s
eloquent strain: "If he represents the passion and death of Christ, the
heart feels itself wounded with the most sublime emotion; and when
he recounts the 'Last Judgment' the blood freezes with dread at the
redoubled and menacing calls of the exterminating angel. All those
admirable pictures that the Raphaels and Michael Angelos have painted
with colors and the brush, Cherubini brings forth with the voice and
orchestra." In brief, if Cherubini is the founder of a later school
of opera, and the model which his successors have always honored and
studied if they have not always followed, no less is he the chief of
a later, and by common consent the greatest, school of modern church
music.

MEHUL, SPONTINI, AND HALEVY.

I.

The influence of Gluck was not confined to Cherubini, but was hardly
less manifest in molding the style and conceptions of Mehul and
Spontini,* who held prominent places in the history of the French opera.

* It is a little singular that some of the most
distinguished names in the annals of French music were
foreigners. Thus Gluck was a German, as also was Meyerbeer,
while Cherubini and Spontini were Italians.

Henri Etienne Mehul was the son of a French soldier stationed at the
Givet barracks, where he was born June 24, 1763. His early love of music
secured for him instructions from the blind organist of the Franciscan
church at that garrison town, under whom he made astonishing progress.
He soon found he had outstripped the attainments of his teacher, and
contrived to place himself under the tuition of the celebrated Wilhelm
Hemser, who was organist at a neighboring monastery. Here Mehul spent a
number of happy and useful years, studying composition with Hemser and
literature with the kind monks, who hoped to persuade their young charge
to devote himself to ecclesiastical life.

Mehul's advent in Paris, whither he went at the age of sixteen, soon
opened his eyes to his true vocation, that of a dramatic composer. The
excitement over the contest between Gluck and Piccini was then at its
height, and the youthful musician was not long in espousing the side of
Gluck with enthusiasm. He made the acquaintance of Gluck accidentally,
the great ehevalier interposing one night to prevent his being ejected
from the theatre, into one of whose boxes Mehul had slipped without
buying a ticket. Thence forward the youth had free access to the opera,
and the friendship and tuition of o