André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry

André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry (baptized Feb. 8?, 1741, Liège [now in Belgium]—died Sept. 24, 1813, Montmorency, near Paris, France) was a French composer of operas, a leader in the evolution of French opéra comique from light popular plays with music into semiserious musical drama.

Grétry—who claimed he was born on February 11, though other accounts give February 8—studied singing, violin, and harmony. In 1761 he was sent to Rome to study composition. In 1766 he went to Geneva as a music teacher. There he met Voltaire, at whose suggestion he went to Paris in 1767. From 1768 he produced more than 50 works for the stage, including Le Tableau parlant (1769; “The Speaking Picture”) and Zémire et Azor (1771). His masterpiece, Richard Coeur de Lion (1784; “Richard the Lionheart”), is an early example of French Romantic opera.

Grétry’s music is noted for its finesse and melodic grace. He excelled in the development of dramatic scenes through melody and careful setting of words. He was widely honoured during his lifetime and received a pension from Napoleon in 1802. In 1789 he published his Mémoires; ou, essais sur la musique (“Memoirs; or, Essays on Music”).