As I never made a great
progress in the practical part, I am persuaded that had it not been
for my dictionary of music, it would in the end have been said I did
not understand composition.*
* I little suspected this would be said of me, notwithstanding my
dictionary.
Sometime before the Devin du Village was performed, a company of
Italian Bouffons had arrived at Paris, and were ordered to perform
at the opera-house, without the effect they would produce there
being foreseen. Although they were detestable, and the orchestra, at
that time very ignorant, mutilated at will the pieces they gave,
they did the French opera an injury that will never be repaired. The
comparison of these two kinds of music, heard the same evening in
the same theater, opened the ears of the French; nobody could endure
their languid music after the marked and lively accents of Italian
composition; and the moment the Bouffons had done, everybody went
away. The managers were obliged to change the order of representation,
and let the performance of the Bouffons be the last. Egle, Pigmalion
and le Sylphe were successively given: nothing could bear the
comparison. The Devin du Village was the only piece that did it, and
this was still relished after la Serva Padrona. When I composed my
interlude, my head was filled with these pieces, and they gave me
the first idea of it: I was, however, far from imagining they would
one day be passed in review by the side of my composition.
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