Diderot 'Rameau’s Nephew' – 'Le Neveu de Rameau': A Multi-Media Bilingual Edition
M. Hobson. Translated by K.E. Tunstall and C. Warman. Music researched and played by the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris under the direction of P. Duc | June 2016
vii + 250 | 101 colour illustrations | 18 audio files (MP3) | 6.14" x 9.21" (234 x 156 mm)
Open Book Classics Series, vol. 4 | ISSN: 2054-216X (Print); 2054-2178 (Online)
ISBN Paperback: 9781909254909
ISBN Hardback: 9781909254916
ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781909254923
ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 9781909254930
ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 9781909254947
ISBN Digital (XML): 9781783746316
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0098
BIC subject codes: HP (Philosophy), DSB (Literary studies: general), DN (Prose: non-fiction), 3J (Modern period, c. 1500 onwards); BISAC: PHI046000 (PHILOSOPHY / Individual Philosophers); LIT004150 (LITERARY CRITICISM / European / French); LIT024030 (LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 18th Century); OCLC Number: 1000431277.
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The PDF and epub editions of this book contain embedded audio files. If your device supports MP3 files you will be able to listen to the music directly. Alternatively, you can access the music online by following the links or scanning the QR codes provided. To read the interactive PDF, we suggest using Adobe Reader (and not Adobe Preview), which can be downloaded for free from the Adobe website. If you are reading on an iphone or ipad, we recommend using iBooks, which is available free of charge from the App Store.
The musical extracts recorded for this edition are available to download on our Additional Resources page. All musical recordings have been released under a CC BY license and their copyright belongs to the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris.
The musical extracts recorded for this edition are available to download on our Additional Resources page. All musical recordings have been released under a CC BY license and their copyright belongs to the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris.
Denis Diderot 'Rameau’s Nephew' – 'Le Neveu de Rameau': A Multi-Media Bilingual Edition
M. Hobson. Translated by K.E. Tunstall and C. Warman. Music researched and played by the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris under the direction of P. Duc | June 2016
vii + 250 | 101 colour illustrations | 18 audio files (MP3) | 6.14" x 9.21" (234 x 156 mm)
Open Book Classics Series, vol. 4 | ISSN: 2054-216X (Print); 2054-2178 (Online)
ISBN Paperback: 9781909254909
ISBN Hardback: 9781909254916
ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781909254923
ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 9781909254930
ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 9781909254947
ISBN Digital (XML): 9781783746316
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0098
BIC subject codes: HP (Philosophy), DSB (Literary studies: general), DN (Prose: non-fiction), 3J (Modern period, c. 1500 onwards); BISAC: PHI046000 (PHILOSOPHY / Individual Philosophers); LIT004150 (LITERARY CRITICISM / European / French); LIT024030 (LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 18th Century); OCLC Number: 1000431277.
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List of Musical Pieces
Preface to the Second Edition
by Marian Hobson
Rameau’s Nephew
translated by Kate E. Tunstall, Caroline Warman
Le Neveu de Rameau
French edition ed. by Georges Monval (Paris: Plon, 1891)
Notes
by Marian Hobson
List of Illustrations
Contributors
Acknowledgments
Text © 2016 Marian Hobson, Kate E. Tunstall, Caroline Warman, Pascal Duc
Music © 2016 Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris
Music © 2016 Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris

The text and the music are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work; to adapt the work and to make commercial use of it providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information:
Marian Hobson, Kate E. Tunstall, Caroline Warman, Pascal Duc, Denis Diderot Rameau’s Nephew — Le Neveu de Rameau: A Multi-Media Bilingual Edition. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2016, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0098
Marian Hobson, Kate E. Tunstall, Caroline Warman, Pascal Duc, Denis Diderot Rameau’s Nephew — Le Neveu de Rameau: A Multi-Media Bilingual Edition. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2016, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0098
Please see the list of illustrations for attribution relating to individual images. Every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or error will be corrected if notification is made to the publisher. For information about the rights of the Wikimedia Commons images, please refer to the Wikimedia website (the relevant links are listed in the list of illustrations).
