Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/15

 CHAPTER I

GRÉTRY

HIS LIFE, WORK, AND IDEAS

If it be true, as people are fond of saying, that Comic Opera is of all musical forms the form most distinctively French, then there has never been a more French composer than Grétry. Grétry is the king, the god of comic opera.

His greatest rival is Monsigny. And Monsigny undoubtedly has sweet and tender touches that are peculiar to himself. But Grétry has more life and strength.

Of all his works Richard Coeur de Lion is the only one that is still performed, so that the acquaintance of Grétry can only be made nowadays by reading. Even for that one must go to a library, unless one happens to be a Croesus possessing the wherewithal to acquire the magnificent edition of his works produced by the illustrious Gevaěrt under the auspices of the Belgian government. The piano editions published about fifty years ago by Michaělis are exhausted, and one hardly ever comes across them. I have been told that shortly before the war the enemy publisher Breitkopf bought the plates. There remains