services were held throughout Europe, and everywhere the opera-houses
were draped in black. Perhaps the death of no musician ever called forth
such universal exhibitions of sorrow and reverence.

Cherubini's life extended from the early part of the reign of Louis XVI.
to that of Louis Philippe, and was contemporaneous with many of the
most remarkable events in modern history. The energy and passion which
convulsed society during his youth and early manhood undoubtedly had
much to do in stimulating that robust and virile quality in his mind
which gave such character to his compositions. The fecundity of his
intellect is shown in the fact that he produced four hundred and thirty
works, out of which only eighty have been published. In this catalogue
there are twenty-five operas and eleven masses.

As an operatic composer he laid the foundation of the modern French
school. Uniting the melody of the Italian with the science of the
German, his conceptions had a dramatic fire and passion which were,
however, free from anything appertaining to the sensational and
meretricious. His forms were indeed classically severe, and his style is
defined by Adolphe Adam as the resurrection of the old Italian school,
enriched by the discoveries of modern harmony. Though he was the creator
of French opera as we know it now, he was free from its vagaries
and extravagances. He set its model in the dramatic vigor and
picturesqueness, the clean-cut forms, and the noble instrumentation
which mark such masterpieces as "Faniska," "Alédée," "Les Deux
Journées," and "Lodoïska." The purity, classicism, and wealth of ideas
in these works have always caused them to be cited as standards of ideal
excellence. The reforms in opera of which Gluck was the protagonist, and
Wagner the extreme modern exponent, characterize the dramatic works
of Cherubini, though he keeps them within that artistic limit which a