ideas into a more
scientific form. He had indeed carried his love of form to a radical
extreme. Jean Jacques Rousseau, who extended his taste for nature and
simplicity to music, blamed him severely as one who neglected genuine
natural tune for far-fetched harmonies, on the ground that "music is a
child of nature, and has a language of its own for expressing emotional
transports, which can not be learned from thorough bass rules." Again
Rousseau, in his forcible tract on French music, says of Rameau, from
whose school Gretry's music was such a significant departure:

"One must confess that M. Rameau possesses very great talent, much fire
and euphony, and a considerable knowledge of harmonious combinations and
effects; one must also grant him the art of appropriating the ideas of
others by changing their character, adorning and developing them, and
turning them around in all manner of ways, On the other hand, he shows
less facility in inventing new ones. Altogether he has more skill than
fertility, more knowledge than genius, or rather genius smothered
by knowledge, but always force, grace, and very often a beautiful
_cantileana_. His recitative is not as natural but much more varied than
that of Lulli; admirable in a few scenes, but bad as a rule." Rousseau
continues to reproach Rameau with a too powerful instrumentation,
compared with Italian simplicity, and sums up that nobody knew better
than Rameau how to conceive the spirit of single passages and to produce
artistic contrasts, but that he entirely failed to give his operas
"a happy and much-to-be-desired unity." In another part of the quoted
passage Rousseau says that Rameau stands far beneath Lulli in _esprit_
and artistic tact, but that he is often superior to him in dramatic
expression.

A clear understanding of the musical position of Rameau is necessary to
fully appreciate the place of Gretry, his antithesis as a composer.
For a short time the popularity of Rameau had been shaken by an Italian
opera company, called by the French _Les Bouffons_, who had created a
genuine sensation by their performance of airy and sparkling operettas,
entirely removed in spirit from the ponderous productions of the
prevailing school. Though the Italian comedians did not meet with
permanent success, the suave charm of their music left behind it
memories which became fruitful.*

* In its infancy Italian comic opera formed the _intermezzo_
between the acts of a serious