The influence of Gluck was not confined to Cherubini, but was hardly
less manifest in moulding the style and conceptions of Méhul and
Spontini,[Q] who held prominent places in the history of the French
opera. HENRI ÉTIENNE MÉHUL was the son of a French soldier stationed
at the Givet barracks, where he was born June 24, 1763. His early
love of music secured for him instructions from the blind organist of
the Franciscan church at that garrison town, under whom he made
astonishing progress. He soon found he had outstripped the attainments
of his teacher, and contrived to place himself under the tuition of
the celebrated Wilhelm Hemser, who was organist at a neighbouring
monastery. Here Méhul spent a number of happy and useful years,
studying composition with Hemser and literature with the kind monks,
who hoped to persuade their young charge to devote himself to
ecclesiastical life.
Méhul's advent in Paris, whither he went at the age of sixteen, soon
opened his eyes to his true vocation, that of a dramatic composer. The
excitement over the contest between Gluck and Piccini was then at its
height, and the youthful musician was not long in espousing the side
of Gluck with enthusiasm. He made the acquaintance of Gluck
accidentally, the great chevalier interposing one night to prevent his
being ejected from the theatre, into one of whose boxes Méhul had
slipped without buying a ticket. Thenceforward the youth had free
access to the opera, and the friendship and tuition of one of the
master minds of the age.
An opera, "Cora et Alonzo," had been composed at the age of twenty and
accepted at the opera; but it was not till 1790 that he got a hearing
in the comic opera of "Euphrasque et Coradin," composed under the
direction of Gluck. This work was brilliantly successful, and
"Stratonice," which appeared two years afterwards, established his
reputation. The French critics describe both these early works as
being equally admirable in melody, orchestral accompaniment, and
dramatic effect. The stormiest year of the revolution was not
favourable to operatic composition, and Méhul wrote but little music
except pieces for republican festivities, much to his own disgust, for
he was by no means a warm friend of the republic.
In 1797 he produced his "Le Jeune Henri," which nearly caused a riot
in the theatre. The story displeased the republican audience, who
hissed and hooted till the turmoil compelled the fall of the curtain.
They insisted, however, on the overture, which is one of great beauty,
being performed over and over again, a compliment which has rarely
been accorded to any composer. Méhul's appointment as inspector and
professor in the newly organised Conservatory, at the same time with
Cherubini, left him but little leisure for musical composition; but he
found time to write the spectacular opera "Adrian," which was fiercely
condemned by a republican audience, not as a musical failure, but
because their alert and suspicious tempers suspected in it covert
allusions to the dead monarchy. Even David, the painter, said he would
set the torch to the opera-house rather than witness the triumph of a
king. In 1806 Méhul produced the opera "Uthal," a work of striking
vigour founded on an Ossianic theme, in which he made the innovation
of banishing the violins from the orchestra, substituting therefor the
violas.
It was in "Joseph," however, composed in 1807, that this composer
vindicated his right to be called a musician of great genius, and
entered fully into a species of composition befitting his grand style.
Most of his contemporaries were incapable of appreciating the
greatness of the work, though his gifted rival Cherubini gave it the
warmest praise. In Germany it met with instant and extended success,
and it is one of the few French operas of the old school which still
continue to be given on the German stage. In England it is now
frequently sung as an oratorio. It is on this remarkable work that
Méhul's lasting reputation as a composer rests outside of his own
nation. The construction of the opera of "Joseph" is characterised by
admirable symmetry of form, dramatic power, and majesty of the choral
and concerted passages, while the sustained beauty of the
orchestration is such as to challenge comparison with the greatest
works of his contemporaries. Such at least is the verdict of Fétis,
who was by no means inclined to be over-indulgent in criticising
Méhul. The fault in this opera, as in all of Méhul's works, appears to
have been a lack of bright and graceful melody, though in the modern
tendencies of music this defect is rapidly being elevated into a
virtue.
The last eight years of Méhul's life were depressed by melancholy and
suffering, proceeding from pulmonary disease. He resigned his place in
the Conservatory, and retired to a pleasant little estate near Paris,
where he devoted himself to raising flowers, and found some solace in
the society of his musical friends and former pupils, who were
assiduous in their attentions. Finally becoming dangerously ill, he
went to the island of Hyères to find a more genial climate. But here
he pined for Paris and the old companionships, and suffered more
perhaps by fretting for the intellectual cheer of his old life than he
gained by balmy air and sunshine. He writes to one of his friends
after a short stay at Hyères--"I have broken up all my habits; I am
deprived of all my old friends; I am alone at the end of the world,
surrounded by people whose language I scarcely understand; and all
this sacrifice to obtain a little more sun. The air which best agrees
with me is that which I breathe among you." He returned to Paris for a
few weeks only, to breathe his last on October 18, 1817, aged
fifty-four.
Méhul was a high-minded and benevolent man, wrapped up in his art, and
singularly childlike in the practical affairs of life. Abhorring
intrigue, he was above all petty jealousies, and even sacrificed the
situation of chapel-master under Napoleon, because he believed it
should have been given to the greatest of his rivals, Cherubini. When
he died Paris recognised his goodness as a man as well as greatness as
a musician by a touching and spontaneous expression of grief, and
funeral honours were given him throughout Europe. In 1822 his statue
was crowned on the stage of the Grand Opera, at a performance of his
"Valentine de Rohan." Notwithstanding his early death, he composed
forty-two operas, and modern musicians and critics give him a notable
place among those who were prominent in building up a national stage.
A pupil and disciple of Gluck, a cordial co-worker with Cherubini, he
contributed largely to the glory of French music, not only by his
genius as a composer, but by his important labours in the
reorganisation of the Conservatory, that nursery which has fed so much
of the highest musical talent of the world.