From the age of twelve to eighteen, however, he attended the Jesuit school at Kommotau in the neighborhood of the Lobkowitz estate and there, besides receiving a good general education, he learned to sing and play the violin and the 'cello, as well as the clavichord and organ. In 1732 he went to Prague and studied under Czernohorsky.[8]Here he was soon able to earn a modest living—a welcome circumstance, for there were six younger children at home, for whom his father provided with difficulty. In Prague he gave lessons in singing and on the 'cello; he played and sang in various churches; and on holidays made the rounds of the neighboring country as a fiddler, receiving his payment in kind, for the good villagers, it is said, often rewarded him with fresh eggs. Through the introductions of his patron, Prince Lobkowitz, it was not long before he obtained access to the homes of the music-loving Bohemian nobility, and when he went to Vienna in 1736 he was hospitably received in his protector’s palace. Prince Lobkowitz also made it possible for him to begin the study of composition. In Vienna he chanced to meet the Italian Prince Melzi, who was so pleased with his singing and playing that he made him his chamber musician and took him with him to Milan. Here, during four years, from 1737 to 1741, Gluck studied the theory of music under the celebrated contrapuntist Giovanni Battista Sammartini, and definitely decided upon musical composition as a career.
His studies completed, he made his debut as a creative artist at the age of twenty-seven, with the operaArtaserse(Milan, 1741), set to a libretto of Metastasio. It was the first of thirty Italian operas, composition of which extended over a period of twenty years, and which are now totally forgotten. The success ofArtasersewas instantaneous. We need not explain the reasons for this success, nor the circumstances that, together with its fellows, fromDemofoontetoLa finta schiava, it has fallen into oblivion.
His Italian successes procured for him, however, an invitation in 1745 to visit London and compose for the Haymarket. Thither he went, and produced a new opera,La caduta de’ giganti, which, though it earned the high praise of Burney, was coldly received by the public. A revised version of an earlier opera,Artamene, was somewhat more successful, butPiramo e Tisbe, apasticcio(a kind of dramatic potpourri or medley, often made up of selections from a number of operas), fell flat. ‘Gluck knows no more counterpoint than my cook,’ Handel is reported to have said—but then, Handel’s cook was an excellent bassist and sang in many of the composer’s own operas. Counterpoint, it is true, was not Gluck’s forte, and the lack of depth of harmonic expression which characterized his early work was no doubt due to the want of contrapuntal knowledge. Handel quite naturally received Gluck with a somewhat negligent kindness. Gluck, on the other hand, always preserved the greatest admiration for him—we are told that he hung the master’s picture over his bed. Not only the acquaintance of Handel, whose influence is clearly felt in his later works, but the musical atmosphere of the English capital must have been of benefit to him.
Perhaps the most valuable lesson of his life was the London failure ofPiramo e Tisbe. He was astonished that thispasticcio, which presented a number of the most popular airs of his operas, was so unappreciated. After thinking it over he may well have concluded that all music properly deserving of the name should be the fitting expression of a situation; this vital quality lacking, in spite of melodic splendor and harmonic richness and originality, what remained would be nomore than a meaningless arrangement of sounds, which might tickle the ear pleasantly, but would have no emotional power. A short trip to Paris afforded him an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the classic traditions of the French opera as developed by Lully and Rameau. Lully, it will be remembered, more nearly maintained the ideals of the early Florentines than their own immediate successors. In his operas the orchestra assumed a considerable importance, the overture took a stately though conventional aspect. The chorus and the ballet furnished a plastic background to the drama and, indeed, had become integral features. Rameau had added harmonic depth and variety and given a new charm to the graceful dance melodies. Gluck must have absorbed some or all of this; yet, for fifteen years following his visit to London, he continued to compose in the stereotyped form of the Italian opera. He did not, it is true, return to Italy, but he joined a travelling Italian opera company conducted by Pietro Mingotti, as musical director and composer. One of his contributions to its répertoire wasLe nozze d’Ercole e d’Ebe, which was performed in the gardens of the Castle of Pillnitz (near Dresden) to celebrate the marriage of the Saxon princess and the Elector of Bavaria in June, 1747. How blunted Gluck’s artistic sense must have been toward the incongruities of Italian opera is shown by the fact that the part of Hercules in this work was written for a soprano and sung by a woman. In others the rôles of Agamemnon the ‘king of men,’ of demigods and heroes were trilled by artificial sopranos.
After sundry wanderings Gluck established himself in Vienna, where in 1748 hisSemiramide reconosciutahad been performed to celebrate the birthday of the Empress Maria Theresa. It was anopera seriaof the usual type and, though terribly confused, it revealed at times the power and sweep characteristic of Handel.
