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CHERUBINI, MARIA LUIGI CARLO ZENOBIO ...

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Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 89 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CHERUBINI, MARIA See also:LUIGI CARLO ZENOBIO SALVATORE (1760-1842) , See also:Italian musical composer, was See also:born at See also:Florence on the 14th of See also:September 176o, and died on the 15th of See also:March 1842 in See also:Paris. His See also:father was accompanist (See also:Maestro al Cembalo) at' the See also:Pergola See also:theatre. Cherubini himself, in the See also:preface of his autograph See also:catalogue of his own See also:works, states, " I began to learn See also:music at six and See also:composition at nine, the former from my father, the latter from Bartolomeo and Alessandro Felici, and, after their See also:death, from Bizzarri and J Castrucci." By the See also:time he was sixteen he had composed a See also:great See also:deal of See also:church music, and in 1777 he went to See also:Bologna, where for four years he studied under See also:Sarti. This deservedly famous See also:master well earned the gratitude which afterwards impelled Cherubini to See also:place one of his See also:double choruses by the See also:side of his own Et Vitam Venturi as the See also:crown of his See also:Treatise on See also:Counterpoint and See also:Fugue, though the juxtaposition is disastrous for Sarti. But besides grounding Cherubini in the church music for which he had See also:early shown so See also:special a See also:bent, Sarti also trained him in dramatic composition; some-times, like the great masters of See also:painting, entrusting his See also:pupil with See also:minor parts of his own works. From 1780 onwards for the next fourteen years dramatic music occupied Cherubini almost entirely. His first See also:complete See also:opera, Quinto Fabio, was produced in 178o, and was followed in 1782 by Armida, Adriano in Siria, and other works. Between 1782 and 1784 the successful See also:production of five operas in four different towns must have secured Cherubini a dignified position amongst his Italian contemporaries; and in 1784 he was invited to See also:London to produce two works for the Italian opera there, one of which, La Finta Principessa, was favourably received, while the other, Giulio Sabina, was, according to a contemporary See also:witness, " murdered " by the critics. In 1786 he See also:left London for Paris, which became his See also:home after a visit to See also:Turin in 1787–1788 on the occasion of the production there of his Ifigenia in Aulide. With Cherubini, as with some other composers first trained in a school where the See also:singer reigned supreme, the See also:influence of the See also:French dramatic sensibility proved decisive, and his first French opera, Demophon (1788), though not a popular success, already marks a departure from the Italian See also:style, which Cherubini still cultivated in the pieces he introduced into the works of Anfossi, See also:Paisiello and See also:Cimarosa, produced by him as director of the Italian opera in Paris (established in 1789). As in Paris See also:Gluck realized his highest ambitions, and even See also:Rossini awoke to a final effort of something like dramatic See also:life in See also:Guillaume Tell, so in Paris Cherubini became a great composer. If his melodic invention had been as warm as Gluck's, his immensely See also:superior technique in every See also:branch of the See also:art would have made him one of the greatest composers that ever lived.

But his See also:

