The musical education of Gretry (1741-1831) was perhaps more elaborate than that of Monsigny, but it fell very far short of profundity.  His music excels in grace and humour, and he rarely treated serious subjects with success.  Such works as ‘Le Tableau Parlant,’ ‘Les Deux Avares,’ and ‘L’Amant Jaloux’ are models of lightness and brilliancy, whatever may be thought of their musicianship.  ‘Richard Coeur de Lion’ is the one instance of Gretry having successfully attempted a loftier theme, and it remains his masterpiece.  The scene is laid at the castle of Duerrenstein in Austria, where Richard lies imprisoned, and deals with the efforts of his faithful minstrel Blondel to rescue him.  In this work Gretry adapted his style to his subject with wonderful versatility.  Much of the music is noble and dignified in style, and Blondel’s air in particular, ‘O Richard, O mon roi,’ has a masculine vigour which is rarely found in the composer’s work.  But as a rule Gretry is happiest in his delicate little pastorals and fantastic comedies, and, for all their slightness, his works bear the test of revival better than those of many of his more learned contemporaries.  Philidor (1726-1797) was almost more famous as a chess-player than as a composer.  He had the advantage of a sound musical education under Campra, one of the predecessors of Rameau, and his music has far more solid qualities than that of Gretry or Monsigny.  His treatment of the orchestra, too, was more scientific than that of his contemporaries, but he had little gift of melody, and he was deficient in dramatic instinct.  He often visited England, and ended by dying in London.  One of the best of his works, ‘Tom Jones,’ was written upon an English subject.  Philidor was popular in his day, but his works have rarely been heard by the present generation.

With Gretry the first period of opera comique may be said to close; indeed, the taste of French audiences had begun to change some years before the close of the eighteenth century.  The mighty wave of the Revolution swept away the idle gallantries of the sham pastoral, while Ossian newly discovered and Shakespeare newly translated opened the eyes of cultivated Frenchmen to the possibilities of poetry and romance.  At the same time, the works of Haydn and Mozart, which had already crossed the frontier, disturbed preconceived notions about the limits of orchestral colouring, and made the thin little scores of Gretry and his contemporaries seem doubly jejune.  The change in public taste was gradual, but none the less certain.  The opening years of the nineteenth century saw a singular evolution, if not revolution, in the history of opera comique.