Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/30

 eager to get things put right for his friend at once, and whose persistence succeeded in getting a poem from Marmontel. This was the Huron, taken from the Ingénu of Voltaire. It is a mediocre work; Voltaire’s wit and imagination have evaporated under the heavy hand of the adapter. But the music triumphed and brought Grétry fame at a stroke. It was felt that a great musician had been born. The first performance of Huron is an important date in the history of French music. A new and fresh musical personality was revealed within the framework of a familiar art-form, the spirit and tradition of which were respected and at the same time given a new lease of life. This mixture, this happy proportioning of tradition and freshness has always been the condition of great successes in the arts.

Grétry records how the actor Cailleau of the Italian Comedy, an enthusiastic admirer of the Huron, which the composer had played to him on the harpsichord, foreseeing the opposition of his comrades, carried their votes by a pleasant surprise.

He invited them to dinner, and at dessert started humming in his fine bass voice, the air that afterwards became famous “In what canton is Huronia?”

“Whose is that?” his guests asked, much struck. The piece was accepted.

This air is already in the master’s best manner. We must bracket with it in the Huron that very elegant and frank madrigal, “The reeds no more are straight,” the charming ariette of Mlle, de St. Yves, “If I ever marry,” and lastly a descriptive piece, cur-