Note 38 — I SOPHIE ARNOULD

Eighteenth-century composers appear to have been continually tinkering with this unfortunate opera, one of the most popular of the famous Lulli-Quinault series. When it was revived in January 1759, La Borde, Louis XV.’s musical valet-de-chambre, made various alterations in the music, “which disgusted equally the partisans of the old and the new schools.” In November 1771, Berton, one of the directors of the Opera, substituted some very inferior melodies of his own, which, if possible, were even less to the taste of the audience, and, eight years later, Johann Christian Bach, the eleventh son of the celebrated master, tried his hand at the score, likewise without success.