Chapter I: The Regeneration of the Opera (2)

The wish of Gluck’s heart was to carry to completion the reforms he had initiated, but Germany had practically declared against them. His musical and literary adversaries at the Viennese court, Hasse and Metastasio, had formed a strong opposition. Baron Grimm spoke of Gluck’s reforms as the work of a barbarian. Agricola, Kirnberger, and Forkel were opposed to them. In Prussia, Frederick the Great had a few arias from _Alceste_ and _Orfeo_ sung in concert, and decided that the composer ‘had no song and understood nothing of the grand opera style,’ an opinion which, of course, prevented the performance of his operas in Berlin. In view of all this it is not surprising that he should turn to what was then the centre of intellectual life, that he should seize the opportunity to secure recognition for his art in the great home of the drama--in Paris.

Let us recall for a moment Gluck’s connection with the French _opéra bouffon_. Favart had complimented him, in a letter to the Vienna opera director Durazzo, for the excellence of his French ‘déclamation.’ Evidently Gluck and his friend Le Blanc du Roullet, attaché of the French embassy, had kept track of the _Guerre des bouffons_, and had taken advantage of the psychology of the moment, for Rameau had died in 1764 and the consequent weakening of the National party had resulted in the victory of the Buffonists. Du Roullet suggested to Gluck and Calzabigi that they collaborate upon a French subject for an opera, and chose Racine’s _Iphigénie_. The opera was completed and the text translated by du Roullet, who now wrote a very diplomatic letter to the authorities of the Académie royale (the Paris opera). It recounted how the Chevalier Gluck, celebrated throughout Europe, admired the French style of composition, preferred it, indeed, to the Italian; how he regarded the French language as eminently suited to musical treatment, and that he had just finished a new work in French on a tragedy of the immortal Racine, which exhausted all the powers of art, simple, natural song, enchanting melody, recitative equal to the French, dance pieces of the most alluring freshness. Here was everything to delight a Frenchman’s heart; besides, his opera had been a great financial success in Bologna, and so valiant a defender of the French tongue should be given an opportunity in its own home.

The academy saw a new hope in this. It considered the letter in official session, and cautiously asked to see an act of _Iphigénie_. After examination of it Gluck was promised an engagement if he would agree to write six operas like it. This condition, almost impossible of acceptance for a man of Gluck’s age, was finally removed through the intercession of Marie Antoinette, now dauphiness of France, Gluck’s erstwhile pupil in Vienna.

Gluck was invited to come to Paris as the guest of the Académie and direct the staging of _Iphigénie_. He arrived there with his wife and niece[14] in the summer of 1773. Lodged in the citadel of the anti-Buffonists, he incurred in advance the opposition of the Italian party, but, diplomat that he was, he at once set about to propitiate the enemy. Rousseau, the intellectual potentate of France, was eventually won over; but, despite the fact that Gluck’s music was essentially human and should have fulfilled the demands of the ‘encyclopedists,’ such men as Marmontel, La Harpe, and d’Alambert were arrayed against him, together with the entire Italian party and many of the followers of the old French school, who refused to accept him as the successor of Lully and Rameau. Mme. du Barry was one of these. Marie Antoinette, on the other hand, constituted herself Gluck’s protector. It was the _Guerre des bouffons_ at its climax.

The _première_ of _Iphigénie en Aulide_ (April, 1774) was awaited with the greatest impatience. Gluck had spared no pains in the preparation. He drilled the singers, spoiled by public favor, with the greatest vigor, and ruthlessly combatted their caprices. The obstacles were many: Legras was ill; Larivée, the Agamemnon, did not understand his part; Sophie Arnold, known as the greatest singing actress of her day, sang out of tune; Vestris, the greatest dancer of his time--he was called the ‘God of the Dance’--was not satisfied with his part in the ballet of the opera. ‘Then dance in heaven, if you’re the god of the dance,’ cried Gluck, ‘but not in my opera!’ And when the terpsichorean divinity insisted on concluding _Iphigénie_ with a _chaconne_, he scornfully asked: ‘Did the Greeks dance _chaconnes_?’ Gluck threatened more than once to withdraw his opera, yielding only to the persuasions of the dauphiness.

The second performance of the opera determined its triumph, a triumph which in a manner made Paris the centre of music in Europe.[15] Marie Antoinette even wrote to her sister Marie Christine to express her pleasure. Gluck received an honorarium of 20,000 francs and was promised a life pension. Less severe and solemn than _Alceste_, _Iphigénie en Aulide_ and _Iphigénie en Tauride_ (written ten years later to a libretto by Guillard and not heard until May 18, 1779) were the favorites of town and court up to the very end of the _ancien régime_. Not only are both more appealing and less sombre, but they are also more delicate in form, more simple in sentiment, and more intimate than _Alceste_.