In Vienna Gluck fell in love with Marianna Pergin, the daughter of a wealthy merchant whose father would not consent to the marriage. The story that his sweetheart had vowed to be true to him and that he wandered to Italy disguised as a Capucin to save expenses in order to produce hisTelemaccofor the Argentina Theatre in Rome has no foundation. But at any rate the couple were finally married in 1750, after the death of the relentless father. This signalized the close of Gluck’s nomadic existence. With his permanent residence in Vienna began a new epoch in his life. Vienna was at that time a literary, musical, and social centre of importance, a home of all the arts. The reigning family of Hapsburg was an uncommonly musical one; the empress, her father, her husband (Francis of Lorraine), and her daughters were all music lovers. Maria Theresa herself sang in the operatic performances at her private theatre. Joseph II played the 'cello in its orchestra. The court chapel had its band, the cathedral its choir and four organists. In the Hofburg and at the rustic palace of Schönbrunn music was a favorite diversion of the court, cultivated alike by the Austrian and the Hungarian nobility. The royal opera houses at Launburg and Schönbrunn placed in their service a long series of the famous opera composers.
Semiramidehad recommended its composer to the favor of Maria Theresa, his star was in the ascendant. In September, 1754, his comic operaLe Chinese, with its tragic-comic ballet,L’Orfano della China, performed at the countryseat of the Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen in the presence of the emperor and court, gave such pleasure that its author was definitely attached to the court opera at a salary of two thousand ducats a year. His wealthy marriage and his increasing reputation, instead of tempting him to indulge in luxurious ease, spurred him to increased exertions. He added to thesum total of his knowledge by studies of every kind—literary, poetic, and linguistic—and his home became a meeting place for thebeaux espritsof art and science. He wrote several more operas to librettos by Metastasio, witnessed the triumph of two of them in Rome, after which he was able to return to Vienna, acavaliere dello sperone d’oro(knight of the golden spur), this distinction having been conferred upon him by the Pope. Henceforth he called himselfChevalierorRitter(notvon) Gluck.
For the sake of continuity we are obliged at this point to resume the thread of our remarks concerning theopera buffaof Pergolesi. In 1752, about the time of Gluck’s official engagement at the Vienna opera, an Italian troupe of ‘buffonists’ introduced in ParisLa serva padronaandIl maestro in musica(Pergolesi’s only other comic opera). Their success was sensational, and, having come at a psychological moment, far-reaching in results, for it gave the impulse to a new school, popular to this day—that of the Frenchopéra comique, at first calledopera bouffon.
The latter part of the eighteenth century had witnessed the birth of a new intellectual ideal in France, essentially different from those associated with the preceding movements of the Renaissance and the Reformation. Neither antiquity nor the Bible were in future to be the court of last instance, but judgment and decision over all things was referred to the individual. This theory, and others laid down by the encyclopedists—the philosophers of the time—reacted equally on all the arts. New theories concerning music were advanced by laymen. Batteaux had already insisted that poetry, music, and the dance were, by very nature, intended to unite; Diderot and Rousseau conceived the idea of the unified work of art. Jean Jaques Rousseau,[9]the intellectual dictator, who laid a rather exaggerated claim to musical knowledge, and the famous satirist, Baron Melchior Grimm, now began a literary tirade against the old musical tragedy of France, which, like the Italian opera, had become paralyzed into mere formulas. Rousseau, who had shortly before written a comic opera,Le devin du village(The Village Seer), in French, now denounced the French language, with delightful inconsistency, as unfit to sing; Grimm in his pamphlet,Le petit prophète de Boehmisch-Broda, threatened the French people with dire consequences if they did not abandon French opera for Italianopera buffa.[10]This precipitated the widespread controversy between Buffonists and anti-Buffonists, known as theGuerre des bouffons, which, in this age of pamphleteers, of theorists, and revolutionary agitators, soon assumed political significance. The conservatives hastened to uphold Rameau and the cause of native art; the revolutionists rallied to the support of the Italians. Marmontel, Favart, and others set themselves to write after the Italian model, ‘Duni brought from Parma hisNinette à la courand followed it in 1757 withLe peintre amoureux;Monsigny[11]lefthis bureau and Philidor[12]his chess table to follow the footsteps of Pergolesi; lastly came Grétry from Rome and killed the old French operatic style withLe Tableau parlantandZémire et Azor!’ The result was the production of a veritable flood of pleasing, delightful operettas dealing with petty love intrigues, mostly of pastoral character, in place of the stale, mythological subjects common to French and Italian opera alike. The new school quickly strengthened its hand and improved its output. Its permanent value lay, of course, in the infusion of new vitality into operatic composition in general, a rejuvenation of the poetic as well as musical technique, the unlocking of a whole treasure of subjects hitherto unused.
