ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the extent to which the impact on audiences of Gretry's operascomiques was justified and explained in music theory. In the case of Gretry, this exercise has a particular relevance, since he was more than usually concerned to explain his philosophy and methodology in print, allowing one to judge the responses of spectators in the light of compositional intention. While other composers of his time turned to prose, most often to elaborate on some particular point of theory or aesthetics, Gretry's writings offer an extraordinary level of insight into his conception of the relationship between a composer and his listeners. Gretry's writings are of only mixed value to the biographer; behind the overt frankness, there was a tendency to elide facts and leave whole areas of his activity- almost everything, in fact, bearing on his career outside the opera house, in the deepest shadow.