personal See also:character shows in See also:quaint exaggeration the same See also:asceticism that in less sour and more negative See also:form deprives even his finest music of the glow of that lofty See also:inspiration that fears nothing. With Lodoiska (1791) the See also:series of Cherubini's masterpieces begins, and by the production of Medee (1797) his reputation was firmly established. The success of this sombre classical tragedy, which shows Cherubini's See also:genius in its full See also:power, is an See also:honour to the Paris public. If Cherubini had known how to combine his high ideals with an urbane tolerance of the opinions of persons of inferior See also:taste, the severity of his music would not have prevented his attaining the height of prosperity. But See also:Napoleon See also:Bonaparte irritated him by an See also:enthusiasm for the See also:kind of Italian music against which his whole career, from the time he became Sarti's pupil, was a protest. When Cherubini said to Napoleon, " Citoyen See also:General, I perceive that you love only that music which does not prevent you thinking of your politics," he may perhaps have been as firmly convinced of his own conciliatory manner as he was when many years afterwards he " spared the feelings " of a musical See also:candidate by " delicately " telling him that he had " a beautiful See also:voice and great musical intelligence, but was too ugly for a public singer." Napoleon seems to have disliked opposition in music as in other matters, and the See also:academic offices held by Cherubini under him were for many years far below his deserts. But though Napoleon saw no See also:reason to conceal his dislike of Cherubini, his See also:appointment of See also:Lesueur in 1804 as his See also:chapel-master must not be taken as an See also:evidence of his hostility. Lesueur was not a great genius, but, although recommended for the See also:post by the retiring chapelmaster, Paesiello (one of Napoleon's Italian favourites), he was a very meritorious and See also:earnest Frenchman whom the appointment saved from See also:starvation. Cherubini's creative genius was never more brilliant than at this See also:period, as the wonderful two-See also:act See also:ballet, See also:Anacreon, shows; but his See also:temper and See also:spirits were not improved by a series of disappointments which culminated in the collapse of his prospects of congenial success at See also:Vienna, where he went in 18o5 in compliance with an invitation to compose an opera for the Imperial theatre. Here he produced, under the See also:title of Der Wasserlrager, the great See also:work which, on its first production on the 7th of See also:January 18ot (26 Nivose, An 8) as See also:Les Deux Journees, had thrilled Paris with the accents of a humanity restored to See also:health and See also:peace. It was by this time an established favourite in See also:Austria. On the 25th of See also:February Cherubini produced Faniska, but the See also:war between Austria and See also:France had broken out immediately after his arrival, and public See also:interest in See also:artistic matters was checked by the See also:bombardment and See also:capitulation of Vienna.

Though the See also:

meeting between Cherubini and the victorious Napoleon was not very friendly, he was called upon to See also:direct the music at Napoleon's soirees at Schonbrunn. But this had not been his See also:object in coming to Vienna, and he soon returned to a retired and gloomy life in Paris. His stay at Vienna is memorable for his intercourse with See also:Beethoven, who had a profound admiration for him which he could neither realize nor reciprocate. It is too much to expect that the mighty genius of Beethoven, which See also:broke through all rules in vindication of the principles underlying them, would be comprehensible to a mind like Cherubini's, in which, while the creative faculties were finely See also:developed, the See also:critical See also:faculty was atrophied and its place supplied by a See also:mere disciplinary See also:code inadequate even as a basis for the See also:analysis of his own works. On the other See also:hand, it would be impossible to exaggerate the influence Les Deux Journees had on the lighter parts of Beethoven's Fidelio_ Cherubini's librettist was also the author of the libretto from which Fidelio was adapted, and Cherubini's See also:score was a See also:constant object of Beethoven's study, not only before the production of the first version of Fidelio. as Leonore, but also throughout Beethoven's life. Cherubini's See also:record of his impressions of Beethoven as a See also:man is contained in the single phrase, "Il etait toujours brusque," which at least shows a See also:fine freedom from self-consciousness on the See also:part of the man whose only remark on being told of the death of See also:Brod, the famous oboist, was, " Ah, he hadn't much See also:tone " (" Ah, See also:petit son "). Of the See also:overture to Leonore Cherubini only remarked that he could not tell what See also:key it was in, and of Beethoven's later style he observed, " It makes me sneeze." Beethoven's brusqueness, notorious as it was, did not prevent him from assuring Cherubini that he considered him the greatest composer of the See also:age and that he loved him and honoured him. In 18o6 See also:Haydn had just sent out his pathetic " visiting card " announcing that he was past work; See also:Weber was still See also:sowing See also:wild oats, and See also:Schubert was only nine years old. We need not, then, be surprised at Beethoven's See also:judgment. And though we must regret that Cherubini's disposition prevented him from understanding Beethoven, it would be by no means true to say that he was uninfluenced at least by the sheer grandeur of the See also:scale which Beethoven had by that time established as the permanent See also:standard for musical art. Grandeur of proportion was, in fact, eminently characteristic. of both composers, and the See also:colossal structure of such a See also:movement as the See also:duet Perfides ennemis in Medee is almost inconceivable without the example of Beethoven's C minor trio, op. 1, No.

