Christoph Willibald von Gluck(German: Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck, July 2, 1714, Erasbach - November 15, 1787, Vienna) - German composer, predominantly operatic, one of largest representatives musical classicism. The name of Gluck is associated with the reform of Italian opera seria and French lyric tragedy in the second half of the 18th century, and if the works of Gluck the composer were not popular at all times, then the ideas of Gluck the reformer determined further development opera house.
early years
Information about the early years of Christoph Willibald von Gluck is extremely scarce, and much of what was established by the composer's early biographers was disputed by later ones. It is known that he was born in Erasbach (now the Berching district) in the Upper Palatinate in the family of the forester Alexander Gluck and his wife Maria Walpurga, was passionate about music from childhood and, apparently, received a home musical education, common in those days in Bohemia, where the family moved in 1717. Presumably, for six years Gluck studied at the Jesuit gymnasium in Komotau and, since his father did not want to see his eldest son as a musician, he left home, ended up in Prague in 1731 and studied for some time at the University of Prague, where he attended lectures on logic and mathematics, earning a living by playing music. A violinist and cellist who also had good vocal abilities, Gluck sang in the choir of St. Jakub and played in the orchestra conducted by the greatest Czech composer and music theorist Boguslav Chernogorsky, sometimes he went to the outskirts of Prague, where he performed for peasants and artisans.
Gluck attracted the attention of Prince Philipp von Lobkowitz and in 1735 was invited to his Viennese house as a chamber musician; Apparently, the Italian aristocrat A. Melzi heard him in Lobkowitz's house and invited him to his private chapel - in 1736 or 1737 Gluck ended up in Milan. In Italy, the birthplace of opera, he had the opportunity to become acquainted with the work of the greatest masters of this genre; At the same time, he studied composition under the guidance of Giovanni Sammartini, a composer not so much of opera as of symphony; but it was under his leadership, as S. Rytsarev writes, that Gluck mastered “modest” but confident homophonic writing,” which was already fully established in Italian opera, while the polyphonic tradition still dominated in Vienna.
In December 1741, the premiere of Gluck's first opera, the opera seria Artaxerxes, with a libretto by Pietro Metastasio, took place in Milan. In Artaxerxes, as in all of Gluck's early operas, Sammartini's imitation was still noticeable, nevertheless it was a success, which entailed orders from different cities of Italy, and in the next four years no less successful opera seria were created. Demetrius", "Porus", "Demophon", "Hypermnestra" and others.
In the autumn of 1745, Gluck went to London, from where he received an order for two operas, but in the spring of the following year he left the English capital and joined the Italian opera troupe of the Mingotti brothers as a second conductor, with whom he toured Europe for five years. In 1751, in Prague, he left Mingotti for the post of conductor in the troupe of Giovanni Locatelli, and in December 1752 he settled in Vienna. Having become conductor of the orchestra of Prince Joseph of Saxe-Hildburghausen, Gluck led its weekly concerts - “academies”, in which he performed both other people's compositions and his own. According to contemporaries, Gluck was an outstanding opera conductor and knew well the peculiarities of ballet art.
In search of musical drama
In 1754, at the suggestion of the manager of the Viennese theaters, Count G. Durazzo, Gluck was appointed conductor and composer of the Court Opera. In Vienna, gradually becoming disillusioned with the traditional Italian opera seria - “opera-aria”, in which the beauty of melody and singing acquired a self-sufficient character, and composers often became hostages to the whims of prima donnas - he turned to French comic opera (“The Island of Merlin”, “ The Imaginary Slave”, “The Reformed Drunkard”, “The Fooled Cadi”, etc.) and even to ballet: created in collaboration with the choreographer G. Angiolini, the pantomime ballet “Don Juan” (based on the play by J.-B. Molière), a real choreographic drama, became the first embodiment of Gluck's desire to transform the opera stage into a dramatic one.