Gluck’s fame was now universal. Voltaire, the oracle of France, had pronounced in his favor. The nobility sought his society, the courtiers waited on him. Even princes hastened, when he laid down his bâton, to hand him the peruke and surcoat cast aside while conducting. A strong well-built man, bullet-headed, with a red, pockmarked face and small gray, but brilliant, eyes; richly and fashionably dressed; independent in his manner; jealous of his liberty; opinionated, yet witty and amiable, this revolutionary à la Rousseau, this ‘plebeian genius’ completely conquered all affections of Parisian society. He was at home everywhere; every salon lionized him, he was a familiar figure at the _levers_ of Marie Antoinette.

In August, 1774, a French version of _Orfeo_, extensively revised, was heard and acclaimed. This confirmed the victory--the anti-Gluckists were vanquished for the time. But a permanent connection with the Paris opera did not at once result for Gluck, and the next year he returned to Vienna, taking with him two old opera texts by Quinault--Lully’s librettist--_Roland_ and _Armide_, which the _Académie_ had commissioned him to set. He set to music only the latter of the two poems, for, when he learned that Piccini likewise had been asked to set the _Roland_, and had been invited to Paris by Marie Antoinette, he destroyed his sketches. An older light operetta, _Cythère assiegée_, which he recast and foolishly dispatched to Paris, thoroughly displeased the Parisians. The opposition was quick to seize its advantage. It looked about for a leader and found him in Piccini, now at the head of the great Neapolitan school. He was induced to come to Paris by tempting promises, but was so ill-served by circumstances that, in spite of the manœuvres and the intrigues of his partisans, his _Roland_ was not given until 1778.

On April 23, 1776, Gluck directed the first performance of his new French version of _Alceste_. It was hissed. In despair Gluck rushed from the opera house and exclaimed to Rousseau: ‘_Alceste_ has fallen!’ ‘Yes,’ was the answer, ‘but it has fallen from the skies!’ In 1777 came _Armide_. In this opera Gluck thought he had written sensuous music.[16] It no longer makes this impression--the passion of ‘Tristan,’ the oriental voluptuousness of the _Scheherazade_ of Rimsky-Korsakov, and the eroticism of modern dramatic scores have somewhat cooled the warmth of the love music of _Armide_. On the other hand, the passion of hatred is delineated in this opera powerfully and vigorously enough for modern appreciation. _Armide_ is beautiful throughout by reason of its sincerity.

Piccini’s _Roland_ followed _Alceste_ in a few months, January, 1778. It was a success, but only a temporary one. After twelve well-attended performances it ceased to draw. Nevertheless it fanned the flame of controversy. The fight of Gluckists and Piccinnists, in continuation of the _Guerre des bouffons_, of which the principals, by the way, were quite innocent, was at its height. Men addressed each other with the challenge ‘Êtes-vous Gluckiste ou Piccinniste?’ Piccini was placed at the head of an Italian troupe which was engaged to give performances on alternate nights at the _Académie_. The two ‘parties’ were now on equal footing. Finally it occurred to the director to have the two rivals treat the same subject and he selected Racine’s _Iphigénie en Tauride_. Piccini was handicapped from the start. His text was bad, neither his talent nor his experience was so suited to the task as Gluck’s. The latter’s version was ready in May, 1779, and was a brilliant success. According to the _Mercure de France_ no opera had ever made so strong and so universal an impression upon the public. ‘Pure musical beauty as sweet as that of _Orfeo_, tragic intensity deeper than that of _Alceste_, a firm touch, an undaunted courage, a new subtlety of psychological insight, all combine to form a masterpiece such as throughout its entire history the operatic stage has never known.’ Piccini, who meantime had produced his _Atys_, brought out his _Iphigénie_ in January, 1781. Despite many excellences it was bound to be anti-climax to Gluck’s. Needless to say it admits of no comparison.

