Transposition

Musique et Sciences Sociales

7 | 2018
Le prix de la musique

Music, Copyright, and Intellectual Property during

the French Revolution: A Newly Discovered Letter
from André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry
Rebecca Dowd Geoffroy-Schwinden

Electronic version
URL: http://journals.openedition.org/transposition/2057
ISSN: 2110-6134

Publisher
CRAL - Centre de recherche sur les arts et le langage

Electronic reference
Rebecca Dowd Geoffroy-Schwinden, « Music, Copyright, and Intellectual Property during the French
Revolution: A Newly Discovered Letter from André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry », Transposition [Online],
7 | 2018, Online since 15 September 2018, connection on 15 October 2018. URL : http://
journals.openedition.org/transposition/2057

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 Music, Copyright, and Intellectual Property during the French Revolution: A N... 1

Music, Copyright, and Intellectual

Property during the French
Revolution: A Newly Discovered
Letter from André-Ernest-Modeste
Grétry
Rebecca Dowd Geoffroy-Schwinden

Introduction
1 An onslaught of worries must have occupied composer André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry’s
mind when he sat down to write a letter to the National Assembly deputy, the Abbé
Sieyes, on October 16, 1790.1 Though Grétry is forgotten in many contemporary
narratives of music history, he boasted a celebrity status in late eighteenth-century Paris.
2
His opéra comiques not only dazzled the Parisian public, but also gained attention from
the queen. Grétry served as her personal music director and Marie Antoinette was even
godmother to one of his daughters. But as the French Revolution heated, both Grétry’s
personal and professional stars began to dim. During 1790 alone, one of his operas had
been deemed too sympathetic to the monarchy and his two daughters, Lucile and
Antoinette, both died tragically young.3 This newly discovered letter to Sieyes, written by
Grétry during the difficult year of 1790, does not appear in the authoritative collection of
the composer’s correspondences and has never been discussed by scholars. 4 Not only does
the letter shed light on the composer’s support of revolutionary agendas, but it also
provides insight into the tangible ramifications that musicians felt as a result of the socio-
economic changes caused by the political upheaval. The new music market that emerged
from the revolutionary rubble forced French musicians to settle questions about
copyright and intellectual property that had long been debated in eighteenth-century

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Europe. Grétry’s letter reveals a composer grappling with complex issues that traversed
legal, economic, and political realms.
2 There are two historical interpretations of eighteenth-century composers’ pursuit of
copyright protection. One perspective contends that an intellectual spirit of ownership
motivated composers to insist upon a moral right to dictate how their music circulated. 5
Ownership, however, could be defined both abstractly and tangibly. Thus, the debate
between copyright as a natural right of self-expression versus a property right of authors
or publishers persisted from the late seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries.6 The
other historical perspective, primarily purported by legal scholars, contends that as the
printed circulation of music became more profitable than royal patronage, privileges, and
ticketed performances, composers increasingly pursued ownership rights over their
share of profits from publication. These two views, referred to by legal scholar Michael W.
Carroll as intellectualist and materialist, respectively, represent the complex economic
and legal circumstances within which eighteenth-century composers worked. 7 The
transition from court to freelance musicianship occurred diffusely, as public concerts and
publishing gradually became more lucrative than contracted court positions. More
generally, the rise of copyright was directly linked to the transition away from
protectionist economic policies within mercantile economic frameworks, as Europe
slowly evolved into a free market system.8 Indeed, as early as Adam Smith’s Wealth of
Nations, proponents of a free market identified copyright as a necessary evil, required to
incentivize artistic production.9
3 Copyright was first guaranteed by law through the 1710 Statute of Anne in England. The
statute neither explicitly applied to music nor protected authors of printed works.
Instead, it guaranteed publishers the exclusive rights to print during a fourteen-year
period any work legally acquired. Composers began to enter copyright debates in England
later in the eighteenth century, particularly through the famous cases of Johann Christian
Bach and Charles Frederick Abel.10 Until the Revolution, the right to publish in France was
granted exclusively through royal privilege. Four main differences distinguish copyright
protection from protection by royal privilege: first, privilege is not automatically
guaranteed, but must be requested; second, a privilege granted could be revoked at any
time; third, privilege was granted not only for prints, but also for reprints; and fourth,
privileges did not extend across state borders. This last defining feature of privilege
caused numerous frustrations for music publishers throughout eighteenth-century
Europe, as some composers used this loophole to their advantage.11 Overall, though, in
the case of music, eighteenth-century printing privileges protected publishers more than
composers.
4 Privilege was the defining social characteristic of Old Regime French society, as nobility,
property, and nearly everything else was ultimately granted by the power of the king.
After the National Assembly was declared in June 1789 and the Bastille fell on July 14,
France began to reimagine a new nation. In this process, the night of August 4, 1789,
stands out as a defining moment in French political, legal, social, and economic history. 12
A revolutionary spirit moved National Assembly members to stand up, one by one, and
renounce their various privileges. Yet to renounce one’s privilege was to renounce much
more than mere titles. By the morning of August 5, 1789, the socio-economic structures of
France, from time immemorial, had been completely dismantled. New legal structures
had to be designed to facilitate all socio-economic exchange previously regulated through
royal privilege, printing and publication among them. When Grétry wrote to Sieyes, the

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two men had already witnessed a profound upheaval in the economic and legal structures
that had once dictated the French music market.

