# Rameau's 'Pygmalion'

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/composers-datebook-550176/rameau-s-pygmalion
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/composers-datebook-550176/rameau-s-pygmalion.md
Podcast: [Composers Datebook](https://stenobird.com/podcast/composers-datebook-550176)
Published: 2026-08-27T05:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/5/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/VnCzW2iO9G8z4eDWfXCd/play.publicradio.org/podcast/o/composers_datebook/2026/08/27/datebook_20260827_128.mp3
Audio file: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/5/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/VnCzW2iO9G8z4eDWfXCd/play.publicradio.org/podcast/o/composers_datebook/2026/08/27/datebook_20260827_128.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/composers-datebook-550176/episodes/rameau-s-pygmalion
Duration seconds: 120

## Resource

Synopsis Around this time in 1956, the hot ticket on Broadway was for a musical based on the old Greek legend of Pygmalion, a sculptor so good that he fell in love with one of his beautiful female statues. The playwright, George Bernard Shaw, had updated the legend to modern-day London, and in 1956, the Broadway team of Lerner and Loewe had in turn transformed Shaw’s stage play into the smash Broadway musical, My Fair Lady . But 208 years before all that, on today’s date in the year 1748, another very successful musical adaptation of the Pygmalion legend opened in Paris. This Pygmalion was an opera-ballet by great French Baroque composer, Jean-Philippe Rameau. He was born in 1683, two years earlier than Bach and Handel, but unlike them, was something of a late bloomer. He was 50 before he became famous, and his opera-ballet Pygmalion opened shortly before his 65th birthday. Rameau was famous for imitating natural sounds and noises in his music. One of his contemporaries, in praising the overture to Pygmalion , even suggested the repeated notes of his theme represented the chipping of Pygmalion’s chisel as he worked on his lovely creation. Music Played in Today's Program Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764): Pygmalion ; La Petite Bande; Gustav Leonhardt, conductor; BMG/Deutsche; Harmonia Mundi 77143

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