Gluck

“ Gluck’s whole life was illumined by an indomitable sense of his own strength, and lifted by it into an atmosphere high above that of his rivals, whom the world has now almost forgotten, except as they were immortalised by being his enemies. ”

“ Still Gluck couldn't move.
"Will you pour me out?" said the voice passionately. "I'm too hot."
By a violent effort, Gluck recovered the use of his limbs, took hold of the crucible, and sloped it so as to pour out the gold. But instead of a liquid stream, there came out, first, a pair of pretty little yellow legs, then some coat tails, then a pair of arms stuck akimbo, and, finally, the well-known head of his friend the mug; all which articles, uniting as they rolled out, stood up energetically on the floor, in the shape of a little golden dwarf, about a foot and a half high. ”

“ He turned and turned, and the roast got nice and brown. "What a pity," thought Gluck, "my brothers never ask anybody to dinner. I'm sure, when they've got such a nice piece of mutton as this, and nobody else has got so much as a piece of dry bread, it would do their hearts good to have somebody to eat it with them."
Just as he spoke, there came a double knock at the house-door, yet heavy and dull, as though the knocker had been tied up,—more like a puff than a knock.
"It must be the wind," said Gluck; "nobody else would venture to knock double knocks at our door." ”

“ The last and decisive step in the revolution was the coming of Gluck. ‘It seems as if a century had worked to the limit of its strength to produce the flower of Gluck—the great man is always the composite genius of all the confluent temporal streams.’ [7] Yet he himself was one of these composite forces from which the artistic purpose of his life was evolved. The Gluck of the first five decades, the Gluck of Italian opera, of what we may call the Metastasio period, was simply one of the many Italians unconsciously working toward that end. ”

“ So, after a month or two, Gluck grew tired, and made up his mind to go and try his fortune with the Golden River. "The little king looked very kind," thought he. "I don't think he will turn me into a black stone." So he went to the priest, and the priest gave him some holy water as soon as he asked for it. Then Gluck took some bread in his basket, and the bottle of water, and set off very early for the mountains.
If the glacier had occasioned a great deal of fatigue to his brothers, it was twenty times worse for him, who was neither so strong nor so practised on the mountains. ”

“ Duplessis's portrait of Gluck almost takes the man out of paint to put him in flesh and blood. He looks down with wide-open eyes, swelling nostrils, firm mouth, and massive chin. The noble brow, dome-like and expanded, relieves the massiveness of his face; and the whole countenance and figure express the repose of a powerful and passionate nature schooled into balance and symmetry: altogether the presentment of a great man, who felt that he could move the world and had found the pou sto. ”

“ You must make a name for yourself. When did Gluck, when did Piccinni, when did all these people come forward? Gluck is not less than sixty, and it is twenty-six or twenty-seven years since he was first spoken of; and can you really imagine that the French public, or even the manager of the theatre, can be convinced of your powers of composition without having heard anything by you in their lives, or knowing you, except in your childhood as an excellent clavier-player and precocious genius? You must exert yourself, and make yourself known as a composer in every branch ”

“ Gluck is to the world of medicine what Edison is to the world of electricity. He is a wizard, a man inspired. You should see him—a little, bent, grizzled, shabby old man who looks at you, and sees you not. ”

“ Just as he had cut a large slice out of the mutton, there came a tremendous rap at the door. The old gentleman jumped off the hob, as if it had suddenly become inconveniently warm. Gluck fitted the slice into the mutton again, with desperate efforts at exactitude, and ran to open the door.
"What did you keep us waiting in the rain for?" said Schwartz, as he walked in, throwing his umbrella in Gluck's face. "Ay! what for, indeed, you little vagabond?" said Hans, administering an educational box on the ear, as he followed his brother into the kitchen. ”

“ Gluck flew back from Italy to Vienna to his betrothed, "with whom to his death he dwelt in happiest wedlock." She went with him on his triumphal tours, and spent her wealth in charities. They had no children of their own, but adopted a niece. The devoted wife used to play his accompaniment as he sang his own music, and when he died he took especial pains that she should be his sole and exclusive heir, even leaving it to her pleasure whether or not his brothers and sisters should have anything at all. ”

“ Gluck's consciousness of the merit of his own works, and of their dignity, excited no small jealousy, during the getting up of Armida, in his rival with the public, the great Vestris, to whom he scarcely left space to exhibit the graces of his art ”

“ The arrival of Gluck in Paris, in 1774, marks one of the most important epochs in the History of Music, and one of the most curious anomalies in that of national Schools. Born a German, with all a German's love for solid Harmony, Gluck studied in Italy, wrote Italian Operas, conceived the first idea of his great reform in England, tried in vain to introduce it in his own country, and finally, with the aid of a French Librettist, achieved his greatest triumph in French Opera, at Paris. The history of that triumph is too well known to need repetition. ”

“ And in the end Christophe had begun to wonder whether a Frenchman could have the least understanding of German music, to judge by the way it was rendered in France. Only a short time before he had come away perfectly scandalized from a performance of an opera of Gluck's: the ingenious Parisians had taken it into their heads to deck the old fellow up, and cover him with ribbons, and pad out his rhythms, and bedizen his music with, impressionistic settings, and charming little dancing girls, forward and wanton.... Poor Gluck! ”

“ D.F. Strauss quotes a description by a merchant of Karlsruhe of this scene: "Old Gluck sang and played, con amore, many passages from the 'Messiah' set to music by himself; his wife accompanying him in a few other pieces." On the 15th of November, 1787, when Gluck was seventy-three years old, he was at his home in Vienna under doctor's care. After dinner, it was his custom to take coffee out-of-doors, in the free, fresh air and the golden sunlight, where he used to have his piano placed when he would compose. Two old friends from Paris had dined with him, and they were soon to leave. ”