The Philosopher and the Composer

5 At the time that Sieyes received Grétry’s letter, he had followed an unlikely trajectory to
become one of the most profound political philosophers of the French Revolution. 13 His
father had served as a minor royal official in the town of Fréjus in the Provence region of
France. Sieyes attended the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris and also studied theology
at the Sorbonne. Although his academic performance at both institutions was
underwhelming, his personal papers reveal a brilliant mind grappling with philosophy,
natural history, and political and economic theories during the 1770s and 1780s. 14 The
clergy offered him a path to a secure livelihood, despite his generally negative view of
religion. Indeed, he described himself as an ecclesiastic-administrator rather than as a
priest.15 His impressive career trajectory, which began in 1775, was achieved through
patronage within the first estate. The Abbé de Césarge helped Sieyes to obtain a position
as secretary to a royal almoner, de Lubersac, who soon became bishop of Tréguier in
Brittany. After briefly serving as chaplain to the king’s aunt, Madame Sophie, in 1780,
Sieyes became vicor general of Chartres, then a canon of the cathedral chapter three
years later, and a delegate of the diocese to the Sovereign Chamber of the Clergy in Paris.
By 1788 he served as the Chartres chapter’s chancellor as well as a representative to the
provincial assembly of the Orléanais. Still, the ambitious cleric harbored resentment
toward the nobility who occupied the most prestigious positions of the first estate, often
at the expense of more deserving bourgeois clerics who were overlooked merely because
of their meager social connections.16
6 Sieyes exercised his assiduous study of philosophy and his critiques of Old Regime
privilege when he wrote three pamphlets in reaction to the political, economic, and fiscal
crises of 1788 and 1789 in France. The publications earned him celebrity in Paris and
invitations to salons, and by 1789 he found himself elected deputy to the Estates-General
as a representative of the Parisian third estate.17 In What is the Third Estate?, a pamphlet
published six months before the storming of the Bastille, Sieyes critiques the Old Regime
socio-economic hierarchy that divided subjects into three classes—clergy in the first
estate, nobility in the second, and everyone else in the third. Instead, he proffers that the
third estate, although always treated as “nothing,” was “everything” to the French nation
and deserved to become “something” politically.18 He proposed that citizens be grouped
into four classes based on their production of wealth for the collective good of the nation,
his own idea of political economy that combines Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s social contract
with Adam Smith’s economic acumen.19 In his position as deputy to the Estates-General,
Sieyes applied his acute political thought by suggesting that because the Third Estate held
true sovereignty, it unquestionably held the right to declare itself the National Assembly
without participation from the first and second estates. His leadership earned Sieyes
appointment to committees that would draft the new constitution and the Declaration of
Rights of Man.
7 Grétry, on the other hand, was already a prominent cultural figure when the Revolution
began. His opéra comiques had been wildly successful under the Old Regime, and
although he had not mounted any recent successes as the Revolution heated, he held a
long-established musical reputation in Paris. Biographers, musicologists, and historians

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have debated Grétry’s navigation of the Revolution, some asserting that a heavy-handed
government coerced his revolutionary compositions and others convinced that he was a
committed republican.20 While scholars have speculated about Grétry’s support for the
Revolution based on his musical output, his financial decisions, and his published Mémoirs
, which appeared first in 1789 and again revised in 1797, personal reflections by Grétry
from the height of the revolutionary turmoil remain sparse.21 Although he never enjoyed
a formal patronage relationship, during the 1770s and 1780s Grétry benefited from the
French monarchy’s support of opera and the admiration of Queen Marie Antoinette,
receiving stipends from the Opéra-Comique and a royal pension.22 Moreover, the royalist
interpretations of his 1790 opéra comique Pierre le Grand and pre-revolutionary “Ô
Richard, ô mon roi” colored the composer as politically conservative. By 1801, however,
Grétry thoroughly recast himself in his published writings as an even-handed republican.
23
The question of his true sentiments regarding the Revolution has nonetheless persisted.
8 Both Sieyes and Grétry, despite their mutual patriotic rhetoric, seemed to foster
ambivalent views about the Old Regime structures of privilege from which they had
benefited. Sieyes demonstrated open distain for the second estate, the nobility, which he
perceived as a lazy class that leached off the productive labor of the third estate. Yet his
views about privilege became murky concerning the first estate, technically his own
order. Sieyes viewed the clergy as a professional class that provided necessary services to
the nation, particularly as educators. Thus, he did not initially support the retraction of
the clerical tithe on the night of August 4, 1789. This hesitation instigated his gradual
decline from leadership in the National Assembly because he was perceived as
insufficiently radical, an ironic turn of events for the man who might be said to have
single-handedly created the political rhetoric that ushered in the Revolution. Grétry
enjoyed income from monarchical privilege until the Revolution. Although he also openly
critiqued the nobility in his post-revolutionary writings, he never disparaged the
monarchy.24 What the two men undoubtedly shared was a disdain for the second estate
and a view of man as “sociable not servile.”25 Grétry, like Sieyes, derided the servile status
that non-noble professionals endured under the Old Regime at the hands of the idle
nobility. Thus, when Grétry read Sieyes’ legislative proposal to grant ownership rights to
musicians, he likely saw a kindred spirit who valued the industry of professional
individuals.

Petitions and a Personal Letter

9 When Grétry’s letter arrived to Sieyes in late 1790, the composer’s name was likely
familiar to him not only for his opéra comiques, but also because Grétry’s signature
appears on an undated petition found among the private papers of Sieyes. 26 Composer
Nicolas-Marie Dalayrac also signed the petition, in addition to many librettists associated
with the Théâtre-Italien.27 Sieyes received the petition because he was a member of the
assembly’s committee on liberty of the press. The petition asks the committee to present
a law to the National Assembly that would protect the intellectual property rights of
writers and artists.28 Though undated, the document likely dates to the fall of 1789 or the
spring of 1790, because in January 1790, Sieyes indeed brought a report on issues of
liberty of the press and copyright to the constitutional committee. The petitioners either
contacted Sieyes as he compiled the report during the fall of 1789 or upon hearing of his
initiative in January 1790, with the hopes of encouraging the legislation to pass.

