Though Rameau enjoyed supremacy over the serious opera, a great excitement was created in Paris by the arrival of an Italian company, who in 1752 obtained permission to perform Italian burlettas and intermezzi at the opera-house. The partisans of the French school took alarm, and the admirers of Lulli and Rameau forgot their bickerings to join forces against the foreign intruders. The battle-field was strewed with floods of ink, and the literati pelted each other with ferocious lampoons.
Among the literature of this controversy, one pamphlet has an imperishable place, Rousseau’s famous “Lettre sur la Musique Française,” in which the great sentimentalist espoused the cause of Italian music with an eloquence and acrimony rarely surpassed. The inconsistency of the author was as marked in this as in his private life. Not only did he at a later period become a great advocate of Gluck against Piccini, but, in spite of his argument that it was impossible to compose music to French words, that the language was quite unfit for it, that the French never had music and never would, he himself had composed a good deal of music to French words and produced a French opera, “Le Devin du Village.” Diderot was also a warm partisan of the Italians. Pergolesi’s beautiful music having been murdered by the French orchestra-players at the Grand Opera-House, Diderot proposed for it the following witty and laconic inscription:—“Hic Marsyas Apollinem.”[M]
Rousseau’s opera, “Le Devin du Village,” was performed with considerable success, in spite of the repugnance of the orchestral performers, of whom Rousseau always spoke in terms of unmeasured contempt, to do justice to the music. They burned Rousseau in effigy for his scoffs. “Well,” said the author of the Confessions, “I don’t wonder that they should hang me now, after having so long put me to the torture.”
The eloquence and abuse of the wits, however, did not long impair the supremacy of Rameau; for the Italian company returned to their own land, disheartened by their reception in the French capital. Though this composer commenced so late in life, he left thirty-six dramatic works. His greatest work was “Castor et Pollux.” Thirty years later Grimm recognised its merits by admitting, in spite of the great faults of the composer, “It is the pivot on which the glory of French music turns.” When Louis XIV. offered Rameau a title, he answered, touching his breast and forehead, “My nobility is here and here.” This composer marked a step forward in French music, for he gave it more boldness and freedom, and was the first really scientific and well-equipped exponent of a national school. His choruses were full of energy and fire, his orchestral effects rich and massive. He died in 1764, and the mortuary music, composed by himself, was performed by a double orchestra and chorus from the Grand Opera.
FOOTNOTE:
[M] Here Marsyas flayed Apollo.
III.
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.