Gluck at Vienna, already acquainted with French opera, was quick to see the value of this newgenre, and he produced, in alternation with his Italian operas, a number of these works, partly with interpolations of his own, partly rewritten by him in their entirety. Among the latter class must be namedLa fausse esclave(1758);L’île de Merlin(1758);L’arbre enchantée(1759);L’ivrogne corrigé(1760);Le cadi dupé(1761); andLa recontre imprévue(1764). As Riemann suggests, it is not accidental that Gluck’s idea to reform the conventionalized opera dates from this period of intensive occupation with the Frenchopéra bouffon. There is no question that the simpler, more natural art, and the genuineness and sincerity of the comic opera were largely instrumental in the fruition of his theories. His only extended effort during the period from 1756 to 1762 was a pantomimic ballet,Don Giovanni, but the melodramas and symphonies (or overtures) written for the private entertainment of the imperial family, as well as seven trio sonatas, varied in expression and at times quite modern in spirit, also date from this time. It is well to remember also that this was a period of great activity in instrumental composition; that the Mannheim school of symphonists was just then at the height of its accomplishment.
Gluck’s first reform opera,Orfeo ed Euridice, appeared in 1762. The young Italian poet and dramatist, Raniero da Calzabigi, supplied the text. Calzabigi, though at first a follower of Metastasio, had conceived a violent dislike for that librettist and his work. A hot-headed theorist, he undoubtedly influenced Gluck in the adoption of a new style, perhaps even gave the actual initiative to the change. The idea was not sudden. We have already pointed out how the later Neapolitans had contributed elements of reform and had paved the way in many particulars. They had not, however, like Gluck, attacked the root of the evil—the text. Metastasio’s texts were made to suit only the old manner; Calzabigi’s were designed to a different purpose: the unified, consistent expression of a definite dramatic scheme. In the prefaces which accompanied their next two essays in the new style,AlcesteandParide, Gluck reverted to almost the very wording of Peri and Caccini, but nevertheless no reaction to the representative style of 1600 was intended. Though he spoke of ‘forgetting his musicianship,’ he did not deny himself all sensuous melodic flow in favor of aparlandorecitative. Too much water had flowed under the bridges since 1600 for that. Scarlatti and his school had not wrought wholly in vain. But the coloratura outrage, the concert-opera, saw the beginning of its end. Theda capoaria was discarded altogether, the chorus was reintroduced, and the subordination of music to dramatic expression became the predominating principle. Artificial sopranos and autocraticprimedonnecould find no chance to rule in such a scheme; their doom was certain and it was near. In the war that ensued, which meant their eventual extinction, Gluck found a powerful ally in the person of the emperor, Francis I.
In that sovereign’s presenceOrfeowas first given at theHofburgtheaterin Vienna. Its mythological subject—the same that Ariosti treated in hisfavoloof 1574, that Peri made the theme of his epoch-making drama of 1600, that Monteverdi chose for his Mantuan debut in 1607—was surely as appropriate for this new reformer’s first experiment as it was suited to the classic simplicity and grandeur of his music. The opera was studied with the greatest care, Gluck himself directing all the rehearsals, and the participating artists forgot that they were virtuosi in order better to grasp the spirit of the work. It was mounted with all the skill that the stagecraft of the day afforded. Although it did not entirely break with tradition and was not altogether free of the empty formulas from which the composer tried to escape, it was too new to conquer the sympathies of the Viennese public at once. Indeed, the innovations were radical enough to cause trepidations in Gluck’s own mind. His strong feelings that the novelty ofOrfeomight prevent its success induced him to secure the neutrality of Metastasio before its first performance, and his promise not to take sides against it openly.
Gluck’s music is as fresh to-day as when it was written. Its beauty and truth seemed far too serious to many of his contemporaries. People at first said that it was tiresome; and Burney declared that ‘the subordination of music to poetry is a principle that holds good only for the countries whose singers are bad.’ But after five performances the triumph ofOrfeowas assured and its fame spread even to Italy. Rousseau said of it: ‘I know of nothing so perfect in allthat regards what is called fitness, as the ensemble in the Elysian fields. Everywhere the enjoyment of pure and calm happiness is evident, but so equable is its character that there is nothing either in the songs or in the dance airs that in the slightest degree exceeds its just measure.’ The first two acts ofOrfeoare profoundly human, with their dual picture of tender sorrow and eternal joy. The grief of the poet and the lamentations of his shepherd companions, rising in mournful choral strains, insistent in their reiteration of the motive indicative of their sorrow, are as effective in their way as the musical language of Wagner, even though they lack the force of modern harmony and orchestral sonority. The principle is fundamentally the same. Nor is Gluck’s music entirely devoid of the dramatic force which has come to music with the growth of the modern orchestra. Much of the delineation of mood and emotion is left to the instruments. Later, in the preface toAlceste, Gluck declared that the overture should be in accord with the contents of the opera and should serve as a preparation for it—a simple, natural maxim to which composers had been almost wholly blind up to that time. In Gluck’s overtures we see, in fact, no Italian, but a German, influence. They partake strongly of the nature of the first movements of the Mannheim symphonies, showing a contrasting second theme and are clearly divided into three parts, like the sonata form. Thus the new instrumental style was early introduced into the opera through Gluck’s initiation, and thence was to be transferred to the overtures of Mozart, Sacchini, Cherubini, and others.
