Christopher Willibald Gluck short biography. Christoph Willibald Gluck: biography, interesting facts, video, creativity

Gluck, Christoph Willibald(Gluck, Christoph Willibald) (1714–1787), German composer, operatic reformer, one of the greatest masters of the Classical era. Born 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 Lobkowitz. 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 listened to 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. Chernogorsky (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, for three years, Gluck studied composition 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 took place in Milan. Artaxerxes(Artaserse). Further, he led the life usual for a successful Italian composer, i.e. continuously composed operas and pasticcios (opera performances in which the music is composed of fragments of various operas by one or more authors). In 1745 Gluck accompanied Prince Lobkowitz on his journey 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, Fall of giants, La Caduta dei Giganti, - a play on the topic of the day: we are talking about the suppression of the Jacobite uprising), gave a concert in which he played the 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 P. Mingotti's Italian opera troupe. 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 of the early period fully disclosed the extent of his talent, but nevertheless, by 1750 his name already enjoyed some fame. In 1752, the Neapolitan theater "San Carlo" commissioned him an opera. Mercy of Titus (La Clemenza di Tito) to a libretto by Metastasio, a major playwright of that era. Gluck himself conducted, and aroused both keen interest and jealousy of local musicians and received praise from the venerable composer and teacher F. Durante (1684–1755). Upon his return to Vienna in 1753, he became Kapellmeister 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: since then, the musician signed - "Cavalier Gluck" ( Ritter von Gluck).

During this period, the composer entered the circle of the new manager of the Vienna 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 diligently on the creation of works on French librettos in the style of the French comic opera, which was planted in Vienna by the Austrian envoy in Paris (meaning such operas as Merlin Island, L "Isle de Merlin;imaginary slave, La fausse esclave; Fooled cady, Le cadi dupe). The dream of an "opera reform", the aim of which was to restore the drama, originated in Northern Italy and owned the minds of Gluck's contemporaries, and these tendencies were especially strong at the court of Parma, where French influence played a large role. Durazzo came from Genoa; Gluck's formative years were spent in Milan; they were joined by two more artists originally from Italy, but who had experience in theaters in different countries - the poet R. Calzabidgi and the choreographer G. Angioli. Thus, a “team” was formed of gifted, intelligent people, and influential enough to translate common ideas into practice. The first fruit of their collaboration was ballet Don Juan (Don Juan, 1761), then were born Orpheus and Eurydice (Orfeo ed Euridice, 1762) and Alcesta (Alceste, 1767) are Gluck's first reformist operas.

In the preface to the score Alceste Gluck formulates his operatic principles: the subordination of musical beauty to dramatic truth; the destruction of incomprehensible vocal virtuosity, all sorts of inorganic inserts in musical action; interpretation of the overture as an introduction to the drama. In fact, all this already existed in modern French opera, and since the Austrian princess Marie Antoinette, who in the past took singing lessons from Gluck, then became the wife of the French monarch, it is not surprising that Gluck was soon commissioned a number of operas for Paris. Premiere of the first Iphigenia in Aulis (Iphigenie en Aulide), was conducted by the author in 1774 and served as a pretext for a fierce struggle 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 - Armida (Armide, 1777) and Iphigenia in Tauris (Iphigenie en Tauride, 1779), and reworked for the French stage Orpheus and Alceste. The fanatics of the Italian opera specially invited the composer N. Piccinni (1772–1800) to Paris, who was a talented musician, but still could not withstand the rivalry 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 life of the composer 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.

Christoph Willibald Gluck

The famous composer of the 18th century, Christoph Willibald Gluck, who is one of the reformers of classical opera, was born on July 2, 1714 in the city of Erasbach, located near the border of the Upper Palatinate and the Czech Republic.

The composer's father was a simple peasant who, after several years of military service, joined Count Lobkowitz as a forester. In 1717 the Gluck family moved to the Czech Republic. Years of life in this country could not but affect the work of the famous composer: in his music one can catch the motives of Czech song folklore.

The childhood of Christoph Willibald Gluck cannot be called cloudless: the family often did not have enough money, and the boy was forced to help his father in everything. However, the difficulties did not break the composer, on the contrary, they contributed to the development of vitality and perseverance. These qualities of character turned out to be indispensable for Gluck in the implementation of reformist ideas.