K.V. Gluck. Lithograph by F. E. Feller
In his quest, Gluck found support from the chief intendant of the opera, Count Durazzo, and his compatriot, poet and playwright Ranieri de Calzabigi, who wrote the libretto of Don Giovanni. The next step in the direction of musical drama was their new collaboration- the opera “Orpheus and Eurydice”, in the first edition staged in Vienna on October 5, 1762. Under the pen of Calzabigi, ancient Greek myth turned into ancient drama, in full accordance with the tastes of the time; however, neither in Vienna nor in other European cities did the opera achieve success with the public.
The need to reform the opera seria, writes S. Rytsarev, was dictated by objective signs of its crisis. At the same time, it was necessary to overcome “the centuries-old and incredibly strong tradition of opera-spectacle, musical performance with a firmly established division of the functions of poetry and music.” In addition, opera seria was characterized by static dramaturgy; it was justified by the “theory of affects”, which assumed for each emotional state - sadness, joy, anger, etc. - the use of certain means of musical expressiveness established by theorists, and did not allow for the individualization of experiences. The transformation of stereotyping into a value criterion gave rise in the first half of the 18th century, on the one hand, to a boundless number of operas, on the other hand, very many of them. short life on stage, on average from 3 to 5 performances.
Gluck in his reform operas, writes S. Rytsarev, “made the music “work” for the drama not at individual moments of the performance, which was often found in contemporary opera, but throughout its entire duration. Orchestral means acquired effectiveness, a secret meaning, and began to counterpoint the development of events on stage. A flexible, dynamic change of recitative, aria, ballet and choral episodes has developed into a musical and plot event, entailing a direct emotional experience.”
Other composers also searched in this direction, including in the genre of comic opera, Italian and French: this young genre had not yet had time to fossilize, and it was easier to develop its healthy tendencies from within than in opera seria. By order of the court, Gluck continued to write operas in the traditional style, generally giving preference to comic opera. A new and more perfect embodiment of his dream of musical drama was the heroic opera Alceste, created in collaboration with Calzabigi in 1767, presented in the first edition in Vienna on December 26 of the same year. Dedicating the opera to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the future Emperor Leopold II, Gluck wrote in the preface to Alceste:
It seemed to me that the music should play in relation to poetic work the same role played by the brightness of colors and correctly distributed effects of chiaroscuro, which animate the figures without changing their contours in relation to the drawing... I tried to expel from the music all the excesses against which common sense and justice protest in vain. I believed that the overture should illuminate the action for the audience and serve as an introductory overview of the content: the instrumental part should be determined by the interest and tension of the situations... All my work should have been reduced to the search for noble simplicity, freedom from an ostentatious accumulation of difficulties at the expense of clarity; the introduction of some new techniques seemed to me valuable insofar as it suited the situation. And finally, there is no rule that I would not break in order to achieve greater expressiveness. These are my principles.
Such a fundamental subordination of music to poetic text was revolutionary for that time; in an effort to overcome the number structure characteristic of the then opera seria, Gluck not only combined episodes of the opera into big stages, permeated with a single dramatic development, he tied the overture to the action of the opera, which at that time was usually a separate concert number; In order to achieve greater expressiveness and drama, he increased the role of the choir and orchestra. Neither Alceste, nor the third reform opera based on Calzabigi's libretto, Paris and Helena (1770), found support among either the Viennese or Italian public.
Gluck's duties as a court composer also included teaching music to the young Archduchess Marie Antoinette; Having become the wife of the heir to the French throne in April 1770, Marie Antoinette invited Gluck to Paris. However, the composer’s decision to move his activities to the capital of France significantly to a greater extent influenced by other circumstances.