In 1764Orfeowas given in Frankfort-on-the-Main for the coronation of the Archduke Joseph as Roman king. The imperial family seems to have been sympathetically appreciative of Gluck’s efforts with the new style; but nevertheless his next work,Telemacco, produced at the Burgtheater in January, 1765, though considered the best of his Italian operas, was a peculiar mixture of the stereotype and the new, as if for a time he lacked confidence. Quite different was the case ofAlceste(Hofburgtheater, Dec. 16, 1767). In this, his second classic music drama, the composer carried out the reforms begun inOrfeomore boldly and more consistently. Calzabigi again wrote the text. The music was neither so full of color nor so poetic as that of its predecessor, yet was more sustained and equal in beauty. The orchestration is somewhat fuller; the recitatives have gained in expressiveness; there are effects of great dramatic intensity, and arias of severe grandeur. Berlioz calledAlceste’saria ‘Ye gods of endless night’ the perfect manifestation of Gluck’s genius. LikeOrfeo,Alcestewas admirably performed, and again opinions differed greatly regarding it. Sonnenfels[13]wrote after the performance: ‘I find myself in wonderland. A serious opera withoutcastrati, music withoutsolfeggios, or, I might rather say, without gurgling; an Italian poem without pathos or banality. With this threefold work of wonder the stage near the Hofburg has been reopened.’ On the other hand, there were heard in the parterre such comments as ‘It is meant to call forth tears—I may shed a few—ofennui’; ‘Nine days without a performance, and then a requiem mass’; or ‘A splendid two gulden’s worth of entertainment—a fool who dies for her husband.’ This last is quite in keeping with the sentiment of the eighteenth century in regard to conjugal affection. It took a long while for the public to accustom itself to the austerity and tragic grandeur of this ‘tragedy set to music,’ as its author called it. YetAlcestein its dual form (for the French edition represents a complete reworking ofits original) is Gluck’s masterpiece, and it still remains one of the greatest classical operas.
Three years afterAlcestecameParide ed Elena(Nov. 30, 1770), a ‘drama for music.’ In the preface of the work, dedicated to the duke of Braganza, Gluck again emphasized his beliefs. Among other things he wrote: ‘The more we seek to attain truth and perfection the greater the need of positiveness and accuracy. The lines that distinguish the work of Raphael from that of the average painter are hardly noticeable, yet any change of an outline, though it may not destroy resemblance in a caricature, completely deforms a beautiful female head. Only a slight alteration in the mode of expression is needed to turn my ariaChe faro senza Euridiceinto a dance for marionettes.’Paride ed Elena, constructed on the principles ofOrfeoandAlceste, is the least important of Gluck’s operas and the least known. The libretto lacks action, but the score is interesting because of its lyric and romantic character. Much of its style seems to anticipate the new influences which Mozart afterward brought to German music. It also offers the first instance of what might be called local color in its contrasting choruses of Greeks and Asiatics.
It is interesting to note that at the time of composing the lyrical ‘Alceste’ Gluck was also preparing for French opera with vocal romances,Lieder. His collection of songs set to Klopstock’s odes was written in 1770. They have not much artistic value, but they are among the earliest examples of theLiedas Mozart and Beethoven later conceived it, a simple song melody whose mission is frankly limited to a faithful emphasis of a lyrical mood. Conceived in the spirit of Rousseau, they are spontaneous and make an unaffected appeal to the ear. The style is nearer that of Frenchopéra comique, at which Gluck had already tried his hand,thus obtaining an exact knowledge of the spirit of the French language and of its lyrical resources.
The wish of Gluck’s heart was to carry to completion the reforms he had initiated, but Germany had practically declared against them. His musical and literary adversaries at the Viennese court, Hasse and Metastasio, had formed a strong opposition. Baron Grimm spoke of Gluck’s reforms as the work of a barbarian. Agricola, Kirnberger, and Forkel were opposed to them. In Prussia, Frederick the Great had a few arias fromAlcesteandOrfeosung in concert, and decided that the composer ‘had no song and understood nothing of the grand opera style,’ an opinion which, of course, prevented the performance of his operas in Berlin. In view of all this it is not surprising that he should turn to what was then the centre of intellectual life, that he should seize the opportunity to secure recognition for his art in the great home of the drama—in Paris.
