Poor old Piccinni died in 1800 at the age of seventy-two, and his tomb said that he was “Cher aux Arts et a l’Amitie.”  He left to his widow and six children no property but the memory of his genius.  Madame Piccinni was given a pension, but she proudly declined to accept it purely as a charity, and asked that four pupils of the Conservatoire be assigned to her for instruction, which was done.  Piccinni left two sons; the younger had some success as an opera writer, and the elder had a natural son, who was quite successful as a composer of operas.

Of the other participants in the Gluck-Piccinni feud there is not much to say.  Sacchini was a man of notoriously luxurious and voluptuous life, but I do not find that he married.  Salieri—­whom Gluck assisted in the most generous manner, even to the extent of having one of Salieri’s operas produced under his own name, and declaring the true author when it was a success—­was married, and had many daughters, who lavished upon him much affection.  Mehul was befriended by a Doctor Gastoldi, and married a daughter of his benefactor.  They had no children, but adopted a nephew.

It may be well here, while we are in the midst of opera composers, to take a glance at some of the predecessors of these men, beginning with the first of all opera composers, who, in his declaration of what opera should be and do, very curiously foreshadowed almost the exact words of Gluck and Wagner, revolutionists, who were really reactionists.

CHAPTER XII.

A FEW TUNESTERS OF FRANCE AND ITALY—­PERI, MONTEVERDE, ET AL.

Though it sounds strange to speak of the “invention” of opera, that is the word which may be applied to the work of Jacopo Peri and his friends.  They, however, thought of it rather as a revival of the manner of the ancient Greek tragedy, which was, in a sense, a crude form of Wagnerian recitation, with musical accompaniment.

As the English novel owes its origin to the commission given to Mr. Samuel Richardson to prepare a Ready Letter Writer, which he decided to put in the form of a story told in letters, so grand opera, which has almost rivalled the novel in the world’s favour, found its origin in a conference among certain aristocratic gentlemen, of the city of Florence, concerning the possibility of reviving part of Greek tragedy.  As an experiment, they prepared a small work called “Dafne” for private presentation at the palace of the Corsi.  Rinuccini was the first of a long and usually incompetent lineage of librettists.  The music was written by Peri and Caccini.  It was appropriate that they should have chosen the love affairs of the first musician Orpheus and the coy Daphne, seeing what a vast amount of love-making, pretended and real, the school of opera has handed down upon the world.  Reissman has reckoned it out that twenty thousand lovers are joined or are parted every night in the world’s theatres.