In 1726, at the age of 12, Christoph Willibald began his studies at the Jesuit College of Komotau. The rules of this educational institution, imbued with blind faith in the dogmas of the church, provided for unconditional obedience to the authorities, but it was difficult for the young talent to keep himself within the limits.

The positive aspects of Gluck's six-year study at the Jesuit College can be considered the development of vocal abilities, the mastery of such musical instruments as the clavier, organ and cello, Greek and Latin, as well as a passion for ancient literature. At a time when Greek and Roman antiquities were the main theme of opera art, such knowledge and skills were simply necessary for an opera composer.

In 1732, Gluck entered the University of Prague and moved from Komotau to the Czech capital, where he continued his musical education. With money, the young man was still tight. Sometimes, in search of work, he went to the surrounding villages and played the cello entertained the locals, quite often the future musical reformer was invited to weddings and folk holidays. Almost all the money earned in this way went to food.

The first real music teacher for Christoph Willibald Gluck was the outstanding composer and organist Boguslav Chernogorsky. The young man's acquaintance with the "Czech Bach" took place in one of the Prague churches, where Gluck sang in the church choir. It was from Chernogorsky that the future reformer learned what general bass (harmony) and counterpoint are.

Many researchers of Gluck's work note 1736 as the beginning of his professional musical career. Count Lobkowitz, on whose estate the young man spent his childhood, showed genuine interest in the outstanding talent of Christoph Willibald. Soon an important event took place in the fate of Gluck: he received the position of chamber musician and chief chorister of the Viennese choir, Count Lobkowitz.

The rapid musical life of Vienna completely absorbed the young composer. Acquaintance with the famous playwright and librettist of the 18th century, Pietro Metastasio, resulted in Gluck writing the first operatic works, which, however, did not receive special recognition.

The next stage in the work of the young composer was a trip to Italy, organized by the Italian philanthropist Count Melzi. For four years, from 1737 to 1741, Gluck continued his studies in Milan under the guidance of the famous Italian composer, organist and conductor Giovanni Battista Sammartini.

The result of the Italian trip was Gluck's passion for opera seria and the writing of musical works based on texts by P. Metastasio ("Artaxerxes", "Demetrius", "Hypermnestra", etc.). None of Gluck's early works have survived to the present day in their entirety, however, individual fragments of his works allow us to judge that even then the future reformer noticed a number of shortcomings in traditional Italian opera and tried to overcome them.

Signs of the upcoming operatic reform were most evident in Hypermnestra: this is the desire to overcome external vocal virtuosity, increase the dramatic expressiveness of recitatives, and the organic connection of the overture with the content of the entire opera. However, the creative immaturity of the young composer, who had not yet fully realized the need to change the principles of writing an opera, did not allow him to become a reformer in those years.

Nevertheless, there is no unbridgeable gulf between Gluck's early and later operas. In the compositions of the reform period, the composer often introduced melodic turns of early works, and sometimes used old arias with new text.

In 1746 Christoph Willibald Gluck moved to England. For high London society, he wrote the opera seria Artamena and The Fall of the Giants. The meeting with the famous Handel, in whose works there was a tendency to go beyond the standard scheme of a serious opera, became a new stage in the creative life of Gluck, who gradually realized the need for operatic reform.

To attract the metropolitan public to his concerts, Gluck resorted to external effects. So, in one of the London newspapers for March 31, 1746, an announcement was made as follows: “In the great hall of the city of Gickford, on Tuesday, April 14, 1746, Gluck, an opera composer, will give a musical concert with the participation of the best opera artists. By the way, he will perform, accompanied by an orchestra, a concerto for 26 glasses tuned with spring water ... ".

From England, Gluck went to Germany, then to Denmark and the Czech Republic, where he wrote and staged seria operas, dramatic serenades, worked with opera singers and as a conductor.