Glitch in Paris
In Paris, meanwhile, there was a struggle around the opera, which became the second act of the struggle that had died down back in the 50s between adherents of Italian opera (“Buffonists”) and French opera (“anti-Buffonists”). This confrontation split even the crowned family: the French king Louis XVI preferred Italian opera, while his Austrian wife Marie Antoinette supported national French opera. The split also struck the famous “Encyclopedia”: its editor D’Alembert was one of the leaders of the “Italian party”, and many of its authors, led by Voltaire, actively supported the French one. The stranger Gluck very soon became the banner of the “French party”, and since the Italian troupe in Paris at the end of 1776 was headed by the famous and popular composer Niccolo Piccinni in those years, the third act of this musical and social polemic went down in history as a struggle between the “Gluckists” and "Piccinists". In the struggle that seemed to unfold around styles, the dispute was actually about what an opera performance should be - just an opera, a luxurious spectacle with beautiful music and beautiful vocals, or something significantly more: encyclopedists were waiting for new social content, in tune with the pre-revolutionary era. In the struggle of the “Gluckists” with the “Piccinists,” which 200 years later already seemed like a grandiose theatrical performance, as in the “War of the Buffons,” “powerful cultural strata of aristocratic and democratic art” entered into polemics, according to S. Rytsarev.
In the early 70s, Gluck's reform operas were unknown in Paris; in August 1772, the attaché of the French embassy in Vienna, François le Blanc du Roullet, brought them to the attention of the public in the pages of the Parisian magazine Mercure de France. The paths of Gluck and Calzabigi diverged: with a reorientation towards Paris, du Roullet became the main librettist of the reformer; in collaboration with him, the opera “Iphigenia in Aulis” (based on the tragedy by J. Racine) was written for the French public, staged in Paris on April 19, 1774. The success was consolidated, although it caused fierce controversy, by the new French edition of Orpheus and Eurydice.
Statue of K. W. Gluck at the Grand Opera
Recognition in Paris did not go unnoticed in Vienna: if Marie Antoinette awarded Gluck 20,000 livres for “Iphigenia” and the same for “Orpheus”, then Maria Theresa on October 18, 1774 in absentia awarded Gluck the title of “actual imperial and royal court composer” with an annual salary of 2000 guilders. Thanking for the honor, Gluck, after a short stay in Vienna, returned to France, where at the beginning of 1775 a new edition of his comic opera “The Enchanted Tree, or the Deceived Guardian” (written back in 1759) was staged, and in April, at the Royal Academy music, - new edition of “Alcesta”.
Music historians consider the Paris period to be the most significant in Gluck's work. The struggle between the “Gluckists” and the “Piccinists,” which inevitably turned into personal rivalry between the composers (which, however, did not affect their relationship), proceeded with varying degrees of success; by the mid-70s, the “French party” split into adherents of traditional French opera (J.B. Lully and J.F. Rameau), on the one hand, and the new French opera of Gluck, on the other. Willingly or unwittingly, Gluck himself challenged the traditionalists by using for his heroic opera “Armida” a libretto written by F. Kino (based on T. Tasso’s poem “Jerusalem Liberated”) for Lully’s opera of the same name. "Armida", which premiered at the Royal Academy of Music on September 23, 1777, apparently was received so differently by representatives of different "parties" that even 200 years later some spoke of "tremendous success" and others of "failure" "
Nevertheless, this struggle ended in Gluck’s victory, when on May 18, 1779, his opera “Iphigenia in Tauris” (on a libretto by N. Gniar and L. du Roullet based on the tragedy of Euripides) was presented at the Royal Academy of Music, which many still consider best opera composer. Niccolò Piccinni himself recognized Gluck's "musical revolution". Even earlier, J. A. Houdon sculpted a white marble bust of the composer with the inscription in Latin: “Musas praeposuit sirenis” (“He preferred the muses to the sirens”) - in 1778 this bust was installed in the foyer of the Royal Academy of Music next to the busts of Lully and Rameau.
Last years
On September 24, 1779, the premiere of Gluck's last opera, Echo and Narcissus, took place in Paris; However, even earlier, in July, the composer was struck by a stroke, which resulted in partial paralysis. In the autumn of the same year, Gluck returned to Vienna, which he never left: a new attack of illness occurred in June 1781.
