ABSTRACT
Jean-Philippe Rameau seems to have adopted two different approaches to the recycling of musical ideas. As a self-borrower, he may not have been in the same league as Bach, Handel or Vivaldi, but he nevertheless borrowed freely from his own works. So far, almost 100 self-borrowings have been identified, and further instances will doubtless come to light in the course of continuing work on the complete critical edition, Opera Omnia Rameau. By contrast, Rameau made relatively few borrowings from the music of other composers. ‘Borrowings’ in this context does not, of course, include generalized stylistic elements that are clearly indebted to the music of others.