Let us recall for a moment Gluck’s connection with the Frenchopéra bouffon. Favart had complimented him, in a letter to the Vienna opera director Durazzo, for the excellence of his French ‘déclamation.’ Evidently Gluck and his friend Le Blanc du Roullet, attaché of the French embassy, had kept track of theGuerre des bouffons, and had taken advantage of the psychology of the moment, for Rameau had died in 1764 and the consequent weakening of the National party had resulted in the victory of the Buffonists. Du Roullet suggested to Gluck and Calzabigi that they collaborate upon a French subject for an opera, and chose Racine’sIphigénie. The opera was completed and the text translated by du Roullet, who now wrote a very diplomatic letter to the authorities of the Académie royale (the Paris opera). It recounted how the Chevalier Gluck, celebrated throughout Europe, admired the French style of composition, preferred it, indeed, to the Italian; how he regarded the French language as eminently suited to musical treatment, and that he had just finished a new work in French on a tragedy of the immortal Racine, which exhausted all the powers of art, simple, natural song, enchanting melody, recitative equal to the French, dance pieces of the most alluring freshness. Here was everything to delight a Frenchman’s heart; besides, his opera had been a great financial success in Bologna, and so valiant a defender of the French tongue should be given an opportunity in its own home.
The academy saw a new hope in this. It considered the letter in official session, and cautiously asked to see an act ofIphigénie. After examination of it Gluck was promised an engagement if he would agree to write six operas like it. This condition, almost impossible of acceptance for a man of Gluck’s age, was finally removed through the intercession of Marie Antoinette, now dauphiness of France, Gluck’s erstwhile pupil in Vienna.
Gluck was invited to come to Paris as the guest of the Académie and direct the staging ofIphigénie. He arrived there with his wife and niece[14]in the summer of 1773. Lodged in the citadel of the anti-Buffonists, he incurred in advance the opposition of the Italian party, but, diplomat that he was, he at once set about to propitiate the enemy. Rousseau, the intellectual potentate of France, was eventually won over; but, despite the fact that Gluck’s music was essentially human and should have fulfilled the demands of the‘encyclopedists,’ such men as Marmontel, La Harpe, and d’Alambert were arrayed against him, together with the entire Italian party and many of the followers of the old French school, who refused to accept him as the successor of Lully and Rameau. Mme. du Barry was one of these. Marie Antoinette, on the other hand, constituted herself Gluck’s protector. It was theGuerre des bouffonsat its climax.
ThepremièreofIphigénie en Aulide(April, 1774) was awaited with the greatest impatience. Gluck had spared no pains in the preparation. He drilled the singers, spoiled by public favor, with the greatest vigor, and ruthlessly combatted their caprices. The obstacles were many: Legras was ill; Larivée, the Agamemnon, did not understand his part; Sophie Arnold, known as the greatest singing actress of her day, sang out of tune; Vestris, the greatest dancer of his time—he was called the ‘God of the Dance’—was not satisfied with his part in the ballet of the opera. ‘Then dance in heaven, if you’re the god of the dance,’ cried Gluck, ‘but not in my opera!’ And when the terpsichorean divinity insisted on concludingIphigéniewith achaconne, he scornfully asked: ‘Did the Greeks dancechaconnes?’ Gluck threatened more than once to withdraw his opera, yielding only to the persuasions of the dauphiness.
The second performance of the opera determined its triumph, a triumph which in a manner made Paris the centre of music in Europe.[15]Marie Antoinette even wrote to her sister Marie Christine to express her pleasure. Gluck received an honorarium of 20,000 francs and was promised a life pension. Less severe and solemn thanAlceste,Iphigénie en AulideandIphigénie en Tauride(written ten years later to a libretto by Guillard and not heard until May 18, 1779) were the favorites of town and court up to the very end of theancien régime. Not only are both more appealing and less sombre, but they are also more delicate in form, more simple in sentiment, and more intimate thanAlceste.
Gluck’s fame was now universal. Voltaire, the oracle of France, had pronounced in his favor. The nobility sought his society, the courtiers waited on him. Even princes hastened, when he laid down his bâton, to hand him the peruke and surcoat cast aside while conducting. A strong well-built man, bullet-headed, with a red, pockmarked face and small gray, but brilliant, eyes; richly and fashionably dressed; independent in his manner; jealous of his liberty; opinionated, yet witty and amiable, this revolutionary à la Rousseau, this ‘plebeian genius’ completely conquered all affections of Parisian society. He was at home everywhere; every salon lionized him, he was a familiar figure at theleversof Marie Antoinette.
In August, 1774, a French version ofOrfeo, extensively revised, was heard and acclaimed. This confirmed the victory—the anti-Gluckists were vanquished for the time. But a permanent connection with the Paris opera did not at once result for Gluck, and the next year he returned to Vienna, taking with him two old opera texts by Quinault—Lully’s librettist—RolandandArmide, which theAcadémiehad commissioned him to set. He set to music only the latter of the two poems, for, when he learned that Piccini likewise had been asked to set theRoland, and had been invited to Paris by Marie Antoinette, he destroyed his sketches. An older light operetta,Cythère assiegée, which he recast and foolishly dispatched to Paris, thoroughly displeased the Parisians. The opposition was quick to seize its advantage. It looked about for a leader andfound him in Piccini, now at the head of the great Neapolitan school. He was induced to come to Paris by tempting promises, but was so ill-served by circumstances that, in spite of the manœuvres and the intrigues of his partisans, hisRolandwas not given until 1778.