During this period, the composer continued the work he had begun back in 1773 on odes and songs for voice and piano based on the poems of F. G. Klopstock (German: Klopstocks Oden und Lieder beim Clavier zu singen in Musik gesetzt), dreamed of creating a German national opera based on Klopstock’s story “The Battle of Arminius,” but these plans were not destined to come true. Anticipating his imminent departure, around 1782 Gluck wrote “De profundis” - a short work for a four-voice choir and orchestra on the text of the 129th Psalm, which on November 17, 1787, at the composer’s funeral, was performed by his student and follower Antonio Salieri. On November 14 and 15, Gluck experienced three more apoplexy attacks; he died on November 15, 1787 and was initially buried in the church cemetery of the suburb of Matzleinsdorf; in 1890 his ashes were transferred to the Vienna Central Cemetery.
Creation
Christoph Willibald Gluck was a composer primarily of opera, but the exact number of operas he owned has not been established: on the one hand, some works have not survived, on the other, Gluck repeatedly reworked his own operas. " Music Encyclopedia” names the number 107, but lists only 46 operas.
Monument to K. W. Gluck in Vienna
In 1930, E. Braudo regretted that Gluck’s “true masterpieces,” both of his Iphigenias, had now completely disappeared from the theatrical repertoire; but in the middle of the 20th century, interest in the composer’s work was revived; for many years they have not left the stage and have an extensive discography of his operas “Orpheus and Eurydice”, “Alceste”, “Iphigenia in Aulis”, “Iphigenia in Tauris”, which are even more popular use symphonic fragments from his operas, which have long been found independent life on the concert stage. In 1987, the International Gluck Society was founded in Vienna to study and promote the composer's work.
At the end of his life, Gluck said that “only the foreigner Salieri” adopted his manners from him, “for not a single German wanted to study them”; nevertheless, he found many followers in different countries, each of whom applied his principles in their own work - in addition to Antonio Salieri, these were primarily Luigi Cherubini, Gaspare Spontini and L. van Beethoven, and later Hector Berlioz, who called Gluck's Aeschylus of Music; Among his closest followers, the composer's influence is sometimes noticeable even beyond operatic creativity, like Beethoven, Berlioz and Franz Schubert. As for creative ideas Gluck, they determined the further development of the opera theater; in the 19th century there was no major opera composer who, to a greater or lesser extent, would not have been influenced by these ideas; Another opera reformer, Richard Wagner, also turned to Gluck, who half a century later faced opera stage with the same “costume concert” against which Gluck’s reform was directed. The composer's ideas turned out to be not alien to Russian opera culture - from Mikhail Glinka to Alexander Serov.
Gluck also wrote a number of works for orchestra - symphonies or overtures (during the composer’s youth the distinction between these genres was not yet clear enough), a concerto for flute and orchestra (G major), 6 trio sonatas for 2 violins and a general bass, written back in the 40s. In collaboration with G. Angiolini, in addition to Don Juan, Gluck created three more ballets: Alexander (1765), as well as Semiramis (1765) and The Chinese Orphan - both based on the tragedies of Voltaire.
Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) is an outstanding opera composer and playwright who carried out the reform of Italian opera seria and French lyric tragedy in the second half of the 18th century. An older contemporary of J. Haydn and W. A. Mozart, closely associated with the musical life of Vienna, K.W. Gluck is associated with the Viennese classical school.
Gluck's reform was a reflection of educational ideas. On the eve of the Great french revolution In 1789, the theater faced the important task of not entertaining, but educating the listener. However, neither the Italian opera seria nor the French " lyrical tragedy“We couldn’t cope with this task. They were mainly subordinate to aristocratic tastes, which was manifested in an entertaining, lightweight interpretation of heroic plots with their obligatory happy ending, and in an immoderate predilection for virtuoso singing, which completely overshadowed the content.
The most advanced musicians (, Rameau) tried to change the appearance of traditional opera, but there were few partial changes. Gluck became the first composer who managed to create an operatic art that was in tune with his contemporary era. In his work, mythological opera, which experienced acute crisis, turned into a genuine musical tragedy, filled strong passions and revealing the high ideals of fidelity, duty, readiness for self-sacrifice.