Too great stress has often been laid on the quarrels of the ‘Gluckists’ and ‘Piccinnists,’ which, it is true, went to absurd lengths. As is usually the case with partisanship in art, the chief characters themselves were not personal enemies. The Italian sympathizers merely took up the cry which the Buffonists had formerly raised against the opera of Rameau. According to them Gluck’s music was made up of too much noise and not enough song. ‘But the Buffonist agitation had been justified by results; it had produced the _opéra comique_, which had assimilated what it could use of the Italian _opera buffa_.’ Not so this new controversy. Hence, despite a few days of glory for Piccini, his party was not able to reawaken in France a taste for the superficial charm of Italian music. ‘The crowd is for Gluck,’ sighed La Harpe. And when, after the glorious success of _Iphigénie en Tauride_, Piccini’s _Didon_ was given in 1783, it owed the favor with which it was received largely to the fact that in style and expression it followed Gluck’s model.

In 1780, six months after the _Iphigénie_ première, Gluck retired to Vienna to end his days in dignified and wealthy leisure. He had accomplished his task, fulfilled the wish of his heart. In his comfortable retreat he learned of the failure of Piccini’s _Iphigénie en Tauride_, while his own was given for the 151st time on April 2, 1782! He also enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing that _Les Danaïdes_, the opera written by his disciple and pupil, Antonio Salieri, justified the truth of his theories by its success on the Paris stage in 1784. It was this pupil, who, consulting Gluck on the question of whether to write the rôle of Christ in the tenor in his cantata ‘The Last Judgment,’ received the answer, half in jest, half in earnest, ‘I’ll be able before long to let you know from the beyond how the Saviour speaks.’ A few days after, on Nov. 15, 1787, the master breathed his last, having suffered an apoplectic stroke.

The inscription on his tomb, ‘Here rests a righteous German man, an ardent Christian, a faithful husband, Christoph Ritter Gluck, the great master of the sublime art of tone’ emphasizes the strongly moral side of his character. For all his shrewdness and solicitude for his own material welfare, his music is ample proof of his nobility of soul; its loftiness, purity, unaffected simplicity reflect the virtues for which men are universally respected.

In its essence Gluck’s music may be considered the expression of the classic ideal, the ‘naturalism’ and ‘new humanism’ of Rousseau, which idealized the old Greek world and aimed to inculcate the Greek spirit; courage and keenness in quest of truth and devotion to the beautiful. The leading characteristics of his style have been aptly defined as the ‘realistic notation of the pathetic accent and passing movement, and the subordination of the purely musical element to dramatic expression.’ ‘I shall try,’ he wrote in the preface to _Alceste_, ‘to reduce music to its own function, that of seconding poetry by intensifying the expression of sentiments and the interest of situations without interrupting the action by needless ornament. I have accordingly taken great care not to interrupt the singer in the heat of the dialogue and make him wait for a tedious _ritornel_, nor do I allow him to stop on a sonorous vowel, in the middle of a phrase, in order to show the agility of a beautiful voice in a long cadenza. I also believed it my duty to try to secure, to the best of my power, a fine simplicity; therefore I have avoided a display of difficulties which destroy clarity. I have never laid stress on aught that was new, where it was not conditioned in a natural manner by situation and expression; and there is no rule which I have not been willing to sacrifice with good grace for the sake of the effect. These are my principles.’ The inscription, _Il préféra les Muses aux Sirènes_ (He chose the Muses rather than the Sirens), beneath an old French copper-plate of Gluck, dating from 1781, sounds the keynote of his artistic character. A prophet of the true and beautiful in music, he disdained to listen for long to the tempting voices which counselled him to prefer the easy rewards of popular success to the struggles and uncertainties involved in the pursuit of a high ideal. And, when the hour came, he was ready to reject the appeal of external charm and mere virtuosity and to lead dramatic musical art back to its natural sources.

VII

Gluck’s immediate influence was not nearly as widespread as his reforms were momentous. It is true that his music, reverting to simpler structures and depending on subtler interpretation for its effects put an end to the absolute rule of _prime uomini_ and _prime donne_, but, while some of its elements found their way into the work of his more conventional contemporaries, his example seems not to have been wholly followed by any of them. His dramatic teachings, too, while they could not fail to be absorbed by the composers, were not adopted without reserve by any one except his immediate pupil Salieri, who promptly reverted to the Italian style after his first successes. Gluck was not a true propagandist and never gathered about him disciples who would spread his teachings--in short he did not found a ‘school.’ Even in France, where his principles had the weight of official sanction, apostasy was rife, and Rossini and Meyerbeer were probably more appreciated than their more austere predecessor. His influence was far-reaching rather than immediate. It remained for Wagner to take up the thread of reasoning where Gluck left off and with multiplied resources, musically and mechanically, with the way prepared by literary forces, and himself equipped with rare controversial powers, demonstrate the truths which his predecessor could only assert.

Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) with _Les Danaïdes_, in 1781, achieved a notable success in frank imitation of Gluck’s manner; indeed, the work, originally intrusted to Gluck by the Académie de Musique, was, with doubtful strategy, brought out as that master’s work, and in consequence brought Salieri fame and fortune. Other facts in Salieri’s life seem to bear out similar imperfections of character. He was, however, a musician of high artistic principles. When in 1787 _Tarare_ was produced in Paris it met with an overwhelming success, but Salieri nevertheless withdrew it after a time and partially rewrote it for its Vienna production, under the title of _Axur, Rè d’Ormus_. ‘There have been many instances in which an artist has been taught by failure that second thoughts are best; there are not many in which he has learned the lesson from popular approbation.’[17] Salieri’s career is synchronous with Mozart’s, whom he outlived, and against whom he intrigued in ungenerous manner at the Viennese court, where he became kapellmeister in 1788. He profited by his rival’s example, moreover, but his music ‘falls between the methods of his two great contemporaries, it is less dramatic than Gluck’s and it has less melodic genuineness than Mozart’s.’

Prominent among those who adhered to Italian operatic tradition was Giuseppe Sarti (1729-1802), ‘a composer of real invention, and a brilliant and audacious master of the orchestra.’ We have W. H. Hadow’s authority for the assertion that he first used devices which are usually credited to Berlioz and Wagner, such as the use of muted trumpets and clarinets and certain experiments in the combination of instrumental colors. Sarti achieved truly international renown; from 1755 to 1775 he was at the court of Copenhagen, where he produced twenty Italian operas, and four Danish singspiele; next he was director of the girls’ conservatory in Venice and till 1784 musical director of Milan cathedral,[18] and from 1784 till 1787 he served Catherine II of Russia as court conductor. His famous opera, _Armida e Rinaldo_, he produced while in this post (1785), as well as a number of other works. In 1793 he founded a ‘musical academy’ which was the forerunner of the great St. Petersburg conservatory, and he was its director till 1801. His introduction of the ‘St. Petersburg pitch’ (436 vibrations for A) is but one detail of his many-sided influence.

Not the least point of Sarti’s historical importance is the fact that he was the teacher of Cherubini. Luigi Cherubini occupies a peculiar position in the history of music. Born in Florence in 1760 and confining his activities to Italy for the first twenty-eight years of his career, he later extended his influence into Germany (where Beethoven became an enthusiastic admirer) and to Paris, where he became a most important factor of musical life, especially in that most peculiarly French development--the _opéra comique_. His operatic method represents a compromise between those of his teacher, Sarti, and of Gluck, who thus indirectly exerts his influence upon comic opera. Successful as his many Italian operas--produced prior to 1786--were, they hardly deserve notice here. His Paris activities, synchronous with those of Méhul, are so closely bound up with the history of _opéra comique_ that we may well consider them in that connection.

The _opéra comique_, the singspiel of France, was comic opera with spoken dialogue. Its earlier exponents, Monsigny, Philidor, and Gossec, were in various ways influenced by Gluck in their work. Grétry,[19] whose _Le tableau parlant_, _Les deux avares_, and _L’Amant jaloux_ are ‘models of lightness and brilliancy,’ like Gluck ‘speaks the language of the heart’ in his masterpieces, _Zémire et Azor_ and _Richard Cœur de Lion_, and excels in delineation of character and the expression of typically French sentiment. Grétry’s appearance marked an epoch in the history of _opéra comique_. His _Mémoires_ expose a dramatic creed closely related to that of Gluck, but going beyond that master in its advocacy of declamation in the place of song.

Gossec, also important as symphonist and composer of serious operas (_Philemon et Baucis_, etc.), entered the comic opera field in 1761, the year in which the Opéra Comique, known as the Salle Favart, was opened, though his real success did not come till 1766, with _Les Pêcheurs_. Carried away by revolutionary fervor, he took up the composition of patriotic hymns, became officially connected with the worship of Reason, and eventually left the comic opera field to Cherubini and Méhul. Both arrived in Paris in 1778, which marks the second period of _opéra comique_.