On April 23, 1776, Gluck directed the first performance of his new French version ofAlceste. It was hissed. In despair Gluck rushed from the opera house and exclaimed to Rousseau: ‘Alcestehas fallen!’ ‘Yes,’ was the answer, ‘but it has fallen from the skies!’ In 1777 cameArmide. In this opera Gluck thought he had written sensuous music.[16]It no longer makes this impression—the passion of ‘Tristan,’ the oriental voluptuousness of theScheherazadeof Rimsky-Korsakov, and the eroticism of modern dramatic scores have somewhat cooled the warmth of the love music ofArmide. On the other hand, the passion of hatred is delineated in this opera powerfully and vigorously enough for modern appreciation.Armideis beautiful throughout by reason of its sincerity.
Piccini’sRolandfollowedAlcestein a few months, January, 1778. It was a success, but only a temporary one. After twelve well-attended performances it ceased to draw. Nevertheless it fanned the flame of controversy. The fight of Gluckists and Piccinnists, in continuation of theGuerre des bouffons, of which the principals, by the way, were quite innocent, was at its height. Men addressed each other with the challenge ‘Êtes-vous Gluckiste ou Piccinniste?’ Piccini was placed at the head of an Italian troupe which was engaged to give performances on alternate nights at theAcadémie. The two ‘parties’ were now on equalfooting. Finally it occurred to the director to have the two rivals treat the same subject and he selected Racine’sIphigénie en Tauride. Piccini was handicapped from the start. His text was bad, neither his talent nor his experience was so suited to the task as Gluck’s. The latter’s version was ready in May, 1779, and was a brilliant success. According to theMercure de Franceno opera had ever made so strong and so universal an impression upon the public. ‘Pure musical beauty as sweet as that ofOrfeo, tragic intensity deeper than that ofAlceste, a firm touch, an undaunted courage, a new subtlety of psychological insight, all combine to form a masterpiece such as throughout its entire history the operatic stage has never known.’ Piccini, who meantime had produced hisAtys, brought out hisIphigéniein January, 1781. Despite many excellences it was bound to be anti-climax to Gluck’s. Needless to say it admits of no comparison.
Too great stress has often been laid on the quarrels of the ‘Gluckists’ and ‘Piccinnists,’ which, it is true, went to absurd lengths. As is usually the case with partisanship in art, the chief characters themselves were not personal enemies. The Italian sympathizers merely took up the cry which the Buffonists had formerly raised against the opera of Rameau. According to them Gluck’s music was made up of too much noise and not enough song. ‘But the Buffonist agitation had been justified by results; it had produced theopéra comique, which had assimilated what it could use of the Italianopera buffa.’ Not so this new controversy. Hence, despite a few days of glory for Piccini, his party was not able to reawaken in France a taste for the superficial charm of Italian music. ‘The crowd is for Gluck,’ sighed La Harpe. And when, after the glorious success ofIphigénie en Tauride, Piccini’sDidonwas given in 1783, it owed the favor with which it wasreceived largely to the fact that in style and expression it followed Gluck’s model.
In 1780, six months after theIphigéniepremière, Gluck retired to Vienna to end his days in dignified and wealthy leisure. He had accomplished his task, fulfilled the wish of his heart. In his comfortable retreat he learned of the failure of Piccini’sIphigénie en Tauride, while his own was given for the 151st time on April 2, 1782! He also enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing thatLes Danaïdes, the opera written by his disciple and pupil, Antonio Salieri, justified the truth of his theories by its success on the Paris stage in 1784. It was this pupil, who, consulting Gluck on the question of whether to write the rôle of Christ in the tenor in his cantata ‘The Last Judgment,’ received the answer, half in jest, half in earnest, ‘I’ll be able before long to let you know from the beyond how the Saviour speaks.’ A few days after, on Nov. 15, 1787, the master breathed his last, having suffered an apoplectic stroke.
The inscription on his tomb, ‘Here rests a righteous German man, an ardent Christian, a faithful husband, Christoph Ritter Gluck, the great master of the sublime art of tone’ emphasizes the strongly moral side of his character. For all his shrewdness and solicitude for his own material welfare, his music is ample proof of his nobility of soul; its loftiness, purity, unaffected simplicity reflect the virtues for which men are universally respected.