Gluck approached the implementation of the reform already on the threshold of his 50th birthday - a mature opera master with extensive experience in various European opera houses. He lived amazing life, in which there was a struggle for the right to become a musician, and wanderings, and numerous tours that enriched the composer’s stock of musical impressions, helped to establish interesting creative contacts, and become better acquainted with various opera schools. Gluck studied a lot: first at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Prague, then with the famous Czech composer Boguslav of Montenegro, and in Italy with Giovanni Sammartini. He proved himself not only as a composer, but also as a bandmaster, director of his operas, and music writer. Recognition of Gluck's authority in the musical world was his awarding of the Papal Order of the Golden Spur (since then the composer has been given the nickname with which he went down in history - “Cavalier Gluck”).
Gluck's reform activities took place in two cities - Vienna and Paris, therefore in creative biography The composer can be distinguished into three periods:
- I - pre-reform- from 1741 (the first opera - “Artaxerxes”) to 1761 (ballet “Don Juan”).
- II - Viennese reformist- from 1762 to 1770, when 3 reform operas were created. These are "Orpheus" (1762), "Alceste" (1767) and "Paris and Helen" (1770). (In addition to them, other operas were written that were not directly related to the reform). All three operas were written to a libretto by the Italian poet Ranieri Calzabigi, a like-minded person and constant collaborator of the composer in Vienna. Not finding adequate support from the Viennese public, Gluck goes to Paris.
- III - Parisian reformist- from 1773 (moving to Paris) to 1779 (return to Vienna). The years spent in the capital of France became the time of the composer's highest creative activity. He writes and stages new reform operas at the Royal Academy of Music. This "Iphigenia in Aulis"(based on the tragedy of J. Racine, 1774), "Armida"(based on T. Tasso’s poem “Jerusalem Liberated”, 1777), "Iphigenia in Tauris"(based on the drama by G. de la Touche, 1779), “Echo and Narcissus” (1779), reworks “Orpheus” and “Alceste”, in accordance with the traditions of the French theater.
Gluck's activities stirred up musical life Paris, caused intense controversy, which in musical history known as the “war of the Gluckists and Piccinists.” On Gluck's side were French educators (D. Diderot, J. Rousseau and others), who welcomed the birth of a truly high heroic style in opera.
Gluck formulated the main provisions of his reform in the preface to Alceste. It is rightfully considered the composer’s aesthetic manifesto, a document of exceptional importance.
When I undertook to set Alceste to music, I set myself the goal of avoiding those excesses that have long been introduced into Italian opera thanks to the thoughtlessness and vanity of the singers and the excessive servility of the composers and which turned it from the most magnificent and beautiful spectacle into the most boring and funny. I wanted to reduce music to its true purpose - to accompany poetry, in order to enhance the expression of feelings and give greater interest to stage situations, without interrupting the action or dampening it with unnecessary embellishments. It seemed to me that music should play in relation to a poetic work the same role that the brightness of colors and light and shade play in relation to an accurate drawing, which contribute to the animation of figures without changing their contours.
I was careful not to interrupt the actor during a lush dialogue in order to let him wait for a boring ritornello, or to stop him in the middle of a phrase on a convenient vowel so that he could demonstrate the mobility of his beautiful voice in a long passage, or to catch his breath during the orchestral cadenza.
In the end, I wanted to banish from the opera all those bad excesses against which common sense and good taste had been protesting in vain for a long time.
I believed that the overture should, as it were, warn the audience about the nature of the action that would unfold before their eyes; that the instruments of the orchestra should enter in accordance with the interest of the action and the growth of passions; What to Avoid Most in a Breakup Dialogue between the aria and the recitative and not inappropriately interrupt the movement and tension of the scene.