In the mid-1750s, the composer returned to Vienna, where he received an invitation from the intendant of the court theaters, Giacomo Durazzo, to begin work in the French theater as a composer. Between 1758 and 1764, Gluck wrote a number of French comic operas: Merlin's Island (1758), The Corrected Drunkard (1760), The Fooled Kadi (1761), An Unexpected Encounter, or The Pilgrims from Mecca ( 1764), etc.

Work in this direction had a significant impact on the formation of Gluck's reformist views: an appeal to the true origins of folk songwriting and the use of new everyday subjects in classical art led to the growth of realistic elements in the composer's musical work.

Gluck's legacy includes not only operas. In 1761, on the stage of one of the Viennese theaters, the pantomime ballet "Don Giovanni" was staged - a joint work of Christoph Willibald Gluck and the famous choreographer of the 18th century Gasparo Angiolini. The characteristic features of this ballet were the dramatization of the action and expressive music that conveys human passions.

Thus, ballet and comic operas became the next step on Gluck's path to dramatization of operatic art, to the creation of a musical tragedy, the crown of all creative activity of the famous composer-reformer.

Many researchers consider the beginning of Gluck's reformatory activity to be his rapprochement with the Italian poet, playwright and librettist Raniero da Calzabidgi, who opposed the court aesthetics of Metastasio's works, subject to standard canons, with the simplicity, naturalness and freedom of compositional construction, due to the development of the dramatic action itself. Choosing ancient subjects for his librettos, Calzabidgi filled them with high moral pathos and special civil and moral ideals.

Gluck's first reformist opera, written to a text by a like-minded librettist, was Orpheus and Eurydice, staged at the Vienna Opera House on October 5, 1762. This work is known in two editions: in Vienna (in Italian) and in Paris (in French), supplemented by ballet scenes, Orpheus's aria that ends the first act, re-instrumentation of certain places, etc.

A. Golovin. Sketch of the scenery for the opera "Orpheus and Eurydice" by K. Gluck

The plot of the opera, borrowed from ancient literature, is as follows: the Thracian singer Orpheus, who had an amazing voice, died the wife of Eurydice. Together with his friends, he mourns his beloved. At this time, Amur, who suddenly appeared, announces the will of the gods: Orpheus must descend to the kingdom of Hades, find Eurydice there and bring her to the surface of the earth. The main condition is that Orpheus should not look at his wife until they leave the underworld, otherwise she will remain there forever.

This is the first act of the work, in which the sad choirs of shepherds and shepherdesses form, together with recitatives and arias of Orpheus mourning his wife, a harmonious compositional number. Thanks to repetition (the music of the choir and the aria of the legendary singer are performed three times) and tonal unity, a dramatic scene with through action is created.

The second act, consisting of two scenes, begins with the entry of Orpheus into the world of shadows. Here, the singer's magical voice calms the wrath of formidable furies and spirits of the underworld, and he freely passes into Elysium - the habitat of blissful shadows. Finding his beloved and not looking at her, Orpheus brings her to the surface of the earth.

In this action, the dramatic and ominous nature of the music is intertwined with a gentle, full of passion melody, demonic choirs and frantic dances of furies are replaced by a light, lyrical ballet of blissful shadows, accompanied by an inspired flute solo. The orchestral part in the aria of Orpheus conveys the beauty of the world around, filled with harmony.

The third action takes place in a gloomy gorge, along which the protagonist, without turning around, leads his beloved. Eurydice, not understanding her husband's behavior, asks him to look at her at least once. Orpheus assures her of his love, but Eurydice has doubts. The look thrown by Orpheus at his wife kills her. The singer's suffering is endless, the gods take pity on him and send Cupid to resurrect Eurydice. The happy couple returns to the world of living people and together with friends glorifies the power of love.

The frequent change of musical tempo contributes to the creation of the agitated nature of the work. The aria of Orpheus, despite the major key, is an expression of grief over the loss of a loved one, and the preservation of this mood depends on the correct performance, tempo and nature of the sound. In addition, Orpheus's aria appears as a modified major reprise of the first chorus of the first act. Thus, the intonational “arch” thrown over the work preserves its integrity.

The musical and dramatic principles outlined in "Orpheus and Eurydice" were developed in subsequent operatic works by Christoph Willibald Gluck - "Alceste" (1767), "Paris and Helena" (1770), etc. The composer's work of the 1760s reflected the features the Viennese classical style emerging at that time, finally formed in the music of Haydn and Mozart.