“ His works are not so much operas, in the ordinary sense of the term, as poems, in which music is employed for producing and sustaining emotion. Off the stage Gluck was nothing, but upon it the musician was himself a poet. The manners of Gluck, like those of Beethoven and Handel, were rough and blunt. He was large in person; and his habits were indolent and somewhat sensual. The bust discloses the man.
[From the Terracotta, by Houdon. In the musical collection of the Royal Library at Berlin. The only bust taken from the life.] ”

“ But Gluck found in this ill-trained actress some qualities he may have vainly sought for in more finished singers. She appeared one morning at rehearsal in an old black gown in the last stage of patched decrepitude. 'Here comes Madame la Ressource,' remarked some gay rival (alluding to the character of that name in 'Le Joueur') . 'Well said,' answered Gluck; 'that woman will some day be the resource of the opera.' Perhaps she heard the words—we may be sure she heard of them. She laboured to improve herself, and on the retirement of two leading singers succeeded to their parts. ”

“ These were followed by a long list of similar works, for Gluck displayed, even then, a restless activity, though in 1750 he married, and with his Marianna, a daughter of the rich Venetian merchant Pergin, experienced all the joy of a happy marriage which remained undisturbed till his death. Two impulses in the next decade of Gluck's activity deserve special mention; one was his eager interest in literature. "Gifted by nature with as great a love for literature as for music," says his biographer Anton Schmidt, "he now worked with incessant energy in this province as well. ”

“ In the present day, Gluck appears to have vanquished Piccinni, because, at long intervals, one of Gluck's grandly constructed operas is performed, whereas the music of his former rival is never heard at all. But this, by no means, proves that Piccinni's melodies were not charming, and that the connoisseurs of the eighteenth century were not right in applauding them. The works that endure are not those which contain the greatest number of beauties, but those of which the form is most perfect. Gluck was a composer of larger conceptions, and of more powerful genius than his Italian rival ”

“ Méhul was the legitimate successor of Gluck. It was that composer’s “Iphigénie,” as we have seen, that first caught his fancy, fired his ambition and directed his attention to dramatic composition. It was owing to Gluck himself, who at once recognized the ability of the young musician, that his feet were set in the right path, and it was to his advice and instruction—the instruction of a friend rather than of a teacher—that he owed his discovery and appreciation of the dramatic quality of music. ”

“ Sir, you are not worthy to be a German, if what you say of your great countryman is said in earnest. That Gluck is really a mighty artist, we are all agreed in Paris; the dispute is only to whom the palm of superior greatness shall be yielded, to him or Piccini. We all acknowledge that Gluck, equally far from the cold constraint of rules, and from capricious innovation, seeks to convey the truest expression of feeling and passion; and sets himself the only true aim that exists for the opera-composer. Church and concert music present a different object for the master ”

“ Gluck stir up his friends, to make a party against me!—There! look at these letters in Gluck’s own hand, written to Arnaud, Rollet, Maurepas, wherein he judges my work thoroughly, dwelling upon the best [Pg 199] parts, and entreats them to listen to my opera impartially, as to his own, and to give an impartial judgment, for that he is anxious only for the truth. Through my patron, the Count of Provence, I obtained these letters from those gentlemen, whom he persuaded to send them to me, thereby to remove my groundless suspicions. ”

“ They fêted and praised Gluck, declaring he had discovered the music of the ancient Greeks, that he was the only man in Europe who could express real feelings in music. Marie Antoinette wrote to her sister: "We had, on the nineteenth, the first performance of Gluck's 'Iphigénie,' and it was a glorious triumph. I was quite enchanted, and nothing else is talked of. All the world wishes to see the piece, and Gluck seems well satisfied."
The next year, 1775, Gluck brought out an adaptation suitable for the French stage, of his "Alceste," which again aroused the greatest enthusiasm. ”

“ The loss of all poetic verity and earnestness in opera furnished the great composer Gluck with the motive of the bitter and protracted contest which he waged with varying success throughout Europe, though principally in Paris. Gluck boldly affirmed, and carried out the principle in his compositions, that the task of dramatic music was to accompany the different phases of emotion in the text, and give them their highest effect of spiritual intensity. The singer must be the mouthpiece of the poet, and must take extreme care in giving the full poetical burden of the song. ”

“ He was the son of a forester in the service of Prince Lobkowitz born at Weidenwang in the Upper Palatinate, July 2,1714. Gluck was devoted to music from early childhood, but received, in connection with the musical art, an excellent education at the Jesuit College of Kommotau. Here he learned singing, the organ, the violin and harpsichord, and had a mind to get his living by devoting his musical talents to the Church. ”

“ Gluck's genius, however, was infinitely greater than Rameau's; where Rameau is cold and formal, Gluck vibrates with human passion.
The history of opera is a continual struggle between the two opposing forces of dramatic and lyrical expression, and Gluck's career is to a certain extent a miniature reproduction of the same struggle. We may look on it perhaps as a contest between instinct and theory. His instinct led him to lyrical expression, but his theories on opera compelled him to pay due respect to dramatic truth. The struggle is interesting to trace ”

“ These airs, it must be confessed, succeed each other too rapidly, and one cannot but regret that the librettist did not perceive how much the action is retarded by making three airs follow each other in one act, a mistake which might easily have been avoided. But how ingenious are the artifices to which Gluck resorts in order to give variety to the recitative and the declamatory passages! How skilfully he brings in his short incisive symphonies, and how much effect he produces by syncopation! How appropriately he introduces the orchestra to emphasise a word, or to point a dramatic antithesis! ”