I also thought that the main task of my work should be reduced to the search for beautiful simplicity, and therefore I avoided demonstrating a heap of spectacular difficulties at the expense of clarity; and I did not attach any value to the discovery of a new technique if it did not flow naturally from the situation and was not associated with expressiveness. Finally, there is no rule that I would not willingly sacrifice for the sake of the power of impression.
The first point of this preface is the question of the relationship between music and drama (poetry) - Which of them is more important in the synthetic art of opera? This question can be called “eternal”, since it has existed for as many years as the opera itself. Any era, almost every opera author gave these two components of musical drama their own meaning. In early Florentine opera the problem was resolved “in favor of poetry”; Monteverdi, and later Mozart, brought music to the first place.
Gluck, in his understanding of opera, “kept pace” with his time. As a true representative of the Enlightenment, he sought to elevate the role of drama as the main exponent of content. Music, in his opinion, should be subordinate and accompany the drama.
The main theme of Gluck's reform operas is associated with ancient subjects of a heroic-tragic nature. The main question driving these plots is a question of life and death, and not a love relationship between gallant characters. If Gluck’s heroes experience love, then its strength and truth are tested by death (“Orpheus”, “Alceste”), and in some cases the theme of love generally becomes secondary (“Iphigenia in Aulis”) or is completely absent (“Iphigenia in Tauris”) . But the motives of self-sacrifice in the name of civic duty are clearly emphasized (Alceste saves in the person of Admetus not just her beloved husband, but also the king; Iphigenia goes to the altar in Aulis out of piety and for the sake of preserving harmony between the Greeks, and having become a priestess in Tauris, she refuses to raise her hand against Orestes only out of family feelings, but also because he is a legitimate monarch).
By creating exceptionally sublime and serious art, Gluck sacrifices a lot:
- almost all entertaining moments (in “Iphigenia in Tauris” there are not even ordinary ballet divertissements);
- beautiful singing;
- side lines of a lyrical or comic nature.
He almost does not allow the viewer to “take a breath”, to be distracted from the course of the drama.
The result is a performance in which all components of dramaturgy are logically appropriate and perform certain, necessary functions in the overall composition:
- the choir and ballet become full participants in the action;
- intonationally expressive recitatives naturally merge with arias, the melody of which is free from the excesses of a virtuoso style;
- the overture anticipates the emotional structure of the future action;
- relatively complete musical numbers combine into large scenes.
In 1745 the composer toured London. They made a strong impression on him. This sublime, monumental, heroic art became the most important creative reference point for Gluck.
German romantic writer E.T.A. This is exactly what Hoffmann called one of his best short stories.
Trying to shake Gluck's position, his opponents specially invited the Italian composer N. Piccinni, who was popular at that time, to Paris. European recognition. However, Piccini himself treated Gluck with sincere sympathy.
Christoph Willibald Gluck made an enormous contribution to the history of music as an outstanding composer and reformer of opera. It is rare that any of the opera composers of subsequent generations did not experience, to a greater or lesser extent, the influence of his reform, including the authors of Russian operas. And the great German opera revolutionary rated Gluck’s work very highly. The ideas of debunking routine and cliches on the opera stage, putting an end to the omnipotence of soloists there, bringing together musical and dramatic content - all this, perhaps, remains relevant to this day.
Chevalier Gluck - and this is how he had the right to introduce himself since he was awarded the Order of the Golden Spur (he received this honorary award from the Pope in 1756 for his services to musical art) – was born into a very humble family. His father served as a forester for Prince Lobkowitz. The family lived in the town of Erasbach, south of Nuremberg, in Bavaria, or rather Franconia. Three years later they moved to Bohemia (Czech Republic), and there the future composer received his education, first at the Jesuit College in Komotau, then against the will of his father, who did not want his son musical career– went on his own to Prague and there attended classes at the university’s Faculty of Philosophy and at the same time lessons in harmony and general bass from B. Chernogorsky.
