of opera, and the model which his successors have always honored and
studied if they have not always followed, no less is he the chief of
a later, and by common consent the greatest, school of modern church
music.




MÉHUL, SPONTINI, AND HALÉVY.

I.

The influence of Gluck was not confined to Cherubini, but was hardly
less manifest in molding the style and conceptions of Méhul and
Spontini,* who held prominent places in the history of the French opera.

* It is a little singular that some of the most
distinguished names in the annals of French music were
foreigners. Thus Gluck was a German, as also was Meyerbeer,
while Cherubini and Spontini were Italians.

Henri Etienne 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 neighboring 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