r composer is conceded by critics to be a greater purist in musical
form, if he rarely equals the Italian composer in the splendid bursts
of musical passion with which the latter redeems so much that is
meretricious and false, and the charming melody which Verdi shares with
his countrymen.

BOIELDIEU AND AUBER.

I.

The French school of light opera, founded by Givtry, reached its
greatest perfection in the authors of "La Dame Blanche" and "Fra
Diavolo," though to the former of these composers must be accorded the
peculiar distinction of having given the most perfect example of this
style of composition. Francois Adrien Boieldieu, the scion of a Norman
family, was born at Rouen, December 16, 1775. He received his early
musical training at the hands of Broche, a great musician and the
cathedral organist, but a drunkard and brutal taskmaster. At the age of
sixteen he had become a good pianist and knew something of composition.
At all events his passionate love of the theatre prompted him to try his
hand at an opera, which was actually performed at Rouen. The revolution
which made such havoc with the clergy and their dependents ruined
the Boieldieu family (the elder Boieldieu had been secretary of the
archiepiscopal diocese), and young Francois, at the age of nineteen, was
set adrift on the world, his heart full of hope and his ambition bent
on Paris, whither he set his feet. Paris, however, proved a stern
stepmother at the outset, as she always has been to the struggling and
unsuccessful. He was obliged to tune pianos for his living, and was glad
to sell his brilliant _chansons_, which afterward made a fortune for his
publisher, for a few francs apiece.

Several years of hard work and bitter privation finally culminated in
the acceptance of an opera, "La Famille Suisse," at the Theatre Faydeau
in 1796, where it was given on alternate nights with Cherubini's
"Medee." Other operas followed in rapid succession, among which may be
mentioned "La Dot de Suzette" (1798) and "Le Calife de Bagdad" (1800).
The latter of these was remarkably popular, and drew from the severe
Cherubim the following rebuke: "Malheureux! Are you not ashamed of such
undeserved triumph?" Boieldieu took the brusque criticism meekly and
preferred a request for further instruction from Cherubini--a proof
of modesty and good sense quite remarkable in one who had attained
recognition as a favorite with the musical public. Boieldieu's three
years'