André Ernest Modeste Grétry (1741-1813) - Sonate a due Cembali
Performers: Paule van Parys & Jan Van Mol (cembalos)
Further info: André Ernest Modeste Grétry (1741-1813)
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Belgian composer. As a chorister at the church of St. Denis, he became a
student of Jean-Pantaléon Leclerc (1697-1760), also studying keyboard
under Nicolas Rennekin and harmony under Henri Moreau. In 1752 the
arrival of an Italian opera troupe awakened his interest in theatre
music, and following the successful performance of a Mass for the Liège
cathedral in 1759 he traveled to Rome to attend the College d’Archis. In
1765 his opera La vendemmatrice was performed in Rome with success, and
Grétry decided to go to Paris to compose French opera. Traveling by way
of Geneva, where he met and befriended Voltaire, he arrived in Paris in
1767, but it took almost two years before the patronage of Swedish
ambassador Gustaf Philip Creutz brought him into contact with Marmontel.
Their first collaboration, Le Huron, in 1768, brought him instant fame
as the foremost composer of opéra comique. Thereafter, a series of works
(Zémire et Azor, 1771; Le caravane du Caire, 1783; and Richard
Coeur-de-lion, 1784) brought him international fame, allowing him to
transition easily in French intellectual society through the Revolution.
In 1797 he was named as an examiner in the newly established
Conservatoire, receiving the Légion d’honneur. By 1803 he had been
awarded a lifetime pension by Napoleon, which allowed him to live
comfortably despite the lack of success of his last operas. Grétry’s
popularity as a composer was the result of a good sense of theatre,
wherein his music, often using simple or rondo forms, is subordinate to
the stage action. His orchestration is often colorful, with unusual
instruments and a good sense of harmony and rhythm. His overtures, for
example, often have vocal interludes built in (Richard Coeur-de-lion)
making them part of the stage action rather than a prelude. He was a
prolific composer, writing 68 operas, about 45 romances (songs for voice
and keyboard, often with another instrument for color), 12 sacred
pieces (mostly hymns or antiphons), a Mass, six Revolutionary odes, a
large secular cantata, seven string quartets, seven symphonies, six
sonatas, and a flute concerto. He must be seen as the most popular
French composer of the late 18th century. His daughter Lucille Grétry
(1772-1790) also became a composer.
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