Further details about CC BY licenses are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Further details about CC BY licenses are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The new versions now feature a slightly revised preface by Marian Hobson. They also incorporate a "mirror version" of the original French text that allows the reader to toggle between languages from the endnote section. The most stunning aspect of this digital enterprise, however, remains the edition’s "hypertext notes". Far more than simple endnotes, these references contain a wide variety of oil portraits, sketches, maps (all in full color) and, most spectacularly, eighteen MP3 recordings performed by the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris. It is no exaggeration to say that Hobson, Tunstall, and Warman, with the aid of Pascal Duc and his students at the aforementioned Conservatoire have attempted something truly remarkable: reconstructing the cultural context of one of the most complex and important works in eighteenth-century literature. [...] poring over the richness of this critical edition unquestionably allows for a deeper understanding of what is arguably Diderot’s most multifaceted and brilliant text.
—Andrew S. Curran, H-France Review, 17 (January 2017), 1-3.
This new edition includes a number of strengths that could serve both as an introduction to eighteenth century Parisian culture for undergraduate students and as a reference for scholars. Among the many endnotes — containing 100 illustrations, 18 musical pieces and 262 annotations — there are gems of information such as the drawing of Polish-style dresses and the pictures of popular ceramic pagodes. The accompanying figures for these objects bring clarity to a conversation that jostles the reader from high-minded aesthetic contemplation to gossipy tales of vulgarity, vengeance and promiscuity.
In terms of music scholarship, the editors illustrate adeptly through musical examples how Rameau’s Nephew argues for a ‘new style’ of French music, which modifies Italian vocal lines and instrumental music into a new form of French opera. The accompanying musical recordings bring to life lesser-known composers whose work Diderot and his contemporaries would have known.
—Scott M. Sanders, Eighteenth-Century Music, 13.2 (October 2016)
At the heart of this extraordinary achievement is a superb new translation by Kate E. Tunstall and Caroline Warman that catches on the wing, as it were, Diderot’s flights of fancy, using a new kind of verbal rhythm. Instead of seeming glued to the page, this Nephew is encouraged to take convincing three-dimensional form, owning a fuller and more modern-sounding personality in English than he has hitherto been accorded.[...] The guiding principle is collaboration. Not just the visual but also the aural world of Diderot’s Nephew has been incorporated within the edition: pivotal references to music have been translated into performance and are keyed into the edition. They are activated electronically by using cues found in the text margins that are initially linked to music information within the sequence of notes at the end. One click, and the reader can listen through a computer or other device to, say, a Locatelli sonata or the Duni ariette to which Diderot is referring — or rather, which the Nephew is ‘performing’ after his own fashion.
—David Charlton, Project Muse, 69.2 (April 2015)
[...] the spirit of this updated, online realization of Diderot’s works, which—like an artist’s sketch or a piece of music heard from afar—renders audience participation irresistible.
—Tili Boon Cuillé, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, 28.2 (Winter 2015–16), 375-77.
Textual Resources
1. Goethe’s translation of Denis Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew/Satire Seconde: le Neveu de Rameau, or Denis Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew and the bizarre story of its survival
By Marian Hobson
2. Denis Diderot’s Rameaus Neffe
With notes by Joanna Raisbeck
3. Anmerkungen Über Personen und Gegenstände, deren in dem Dialog „Rameaus Neffe” erwähnt wird Vorerinnerung
4. Nachträgliches Zu „Rameaus Neffe”
5. Goethe’s and Schiller’s correspondence on Rameaus Neffe, including Goethe’s diary entries
Musical Resources
1. Goethe’s translation of Denis Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew/Satire Seconde: le Neveu de Rameau, or Denis Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew and the bizarre story of its survival
By Marian Hobson
2. Denis Diderot’s Rameaus Neffe
With notes by Joanna Raisbeck
3. Anmerkungen Über Personen und Gegenstände, deren in dem Dialog „Rameaus Neffe” erwähnt wird Vorerinnerung
4. Nachträgliches Zu „Rameaus Neffe”
5. Goethe’s and Schiller’s correspondence on Rameaus Neffe, including Goethe’s diary entries
Musical Resources
The pieces specially performed and recorded for this multi-media edition were chosen to provide samples of music or composers that are less well known today, or to give examples of transcription, one of the principle ways that pieces came to be known and played in a private setting at the time.