Prince Lobkowitz, famous philanthropist and amateur musician, drew attention to the talented and hardworking young man and took him with him to Vienna. There we became acquainted with modern opera art, a passion for him came - but at the same time, an awareness of the inadequacy of his composer's weapons. Once in Milan, Gluck improved under the guidance of the experienced Giovanni Sammartini. There, with the production of the opera seria (which means “serious opera”) “Artaxerxes” in 1741, his composing career started, and it should be noted - with great success, which gave the author confidence in his abilities.
His name became famous, orders began to arrive, and new operas were staged on the stages of various European theaters. But in London, Gluck's music was received coldly. There, accompanying Lobkowitz, the composer did not have enough time, and was only able to stage 2 “Pasticcio”, which meant “an opera composed of excerpts from previously composed ones”. But it was in England that Gluck was greatly impressed by the music of George Frideric Handel, and this made him seriously think about himself.
He was looking for his own ways. Having tried his luck in Prague, then returning to Vienna, he tried himself in the genre of French comic opera (“The Corrected Drunkard” 1760, “Pilgrims from Mecca” 1761, etc.)
But a fateful meeting with the Italian poet, playwright and talented librettist Raniero Calzabigi revealed the truth to him. He finally found a like-minded person! They were united by dissatisfaction with modern opera, which they knew from the inside. They began to strive for a closer and artistically correct combination of musical and dramatic action. They opposed the transformation of live performances into concert performances. The result of their fruitful collaboration was the ballet “Don Juan”, the operas “Orpheus and Eurydice” (1762), “Alceste” (1767) and “Paris and Helena” (1770) - new page in the history of musical theater.
By that time, the composer had already been happily married for a long time. His young wife also brought with her a large dowry, and he could devote himself entirely to creativity. He was a very respected musician in Vienna, and the activities under his leadership of the “Music Academy” were one of interesting events in the history of this city.
A new twist of fate occurred when Gluck's noble student, the emperor's daughter Marie Antoinette, became queen of France and took her beloved teacher with her. In Paris, she became his active supporter and promoter of his ideas. Her husband, Louis XV, on the contrary, was among the supporters of Italian operas and patronized them. Disputes about tastes resulted in real war, and remained in history as the “war of the Gluckists and Piccinists” (composer Niccolo Piccini was urgently sent from Italy to help). Gluck's new masterpieces, created in Paris - “Iphigenia in Aulis” (1773), “Armide” (1777) and “Iphigenia in Tauris” - marked the pinnacle of his creativity. He also made the second edition of the opera “Orpheus and Eurydice”. Niccolo Piccini himself recognized Gluck's revolution.
But, if Gluck’s creations won that war, the composer himself suffered greatly in health. Three strokes in a row knocked him down. Having left a remarkable creative legacy and students (among whom was, for example, Antonio Salieri), Christoph Willibald Gluck died in 1787 in Vienna, his grave is now located in the main city cemetery.
Musical Seasons
GLUCK, CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD (Gluck, Christoph Willibald) (1714–1787), German composer, opera reformer, one of the greatest masters of the era of classicism. Born on July 2, 1714 in Erasbach (Bavaria), in the family of a forester; Gluck's ancestors came from Northern Bohemia and lived on the lands of Prince Lobkowicz. Gluck was three years old when the family returned to their homeland; he studied at the schools of Kamnitz and Albersdorf. In 1732 he went to Prague, where he apparently attended lectures at the university, earning a living by singing in church choirs and playing the violin and cello. According to some reports, he took lessons from the Czech composer B. Montenegrin (1684–1742).