The peaceful artistic rivalry and development of this period stand in peculiar contrast to the great political holocaust which coincides with it--the French Revolution. That upheaval was accompanied by an almost frantic search for pleasure on the part of the public, and an astounding increase in the number of theatres (seventeen were opened in 1791, the year of Louis XVI’s flight, and eighteen more up to 1800). Cherubini’s wife herself relates how the theatres were crowded at night after the guillotine had done its bloody work by day. Music flourished as never before and especially French music, for the storm of patriotism which swept the country made for the patronage of things French. In the very year of Robespierre’s execution (1794) the _Conservatoire de Musique_ was projected, an institution which has ever since remained the bulwark of French musical culture.[20]

In 1789 a certain Léonard, _friseur_ to Marie Antoinette, was given leave to collect a company for the performance of Italian opera, and opened his theatre in a hall of the Tuileries palace with his countryman Cherubini as his musical director. The fall of the Bastille in 1794 drove them from the royal residence to a mere booth in the Foire St. Germain, where in 1792 they created the famous Théâtre Feydeau, and delighted Revolutionary audiences with Cherubini versions of Cimarosa and Paesiello operas. Here, too, _Lodoïska_, one of Cherubini’s most brilliant works, was enthusiastically applauded. Meantime Étienne Méhul (b. Givet, Ardennes, 1763; d. Paris, 1817), the modest, retiring artist, who had been patiently awaiting the recognition of the _Académie_ (his _Alonzo et Cora_ was not produced till 1791) had become the hero of the older enterprise at the Salle Favart,[21] and there produced his _Euphrosine et Corradin_ in 1790, followed by a series of works of which the last, _Le jeune Henri_ (1797), was hissed off the stage because, in the fifth year of the revolution, it introduced a king as character--the once adored Henry IV! This was followed by a more successful series, ‘whose musical force and the enchanting melodies with which they are begemmed have kept them alive.’ His more serious works, notably _Stratonice_, _Athol_, and especially _Joseph_, a biblical opera, are highly esteemed. M. Tiersot considers the last-named work superior to that by Handel of the same name. Méhul was Gluck’s greatest disciple--he was directly encouraged and aided by Gluck--and even surpassed his master in musical science.

Cherubini’s _Médé_ and _Les deux journées_ were produced in 1797 and 1800, respectively. The latter ‘shows a conciseness of expression and a warmth of feeling unusual to Cherubini,’ says Mr. Hadow; at any rate it is better known to-day than any of the other works, and not infrequently produced both in France and Germany. It is _opéra comique_ only in form, for it mixes spoken dialogue with music--its plot is serious. In this respect it furnishes a precedent for many other so-called _opéras comiques_. Cherubini’s musical resources were almost unlimited, wealth of ideas is even a fault with him, having the effect of tiring the listener, but his overtures are truly classic, his themes refined, and his orchestration faultless. In _Les deux journées_ he abandoned the Italian traditions and confined himself practically to ensembles and choruses. He must, whatever his intrinsic value, be reckoned among the most important factors in the reformation of the opera in the direction of music drama.

Cherubini was not so fortunate as to win the favor of Napoleon, as did his colleagues, Gossec and Grétry and Méhul, all of whom received the cross of the Legion of Honor. He returned to Vienna in 1805 and there produced _Faniska_, the last and greatest of his operas, but his prospects were spoiled by the capture of Vienna and the entry of Napoleon, his enemy, at the head of the French army. He returned to France disappointed but still active, wrote church music, taught composition at the conservatory and was its director from 1821 till his death in 1842. The _opéra comique_ continued meantime under the direction of Paesiello and from 1803 under Jean François Lesueur (1760-1837) ‘the only other serious composer who deserves to be mentioned by the side of Méhul and Cherubini.’ Lesueur’s innovating ideas aroused much opposition, but he had a distinguished following. Among his pupils was Hector Berlioz.

F. H. M.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Collegium musicum No. 29.

[2] Riemann: Handbuch, II³, p. 121.

[3] Usually Nicolo Logroscino is named as having gone before him, but, as that composer is in evidence only from 1738 (two years after Pergolesi’s death), the date of his birth usually accepted (1700) seems doubtful (cf. Kretzschmar in _Peters-Jahrbuch_, 1908).--Riemann: _Ibid._

[4] Born in Naples, date unknown; died there in 1763. He was one of the creators of _opera buffa_, his parodistic dialect pieces--_Il governatore_, _Il vecchio marito_, _Tanto bene che male_, etc.--being among its first examples. In 1747 he became professor of counterpoint at the _Conservatorio dei figliuoli dispersi_ in Palermo.

[5] After his return to Naples his three last works, _Armida_, _Demofoonte_, and _Ifigenia in Tauride_, passed over the heads of an unmindful public. The composer felt these disappointments keenly. Impaired in health he retired to his native town of Aversa and died there August 25, 1774.