3, published two years before it; while the See also:

cavatina Eterno iddio in Faniska is not only worthy of Beethoven but surprisingly like him in style. After Cherubini's disappointing visit to Vienna he divided his time between teaching at the See also:conservatoire and cutting up playing-See also:cards into figures and landscapes, which he framed and placed See also:round the walls of his study. Not until 18o9 was he aroused from this morbid indolence. He was staying in retirement at the See also:country seat of the See also:prince de See also:Chimay, and his See also:friends begged him to write some music for the See also:consecration of a church there. After persistent refusals he suddenly surprised them with a See also:mass in F for three-part See also:chorus and See also:orchestra. With this work the period of his great church music may be said to begin; although it was by no means the end of his career as an opera writer, which, in fact, lasted as See also:late as his seventy-third See also:year. This third period is also marked by some not unimportant instrumental compositions. An early event in the See also:annals of the Philharmonic Society was his invitation to London in 1815 to produce a See also:symphony, an overture and a vocal piece. The symphony (in D) was afterwards arranged with a new slow movement as the See also:string quartet in C (1829), a fact which, taken in connexion with the large scale of the work, illustrates Cherubini's deficient sense of style in chamber music. Nevertheless all the six string quartets written between 1814 and 1837 are interesting works performed with success at the See also:present See also:day, though the last three, discovered in 188g, are less satisfactory than the earlier ones. The See also:requiem in C minor (1817) caused Beethoven to declare that if he himself ever wrote a requiem Cherubini's would be his See also:model. At the See also:eleventh See also:hour Cherubini received recognition from Napoleon, who, during the See also:Hundred Days, made him See also:chevalier of the See also:Legion of Honour.

Then, with the restoration of the Bourbons, the very fact that Cherubini had not been persona gratawith Napoleon brought him honour and emoluments.. He was appointed, jointly with Lesueur, as composer and conductor to the Chapel Royal, and in 1822 he obtained the permanent directorship of the conservatoire. This brought him into See also:

con-tact, for the most part unfriendly, with all the most talented musicians of the younger See also:generation. It is improbable that See also:Berlioz would have been an easy subject for the wisest and kindest of spiritual guides; but no influence, repellent or attractive, could have been more disastrous for that passionate, See also:quick-witted and yet eminently See also:puzzle-headed mixture of See also:Philistine and genius, than the crabbed old See also:martinet whose regulations forbade the students See also:access to Gluck's scores in the library, and whose only theory of art. (as distinguished from his practice) is accurately formulated in the following passage from Berlioz's Grande Traite de l'See also:instrumentation et d'orchestration: " It was no use for the See also:modern composer to say, ` But do just listen! See how smoothly this is introduced, how well motived, how deftly connected with the context, and how splendid it sounds!' He was answered, ` That is not the point. This modulation is forbidden; therefore it must not be made.' " The lack of really educative teaching, and the actual injustice for which Cherubini's disciplinary methods were answerable, did much to weaken Berlioz's at best See also:ill-balanced artistic sense, and it is highly probable that, but for the kindliness and See also:comparative See also:wisdom of his composition master, Lesueur, he would have broken down from sheer lack of any influence which could command the respect of an excitable youth starving in the pursuit of a fine art against the violent opposition of his See also:family. Only when Mendelssohn, at the age of seventeen, visited Paris in 1825, did Cherubini startle every one by praising a See also:young composer to his See also:face. In 1833 Cherubini produced his last work for the See also:stage, All Baba, adapted (with new and noisy features which excited Mendelssohn's astonished disgust). from a See also:manuscript opera, Koukourgi, written See also:forty years earlier. It is thus, perhaps, not a See also:fair See also:illustration of the vigour of his old age; but the requiem in D minor (for male voices), written in 1836, is one of his greatest works, and, though not actually his last composition, is a worthy See also:close to the See also:long career of an artist of high ideals who, while neither by See also:birth nor temperament a Frenchman, must yet be counted with a still greater foreigner, Gluck, as the See also:glory of French classical music. In this he has no parallel except his friend and contemporary, Maul, to whom he dedicated Medee, and who dedicated to him the beautiful Ossianic one-act opera Uthal. The direct results of his teaching at the conservatoire were the steady, though not as yet unhealthy, decline of French opera into a lighter style, under the amiable and modest See also:Boieldieu and the irresponsible and witty See also:Auber; for, as we have seen, Cherubini was quite incapable of making his ideals intelligible by any means more personal than his music; and the crude grammatical rules which he mistook for the eternal principles of his own and of all music had not the smallest use as a safeguard against vulgarity and pretentiousness.

