1729. =Guiseppe Sarti= (Faenza). Produced many operas of great excellence, which are forgotten to-day. His triumphs were won in such contrasted centres as Milan and St. Petersburg. 1729. =P. A. Monsigny= (St. Omer). Composed many forgotten operas; while possessing melodic gifts he had little training, and his scoring and constructive powers were weak. His best works are _Le Déserteur_ (1769), and _Félix ou l’enfant trouvé_ (1777). 1732. =Joseph Haydn= (Rohrau), 1732-1809, the master who excelled in so many branches of the art, made no serious claim to be a composer of opera. A few works were written by him for the stage while he was attached to Count Esterhazy, but they can in no way compare with his labours in other fields, nor had they any bearing upon the growth and development of opera as an art form. 1733. =F. J. Gossec= (Hainault). A Belgian composer of some repute in his day; his operas were mostly written for Paris. 1734. =A. M. G. Sacchini= (Pozzuoli), 1734-86. A composer of dramatic gifts much influenced by Gluck, whose compositions quite overshadow those of his follower. Sacchini wrote over forty operas. 1739. =K. D. von Dittersdorf= (Vienna). Composed very many operas, both serious and light. He is best known by the Singspiel, _Doctor und Apotheke_ (1786). 1741. =A. E. M. Grétry= (Liége). A fertile composer, very gifted for the writing of opera comique, wrote fifty operas for Paris. He had a knack of cleverly illustrating the stage situation, and although his harmonies were so thin that it was said that one could “draw a coach and four between the bass and the first fiddle,” he yet seems to have been more apt in his musical conceptions than many a more cultured musician. 1741. =Giovanni Paisiello= (Tarento). May be reckoned amongst the most prolific of Italian composers of his period. He was one of the first to introduce the concerted finale into serious opera, this form having hitherto been almost entirely confined to light opera. His _Barber of Seville_ became so famous as almost to wreck the production of an opera under the same title by Rossini. 1743. =Lucretia Agujari= (Ferrara). Was a singer of extraordinary ability and compass. 1745. =Ludwig Fischer= (Mainz). Also a singer of great compass, having a round bass voice of two and a half octaves. He was a friend of Mozart’s, and sang in the production of _Entführung aus dem Serail_. [Music]