In 1773, a new stage in Gluck's life began, marked by a move to Paris, the center of European opera. Vienna did not accept the composer's reformist ideas, set forth in the dedication to the score of Alceste, which envisaged the transformation of the opera into a musical tragedy imbued with noble simplicity, drama and heroism in the spirit of classicism.

Music was supposed to become only a means of emotional disclosure of the souls of the characters; arias, recitatives and choirs, while maintaining their independence, were combined into large dramatic scenes, and recitatives conveyed the dynamics of feelings and marked transitions from one state to another; the overture should reflect the dramatic idea of the whole work, and the use of ballet scenes was motivated by the course of the opera.

The introduction of civic motifs into ancient subjects contributed to the success of Gluck's works among progressive French society. In April 1774, the first production of the opera Iphigenia at Aulis was shown at the Royal Academy of Music in Paris, which fully reflected all of Gluck's innovations.

The continuation of the composer's reformatory activity in Paris was the production of the operas Orpheus and Alceste in a new edition, which brought the theatrical life of the French capital into great excitement. For a number of years, disputes between the supporters of the reformist Gluck and the Italian opera composer Niccolò Piccini, who stood in the old positions, did not subside.

The last reformist works of Christoph Willibald Gluck were Armida, written on a medieval plot (1777), and Iphigenia in Tauris (1779). The staging of Gluck's last mythological tale-opera Echo and Narcissus was not very successful.

The last years of the life of the famous composer-reformer were spent in Vienna, where he worked on writing songs to the texts of various composers, including Klapstock. A few months before his death, Gluck began to write the heroic opera The Battle of Arminius, but his plan was not destined to come true.

The famous composer died in Vienna on November 15, 1787. His work influenced the development of all musical art, including opera.

This text is an introductory piece.

K. V. Gluck is a great opera composer who performed in the second half of the 18th century. reform of the Italian opera-seria and the French lyrical tragedy. The great mythological opera, which was going through an acute crisis, acquired in Gluck's work the qualities of a genuine musical tragedy, filled with strong passions, elevating the ethical ideals of fidelity, duty, readiness for self-sacrifice. The appearance of the first reformist opera "Orpheus" was preceded by a long way - the struggle for the right to become a musician, wandering, mastering various opera genres of that time. Gluck lived an amazing life, devoting himself entirely to musical theater.

Gluck was born into a forester's family. The father considered the profession of a musician an unworthy occupation and in every possible way interfered with the musical hobbies of his eldest son. Therefore, as a teenager, Gluck leaves home, wanders, dreams of getting a good education (by this time he had graduated from the Jesuit college in Kommotau). In 1731 Gluck entered the University of Prague. A student of the Faculty of Philosophy devoted a lot of time to music studies - he took lessons from the famous Czech composer Boguslav Chernogorsky, sang in the choir of St. Jacob's Church. Wanderings in the environs of Prague (Gluk willingly played the violin and especially his beloved cello in wandering ensembles) helped him to become more familiar with Czech folk music.

In 1735, Gluck, already an established professional musician, traveled to Vienna and entered the service of Count Lobkowitz's choir. Soon the Italian philanthropist A. Melzi offered Gluck a job as a chamber musician in the court chapel in Milan. In Italy, Gluck's path as an opera composer begins; he gets acquainted with the work of the largest Italian masters, is engaged in composition under the direction of G. Sammartini. The preparatory stage continued for almost 5 years; it was not until December 1741 that Gluck's first opera Artaxerxes (libre P. Metastasio) was successfully staged in Milan. Gluck receives numerous orders from the theaters of Venice, Turin, Milan, and within four years creates several more opera seria (“Demetrius”, “Poro”, “Demofont”, “Hypermnestra”, etc.), which brought him fame and recognition from rather sophisticated and demanding Italian public.