Lest the passage above quoted from Berlioz should be suspected of See also:

bias or irrelevance, we cite a few phrases from Cherubini's Treatise on Counterpoint and Fugue, of which, though the See also:letter-See also:press is by his favourite pupil, See also:Halevy, the musical examples and See also:doctrine are beyond suspicion his own. Concerning the 16th-See also:century See also:idiom, incorrectly but generally known as the " changing See also:note " (an idiom which to any musical See also:scholar is as natural as " attraction of the relative " is to a See also:Greek scholar), Cherubini remarks, " No tradition gives us any reason why the See also:classics thus faultily deviated from the See also:rule." Again, he discusses the use of " suspensions " in a series of chords which without them would contain consecutive fifths, and after making all the observations necessary for the rational conclusion that the question whether the fifths are successfully disguised or not depends upon the beauty and force of the suspensions, he merely remarks that " The See also:opinion of the classics appears to me erroneous, notwithstanding that See also:custom has sanctioned it, for, on the principle that the discord is a mere suspension of the chord, it -hould not affect the nature of the chord. But since the classics have pronounced judgment we must of course submit." In the whole treatise not one example is given from See also:Palestrina or any other master who handled as a living See also:language what are now the forms of contrapuntal discipline. As a dead language Cherubini brought counterpoint up to date by abandoning the church modes; but in true severity of principle, as in educational stimulus, his treatise shows a deplorable falling off from the standard set a hundred years before in See also:Fux's See also:Gradus ad Parnassum with its delightful dialogues between master and pupil and its continual See also:appeal to artistic experience. Whatever may have been Cherubini's success in imparting facility and certainty to his See also:light-hearted pupils who established 19th-century French opera as a See also:refuge from the terrors of serious art, there can be no doubt that his career as a teacher did more harm than See also:good. In it the See also:punishment See also:drill of an incompetent schoolmaster was invested with the authority of a great composer, and by it the false See also:antithesis between the " classical " and the " romantic " was erected into a barrier which many critics still find an insuperable obstacle to the understanding of the classical spirit. And yet as a composer Cherubini was no pseudo-classic but a really great artist, whose purity of style, except at rare moments, just failed to See also:express the ideals he never lost sight of, because in his love of those ideals there was too much fear. His See also:principal works are summarized by See also:Fetis as See also:thirty-two operas, twenty-nine church compositions, four cantatas and several instrumental pieces, besides the treatise on counterpoint and fugue. Good modern full scores of the two Requiems and of Les Deux Journees (the latter unfortunately without the See also:dialogue, which, however, is accessible in its fairly good See also:German See also:translation in the Reclam Bibliothek), and also of ten opera overtures, are current in the See also:Peters edition. Vocal scores of some of the other operas are not difficult to get. The great Credo is in the Peters edition, but is becoming scarce. The string quartets are in See also:Payne's See also:Miniature Scores.

It is very desirable that the operas, from Dsmophon onwards, should be republished in full score. See also E. Bellasis, Cherubini (1874) ; and an See also:

article with personal reminiscences by the composer See also:Ferdinand See also:Hiller, in See also:Macmillan's See also:Magazine (1875). A complete catalogue of his compositions (1773–1841) was edited by Bottee du Toulmon. (D. F.

End of Article: CHERUBINI, MARIA LUIGI CARLO ZENOBIO SALVATORE (1760-1842)

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