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Updated: June 15, 2025
Cherubini passed through Paris in 1784, while the Gluck-Piccini excitement was yet warm, and visited London as composer for the Royal Italian Opera. Here he became a constant visitor in courtly circles, and the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Queensbury, and other noble amateurs, conceived the warmest admiration for his character and abilities.
How great, however, was her and Bonaparte's surprise, when Mehul, instead of being delighted with this distinguished appointment, positively refused to accept it! "I can accept this position only under one condition," said Mehul, "which is, that I may be allowed to divide it with my friend Cherubini."
The distinguished pianist, in further pleasant gossip about Cherubini, tells us of hearing the first performance of a pasticcio opera, composed by Cherubini, Paër, Berton, Boïeldieu, and Kreutzer, in honor of the christening of the Duke of Bordeaux.
This great genius, born in 1803, was the son of an opium eater, and the morbid character of most of his works may be traced to this cause. Berlioz studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but his sensational style did not win favour with the classical Cherubini, and the young man was forced to work against many difficulties.
It is curious, and rather sad, that out of eighty pieces chosen by M. Buchor only nine of them are French; and this is reckoning the Italians, Lully and Cherubini, as Frenchmen. M. Buchor has had to go to German classical musicians almost entirely, and, generally speaking, his choice has been a happy one.
The Liszts, father and son, often went to Eisenstadt, where the count lived; there they rubbed elbows with Cherubini and Hummel, a pupil of Mozart. Franz took to music from his earliest childhood. When about five years old he was asked what he would like to do. "Learn the piano," said the little fellow.
The loosening of this connection was probably brought about by the departure of Hiller in 1836 and the quarrel with Liszt some time after, which broke two links between the sensitive Pole and the fiery Frenchman. The ageing Baillot and Cherubini died in 1842.
From this decline in public favor he never fully recovered, for the master left behind him gifted disciples, who embodied his traditions, and were inspired by his lofty aims preeminently so in the case of Cherubini, perhaps the greatest name in French music.
The wisdom of the revision was at once apparent, but a quarrel between Beethoven and the intendant of the theatre led to its final withdrawal after two representations. It did not see the light again until 1814. It was about this time that Beethoven first met Cherubini, whose operas were favorites with the Vienna public.
An Italian by birth and the excellence of his education, which was conducted by Sarti, the great teacher of composition; a German by his musical sympathies as well as by the variety and profundity of his knowledge; and a Frenchman by the school and principles to which we owe his finest dramatic works, Cherubini strikes me as being the most accomplished musician, if not the greatest genius, of the nineteenth century."
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