We cannot say that French writers have ever
tried to write in the style of Goethe or Schiller; but French composers
have tried and are still trying to write music after the manner of
German musicians.
Why be astonished at it? Let us face the matter plainly. In music we
have not, so to speak, any masters of French style. All our greatest
composers are foreigners. The founder of the first school of French
opera, Lulli, was Florentine; the founder of the second school, Gluck,
was German; the two founders of the third school were Rossini, an
Italian, and Meyerbeer, a German; the creators of _opera-comique_ were
Duni, an Italian, and Gretry, a Belgian; Franck, who revolutionised our
modern school of opera, was also Belgian. These men brought with them a
style peculiar to their race; or else they tried to found, as Gluck did,
an "international" style,[77] by which they effaced the more individual
characteristics of the French spirit. The most French of all these
styles is the _opera-comique_, the work of two foreigners, but owing
much more to the _opera-bouffe_ than is generally admitted, and, in any
case, representing France very insufficiently.
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