In its essence Gluck’s music may be considered the expression of the classic ideal, the ‘naturalism’ and ‘new humanism’ of Rousseau, which idealized the old Greek world and aimed to inculcate the Greek spirit; courage and keenness in quest of truth and devotion to the beautiful. The leading characteristics of his style have been aptly defined as the ‘realistic notation of the pathetic accent and passing movement, and the subordination of the purely musical element to dramatic expression.’ ‘I shall try,’ he wrote in the preface toAlceste, ‘to reduce music to its own function, that of seconding poetry by intensifying the expression of sentiments and the interest of situations without interrupting the action by needless ornament. I have accordingly taken great care not to interrupt the singer in the heat of the dialogue and make him wait for a tediousritornel, nor do I allow him to stop on a sonorous vowel, in the middle of a phrase, in order to show the agility of a beautiful voice in a long cadenza. I also believed it my duty to try to secure, to the best of my power, a fine simplicity; therefore I have avoided a display of difficulties which destroy clarity. I have never laid stress on aught that was new, where it was not conditioned in a natural manner by situation and expression; and there is no rule which I have not been willing to sacrifice with good grace for the sake of the effect. These are my principles.’ The inscription,Il préféra les Muses aux Sirènes(He chose the Muses rather than the Sirens), beneath an old French copper-plate of Gluck, dating from 1781, sounds the keynote of his artistic character. A prophet of the true and beautiful in music, he disdained to listen for long to the tempting voices which counselled him to prefer the easy rewards of popular success to the struggles and uncertainties involved in the pursuit of a high ideal. And, when the hour came, he was ready to reject the appeal of external charm and mere virtuosity and to lead dramatic musical art back to its natural sources.
Gluck’s immediate influence was not nearly as widespread as his reforms were momentous. It is true that his music, reverting to simpler structures and depending on subtler interpretation for its effects put an endto the absolute rule ofprime uominiandprime donne, but, while some of its elements found their way into the work of his more conventional contemporaries, his example seems not to have been wholly followed by any of them. His dramatic teachings, too, while they could not fail to be absorbed by the composers, were not adopted without reserve by any one except his immediate pupil Salieri, who promptly reverted to the Italian style after his first successes. Gluck was not a true propagandist and never gathered about him disciples who would spread his teachings—in short he did not found a ‘school.’ Even in France, where his principles had the weight of official sanction, apostasy was rife, and Rossini and Meyerbeer were probably more appreciated than their more austere predecessor. His influence was far-reaching rather than immediate. It remained for Wagner to take up the thread of reasoning where Gluck left off and with multiplied resources, musically and mechanically, with the way prepared by literary forces, and himself equipped with rare controversial powers, demonstrate the truths which his predecessor could only assert.
Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) withLes Danaïdes, in 1781, achieved a notable success in frank imitation of Gluck’s manner; indeed, the work, originally intrusted to Gluck by the Académie de Musique, was, with doubtful strategy, brought out as that master’s work, and in consequence brought Salieri fame and fortune. Other facts in Salieri’s life seem to bear out similar imperfections of character. He was, however, a musician of high artistic principles. When in 1787Tararewas produced in Paris it met with an overwhelming success, but Salieri nevertheless withdrew it after a time and partially rewrote it for its Vienna production, under the title ofAxur, Rè d’Ormus. ‘There have been many instances in which an artist has been taught by failure that second thoughts are best; there are not many inwhich he has learned the lesson from popular approbation.’[17]Salieri’s career is synchronous with Mozart’s, whom he outlived, and against whom he intrigued in ungenerous manner at the Viennese court, where he became kapellmeister in 1788. He profited by his rival’s example, moreover, but his music ‘falls between the methods of his two great contemporaries, it is less dramatic than Gluck’s and it has less melodic genuineness than Mozart’s.’
Prominent among those who adhered to Italian operatic tradition was Giuseppe Sarti (1729-1802), ‘a composer of real invention, and a brilliant and audacious master of the orchestra.’ We have W. H. Hadow’s authority for the assertion that he first used devices which are usually credited to Berlioz and Wagner, such as the use of muted trumpets and clarinets and certain experiments in the combination of instrumental colors. Sarti achieved truly international renown; from 1755 to 1775 he was at the court of Copenhagen, where he produced twenty Italian operas, and four Danish singspiele; next he was director of the girls’ conservatory in Venice and till 1784 musical director of Milan cathedral,[18]and from 1784 till 1787 he served Catherine II of Russia as court conductor. His famous opera,Armida e Rinaldo, he produced while in this post (1785), as well as a number of other works. In 1793 he founded a ‘musical academy’ which was the forerunner of the great St. Petersburg conservatory, and he was its director till 1801. His introduction of the ‘St. Petersburg pitch’ (436 vibrations for A) is but one detail of his many-sided influence.
Not the least point of Sarti’s historical importance is the fact that he was the teacher of Cherubini. Luigi Cherubini occupies a peculiar position in the historyof music. Born in Florence in 1760 and confining his activities to Italy for the first twenty-eight years of his career, he later extended his influence into Germany (where Beethoven became an enthusiastic admirer) and to Paris, where he became a most important factor of musical life, especially in that most peculiarly French development—theopéra comique. His operatic method represents a compromise between those of his teacher, Sarti, and of Gluck, who thus indirectly exerts his influence upon comic opera. Successful as his many Italian operas—produced prior to 1786—were, they hardly deserve notice here. His Paris activities, synchronous with those of Méhul, are so closely bound up with the history ofopéra comiquethat we may well consider them in that connection.
