GLUCK REFORM OF R

sought t confine music to its true function of serving the poetry by expressing feelings and the situations
of the story without interrupting and cooling off the action through useless and superfluous ornaments.
believed that music should join to poetry what the vividness of colors and well disposed lights and
shadows contribute to a correct and well composed design, animating the figures without altering their
contours.
further believed that the greater part of my task was to seek a beautiful simplicity, and have avoided a
display of difficulty at the expense of clarity. assigned no value to the discovery of some novelty, unless it
was naturally suggested by the situation and the expression. And there is no rule that did not willingly
consider sacrificing for the sake of an effect.
From Gluck's dedication, in Italian, to Alceste (Vienna, 1769). Trans. C. Palisca. For a facsimile, see New Grove
Dictionary 7:466.

CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD GLUCK (1714-87) achieved a synthesis of French and Italian opera that made him
the man of the hour. Born in Bohemia, Gluck studied under Sammartini in Italy, visited London, toured in Germany as
conductor of an opera troupe, became court composer to the emperor at Vienna, and triumphed in Paris under the
patronage of Marie Antoinette. He began by writing operas in the conventional Italian style, but was strongly affected
by the movement of reform in the 1750s, Spurred on by the more radical ideas of the time, he collaborated with the poet
Raniero Calzabigi (1714-95) to produce at Vienna Orfeo ed Euridice (1762) and Alceste (1767). In a dedicatory preface
to the latter work Gluck expressed his resolve to remove the abuses that had hitherto deformed Italian opera (see
vignette) and "to confine music to its proper function of serving the poetry for the expression and the situations of the
plot" without regard either to the outworn conventions of the da capo aria or the desire of singers to show off their skill
in ornamental variation; furthermore, to make the overture an integral part of the opera, to adapt the orchestra to the
dramatic requirements, and to lessen the contrast between aria and recitative.
The beautiful simplicity that Gluck professed to seek is exemplified in the celebrated aria Che far senza Euridice?
(What shall I do without Euridice?) from Orfeo, and in other airs, choruses, and dances of the same work. Alceste is a
more monumental opera, in contrast to the prevailingly pastoral and elegiac tone of Orfeo. In both, the music is
plastically molded to the drama, with recitatives, arias, and choruses intermingled in large uni fied scenes. Gluck
restored to the chorus, long out of vogue in Italy, an important role (following the lead of Jommelli, who used final
choruses in his Viennese operas in the early 1750s).
Gluck achieved his mature style in Orfeo and Alceste, assimilating Italian melodic grace, German seriousness, and
the stately magnificence of the French tragdie lyrique. He was ready for the climax of his career, which was ushered in
with the production of Iphignie en Aulide (Iphigenia in Aulis) at Paris in 1774.
The musical atmosphere of the French capital was such that this event awakened extraordinary interest. Long-
simmering critical opposition to the old-fashioned, state-subsidized French opera had erupted in 1752 in a ver bal battle
known as the guerre des bouffons (War of the Buffonists), so called because its immediate occasion was the presence in
Paris of an Italian opera company that for two seasons enjoyed sensational success with perfor mances of Italian comic
operas (opere buffe). Practically every intellectual and would-be intellectual in France had taken part in the quarrel-
partisans of Italian opera on one side and friends of French opera on the other. Rousseau, one of the leaders of the
former faction, published an article in which he argued that the French language was inherently unsuitable for singing
and concluded "that the French have no music and cannot have any; or that if they have, it will be so much the worse
for them." Rousseau and his friends, despite the foolish extremes to which they occasionally strayed in the heat of
argument, represented advanced opinion in Paris. As a result of their campaign the traditional French opera of Lully and
Rameau soon lost favor; but nothing had appeared to take its place before Gluck arrived on the scene. Gluck cleverly
represented himself, or was represented by his supporters, as wanting to prove that a good opera could be written to
French words; he professed himself desirous of having Rousseau's aid in creating "a noble, sensitive, and natural
melody . . . music suited to all nations, so as to abolish these ridiculous distinctions of national styles." He thus appealed
at the same time to the patriotism and the curiosity of the French public.
Iphignie en Aulide, with a libretto adapted from Racine's tragedy, was a tremendous success. Revised versions of
Orfeo and Alceste (both with French texts) swiftly followed. In a mischievously instigated rivalry with the pop ular
Neapolitan composer Niccol Piccinni (1728-1800), Gluck composed in 1777 a five-act opera, Armide, on the same
Quinault libretto that Lully had set in 1686. Gluck's next masterpiece, Iphignie en Tauride (Iphigenia in Tauris), was
produced in 1779. It is a work of large proportions, having an excellent balance of dramatic and musical interest, and
utilizing al1 the resources of opera-orchestra, ballet, solo and choral singing-to produce a total effect of classical tragic
grandeur.
Gluck's operas were models for the works of his immediate followers at Paris, and his influence on the form and
spirit of opera was transmitted to the nineteenth century through such composers as his erstwhile rival Piccinni, Luigi
Cherubini (1760-1842), Gasparo Spontini (1774-1851), and Hector Berlioz (1803-69) in Les Troyens.
Grout Palisca: A History of Western Music . 569-572

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