A distinguished place in the records of French music must be assigned
to ANDRÉ ERNEST GRÉTRY, born at Liége in 1741. His career covered the
most important changes in the art as coloured and influenced by
national tastes, and he is justly regarded as the father of comic
opera in his adopted country. His childish life is one of much severe
discipline and tribulation, for he was dedicated to music by his
father, who was first violinist in the college of St. Denis, when he
was only six years old. He afterwards wrote of this time in his
_Essais sur la Musique_--"The hour for the lesson afforded the teacher
an opportunity to exercise his cruelty. He made us sing each in turn,
and woe to him who made the least mistake; he was beaten unmercifully,
the youngest as well as the oldest. He seemed to take pleasure in
inventing torture. At times he would place us on a short round stick,
from which we fell head over heels if we made the least movement. But
that which made us tremble with fear was to see him knock down a pupil
and beat him; for then we were sure he would treat some others in the
same manner, one victim being insufficient to gratify his ferocity. To
maltreat his pupils was a sort of mania with him; and he seemed to
feel that his duty was performed in proportion to the cries and sobs
which he drew forth."
In 1759 Grétry went to Rome, where he studied counterpoint for five
years. Some of his works were received favourably by the Roman public,
and he was made a member of the Philharmonic Society of Bologna.
Pressed by pecuniary necessity, Grétry determined to go to Paris; but
he stopped at Geneva on the route to earn money by singing-lessons.
Here he met Voltaire at Ferney. "You are a musician and have genius,"
said the great man; "it is a very rare thing, and I take much interest
in you." In spite of this, however, Voltaire would not write him the
text for an opera. The philosopher of Ferney feared to trust his
reputation with an unknown musician. When Grétry arrived in Paris he
still found the same difficulty, as no distinguished poet was disposed
to give him a libretto till he had made his powers recognised. After
two years of starving and waiting, Marmontel gave him the text of "The
Huron," which was brought out in 1769 and well received. Other
successful works followed in rapid succession.
At this time Parisian frivolity thought it good taste to admire the
rustic and naïve. The idyls of Gessner and the pastorals of Florian
were the favourite reading, and Watteau the popular painter.
Gentlefolks, steeped in artifice, vice, and intrigue, masked their
empty lives under the assumption of Arcadian simplicity, and minced
and ambled in the costumes of shepherds and shepherdesses. Marie
Antoinette transformed her chalet of Petit Trianon into a farm, where
she and her courtiers played at pastoral life--the farce preceding the
tragedy of the Revolution. It was the effort of dazed society seeking
change. Grétry followed the fashionable bent by composing pastoral
comedies, and mounted on the wave of success.
In 1774 "Fausse Magie" was produced with the greatest applause.
Rousseau was present, and the composer waited on him in his box,
meeting a most cordial reception. On their way home after the opera,
Grétry offered his new friend his arm to help him over an obstruction.
Rousseau with a burst of rage said, "Let me make use of my own
powers," and henceforward the sentimental misanthrope refused to
recognise the composer. About this time Grétry met the English
humorist Hales, who afterwards furnished him with many of his comic
texts. The two combined to produce the "Jugement de Midas," a satire
on the old style of music, which met with remarkable popular favour,
though it was not so well received by the court.
The crowning work of this composer's life was given to the world in
1785. This was "Richard Coeur de Lion," and it proved one of the great
musical events of the period. Paris was in ecstasies, and the judgment
of succeeding generations has confirmed the contemporary verdict, as
it is still a favourite opera in France and Germany. The works
afterwards composed by Grétry showed decadence in power. Singularly
rich in fresh and sprightly ideas, he lacked depth and grandeur, and
failed to suit the deeper and sounder taste which Cherubini and Méhul,
great followers in the footsteps of Gluck, gratified by a series of
noble masterpieces. Grétry's services to his art, however, by his
production of comic operas full of lyric vivacity and sparkle, have
never been forgotten nor underrated. His bust was placed in the
opera-house during his lifetime, and he was made a member of the
French Academy of Fine Arts and Inspector of the Conservatory. Grétry
possessed qualities of heart which endeared him to all, and his death
in 1813 was the occasion of a general outburst of lamentation.