Theopéra comique, the singspiel of France, was comic opera with spoken dialogue. Its earlier exponents, Monsigny, Philidor, and Gossec, were in various ways influenced by Gluck in their work. Grétry,[19]whoseLe tableau parlant,Les deux avares, andL’Amant jalouxare ‘models of lightness and brilliancy,’ like Gluck ‘speaks the language of the heart’ in his masterpieces,Zémire et AzorandRichard Cœur de Lion, and excels in delineation of character and the expression of typically French sentiment. Grétry’s appearance marked an epoch in the history ofopéra comique. HisMémoiresexpose a dramatic creed closely related to that of Gluck, but going beyond that master in its advocacy of declamation in the place of song.
Gossec, also important as symphonist and composer of serious operas (Philemon et Baucis, etc.), entered the comic opera field in 1761, the year in which the Opéra Comique, known as the Salle Favart, was opened, though his real success did not come till 1766, withLesPêcheurs. Carried away by revolutionary fervor, he took up the composition of patriotic hymns, became officially connected with the worship of Reason, and eventually left the comic opera field to Cherubini and Méhul. Both arrived in Paris in 1778, which marks the second period ofopéra comique.
The peaceful artistic rivalry and development of this period stand in peculiar contrast to the great political holocaust which coincides with it—the French Revolution. That upheaval was accompanied by an almost frantic search for pleasure on the part of the public, and an astounding increase in the number of theatres (seventeen were opened in 1791, the year of Louis XVI’s flight, and eighteen more up to 1800). Cherubini’s wife herself relates how the theatres were crowded at night after the guillotine had done its bloody work by day. Music flourished as never before and especially French music, for the storm of patriotism which swept the country made for the patronage of things French. In the very year of Robespierre’s execution (1794) theConservatoire de Musiquewas projected, an institution which has ever since remained the bulwark of French musical culture.[20]
In 1789 a certain Léonard,friseurto Marie Antoinette, was given leave to collect a company for the performance of Italian opera, and opened his theatre in a hall of the Tuileries palace with his countryman Cherubini as his musical director. The fall of the Bastille in 1794 drove them from the royal residence to a mere booth in the Foire St. Germain, where in 1792 they created the famous Théâtre Feydeau, and delighted Revolutionary audiences with Cherubini versions of Cimarosa and Paesiello operas. Here, too,Lodoïska, one of Cherubini’s most brilliant works, was enthusiastically applauded. Meantime Étienne Méhul (b. Givet, Ardennes, 1763; d. Paris, 1817), the modest, retiring artist, who had been patiently awaiting the recognition of theAcadémie(hisAlonzo et Corawas not produced till 1791) had become the hero of the older enterprise at the Salle Favart,[21]and there produced hisEuphrosine et Corradinin 1790, followed by a series of works of which the last,Le jeune Henri(1797), was hissed off the stage because, in the fifth year of the revolution, it introduced a king as character—the once adored Henry IV! This was followed by a more successful series, ‘whose musical force and the enchanting melodies with which they are begemmed have kept them alive.’ His more serious works, notablyStratonice,Athol, and especiallyJoseph, a biblical opera, are highly esteemed. M. Tiersot considers the last-named work superior to that by Handel of the same name. Méhul was Gluck’s greatest disciple—he was directly encouraged and aided by Gluck—and even surpassed his master in musical science.
Cherubini’sMédéandLes deux journéeswere produced in 1797 and 1800, respectively. The latter ‘shows a conciseness of expression and a warmth of feeling unusual to Cherubini,’ says Mr. Hadow; at any rate it is better known to-day than any of the other works, and not infrequently produced both in France and Germany. It isopéra comiqueonly in form, for it mixes spoken dialogue with music—its plot is serious. In this respect it furnishes a precedent for many other so-calledopéras comiques. Cherubini’s musical resources were almost unlimited, wealth of ideas is even a fault with him, having the effect of tiring the listener,but his overtures are truly classic, his themes refined, and his orchestration faultless. InLes deux journéeshe abandoned the Italian traditions and confined himself practically to ensembles and choruses. He must, whatever his intrinsic value, be reckoned among the most important factors in the reformation of the opera in the direction of music drama.
Cherubini was not so fortunate as to win the favor of Napoleon, as did his colleagues, Gossec and Grétry and Méhul, all of whom received the cross of the Legion of Honor. He returned to Vienna in 1805 and there producedFaniska, the last and greatest of his operas, but his prospects were spoiled by the capture of Vienna and the entry of Napoleon, his enemy, at the head of the French army. He returned to France disappointed but still active, wrote church music, taught composition at the conservatory and was its director from 1821 till his death in 1842. Theopéra comiquecontinued meantime under the direction of Paesiello and from 1803 under Jean François Lesueur (1760-1837) ‘the only other serious composer who deserves to be mentioned by the side of Méhul and Cherubini.’ Lesueur’s innovating ideas aroused much opposition, but he had a distinguished following. Among his pupils was Hector Berlioz.
F. H. M.