A distinguished place in the records of French music must be assigned to
André Ernest Grétry, born at Liege in 1741. His career covered the
most important changes in the art as colored and influenced by national
tastes, and he is justly regarded as the father of comic opera in his
adopted country. His childish life was 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
afterward 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 favorably 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 recognized. 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 naive. The idyls of Gessner and the pastorals of Florian
were the favorite reading, and Watteau the popular painter. Gentlefolks,
steeped in artifice, vice, and intrigue, masked their empty lives under
the as sumption 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
thenceforward the sentimental misanthrope refused to recognize the
composer. About this time Grétry met the English humorist Hales, who
afterward 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 favor, 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 favorite opera in France and Germany. The works afterward
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 Liege 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 crystallized 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 can not 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
_cantileana_. 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.*
* In its infancy Italian comic opera formed the _intermezzo_
between the acts of a serious opera, and--similar to the
Greek sylvan drama which followed the tragic trilogy--was
frequently a parody on the piece which preceded it; though
more frequently still (as in Pergolcsi's "Serra Padrona") it
was not a satire on any particular subject, but designed to
heighten the ideal artistic effect of the serious opera by
broad comedy. Having acquired a complete form on the boards
of the small theatres, it was transferred to the larger
stage. Though it lacked the external splendor and consummate
vocalization of the elder sister, its simpler forms endowed
it with a more characteristic rendering of actual life.
It furnished the point of departure for the lively and facile genius
of Grétry, who laid the foundation stones of that lyric comedywhich has
flourished in France with so much luxuriance. From the outset merriment
and humor 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 coloring 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 * appeared on the scene,
and by his commanding genius restored serious opera to its supremacy,
that Grotry's repute was overshadowed. From this decline in public
favor he never fully recovered, for the master left behind him gifted
disciples, who embodied his traditions, and were inspired by his lofty
aims--preeminently 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 coloring which he so happily imparted to it, and looks back
to him as its founder and lawgiver.
*See article on "Gluck," in "The Great German Composers"
(a companion volume to this), in which his connection with
French music is discussed.