unod,
Masse, Bazin, and Bizet.

Auber was born in 1782, and died in May, 1871. He was
practically the last of the essentially French composers.
His operas may be summed up as being the perfect translation
into music of the witty plays of Scribe, with whom he was
associated all his life. To read a comedy by Scribe is to
imagine Auber's music to it. No one has excelled Auber in
the expression of all the finesse of wit and lightness of
touch. What the union between the two men was may be inferred
from the fact that Scribe wrote many of his librettos to
Auber's music, the latter being written first, Scribe then
adding the words. His principal works are "Masaniello" or
"The Mute," and "Fra Diavolo." He was appointed director of
the Paris Conservatoire, in 1842, in succession to Cherubini.

In speaking of Gretry, I quoted his opinion (given in one of
his essays on music) as to what opera should be and cited his
use of the _leitmotiv_ in his "Richard Coeur de Lion" (which
contains the air, _une fievre brulante_). If with this we
quote his reasons for writing opera comique rather than grand
opera, we have one of the reasons why French opera has, as yet,
never developed beyond Massenet's "Roi de Lahore" on one side,
and Delibes' "Lakme" on the other.

Gretry writes that he introduced lyric comedy on the stage
because the public was tired of tragedy, and because he had
heard so many lovers of dancing complain that their favourite
art played only a subordinate role in grand opera. Also the
public loved to hear short songs; therefore he introduced many
such into his operas.

Even nowadays, this seeming contradiction between theory and
practice is to be found, I think, in the French successors of
Meyerbeer. The public needed dancing, and all theories must
bend to that wish. Even Wagner succumbed to this influence in
Paris; and when Weber's "Freischuetz" was first given at the
grand opera, Berlioz was commissioned to arrange ballet music
from Weber's piano works to supply the deficiency.

In France, even to-day, everything gives way to the public,
a public whose intelligence from a poetic standpoint is, in
my opinion, lower than that of any other country. The French
composer is dependent on his country (Paris) as is no musician
of other nationality. Berlioz' life was embittered by the want
of recognition in Paris. Although he had been acclaimed as
a great musician all over Europe, yet he returned again and
again to Paris,