Please find below the list of the musical pieces included in this publication. You can download each of them, either in MP3 or in WAV format, by clicking on the correspondent link (please note that this works best with Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer).
All musical recordings have been released under a CC BY license and their copyright belongs to the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris.
Please find below the list of the musical pieces included in this publication. You can download each of them, either in MP3 or in WAV format, by clicking on the correspondent link (please note that this works best with Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer).
All musical recordings have been released under a CC BY license and their copyright belongs to the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris.
1. François-André Danican Philidor, L’Art de la modulation [The Art of Modulation], extract: First quartet: Sinfonia (Con spirito – Moderato)
Clémentine Frémont, traversohttp://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0044.04
Josef Žák, violin
Tatsuya Hatano, violin
Rémy Petit, cello
Felipe Guerra, harpsichord
2. Jean-Philippe Rameau, Fêtes de Polymnie [The Festivals of Polyhymnia], extract: Air: ‘A la beauté tout cède sur la terre’ [Everything on earth gives way to beauty]
Dania El Zein, sopranohttp://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0044.05
Rémy Petit, cello
Camille Ravot, harpsichord
3. Jean-Philippe Rameau, Fêtes de Polymnie [The Festivals of Polyhymnia], extract: Air: ‘Au vain plaisir de charmer…’ [To the empty pleasure of charming…]
Dania El Zein, sopranohttp://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0044.06
Rémy Petit, cello
Camille Ravot, harpsichord
4. Jean-Philippe Rameau, Fêtes de Polymnie [The Festivals of Polyhymnia], extract: Air en rondeau: ‘Hélas, est-ce assez pour charmer…’ [Alas, in order to charm, is it enough…]
Dania El Zein, sopranohttp://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0044.07
Rémy Petit, cello
Camille Ravot, harpsichord
5. Pietro Locatelli, Sonata op. VI no. 5, extract: Aria (Vivace)
Tania-Lio Faucon-Cohen, violinhttp://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0044.08
Sarah Gron-Catil, cello
Camille Ravot, harpsichord
6. Domenico Alberti, Sonata for the fortepiano op. I no. 5, extract: Andante – Allegro
Luca Montebugnoli, piano (Clarke/Lengerer)http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0044.09
7. Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Stabat Mater, extract, transcribed for solo violin by Johan Helmich Roman
Tania-Lio Faucon-Cohen, violinhttp://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0044.10
8. Jean-Féry Rebel, Pieces for the violin, divided into suites by keys, extract: First suite in G-sol-ré: Allemande
Josef Žák, violinhttp://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0044.11
Antoine Touche, cello
Loris Barrucand, harpsichord
9. Jean-Féry Rebel, Pieces for the violin, divided into suites by keys, extract: First suite in G-sol-ré: Prelude
Josef Žák, violinhttp://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0044.12
Antoine Touche, cello
Loris Barrucand, harpsichord
10. Jean-Joseph Mouret, Les Amours de Ragonde, ou la soirée de village [The Loves of Ragonde, subtitled An Evening in the Village], extract: Bourrées I-II
Clémentine Frémont, traversohttp://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0044.13
Nicolay Sheko, oboe
Josef Žák, violin
Tatsuya Hatano, violin
Felipe Guerra, harpsichord
Rémy Petit, cello
11. Jean-Joseph Mouret, Les Amours de Ragonde, ou la soirée de village [The Loves of Ragonde, subtitled An Evening in the Village], extract: Air: ‘Accourez, jeunes garçons’ [Come running, young men]
Marie Soubestre, sopranohttp://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0044.14
Sarah Gron-Catil, cello
Camille Ravot, harpsichord
12. Egidio Duni, Le Peintre amoureux de son modèle [The Painter in Love with his Model], extract: Arietta: ‘Dans le badinage, l’Amour se plait’ [Love is pleased with playfulness]
Marie Soubestre, sopranohttp://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0044.15
Clémentine Frémont, traverso
Josef Žák, violin
13. Johann Adolf Hasse, Cléofide, extract: Air: ‘Vuoi saper se tu mi piaci?’ [Do you want to know if I like you?]
Fiona McGown, mezzohttp://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0044.16
Josef Žák, violin
Rémy Petit, cello
Louis-Nöel Bestion de Camboulas, harpsichord