 A new generation of composers appeared, led by Étienne Méhul and the Italian-born Luigi Cherubini.They applied Gluck's principles to "opéra comique", giving the genre a new dramatic seriousness and musical sophistication.The stormy passions of Méhul's operas of the 1790s, such as "Stratonice" and "Ariodant", earned their composer the title of the first musical Romantic.