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Updated: June 15, 2025
The work would have had a greater immediate success, had not Paris been in profound gloom from the disastrous results of the Moscow campaign and the horrors of the French retreat, where famine and disease finished the work of bayonet and cannon-ball. The unsettled and disheartening times disturbed all the relations of artists. There is but little record of Cherubini for several years.
It was his idea that the Sinfonia, in other words the Overture or Prelude, should indicate the subject and prepare the spectators for the characters of the pieces, and that the instrumental coloring should be adapted to the mood of the situation, thus anticipating modern procedure. He prepared the way for the work of Cherubini, Auber, Gounod, Thomas, Massenet, Saint-Saëns and others.
She soon returned to Paris and the stage, and later having obtained a divorce, married the famous violinist De Beriot, with whom she had a brief but happy union. Madame Malibran was said to be equally at home in any known school of her time. Mozart and Cimarosa, Boieldieu and Rossini, Cherubini and Bellini were all grasped with the same sympathetic comprehension.
The most interesting of their performances, which I attended merely as a listener, was a vocal quartet by Cherubini, performed under his direction. On the 27th of March this "mirliton" concert was repeated at Ciceri's, and on this occasion Cherubini took an active part.
He was also enrolled in the National Guard, and obliged to accompany daily the march of the unfortunate throngs who shed their blood under the axe of the guillotine. Cherubini would have fled from these horrible surroundings, but it was difficult to evade the vigilance of the French officials; he had no money; and he would not leave the beautiful Cécile Tourette, to whom he was affianced.
The wishes which he expressed in his short moments of respite, evinced the calm solemnity with which he contemplated the approach of death. He desired to be buried by the side of Bellini, with whom, during the time of Bellini's residence in Paris, he had been intimately acquainted. The grave of Bellini is in the cemetery of Pere LaChaise, next to that of Cherubini.
The task set for the general competition was to write music for Orpheus torn by the Bacchantes. An incompetent pianist, whose duty it was to play over the compositions, for the judges, could seem to make nothing of Hector's score. The six judges, headed by Cherubini, the Director of the Conservatoire, voted against the aspirant, and he was thrown out a second time.
Yet though French opera embodied the finest thought and aspiration of the day, it is only just to observe that the impetus which impelled her composers upon new paths of progress came largely from external sources. It is curious to note how large a share foreigners have had in building up the fabric of French opera. Lulli, Gluck, and Cherubini in turn devoted their genius to its service.
In 1821 Moscheles writes in his diary, apropos of Cherubini and his artistic surroundings: "I spent the evening at Ciceri's, son in-law of Isabey, the famous painter, where I was introduced to one of the most interesting circles of artists. In the first room were assembled the most famous painters, engaged in drawing several things for their own amusement.
As examples of precocity may be cited: Mozart, at the age of three; Mendelssohn, five; Haydn, four; Handel, twelve; Weber, twelve; Schubert, eleven; Cherubini, thirteen; and many others. Those late in developing Beethoven, Wagner, etc. are fewer by far.
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