Actually, Rameau's eccentricities should not go unmentioned. Rameau (1683-1764) developed an interesting theory about music based on the overtone series. He had some real evidence to partially back this up, but unfortunately being thin-skinned, he reacted to critics of the theory by getting angry. This perversely caused him to push more and more grandiose and unsupportable claims as time went by, so determined was here to show just how wrong his critics were. This of course backfired. Sadly, he ended up something bordering on a laughingstock as a music theoretician (not as a composer). Toward the end of his life, if I remember correctly, he was declaring that something he called the "corps sonore" (a sonorous or vibrating object) as being fundamental to the philosophy of all civilizations. He was writing about how the corps sonore was the most sacred object of the "Egyptian priests" of ancient times. To make a long story short, he was wearing the classical musical equivalent of a tinfoil hat. This should not diminish his real achievements, though, including a good deal of music that in its own way was ahead of its time.
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