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10 The suggestions outlined by the artists in the petition manifest quite clearly in the
January 1790 report. The petitioners specifically demanded that no copies of their works
be printed or sold without explicit written permission from the author, and that upon the
author’s death, his or her heirs would inherit rights to the work for a specified period of
time. Though the legislation never passed in the form in which Sieyes presented it, the
proposal he submitted on January 20, 1790, represents a milestone in French legal history
on intellectual property rights and copyright.29 The report proposes to grant intellectual
property rights to individual creators of published works. Article XIV clearly states, “the
property of a work should be assured to its author by the law.”30 The language used in the
proposal seems to synthesize the competing natural right and property right perspectives
about creative work that had competed for a century in pre-revolutionary Europe.31 The
report also outlines details of this legal protection from counterfeit publications and
performances in four subsequent articles, and in article XIX, it explicitly states that the
preceding articles apply equally to printed music and theatre scores—a key element that
was absent from previous English laws on copyright. The petition Sieyes received from
Grétry and his associates similarly asserts in the final paragraph: “Musicians, as talented
associates with men of letters in the composition of works destined for the lyric theatre
and in the community of work, interests, and rights with them, solicit from the National
Assembly the same protections for their property and the same portion of profits from
their operas in the provincial theatres.”32
11 Another undated petition sent to the National Assembly by authors and editors of music
similarly focuses on the legal process of printing music, rather than on the abstract
notion of natural ownership rights over products of self-expression. This petition
proposes a detailed legal process by which music should be printed. It demands that
“authors of music” register works with the municipality and obtain a visa before selling
or ceding the manuscript.33 The editor would then also register the work with the
municipality to avoid duplicate printings. Engravers would subsequently have to request
proper paperwork from editors, proving that the author granted rights for the
publication. Next, compilers would need to obtain notarized permission if they wished to
change any notes or instrument parts in a score. The legislation would forbid printers
from moving forward with printing without a signed copy from the editor verifying that
these processes had been properly followed. The petitioners also hoped to ban imported
counterfeit works and to strictly regulate exportation. More than sixty musicians signed
the petition, from professors at the École royale de chant et de déclamation to
instrumental performers from the Théâtre Feydeau. Almost all of the signees would
become professors at the Paris Conservatoire when it formed five years later.
12 Grétry’s letter to Sieyes, dated October 16, 1790, was probably pursuant to the petitions
he had signed, as he was likely pleased to see the petition’s echoes in Sieyes’ proposals.
The short, four-page letter touches upon a host of legal and economic issues that
concerned musicians at the end of the eighteenth century, particularly as the music
market’s foundation abruptly changed from royal pensions and privileges to an open
market. The letter also offers a rare perspective on the composer’s personal perspective
about revolutionary ideology. Grétry ostensibly penned the letter to congratulate Sieyes
about his recent work on liberty of the press, and in particular, the implications of the
proposal for dramatic authors and composers. The letter may be read in its original
orthography in Appendix 1. What begins as a congratulatory note, however, soon exhibits

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a host of anxieties, both professional and personal, that weighed on Grétry’s mind as the
Revolution unfolded.
13 Grétry contrasts Sieyes’ proposals with those of the playwright Jean-François de La
Harpe, who had been outspoken about authors’ rights during this period.34 Grétry
critiques La Harpe’s prejudiced view that only men of letters are “dramatic authors”
because they write for the same theatre for which Racine and Molière had written—the
Comédie-Française.35 Grétry complains about how the Comédie-Française authors
consider the writers and composers of the Comédie-Italienne as mere actors (a social
group who suffered an unfavorable regard in eighteenth-century Paris).36 Indeed, during
his 1790 speeches, La Harpe had accused the sociétaires who ran the Comédie-Française of
feeding off of a system of theatrical privilege that deprived authors of their property. In
these arguments, however, La Harpe never addressed the rights of composers as authors
of stage productions.37 Grétry highlights Beaumarchais’ Figaro (1786) as an example of this
inequality between the two theatres, claiming that the play generated more revenue in a
few performances than his own opéra comique Richard, Cœur de Lion (1776) ever could. He
argues that as long as laws favored librettos and scripts over scores, artists who created
successful opéra comique would continue to struggle to survive—with “no bread” on the
table and “with but an écu from performances throughout the kingdom.”38 He encourages
Sieyes to continue considering the “big picture,” that is to say, the diverse creative
energies involved in successful stage productions.
14 Grétry raises concerns surrounding the composer’s natural right to his creative work as
well as property rights over performances. Interestingly, he does not broach the issue of
copyright at all. His concerns stemmed from the organization of Old Regime cultural
institutions, particularly tensions between the Opéra and Comédie-Française versus the
Comédie-Italienne and Théâtre Feydeau.39 Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais, who Grétry
singles out in his letter, had established the Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers
in 1777, motivated by some of the very issues Grétry raises in his 1790 letter. Indeed,
many of the artists who signed the petitions to Sieyes had been members of this group.
One of the primary concerns of the society was how provincial theatres continued a long
tradition of restaging comic works that first appeared in Paris without first requesting
permission from the authors.40 Additionally, tensions surrounding Italian translations of
French works lurked beneath these struggles, as writers and composers of new French
works for the stage believed that translations of Italian works drew revenue away from
the Opéra and Comédie-Française. The year after his letter to Sieyes, Grétry wrote a
pleading letter to Beaumarchais about the translation of Marsolliers de Vivetières and
Dalayrac’s Nina, ou La Folle par amour (1786), which was translated into Italian by Guiseppe
Carpani and set to music by Giovanni Paisiello. The Italian version received over two-
dozen performances at the Théâtre Feydeau from September 1791 until August 1792,
presumably without permission from Dalayrac.41 Grétry expresses dissatisfaction to
Beaumarchais that translations are undertaken and set to new music without permission
of either author—that is, neither the librettist nor the composer. He begs Beaumarchais
to continue pursuing their “cause” to the authorities.42 The increasing popularity of
comic works and Italian translations, coupled with the enhanced role of music in comic
productions, led librettists to include composers in their struggle for ownership over
stage works.
15 Composers like Grétry argued that, like dramatic authors, their works were born of
genius and thus should earn compensation when reproduced, whether through

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performance or print. Only weeks before the first law regarding copyright was passed in
January 1791, Grétry submitted a letter to the Journal de Paris, which quipped that if
theatres were going to continue performing his works without permission, they should at
least correct the music using a faithful engraved copy. He goes on to say, “The hope that
there will soon exist laws that make the property of artists respected makes me endure
this last injustice with patience.”43 Despite the arguments set forth by Sieyes and the
artists who encouraged him, the legislation that would eventually pass in January 1791
only protected the rights of libretto authors, and not explicitly the intellectual property
of all artists. Still, during the Revolution, even musicians, singers, and dancers from the
Opéra began to demand their share of performance profits, arguing that productions
were the fruit of these artists’ combined individual industry.44 Yet Mark Darlow has
demonstrated that arguments for the private interests of individual musicians and
composers counterbalanced perceptions of music as a public utility until 1794. 45 Property
rights are typically a private interest and, in France, music was increasingly viewed as a
public good. It is along this line of argument that proponents of a free market saw
copyright laws as a hindrance. The focus of Grétry’s letter on the status of composers
among men of letters and the unsanctioned performances of musical works indicate that
he, along with many of his peers, increasingly viewed ownership of musical works as a
moral, natural right, rather than merely a cut of revenues from print sales. This right
would be increasingly valuable, as composers would inevitably struggle to live on
publication revenues alone. During the summer of 1790, the French government
abolished the nobility and stripped the clergy of their unique rights, making them
government servants. With the two main patrons of music in France vanished, when
Grétry wrote his letter to Sieyes, he likely had this other “big picture” in mind—a music
market with no wealthy patrons, no privileges, and no pensions.

