Abaris Rameau's last opera is sometimes referred to as Abaris, ou Les Boréades, a modern conflation of the titles by which the work was originally known. The two surviving full scores bear the title Les Boréades*, as do all but nine of the forty-nine vocal and instrumental part-books, and this is the form of the title found in all contemporary archival documents. The remaining nine part-books are entitled Abaris, the name of the male protagonist. The original set of performing parts eventually entered the Decroix collection, which explains why Decroix* himself refers to the work, in L'Ami des arts (1776), as Abaris. He is nevertheless the only eighteenth-century writer to do so. BouBor, BouHer, BouPas, DecAmi, KinRam, TérAba.

L'Absence In his carefully researched Éloge historique de M. Rameau, Hugues Maret* mentions that Rameau had written a cantata with this title in Clermont*, presumably during his second period there (1715–22). Maret evidently got his information from Michel Pélissier de Féligonde (1729–67), secretary of the Académie de Clermont. No source of this work has been located, however. MarÉlo, SchFam, TunCan.

Académie des Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres de Dijon Founded in 1725, this scientific and literary society was granted letters patent in 1740. It later became associated with a literary group formed in 1752 by Richard de Ruffey (1706–94), who in that year invited several distinguished non-resident Burgundians – Rameau among them – to become associate members of his group. […]