André Grétry

In 1753 he became a pupil of Jean-Pantaléon Leclerc and later of the organist at St-Pierre de Liège, Nicolas Rennekin, for keyboard and composition and of Henri Moreau, music master at the collegiate church of St. Paul.

Here he heard the operas of Baldassarre Galuppi, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, and other masters; and the desire of completing his own studies in Italy was the immediate result.

[2] His first great success was achieved by La vendemmiatrice, an Italian intermezzo or operetta, composed for the Aliberti theatre in Rome and received with universal applause.

He was, however, not without friends, and by the intercession of Count Gustaf Philip Creutz, the Swedish ambassador, Grétry obtained a libretto from Jean-François Marmontel, which he set to music in less than six weeks, and which, on its performance in August 1768, met with unparalleled success.

Two others, Lucile and Le tableau parlant, soon followed, and thenceforth Grétry's position as the leading composer of comic opera was safely established.

In it occurs the celebrated romance, O Richard, O mon Roi, l'univers t'abandonne, which was sung at the banquet – "fatal as that of Thyestes," remarks Carlyle – given by the bodyguard to the officers of the Versailles garrison on 3 October 1789.

[3] His opera-ballet La caravane du Caire, with modest turquerie exoticism in harp and triangle accompaniment, is a rescue adventure along the lines of Die Entführung aus dem Serail; premiered at Fontainebleau in 1783, it remained in the French repertory for fifty years.

The structure of his concerted pieces on the other hand is frequently flimsy, and his instrumentation so feeble that the orchestral parts of some of his works had to be rewritten by other composers, in order to make them acceptable to modern audiences.

From the old court he received distinctions and rewards of all kinds; the republic made him an inspector of the conservatoire; Napoleon granted him the cross of the legion of honour and a pension.