Deputations from the theatres and the Conservatory accompanied his
remains to the cemetery, where Méhul pronounced an eloquent eulogium.
In 1828 a nephew of Grétry caused the heart of him who was one of the
glorious sons of Liége to be returned to his native city.
Grétry founded a school of musical composition in France which has
since been cultivated with signal success--that of lyric comedy. The
efforts of Lulli and Rameau had been turned in another direction. The
former had done little more than set courtly pageants to music, though
he had done this with great skill and tact, enriching them with a
variety of concerted and orchestral pieces, and showing much fertility
in the invention alike of pathetic and lively melodies. Rameau
followed in the footsteps of Lulli, but expanded and crystallised his
ideas into a more scientific form. He had indeed carried his love of
form to a radical extreme. Jean Jacques Rousseau, who extended his
taste for nature and simplicity to music, blamed him severely as one
who neglected genuine natural tune for far-fetched harmonies, on the
ground that "music is a child of nature, and has a language of its own
for expressing emotional transports, which cannot be learned from
thorough-bass rules." Again, Rousseau, in his forcible tract on
French music, says of Rameau, from whose school Grétry's music was
such a significant departure--
"One must confess that M. Rameau possesses very great talent, much
fire and euphony, and a considerable knowledge of harmonious
combinations and effects; one must also grant him the art of
appropriating the ideas of others by changing their character,
adorning and developing them, and turning them around in all manner of
ways. On the other hand, he shows less facility in inventing new ones.
Altogether he has more skill than fertility, more knowledge than
genius, or rather genius smothered by knowledge, but always force,
grace, and very often a beautiful _cantilena_. His recitative is not
as natural but much more varied than that of Lulli; admirable in a few
scenes, but bad as a rule." Rousseau continues to reproach Rameau with
a too powerful instrumentation, compared with Italian simplicity, and
sums up that nobody knew better than Rameau how to conceive the spirit
of single passages and to produce artistic contrasts, but that he
entirely failed to give his operas "a happy and much-to-be-desired
unity." In another part of the quoted passage Rousseau says that
Rameau stands far beneath Lulli in _esprit_ and artistic tact, but
that he is often superior to him in dramatic expression.
A clear understanding of the musical position of Rameau is necessary
to fully appreciate the place of Grétry, his antithesis as a composer.
For a short time the popularity of Rameau had been shaken by an
Italian opera company, called by the French _Les Bouffons_, who had
created a genuine sensation by their performance of airy and sparkling
operettas, entirely removed in spirit from the ponderous productions
of the prevailing school. Though the Italian comedians did not meet
with permanent success, the suave charm of their music left behind it
memories which became fruitful.[N] It furnished the point of departure
for the lively and facile genius of Grétry, who laid the foundation
stones for that lyric comedy which has flourished in France with so
much luxuriance. From the outset merriment and humour were by no means
the sole object of the French comic opera, as in the case of its
Italian sister. Grétry did not neglect to turn the nobler emotions to
account, and by a judicious admixture of sentiment he gave an ideal
colouring to his works, which made them singularly fascinating and
original. Around Grétry flourished several disciples and imitators,
and for twenty years this charming hybrid between opera and vaudeville
engrossed French musical talent, to the exclusion of other forms of
composition. It was only when Gluck[O] appeared on the scene, and by
his commanding genius restored serious opera to its supremacy, that
Grétry's repute was overshadowed. From this decline in public favour
he never fully recovered, for the master left behind him gifted
disciples, who embodied his traditions, and were inspired by his lofty
aims--pre-eminently so in the case of Cherubini, perhaps the greatest
name in French music. While French comic opera, since the days of
Grétry, has become modified in some of its forms, it preserves the
spirit and colouring which he so happily imparted to it, and looks
back to him as its founder and lawgiver.