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.


IV.

One of the most accomplished of historians and critics, Oulibischeff,
sums up the place of Cherubini in musical art in these words: "If on the
one hand Gluck's calm and plastic grandeur, and on the other the tender
and voluptuous charm of the melodies of Piccini and Zacchini, had suited
the circumstances of a state of society sunk in luxury and nourished
with classical exhibitions, this could not satisfy a society shaken to
the very foundations of its faith and organization. The whole of the
dramatic music of the eighteenth century must naturally have appeared