A Legal and Economic Legacy

16 A series of laws passed after Grétry’s appeals to Sieyes achieved some of the legal
protections for which composers had longed. The Le Chapelier Law, passed on June 14,
1791, champions private, individual interests. The remarkably short text had an immense
impact on French society by abolishing craft guilds and trade unions. Guilds represented
one of the pillars that upheld the absolutist, mercantile economic system of eighteenth-
century France. Their abolishment represented a firm stand for individual rights over
collective privilege. Moreover, it held a variety of ramifications for musicians. “The
freedoms granted to labor and industry by constitutional law” through Le Chapelier
ostensibly legalized the Physiocratic, that is, free market economic philosophy that had
gained traction in France since the 1770s.46 Article 1 bans guilds and hierarchical
structure within a trade or profession, which came to be viewed as an unfair collective
privilege of the stratified Old Regime social hierarchy. The law abolished the monarchy’s
monopoly over theatres, thus the right to open a theatre in Paris became available to
anyone who had the means. Theatres multiplied from three official sanctioned theatres in
1789 to 35 in 1792.47 This proliferation of performance venues caused a relaxation in
censorship since it was no longer the centralized authority representing the crown that
would determine repertoire choices. Theatres would instead negotiate repertoire
decisions within individual institutions and among various municipal bodies. Thus, more
parties and bureaucratic levels participated in the negotiation of repertoire decisions. 48

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The idea at the heart of Le Chapelier—the abolishment of collective privilege for the sake
of individual opportunity and enterprise—seemed to offer a profound opportunity for
musicians. As venues multiplied, new theatres and revolutionary festivals would require
more music. Unfortunately, the new venues also caused a flurry of unauthorized
performances in Paris.
17 The French laws of 1791 and 1793 would come to be considered the first copyright laws
that firmly applied to musicians as well as authors. Michel Thiollière identifies the law of
January 1791 as the first author’s right “with both a moral and patrimonial dimension.” 49
Through it, works became public property five years after the author’s death, until which
time authors and their heirs held exclusive rights. Thus, the law both acknowledged the
author’s work as personal property, and also that artistic works constituted a public good
that should be openly accessible in perpetuity. Although it was the first “right of
performance,” that is, authors had the right to dictate performance of their works during
their lifetime; this right was limited in time.50 The Law of 19–24 July, 1793, presented by
Joseph Lakanal to the legislative assembly, brought debates on authors’ rights to a close
in France for a time.51 The law granted authors, composers, painters, and draftsmen, the
right to the printing and distribution of their work, and rights transferred to their heirs
up to ten years after the authors’ death. Strict regulations demanded that two copies of
any printed work should remain in the Bibliothèque nationale or Cabinet des Estampes to
establish an authoritative collection of legally printed works in France.52 While this law
definitively granted copyrights to all auteurs, it failed to protect against unsanctioned
performances. It could be argued that composers had, as Grétry feared, fallen between
the cracks in the vigorous arguments between librettists, theatre entrepreneurs, and
actors.
18 Thoillière identifies a tension articulated in Isaac René Guy Le Chapelier’s summation of
the Law of 19–24 July, 1793, that persists between legal and economic perspectives into
the twenty-first century on music copyright:
Le Chapelier saw the work, the fruit of a writer’s thoughts as “the most sacred, the
most legitimate, the most unassailable, and […] the most personal of properties.”
[Le Chapelier] adds, “Although, as it is extremely just that men who cultivate the
domain of thoughts reap the fruits of their labor, during their life and for some
years after their death, no one must be able, without their consent, to possess the
product of their genius. But also, after an established period of time, public
property begins, and everyone should be able to print, publish the works that have
contributed to the enlightenment of the human mind.” This desire to reconcile
authors’ rights to their works with the existence of a public domain then leads to a
limit in time, thus a separation from property rights, which are, by nature,
perpetual.53
19 In his 1791 letter to Beaumarchais, Grétry acknowledged that Le Chapelier sympathized
with the plight of dramatic authors.54 From the law of 1791 regarding performance to the
law of 1793 regarding reproduction, however, the author became distanced from his work
as an owner, and became instead a medium for cultural heritage that could not possess
his creation in perpetuity. The author instead contributed to a collective national
heritage of genius.55 Carla Hesse has asserted that the goal of legislative actions in 1793
was to create an open commerce of ideas to balance public and private interest within a
free market system.56 Artists’ political identities were renegotiated “from a privileged
creature of the absolutist police state into a servant of public enlightenment.”57 Thus, it
was through neither a philosophical nor material concern for intellectual property that

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these laws were founded, but through a political concern of where artists and their work
would fit into a regenerated France. “Works of genius” in France were now shared
between individual artists, on one hand, and the public, on the other.58 Despite these
policies, an undated letter from Grétry, Dalayrac, and other dramatic authors sent during
the Consul government to the préfect de police, Dubois, demands that he stop the
unsanctioned performances of their works at second- and third-tier Parisian theatres.59

Conclusion
20 The French Revolution expedited the gradual transitions that had begun to take place in
the eighteenth-century music market. This abrupt change required a firm delineation of
not only who owned music, but also what music was—a text, a performance, or an
abstract ideal. Although copyright laws sought to grant composers ownership rights over
the publication of their works, Grétry’s letter reveals concerns about two other aspects of
ownership: rights over performances and rights as an artist over the abstract work.
Grétry wanted the art that he created to be considered equal to the creative output of
men of letters. These rights to ownership over self-expression, whether text,
performance, or art object, were matters of individual concern. The French laws of 1791
and 1793, the first copyright laws to explicitly apply to music, attempted to wed these
individual concerns to the view that art represents a public, collective good. These first
laws on music as property in fact codified the tension between the legal and economic
arguments surrounding music ownership. The former asserting the composer’s property
rights, the latter, the ideologies of a free market economy. On a personal level, Grétry’s
letter adds more evidence to debates about the composer’s involvement in the
Revolution. Grétry clearly supported the revolutionary causes that provided professional
opportunities in a changing legal and economic framework. Moreover, while scholars
have debated the intellectualist and materialist motivations of music copyright, Grétry’s
letter shows that both factors played into the professional concerns of composers at the
end of the eighteenth century. Because the privilege structures that supported musicians
in Old Regime France suddenly collapsed, it seems that musicians quickly realized that
mere publication revenues would not sustain a comfortable livelihood. Thus, musicians,
including Grétry, attempted to legally protect their work in an uncharted economic
system.

