s. His melody, too, is dignified and
expressive, but he is sensibly inferior to Gluck in what may be called
dramatic instinct, and this, coupled with the fact that the libretti of
his operas are almost uniformly uninteresting, whereas Gluck's are drawn
from the immortal legends of the past, is perhaps enough to explain why
the one has been taken and the other left. Mehul's last and greatest
work, 'Joseph,' is still performed in France and Germany, though our
national prejudices forbid the hope that it can ever be heard in this
country except in a mutilated concert version. The opera follows the
Biblical story closely, and Mehul has reproduced the large simplicity of
the Old Testament with rare felicity. From the magnificent opening air,
'Champs paternels,' to the sonorous final chorus, the work is rich in
beauty of a very high order. Of his other serious works few have
remained in the current repertory, chiefly owing to their stupid
libretti, for there is not one of them that does not contain music of
rare excellence. 'Stratonice,' a dignified setting of the pathetic old
story of the prince who loves his father's betrothed, deserves to live
if only for the sake of the noble air, 'Versez tous vos chagrins,' a
masterpiece of sublime tenderness as fine as anything in Gluck. 'Uthal,'
a work upon an Ossianic legend, has recently been revived with success
in Germany. It embodies a curious experiment in orchestration, the
violins being entirely absent from the score. The composer's idea, no
doubt, was to represent by this means the grey colouring and misty
atmosphere of the scene in which his opera was laid, but the originality
of the idea scarcely atones for the monotony in which it resulted.
Although his genius was naturally of a serious and dignified cast, Mehul
wrote many works in a lighter vein, partly no doubt in emulation of
Gretry, the prince of opera comique. Mehul's comic operas are often
deficient in sparkle, but their musical force and the enchanting
melodies with which they are begemmed have kept them alive, and several
of them--'Une Folie,' for instance, and 'Le Tresor Suppose'--have been
performed in Germany during the last decade, while 'L'Irato,' a
brilliant imitation of Italian opera buffa, has recently been given at
Brussels with great success.

Although born in Florence and educated in the traditions of the
Neapolitan school, Cherubini (1760-1842) belongs by right to the French
school. His 'Lodoiska,' which