Offenbach did not belong to that heroic strain to which success
is the least of its cares. So he adopted this mannerism, and often his
ingeniously turned and charming couplets are ruined by this silly
absurdity now gone out of fashion.
Furthermore, he wrote badly, for his early education was neglected. If
the _Tales of Hoffman_ shows traces of a practised pen, it is because
Guiraud finished the score and went out of his way to remedy some of
the author's mistakes. Leaving aside the bad prosody and the minor
defects in taste, we have left a work which shows a wealth of invention,
melody, and sparkling fancy comparable to Gretry's.
Gretry was no more a great musician than Offenbach, for he also wrote
badly. The essential difference between the two was the care, not only
in his prosody but also in his declamation, which Gretry tried to
reproduce musically with all possible exactness. He overshot the mark in
this for he did not see that in singing the expression of a note is
modified by the harmonic scheme which accompanies it. It must be
recognized, in addition, that many times Gretry was carried away by his
melodic inventiveness and forgot his own principles so that he relegated
his care for declamation to second place.
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