[6] Baldassare Galuppi, born on the island of Burano, near Venice, In 1706; died in Venice, 1785, was a pupil of Lotti. He ranks among the most eminent composers of comic operas, producing no less than 112 operas and 3 dramatic cantatas in every musical centre of Europe. He also composed much church music and some notable piano sonatas.

[7] Oskar Bie; _Die Oper_ (1914).

[8] Bohuslav Czernohorsky (1684-1740) was a Franciscan monk, native of Bohemia, but successively choirmaster in Padua and Assisi, where Tartini was his pupil. He was highly esteemed as an ecclesiastical composer. At the time when Gluck was his pupil he was director of the music at St. Jacob’s, Prague.

[9] Born 1712; died 1778. Though not a trained musician he evinced a lively interest in the art from his youth. Besides his _Devin du village_, which remained in the French operatic repertoire for sixty years, he wrote a ballet opera, _Les Muses galantes_, and fragments of an opera, _Daphnis et Chloé_. His lyrical scene, _Pygmalion_, set to music first by Coignet, then by Asplmayr, was the point of departure of the so-called ‘melodrama’ (spoken dialogue with musical accompaniment). He also wrote a _Dictionnaire de musique_ (1767).

[10] _Le petit prophète de Boehmisch-Broda_ has been identified by historians with the founder of the Mannheim school, Johann Stamitz, for the latter was born in Deutsch-Brod (Bohemia), and but two years before had set Paris by the ears with his orchestral ‘sonatas.’ The hero of the Grimm pamphlet is a poor musician, who by dream magic is transferred from his bare attic chamber to the glittering hall of the Paris opera. He turns away, aghast at the heartlessness of the spectacle and music.

[11] Pierre Alexandre Monsigny, born near St. Omer, 1729, died, Paris, 1817. _Les aveux indiscrets_ (1759); _Le cadi dupé_ (1760); _On ne s’avise jamais de tout_ (1761); _Rose et Colas_ (1764), etc., are his chief successes in opera comique.

[12] François-André-Danican Philidor, born, Dreux, 1726; died, London, 1795. Talented as a chess player he entered international contests successfully, and wrote an analysis of the game. His love for composition awoke suddenly and he made his comic-opera debut in 1759. His best works are: _Le maréchal férant_ (1761); _Tom Jones_ (1765), which brought an innovation--the _a capelli_ vocal quartet; and _Ernelinde, princesse de Norvège_ (1767), a grand opera.

[13] Sonnenfels, a contemporary Viennese critic, was active in his endeavors to uplift the German stage. (_Briefe über die Wienerische Schaubühne_, Vienna, 1768.)

[14] Gluck’s marriage was childless, but he had adopted a niece, Marianne Gluck, who had a pretty voice and pursued her musical training under his care. Both Gluck’s wife and niece usually accompanied him in his travels.

[15] After _Iphigénie en Aulide_ Paris became the international centre of operatic composition. London was more in the nature of an exchange, where it was possible for artists to win a good deal of money quickly and easily; the glory of the great Italian stages dimmed more and more, and Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, and Munich were only locally important. Operatic control passed from the Italian to the French stage at the same time German instrumental composition began its victories.

[16] Gluck declared that the music of Armide was intended ‘to give a voluptuous sensation,’ and La Harpe’s assertion that he had made _Armide_ a sorceress rather than an enchantress, and that her part was ‘_une criallerie monotone et fatigante_,’ drew forth as bitter a reply from the composer as Wagner ever wrote to his critics.

[17] W. H. Hadow: Oxford History of Music, Vol. V.

[18] During this period he produced his famous operas, _Le gelosie vilane; Fernace_ (1776), _Achille in Sciro_ (1779), _Giulio Sabino_ (1781).

[19] André Erneste Modeste Grétry, born, Liège, 1742; died, near Paris, 1813. ‘His Influence on the _opéra comique_ was a lasting one; Isouard, Boieldieu, Auber, Adam, were his heirs.’--Riemann.

[20] The Paris _Conservatoire de Musique_, succeeding the Bourbon _École de chant et de déclamation_ (1784) and the revolutionary _Institut National de Musique_ (1793), was established 1795, with Sarrette as director and with liberal government support. Cherubini became its director in 1822, and its enormous influence on the general trend of French art dates from his administration.

[21] The two theatres, after about ten years’ rivalry, united as the Opéra Comique which, under government subsidy, has continued to flourish to this day.