Appendix 1
21 Letter from André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry to the Abbé Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyes, dated
October 16, 1790, F-Pan, AP284 /8 (4). Original orthography and spelling have been
maintained despite errors.

[1] Monsieur.

j’ai lû dans le tems votre excellent ouvrage sur la liberté de la presse, tous les auteurs
dramatiques, poetes et musiciens en etoient satisfaits. j’arrive de la province et je lis
le discours de M. de la Harpe, qui n’ajoute rien a ce que vous avez fait. je vois
seulement que les gens de lettres se croyent seuls les auteurs dramatiques, je vois
qu’ils se croyent, au moins, [2] les cousins germains des Racines et des Molieres,

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parce qu’ils ont travaillé pour le meme theâtre. ils semblent meme nous exclure du
droit du proprieté en disant que les auteurs qui ont travaillés pour les italiens, sont
contens des comediens. il n’en est pas moins vrai, Monsieur, qu’une piece qui a
reussi aux francois, que Figaro, par exemple, a plus raporté a son auteur dans une
année, que [3] Richard cœur de Lyon ne raportera jamais. il n’en est pas moins vrai
qu’un artiste peut se faire une reputation meritée par trois ou quatre bons ouvrages
et n’avoir pas de pain ; et n’eut il qu’un écu aux representations de tout le Royaume
son existence est assurée.

continuez donc, Monsieur, a voir les choses en grand comme vous les avez vues, et
croyez qu’il ni a eu qu’un [4] cri du reconnoissance entre les artistes, pour approuver
votre excellent ouvrage que tous brulent de voir décreter. je suis avec respect

Monsieur,

Paris ce 16 8bre 1790

Mon adresse, rue Poissonniere

Vis a vis la rue Beauregard

Votre tres humble et tres obeissant serviteur

Grétry

BIBLIOGRAPHY
ALLEN-RUSEELL Ann VAN, “‘For Instruments Not Intended:’ The Second J.C. Bach Lawsuit”, Music &
Letters, vol. 83, no 1, 2002, p. 3-29.

ARNOLD , Robert James, Grétry’s Operas and the French Public: From the Old Regime to the Restoration,
Surrey and Burlington, VT, Ashgate, 2016.

BRIX Michel and LENOIR Yves (eds.), Douze chapitres inédits des « Réflexions d’un solitaire », Namur,
Presse Universitaire de Namur, 1993.

BROWN Gregory S., Literary Sociability and Literary Property in France, 1775–1793: Beaumarchais, the
Société des Auteurs Dramatiques, and the Comédie Française, Aldershot, England, Ashgate, 2006.

BUCHEZ Philippe-Joseph-Benjamin and ROUX Prosper Charles, Histoire parlementaire de la Révolution

française, vol. 4, Paris, Paulin, 1834.

CARROLL Michael W., “The Struggle for Music Copyright,” Florida Law Review vol. 57, n o 4,
September 2005.

CHARLTON David, Grétry and the Growth of Opéra-Comique, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
1986.

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 Music, Copyright, and Intellectual Property during the French Revolution: A N... 11

DARLOW Mark, Staging the French Revolution: Cultural Politics and the Paris Opéra, 1789–1794, Oxford
and New York, Oxford University Press, 2012.

DE RIOLS Emmanuel-Napoléon Santini, Guide de la propriété artistique et littéraire en France et à

l’étranger, Paris, Le Bailly, 1881.

DOYLE William, The Oxford History of the French Revolution, second edition, Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 2002.

FORSYTHE Murray, Reason and Revolution: The Political thought of the Abbé Sieyès, London and New
York, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1987.

FOX-GENOVESE Elizabeth, The Origins of Physiocracy: Economic Revolution and Social Order in Eighteenth-
Century France, Ithaca (NY), Cornell University Press, 1976.

FROIDCOURT Georges DE (ed.), La correspondance générale de Grétry, Brussells, Brepols, 1962.

GRÉTRY André-Ernest-Modeste, Mémoires, ou Essais sur la musique, Paris, 1789.

GRÉTRY André-Ernest-Modeste, Réflexions d’un solitaire, SOLVAY Lucien and CLOSSON Ernest (eds.),
New York, AMS Press, 1919 [1978].

GUILLIO Laurent, “Legal Aspects”, RASCH Rudolph (ed.), Music Publishing in Europe 1600–1900: Concepts
and Issues Bibliography, Berlin, Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2005.

HESSE Carla Alison, Publishing and Cultural Politics in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1810, Berkeley,
University of California Press, 1991.

KARRO Françoise, “Le musicien et le librettiste dans la nation : propriété et défense du créateur
par Nicolas Dalayrac et Michel Sedaine,” MORTIER Roland & HASQUIN Hervé (eds.), Études sur le XVIIIe
siècle: Fêtes et Musiques Révolutionnaires: Grétry et Gossec, vol. 17, Bruxelles, Éditions de l’Université
de Bruxelles, 1990.

KRETSCHMER Martin & KAWOHL Friedemann, “The History and Philosophy of Copyright”, FRITH
Simon & MARSHALL Lee (eds.), Music and Copyright, second edition, New York, Routledge, 2004.

LA HARPE Jean-François DE, Adresse des auteurs dramatiques à l’Assemblée nationale, prononcé par M. de
la Harpe, dans la séance du mardi soir 24 août [1790], n.p., n.d.

LA HARPE Jean-François DE, Discours sur la liberté du théâtre prononcé par M. de la Harpe le 17 décembre
1790 à la Société des amis de la Constitution, Paris, Imprimerie nationale, 1790.

MACE Nancy A., “Haydn and the London Music Sellers: Forster v. Longman & Broderip,” Music &
Letters, vol. 77, 1996, p. 527-541.

MACE Nancy A., “Music Copyright in Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century Britain,”
ALEXANDER Isabella and GÓMEZ-AROSTEGUI H. Tomás (eds.), Research Handbook on the History of
Copyright Law, Cheltenham (UK) and Northampton (MA), Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016, p.
139-158.

