Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/718

Rh 69-} then exclusively cultivate.l by him. Had the young com- poser been successful in the ordinary opera seria, there is every reason to fear that the great dramatic reform, initiated by him, would never have taken place. The critical temper of the London public fortunately averted this calamity. It may also be assume-.1 that tl1e musical atmosphere of the liaglish capital, and especially the great works of Handel, were not without beneﬁcial inﬂuence upon the young com- 1))3EI'. But of still greater importance in this respect was
 * 1 short trip to Paris, where Gluck became for the first time

acquainted with the classic traditions and the dcclamatory style of the French opera——the future scene of his ow11 triumphs. Of these great issues little trace, however, is to be found in the works produced by Gluck during the ﬁfteen years after his return from England. His ﬁrst opera written for Vienna, called Lft Semz'ra2m'r_Ie reconosciuta (1748), is again an opera seria of the ordinary kind, and little more can be said of Telemacco (Reine, 1749), La C'lemcn.za di Tito (Naples, 1751), and numerous occasional pieces of a more or less serious kind written for the court at Vienna, where Gluck settled permanently in 1756, having two years previously been appointed court chapel-master, with a salary of 2000 florins, by the empress Maria Theresa. On a previous occasion he had received the order of knight- hood from the pope, consequent; upon the successful produc- tion of two of his works in Rome. During the long inter- v-al from 1756 (the date of his opera I1 I36 Pastore) to 1762, Gluck seems to have matured his plans for the reform of the opera; and, barring a ballet named, like 1Iozart’s opera, 1) m G'£ovam_u', and some airs azouveau.-2c to French words with pianoforte accompaniment, no compositions of any im- portance have to be recorded. His piéce d’ occasion, I l Trionfo di Clelia, produced at Bologna in 1762, is still written in the old manner. But his 2_-feo ed J:'un'dice, played in October of the same year at Vienna, shows that the composer had entered upon a new career. It is signiﬁcant that in the original score the work is de- scribed as a “dramma per musica” or music-drama, the title opera seria being avoided. Gluck also for the ﬁrst time had deserted Metastasio, and Raniero Calzabigi fur- nished the highly dramatic book of Orplteus. Quite apart ‘from its signiﬁcance in the history of dramatic music, Orpheus is a work which, by its intrinsic beauty, commands the highest admiration, and does not fail to impress a11 audience, even now, wherever an adequate representative of the title-part can be found. Orpheus’s air, “ Che faro,” is known to everyone; but ﬁner even is the great scena in which the poet’s song softens even the ombre sdegnose of Tartarus. The ascending passion of the entries of the solo (Dch ! placatevi, Mille penc; Men tiranne), interrupted by the harsh but gradually-softening exclamations of the Furics, is of the highest dramatic effect. These melodies, moreover, as well as every declamatory passage assigned to Orpheus, are made subservient to the purposes of dramatic characteri- zation; that is, they could not possibly be assigned to any other person in the drama, any more than Hamlet’s mono- logue could be spoken by Polonius. It is in this power of musically realizing a character—a power all but unknown in the opera of his day that Gluck’s genius as a dramatic composer is chieﬂy shown. After a short relapse into his earlier manner, Gluck followed up his Orpluus by a second classical music-drama named Alceste, and ﬁrst produced in December 1767 at Vienna. In his dedication of the score to the grand-duke of Tuscany, Gluck has fully expressed his aims, as well as the reasons for his total brcach with the old traditions. “I shall try,” he writes, “to reduce music to its real function, that of seconding poetry by intensifying the expression of sentiments and the interest of situations without interrupting the action by needless ornament. I GLUCK the heat of the dialogue, to wait for a tedious ritornel, nor do I allow him to stop on a sonorous vowel, in the middle of a phrase, in order to show the nimblcncss of abeantiful voice in along crulen:r¢.” Such theories, and the stern consist- ency with which they were carried out, were little to the taste of the pleasure-loving Viennese; and the success of Alcesto, as well as that of 1’ur[.s'uml Ileluzu, which followed two years later, was not such as (iluck had desired and ex- pected. He therefore eagerly accepted the chance of tind- ing a home for his art in the centre of intellectual and more especially dramatic life, l‘aris. Such a chance was opened to him through M. Bailli du Rollct, attache of the French embassy at Vienna, aml a musical amateur who entered into Gluck’s ideas with enthusiasm. A classic opera for the Paris stage was accordingly projected, and the friends ﬁxed upon Itacine’s I/;Iu'_qém'e en, Aulitle. After some difficulties, overcome chiefly by the intervention of Gluck’s former pupil thc dauphiness Marie Antoinette, the opera was at last accepted and performed at the Academic dc Musiqne, on April 19, 1774. The great import:mce of the new work was at once perceived by the musical ama- teurs of the French capital, and a hot controversy on the merits of IpIu'_r/(nic ensued, in which some of the leading literary men of France took part. Amongst Gluck’s opponents were not only the admirers of Italian vocalization and swcctncss, but also the adherents of the carlicr French school, who refused to see in Cluck the legitimate suc- cessor of Lulli aml Ramcau. Marmontel, Laharpe, and D’Alembert were opponents, the Abbe Arnaud and others the enthusiastic friends of tlic German master. Rousseau took a peculiar position in the struggle. In his early writings he is a violent partisan of Italian music, but when Gluck himself appeared as the French champion, he will- ingly acknowledged the great composer’s genius. In a letter to Dr Burney, written shortly before his death, lousscau gives a close and appreciative analysis of the Alrcstc, the ﬁrst Italian version of which Gluck had submitted to him for suggestions ; and when, on the ﬁrst performance of the picce not being received favourably by the I’-arisian audi- encc, the composer exclaimed, “_-llccstc est tonibce," Rous- seau is said to have comforted him with the flattering Lon- mot, “ Oui, mais clle est tombée du cicl.” The contest received a still more personal character when Piccini, a celebrated and by no means incapable composer, came to Paris as the champion of the Italian party. Into the details of the historic battle between Gluckists and Piccinists this is 11ot the place to enter. Volumes have been written on the subject, and the whole affair has been denounced as a sign of the frivolity of the eighteenth century. But to those interested in music and in the drama, the question whether the vocal virtuoso or the true dramatic artist should reign on the lyrical stage is by no means without import- ance ; although, perhaps, the gentlemen of thc quecn’s court, and their friends who applaudctl hcr countryman and pro- tcgé Gluck from “le coin dc la rcinc," hardly looked upon the matter in so serious a light. The victory at last rc- maincd, by common consent (including, it is said, l’ircini’s own), with Gluck. The succession of the opcras written for Paris is the following :—0rp/aée et ]]u7'_2/dire (the 0:;/‘co rc- written), 177-1; Jlceste (also an adaptation of the earlier work, 1776); Armide, 1777; Ip/u'_«/ézzic en 7'r.uzn'r.lc°, 1779. Some minor compositions, written partly by desire of the queen for the court festivals, it would be needless to men- tion. Gluck was engaged upon an opera Les 1)cuuu'¢les when an attack of apoplcxy compelled him to relinquish all thoughts of work. He left Paris for Vienna, where helivcd for several years in digniﬁed lcisurc, disturbed only by his declining health. He died on .'ovcmber 18, 1787. To the general character of Gluck's music some allusion have accordinglv taken care not to interrupt the singer in 1 has already been made. He was essentially a dramatic