In 1745 the composer toured London. The oratorios of G. F. Handel made a strong impression on him. This sublime, monumental, heroic art became for Gluck the most important creative reference point. A stay in England, as well as performances with the Italian opera troupe of the Mingotti brothers in major European capitals (Dresden, Vienna, Prague, Copenhagen) enriched the composer's musical experience, helped to establish interesting creative contacts, and get to know various opera schools better. Gluck's authority in the music world was recognized by his awarding the papal Order of the Golden Spur. "Cavalier Glitch" - this title was assigned to the composer. (Let us recall the wonderful short story by T. A. Hoffmann "Cavalier Gluck".)

A new stage in the life and work of the composer begins with a move to Vienna (1752), where Gluck soon took the post of conductor and composer of the court opera, and in 1774 received the title of "actual imperial and royal court composer." Continuing to compose seria operas, Gluck also turned to new genres. French comic operas (Merlin's Island, The Imaginary Slave, The Corrected Drunkard, The Fooled Cady, etc.), written to the texts of the famous French playwrights A. Lesage, C. Favard and J. Seden, enriched the composer's style with new intonations, compositional techniques, responded to the needs of listeners in a directly vital, democratic art. Gluck's work in the ballet genre is of great interest. In collaboration with the talented Viennese choreographer G. Angiolini, the pantomime ballet Don Giovanni was created. The novelty of this performance - a genuine choreographic drama - is largely determined by the nature of the plot: not traditionally fabulous, allegorical, but deeply tragic, sharply conflicting, affecting the eternal problems of human existence. (The script of the ballet was written based on the play by J. B. Molière.)

The most important event in the creative evolution of the composer and in the musical life of Vienna was the premiere of the first reformist opera - Orpheus (1762). strict and sublime ancient drama. The beauty of Orpheus's art and the power of his love are able to overcome all obstacles - this eternal and always exciting idea underlies the opera, one of the most perfect creations of the composer. In the arias of Orpheus, in the famous flute solo, also known in numerous instrumental versions under the name "Melody", the composer's original melodic gift was revealed; and the scene at the gates of Hades - the dramatic duel between Orpheus and the Furies - has remained a remarkable example of the construction of a major operatic form, in which absolute unity of musical and stage development has been achieved.

Orpheus was followed by 2 more reformist operas - Alcesta (1767) and Paris and Elena (1770) (both in libre. Calcabidgi). In the preface to "Alceste", written on the occasion of the dedication of the opera to the Duke of Tuscany, Gluck formulated the artistic principles that guided all his creative activity. Not finding proper support from the Viennese and Italian public. Gluck goes to Paris. The years spent in the capital of France (1773-79) are the time of the composer's highest creative activity. Gluck writes and stages new reformist operas at the Royal Academy of Music - “Iphigenia in Aulis” (libre. L. du Roulle based on the tragedy by J. Racine, 1774), “Armida” (libre. F. Kino based on the poem “Liberated Jerusalem” by T. Tasso ”, 1777), “Iphigenia in Taurida” (libre. N. Gniyar and L. du Roulle based on the drama by G. de la Touche, 1779), “Echo and Narcissus” (libre. L. Chudi, 1779), reworks “Orpheus ” and “Alceste”, in accordance with the traditions of the French theater. Gluck's activity stirred up the musical life of Paris and provoked the sharpest aesthetic discussions. On the side of the composer are French enlighteners, encyclopedists (D. Diderot, J. Rousseau, J. d'Alembert, M. Grimm), who welcomed the birth of a truly high heroic style in opera; his opponents are adherents of the old French lyric tragedy and opera seria. In an effort to shake Gluck's position, they invited the Italian composer N. Piccinni, who enjoyed European recognition at that time, to Paris. The controversy between the supporters of Gluck and Piccinni entered the history of French opera under the name "wars of Glucks and Piccinnis". The composers themselves, who treated each other with sincere sympathy, remained far from these "aesthetic battles".

In the last years of his life, which passed in Vienna, Gluck dreamed of creating a German national opera based on the plot of F. Klopstock "The Battle of Hermann". However, serious illness and age prevented the implementation of this plan. During the funeral of Glucks in Vienna, his last work “De profundls” (“I call from the abyss ...”) for choir and orchestra was performed. This original requiem was conducted by Gluck's student A. Salieri.