In 1736, Gluck arrived in Vienna in the retinue of Prince Lobkowitz, but the very next year he moved to the chapel of the Italian Prince Melzi and followed him to Milan. Here Gluck studied composition for three years with the great master of chamber genres G.B. Sammartini (1698–1775), and at the end of 1741 the premiere of Gluck’s first opera Artaxerxes took place in Milan. Then he led a life usual for a successful Italian composer, i.e. continuously composed operas and pasticcios (opera performances in which the music is composed of fragments from various operas by one or more authors). In 1745, Gluck accompanied Prince Lobkowitz on his trip to London; their path lay through Paris, where Gluck first heard the operas of J.F. Rameau (1683–1764) and highly appreciated them. In London, Gluck met with Handel and T. Arn, staged two of his pasticcios (one of them, The Fall of the Giants, La Caduta dei Giganti, is a play on the topic of the day: it is about the suppression of the Jacobite uprising), gave a concert in which he played on a glass harmonica of his own design, and published six trio sonatas. In the second half of 1746, the composer was already in Hamburg, as conductor and choirmaster of the Italian opera troupe P.Mingotti. Until 1750, Gluck traveled with this troupe to different cities and countries, composing and staging his operas. In 1750 he married and settled in Vienna.
None of Gluck's operas early period did not fully reveal the scale of his talent, but nevertheless, by 1750 his name already enjoyed a certain fame. In 1752, the Neapolitan San Carlo Theater commissioned him the opera La Clemenza di Tito (La Clemenza di Tito) to a libretto by the major playwright of that era, Metastasio. Gluck conducted himself, and aroused both keen interest and jealousy of local musicians and received praise from the venerable composer and teacher F. Durante (1684–1755). Upon returning to Vienna in 1753, he became bandmaster at the court of the Prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen and remained in this position until 1760. In 1757, Pope Benedict XIV awarded the composer the title of knight and awarded him the Order of the Golden Spur: from then on the musician signed himself - “Cavalier Gluck” ( Ritter von Gluck).
During this period, the composer became surrounded by the new manager of the Viennese theaters, Count Durazzo, and composed a lot both for the court and for the count himself; in 1754 Gluck was appointed conductor of the court opera. After 1758, he worked hard to create works based on French librettos in the style of French comic opera, which was propagated in Vienna by the Austrian envoy in Paris (meaning such operas as Merlin's Island, L "Isle de Merlin; The Imaginary Slave, La fausse esclave; Fooled Cadi, Le cadi dup). opera reform", the purpose of which was to restore drama, originated in Northern Italy and dominated the minds of Gluck's contemporaries, and these trends were especially strong at the Parma court, where French influence played a large role. Durazzo came from Genoa; years creative development Gluck took place in Milan; they were joined by two more artists originally from Italy, but who had experience working in theaters in different countries - the poet R. Calzabigi and the choreographer G. Angioli. Thus, a “team” of gifted, intelligent people, and influential enough to put common ideas into practice, was formed. The first fruit of their collaboration was the ballet Don Juan (1761), followed by Orpheus and Euridice (1762) and Alceste (1767), Gluck's first reform operas.
In the preface to Alceste's score, Gluck formulates his operatic principles: the subordination of musical beauty to dramatic truth; the destruction of thoughtless vocal virtuosity, all kinds of inorganic insertions into the musical action; interpretation of the overture as an introduction to the drama. In essence, all this already existed in modern French opera, and since the Austrian princess Marie Antoinette, who had previously taken singing lessons from Gluck, then became the wife of the French monarch, it is not surprising that Gluck was soon commissioned for a number of operas for Paris. The premiere of the first, Iphignie en Aulide, was conducted by the author in 1774 and served as the occasion for a fierce battle of opinions, a real battle between supporters of French and Italian opera, which lasted about five years. During this time, Gluck staged two more operas in Paris - Armide (Armide, 1777) and Iphignie en Tauride (1779), and also reworked Orpheus and Alceste for the French stage. Fanatics of Italian opera specially invited composer N. Piccinni (1772–1800) to Paris, who was talented musician, but still could not withstand the competition with the genius of Gluck. At the end of 1779 Gluck returned to Vienna. Gluck died in Vienna on November 15, 1787.
Gluck's work is the highest expression of the aesthetics of classicism, which already during the composer's lifetime gave way to the emerging romanticism. The best of Gluck's operas still occupy a place of honor in the operatic repertoire, and his music captivates listeners with its noble simplicity and deep expressiveness.
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