Although warmly acknowledged by Berlioz, Gounod, Saint-Saƫns, and Liszt, Bizet was still obliged during these years to undertake the musical hackwork that only the most successful French composers were able to avoid. |
The novelist Tobias Smollett, himself engaged much of his life in Grub Street hackwork, provided a memorable scene of a Grub Street dinner party in Humphry Clinker. |
He had in effect emancipated himself from hackwork, and could turn his attention to more congenial and ambitious labour. |