G. Berlioz, a passionate admirer of his work, called Gluck "Aeschylus of Music". The style of Gluck's musical tragedies - the sublime beauty and nobility of images, the impeccability of taste and the unity of the whole, the monumentality of the composition, based on the interaction of solo and choral forms - goes back to the traditions of ancient tragedy. Created in the heyday of the enlightenment movement on the eve of the French Revolution, they responded to the needs of the time in great heroic art. So, Diderot wrote shortly before Gluck's arrival in Paris: "Let a genius appear who will establish a true tragedy ... on the lyrical stage." Having set as his goal "to expel from the opera all those bad excesses against which common sense and good taste have been protesting in vain for a long time," Gluck creates a performance in which all components of dramaturgy are logically expedient and perform certain, necessary functions in the overall composition. “... I avoided demonstrating a heap of spectacular difficulties at the expense of clarity,” says the Alceste dedication, “and I did not attach any value to the discovery of a new technique if it did not follow naturally from the situation and was not associated with expressiveness.” Thus, 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 are combined into large scenes, etc. Directed selection and concentration of means of musical and dramatic characterization, strict subordination of all links of a large composition - these are Gluck's most important discoveries, which were of great importance both for updating operatic dramaturgy and for establishing a new one, symphonic thinking. (The heyday of Gluck's operatic creativity falls on the time of the most intensive development of large cyclic forms - the symphony, sonata, concept.) An older contemporary of I. Haydn and W. A. Mozart, closely connected with the musical life and artistic atmosphere of Vienna. Gluck, and in terms of the warehouse of his creative individuality, and in the general direction of his searches, adjoins precisely the Viennese classical school. The traditions of Gluck's "high tragedy", the new principles of his dramaturgy were developed in the opera art of the 19th century: in the works of L. Cherubini, L. Beethoven, G. Berlioz and R. Wagner; and in Russian music - M. Glinka, who highly valued Gluck as the first opera composer of the 18th century.

I. Okhalova

The son of a hereditary forester, from an early age accompanies his father in his many journeys. In 1731 he entered the University of Prague, where he studied vocal art and playing various instruments. Being in the service of Prince Melzi, he lives in Milan, takes composition lessons from Sammartini and puts on a number of operas. In 1745, in London, he met Handel and Arne and composed for the theatre. Becoming the bandmaster of the Italian troupe Mingotti, visits Hamburg, Dresden and other cities. In 1750 he marries Marianne Pergin, daughter of a wealthy Viennese banker; in 1754 he became bandmaster of the Vienna Court Opera and was part of the entourage of Count Durazzo, who managed the theater. In 1762, Gluck's opera Orpheus and Eurydice was successfully staged to a libretto by Calzabidgi. In 1774, after several financial setbacks, he follows Marie Antoinette (to whom he was music teacher), who became the French queen, to Paris and wins the favor of the public despite the resistance of the Piccinnists. However, upset by the failure of the opera "Echo and Narcissus" (1779), he leaves France and leaves for Vienna. In 1781, the composer was paralyzed and stopped all activities.

Gluck's name is identified in the history of music with the so-called reform of the musical drama of the Italian type, the only one known and widespread in Europe in his time. He is considered not only a great musician, but above all the savior of a genre distorted in the first half of the 18th century by the virtuoso decorations of the singers and the rules of conventional, machine-based librettos. Nowadays, Gluck's position no longer seems exceptional, since the composer was not the only creator of the reform, the need for which was felt by other opera composers and librettists, in particular Italian ones. Moreover, the notion of the decline of musical drama cannot apply to the pinnacle of the genre, but only to low-grade compositions and authors of little talent (it is difficult to blame such a master as Handel for the decline).

Be that as it may, prompted by the librettist Calzabigi and other members of the entourage of Count Giacomo Durazzo, manager of the Vienna imperial theaters, Gluck introduced a number of innovations into practice, which undoubtedly led to major results in the field of musical theater. Calcabidgi recalled: “It was impossible for Mr. Gluck, who spoke our language [that is, Italian], to recite poetry. I read Orpheus to him and recited many fragments several times, emphasizing the shades of recitation, stops, slowing down, speeding up, sounds now heavy, now smooth, which I wanted him to use in his composition. At the same time, I asked him to remove all the graces, cadences , ritornellos and all that barbaric and extravagant that has penetrated into our music.

