 A contributor to Diderot and D’Alembert’s Encyclopédie (1751), Rousseau embarked on a systematic rejection of the views defended by Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764), the leading music theorist at the time. Rousseau’s rejection of Rameau was not simply a rejection of his music theory, but rather of the entire musical practice it was supposed to justify, that is, French music of the time.