MCCLELLAN Michael E., “Battling over the lyric muse: expressions of revolution and
counterrevolution at the Théâtre Feydeau, 1789–1801”, Ph.D. Diss., UNC-Chapel Hill, 1994.

MEEK Ronald L., The Economics of Physiocracy: Essays and Translations, Cambridge, MA, Harvard
University Press, 1963.

SEWELL William H., A Rhetoric of Bourgeois Revolution: The Abbé Sieyes and What is the Third Estate?,
Durham and London, Duke University Press, 1994.

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 Music, Copyright, and Intellectual Property during the French Revolution: A N... 12

SEWELL William H., Work and Revolution in France: The Language of Labor from the Old Regime to 1848,
Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 1980.

SZENDY Peter, Listen: A History of our Ears, trans. by Charlotte MANDELL, New York, Fordham
University Press, 2008.

THIOLLIÈRE Michel, “IV. Les débats révolutionnaires: Droits d’auteur et domaine public,” in Projet
de loi relatif au droit d’auteur et aux droits voisins dans la société de l’information, rapport n o 308, 2005–
2006, fait au nom de la commission des affaires culturelles, déposé le 12 avril 2006, online.

TOWSE Ruth, “Copyright and Economics”, FRITH Simon and MARSHALL Lee (eds.), Music and Copyright
, second edition, New York, Routledge, 2004.

TSCHMUCK Peter, “Eighteenth-century Vienna”, TOWSE, Ruth (ed.), Copyright in the Cultural
Industries, Cheltenham (UK) and Northampton (MA), Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016.

VARDI Liana, The Physiocrats and the World of the Enlightenment, New York, Cambridge University
Press, 2012.

NOTES
1. Letter from GRÉTRY to SIEYES, 16 October 1790 (F-Pan, AP 284 /8 (4)). F-Pan is the RISM
sigla for the Archives nationales de France. Despite the common orthography of the name
Sieyes including a grave accent on the second e (“Sieyès”), he usually spelled his name
unaccented. For a detailed historical survey of the orthography, see SEWELL William H., A
Rhetoric of Bourgeois Revolution: The Abbé Sieyes and What is the Third Estate?, Durham and
London, Duke University Press, 1994, p. 2, n.2. Sewell’s orthography is adopted
throughout this article.
2. ARNOLD Robert James, Grétry’s Operas and the French Public: From the Old Regime to the
Restoration, Surrey and Burlington, VT, Ashgate, 2016.
3. Pierre le grand (1790) was noted for its positive portrayal of the monarchy (see following
article section). Grétry’s daughter, Lucile had died in March 1790. Antoinette was ill at the
time he wrote to Sieyes, and she soon died, on December 2, 1790. Grétry had already lost
his oldest daughter, Andriette-Marie-Jeanne (Jenny) in 1786 or 1787. CHARLTON David,
Grétry and the Growth of Opéra-Comique, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986, p.
204 and 324.
4. FROIDCOURT Georges DE (ed.), La correspondance générale de Grétry, Brussells, Brepols,
1962.
5. TSCHMUCK Peter, “Eighteenth-century Vienna,” TOWSE Ruth (ed.), Copyright in the
Cultural Industries, Cheltenham (UK) and Northampton (MA), Edward Elgar Publishing Inc.,
2016, p. 218.
6. KRETSCHMER Martin & KAWOHL Friedemann, “The History and Philosophy of Copyright”,
FRITH Simon & MARSHALL Lee (eds.), Music and Copyright, second edition, New York,
Routledge, 2004, p. 31.
7. CARROLL, Michael W., “The Struggle for Music Copyright,” Florida Law Review, vol. 57, no
4, September 2005, p. 914.
8. KRETSCHMER and KAWOHL, “The History and Philosophy of Copyright”, p. 25.

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 Music, Copyright, and Intellectual Property during the French Revolution: A N... 13

9. TOWSE, Ruth, “Copyright and Economics”, FRITH and MARSHALL (eds.), Music and Copyright
, p. 56–57.
10. MACE, Nancy A., “Music Copyright in Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century
Britain”, ALEXANDER Isabella, and GÓMEZ-AROSTEGUI H. Tomás (eds.), Research Handbook on
the History of Copyright Law, Cheltenham (UK) and Northampton (MA), Edward Elgar
Publishing Inc., 2016, p. 139-158; on Bach and Abel, specifically, see ALLEN-RUSEELL Ann
VAN, “‘For Instruments Not Intended:’ The Second J.C. Bach Lawsuit”, Music & Letters, vol.
83, no 1, 2002, p. 3-29.
11. See GUILLIO Laurent, “Legal Aspects,” RASCH, Rudolph (ed.), Music Publishing in Europe
1600–1900: Concepts and Issues Bibliography, Berlin, Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2005; and
MACE Nancy A., “Haydn and the London Music Sellers: Forster v. Longman & Broderip”,
Music & Letters 77 (1996), p. 527–541.
12. DOYLE William, The Oxford History of the French Revolution, second edition, Oxford,
Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 116-118.
13. FORSYTHE Murray, Reason and Revolution: The Political thought of the Abbé Sieyès, London
and New York, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1987, p. 3: “He is, more than
any other, the man who articulates the political theory of the French Revolution”.
14. The Private Papers of the Abbé Sieyès, F-Pan, AP284.
15. SEWELL, A Rhetoric of Bourgeois Revolution, p. 13.
16. Ibid., p. 14-15.
17. Ibid., p. 15-16.
18. Ibid., p. 41.
19. Sewell highlights Sieyes’ astute articulation of representative government, which
applies Rousseau’s conception of the social contract to representative government
manifested within an economy based on the division of labor (SEWELL, A Rhetoric of
Bourgeois Revolution, p. 77-80).
20. ARNOLD, Grétry’s Operas and the French Public, p. 113.
21. See FROIDCOURT (ed.), La correspondance générale de Grétry.
22. ARNOLD, Grétry’s Operas and the French Public, p. 124.
23. GRÉTRY André-Ernest-Modeste, Mémoires, ou Essais sur la musique, Paris, 1789, expanded
1797; De la vérité, ce que nous fûmes, ce que nous sommes, ce que nous devrions être, Paris, C.
Pougens, 1801; and Réflexions d’un solitaire, SOLVAY L. and CLOSSON E. (eds.), New York, AMS
Press, 1919/1978, and BRIX M. and LENOIR Y. (eds.), Namur, Presse Universitaire de Namur,
1993.
24. ARNOLD, Grétry’s Operas and the French Public, p. 112.
25. Sieyes, quoted in SEWELL, A Rhetoric of Bourgeois Revolution, p. 73. In his post-
revolutionary text, De la verité, Grétry derides the servitude that artists endured “as men”
at the hands of nobles under the Old Regime. See ARNOLD, Grétry’s Operas and the French
Public, p. 112.
26. “Honorables membres formant Le Comité pour la liberté de la presse,” undated (F-
Pan, AP284/8 (1)). Previous versions of the following two sections were published in
GEOFFROY-SCHWINDEN Rebecca Dowd, “Politics, the French Revolution, and Performance:

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 Music, Copyright, and Intellectual Property during the French Revolution: A N... 14

Parisian Musicians as an Emergent Professional Class, 1749–1802,” PhD diss., Duke

University, 2015.
27. During the revolutionary period the Comédie-Italienne and Opéra-Comique were the
same venue and the names could be used interchangeably. I use the titles interchangeably
based on how sources refer to the institution. The Comédie-Italienne had been merged
with the Opéra-Comique in 1762, and was officially titled as such, however, many
contemporaries refer to the theatre as either the Comédie-Italienne or Théâtre-Italien.
28. “Honorables membres formant Le Comité pour la liberté de la presse”, undated (F-
Pan, AP284/8 (1)).
29. “Rapport de M. l'abbé Sieyes sur la liberté de la presse, et projet de loi contre les délits
qui peuvent se commettre par la voie de l'impression, et par la publication des écrits et
des gravures”, BUCHEZ Philippe-Joseph-Benjamin and ROUX Prosper Charles, Histoire
parlementaire de la Révolution française, vol. 4, Paris, Paulin, 1834, p. 273.
30. Ibid., p. 283.
31. KRETSCHMER and KAWOHL, “The History and Philosophy of Copyright”, p. 35.
32. “Musiciens, comme associés de talens avec les Gens de lettres dans la composition des
ouvrages destinés aux Théâtres lyriques, et en communauté de travaux, d'intréts, et de
droits avec eux, sollicitent aupres de l'assemblée nationale la même protection pour leur
proprieté et la même part aux benefice de leurs opéra sur les Théâtres de Province,” in
“Honorables membres formant Le Comité pour la liberté de la presse”, undated (F-Pan, AP
284
/8 (1)).
33. Pétition adressée à l'Assemblée nationale par les auteurs et éditeurs de musique, Paris,
Laurens aîné, s.d.
34. Letter from GRÉTRY to SIEYES, 16 October 1790 (F-Pan, AP 284/8 (4)).
35. Ibid., p. 1-2.
36. Grétry’s nomenclature for the Opéra-Comique is maintained here. See n. 25.
37. LA HARPE Jean-François DE, Adresse des auteurs dramatiques à l'Assemblée nationale,
prononcé par M. de la Harpe, dans la séance du mardi soir 24 août [1790], n.p., n.d.; and Discours
sur la liberté du théâtre prononcé par M. de la Harpe le 17 décembre 1790 à la Société des amis de la
Constitution, Paris, Imprimerie nationale, 1790.
38. Letter from GRÉTRY to SIEYES, p. 3.
39. For background on these arguments, and on dramatic authors' struggle for
intellectual property rights, see BROWN Gregory S., Literary Sociability and Literary Property
in France, 1775–1793: Beaumarchais, the Société des Auteurs Dramatiques, and the Comédie
Française, Aldershot, England, Ashgate, 2006. For a more specific perspective on Dalayrac’s
role in these debates, see KARRO Françoise, “Le musicien et le librettiste dans la nation:
propriété et défense du créateur par Nicolas Dalayrac et Michel Sedaine,” MORTIER Roland
and HASQUIN Hervé (eds.), Études sur le XVIIIe siècle: Fêtes et Musiques Révolutionnaires: Grétry
et Gossec, Bruxelles, Éditions de l'Université de Bruxelles, 1990, 17: p. 9–52; and MCCLELLAN
Michael E., “Battling over the lyric muse: expressions of revolution and counterrevolution
at the Théâtre Feydeau, 1789–1801”, Ph.D. Diss., UNC-Chapel Hill, 1994.
40. See KRETSCHMER and KAWOHL, “The History and Philosophy of Copyright”, n. 3.
41. “La Nina o sia la pazza per amore”, Calendrier électronique des spectacles sous l’ancien
régime et sous la révolution, accessed July 15, 2016, http://www.cesar.org.uk/cesar2

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 Music, Copyright, and Intellectual Property during the French Revolution: A N... 15

42. GRÉTRY, Letter to Beaumarchais dated 18 August 1791, in FROIDCOURT (ed.), La

correspondance générale de Grétry, p. 158–159.
43. GRÉTRY, Letter to the Journal de Paris dated 1 January 1791, in Ibid., p. 155. “L’espoir
qu’il existera bientôt des lois qui feront respecter la propriété des artistes, me font
supporter avec patience cette dernier injustice.”
44. DARLOW Mark, Staging the French Revolution: Cultural Politics and the Paris Opéra, 1789–1794
, Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 78-79.
45. Ibid.
46. For an overview of Physiocratic philosophy see MEEK Ronald L., The Economics of
Physiocracy: Essays and Translations, Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press, 1963; FOX-
GENOVESE Elizabeth, The Origins of Physiocracy: Economic Revolution and Social Order in
Eighteenth-Century France, Ithaca (NY), Cornell University Press, 1976; SEWELL William H.,
Work and Revolution in France: The Language of Labor from the Old Regime to 1848, Cambridge
and New York, Cambridge University Press, 1980; and VARDI Liana, The Physiocrats and the
World of the Enlightenment, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2012.
47. MCCLELLAN, “Battling over the lyric muse”, p. 68-78.
48. See DARLOW, Staging the French Revolution, p. 63-182, on the bureaucratic negotiations
involved in Opéra repertory decisions from 1789 to 1794.
49. Ibid.
50. THIOLLIÈRE Michel, “IV. Les débats révolutionnaires: Droits d'auteur et domaine
public”, Projet de loi relatif au droit d'auteur et aux droits voisins dans la société de l'information,
rapport no 308, 2005–2006, fait au nom de la commission des affaires culturelles, déposé le
12 avril 2006, http://www.senat.fr/rap/l05-308/l05-3084.html (accessed 2 December
2014): “The law of 13–19 January 1791 marks the outcome of a struggle lead by
Beaumarchais and consacrates the right of performance of dramatic authors. It offers
the first rendition of authors rights with both a moral and patrimonial dimension. This
dedication is nonetheless indirect. The law of 1791 is first a text on “spectacles” that
begins by stating, in article 2, that ‘works of authors dead for five years or more are
public property’ before recognizing the right of authors and their heirs hold an exclusive
right to performance of their works limited in time.” (“La loi des 13-19 janvier 1791
marque l'aboutissement du combat mené par Beaumarchais et consacre le droit de
représentation des auteurs dramatiques. Elle apporte la première traduction d'un droit
d'auteur comportant à la fois une dimension morale et une dimension patrimoniale.
Cette consécration n'est cependant qu'indirecte. La loi de 1791 est d'abord un texte sur
« les spectacles » qui commence par poser, à l'article 2, que « les ouvrages des auteurs morts
depuis cinq ans et plus sont une propriété publique » avant de reconnaître aux auteurs et à
leurs ayants droit un droit exclusif sur la représentation de leurs oeuvres limité dans le
temps.”)
51. DE RIOLS Emmanuel-Napoléon Santini, Guide de la propriété artistique et littéraire en
France et à l'étranger, Paris, Le Bailly, 1881, p. 15.
52. Thiollière explains: “The law of 19–24 Jul 1793 has to the contrary a more general
scope. It establishes, in article 1, the principle that ‘authors of all written genres, composers of
music, painters and designers that carve pictures or designs, will enjoy for their entire life
exclusive rights to sell, to distribute their works in the territory of the Republic and to relinquish
the property in full or in part.’ It establishes thus a right to reproduction to authors for the

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 Music, Copyright, and Intellectual Property during the French Revolution: A N... 16

duration of their life, then to their heirs for five years.” (“La loi des 19-24 juillet 1793 a
en revanche une portée générale. Elle pose, dès son article 1er, le principe que « les auteurs
d'écrits en tout genre, les compositeurs de musique, les peintres et les dessinateurs qui feront
graver des tableaux ou dessins, jouiront durant leur vie entière du droit exclusif de vendre, faire
vendre, distribuer leurs ouvrages dans le territoire de la République et d'en céder la propriété en
tout ou en partie. » Elle consacre donc un droit de reproduction aux auteurs pour la durée
de leur vie, puis à leurs héritiers pendant cinq ans.”) Emphasis original.
53. Ibid., emphasis original. “Cependant, comme il est extrêmement juste que les hommes
qui cultivent le domaine de la pensée tirent quelques fruits de leur travail, il faut que,
pendant toute leur vie et quelques années après leur mort, personne ne puisse, sans leur
consentement, disposer du produit de leur génie. Mais aussi, après le délai fixé, la
propriété du public commence, et tout le monde doit pouvoir imprimer, publier les
ouvrages qui ont contribué à éclairer l'esprit humain.”
54. GRÉTRY, Letter to Beaumarchais dated 18 August 1791, in FROIDCOURT (ed.), La
correspondance générale de Grétry, p. 159.
55. See SZENDY Peter, Listen: A History of our Ears, trans. Charlotte Mandell, New York,
Fordham University Press, 2008, p. 18-24. Peter Szendy interprets the laws of 1791 and
1793 as the first steps toward a paradigm, codified later in the nineteenth century that
gave authors rights over the interpretation of their works. Szendy misreads these two
laws. They only attempted to give authors financial compensation for the performance of
their works (barely, according to Thiollière), not artistic rights over the staging of
productions.
56. HESSE Carla Alison, Publishing and Cultural Politics in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1810,
Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991, p. 125.
57. Ibid., p. 121.
58. Ibid., p. 124.
59. et al., Letter from dramatic authors to Dubois, undated (around 1800), in
GRÉTRY
FROIDCOURT (ed.), La correspondance générale de Grétry, p. 212.

ABSTRACTS
Before the French Revolution began in 1789, André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry composed
opéra comique that achieved great success both in Paris and abroad. As the revolutionary tides
swept toward republican musical aesthetics, the illustrious Grétry receded from the public eye
and briefly struggled to remain afloat. A newly discovered letter that he wrote during this period
to the famed Abbé Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyes offers a window into the effects that revolutionary
legislation had on musicians. Sieyes, author of the seminal revolutionary text “What is the Third
Estate?”, pioneered liberty of the press and authors’ rights legislation as a member of the French
National Assembly and National Convention. His efforts were realized when the first intellectual
property laws relating to music became codified in 1791 and 1793. In the 1790 letter, although
Grétry praises Sieyes’ policy proposals, he also raises personal and professional injustices

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 Music, Copyright, and Intellectual Property during the French Revolution: A N... 17

surrounding intellectual property rights to music. Grétry’s letter addresses his concerns about
the translations of stage works from French to Italian, the unsanctioned performances of opéras
and opéras comiques, and the general welfare of French musicians. While in his nineteenth-
century memoirs Grétry recasts himself as a republican, this letter from early in the Revolution
focuses on musicians’ more tangible concern to, in his own words, “place bread on the table.”
The letter invites an interrogation of how musicians approached the new patronage structure in
revolutionary France, which abruptly transferred from the court and church to the nation as a
result of political upheaval. A valuable addition to scholarly understanding of Grétry’s
participation in the Revolution, the letter simultaneously begs a rethinking of his contribution to
revolutionary causes and a reevaluation of musicians’ professional activities during the French
Revolution.

INDEX
Keywords: French Revolution, music copyright, Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyes, André-Ernest-Modeste
Grétry, opéra comique

AUTHOR
REBECCA DOWD GEOFFROY-SCHWINDEN
Rebecca Dowd Geoffroy-Schwinden is assistant professor of music history at the University of
North Texas College of Music. Her research on music in eighteenth-century France has been
published in Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture and Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and
Culture, and presented at conferences in the United States, Europe, and Asia. She received a Ph.D.
in musicology from Duke University in 2015, where her research was supported by several
endowed fellowships and she was inducted as a member of the Society of Duke Fellows.

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