German composer, mainly operatic, one of the largest representatives of musical classicism

short biography

Christoph Willibald von Gluck(German Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck, July 2, 1714, Erasbach - November 15, 1787, Vienna) - German composer, mainly opera, one of the largest representatives of musical classicism. The name of Gluck is associated with the reform of the Italian opera seria and French lyrical tragedy in the second half of the 18th century, and if the works of Gluck the composer were not popular at all times, the ideas of Gluck the reformer determined the further development of the 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, usual in those days in Bohemia, where in 1717 the family moved. 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, left home, ended up in Prague in 1731 and studied for some time at the University of Prague, where he listened to lectures on logic and mathematics, making a living playing music. A violinist and cellist, who also had good vocal abilities, Gluck sang in the choir of the Cathedral of St. Jakub and played in an orchestra conducted by the largest Czech composer and musical theorist Boguslav Chernogorsky, sometimes went to the vicinity 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, in the house of Lobkowitz, the Italian aristocrat A. Melzi heard him 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 get 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 an opera as of a symphony; but it was under his guidance, as S. Rytsarev writes, that Gluck mastered the "modest" but confident homophonic writing, which was already fully established in Italian opera, while the polyphonic tradition still dominated in Vienna.

In December 1741, Gluck's first opera, Artaxerxes, a libretto by Pietro Metastasio, premiered in Milan. In "Artaxerxes", as in all of Gluck's early operas, the imitation of Sammartini was still noticeable, nevertheless, he was a success, which entailed orders from different cities of Italy, and in the next four years no less successful opera series were created " Demetrius", "Por", "Demofont", "Hypermnestra" and others.

In the autumn of 1745, Gluck went to London, from where he received an order for two operas, but already in the spring of the following year he left the English capital and joined the Mingotti brothers' Italian opera troupe as a second conductor, with whom he toured Europe for five years. In 1751, in Prague, he left Mingotti for the post of bandmaster in the troupe of Giovanni Locatelli, and in December 1752 he settled in Vienna. Having become bandmaster of the orchestra of Prince Joseph of Saxe-Hildburghausen, Gluck led his weekly concerts - "academies", in which he performed both other people's compositions and his own. According to contemporaries, Gluck was also an outstanding opera conductor and knew the peculiarities of ballet art well.

In search of musical drama

In 1754, at the suggestion of the manager of the Vienna theaters, Count J. 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 took on a self-sufficient character, and composers often became hostages to the whims of prima donnas, he turned to the French comic opera (“Merlin’s Island”, “ The Imaginary Slave, The Reformed Drunkard, The Fooled Cady, etc.), and even for ballet: the ballet-pantomime Don Giovanni created in collaboration with the choreographer G. Angiolini (based on the play by J.-B. Molière), a real choreographic drama, became the first incarnation of Gluck's desire to turn 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 Calzabidgi, who wrote the libretto of Don Giovanni. The next step in the direction of musical drama was their new joint work - the opera "Orpheus and Eurydice", in the first edition staged in Vienna on October 5, 1762. Under the pen of Calzabigi, the ancient Greek myth turned into an ancient drama, in full accordance with the tastes of that time; however, neither in Vienna nor in other European cities, the opera was a success with the public.

The need to reform the opera seria, writes S. Rytsarev, was dictated by the objective signs of its crisis. At the same time, it was necessary to overcome "the age-old and incredibly strong tradition of opera-spectacle, a musical performance with a well-established separation of the functions of poetry and music." In addition, the dramaturgy of static was characteristic of the opera seria; it was based on the “theory of affects”, which assumed for each emotional state - sadness, joy, anger, etc. - the use of certain means of musical expression established by theorists, and did not allow 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 an endless number of operas, on the other hand, their very short life on stage, on average from 3 to 5 performances.

Gluck in his reformist operas, writes S. Rytsarev, “made the music ‘work’ for the drama not in individual moments of the performance, which was often found in contemporary opera, but throughout its entire duration. Orchestral means acquired effectiveness, a secret meaning, they began to counterpoint the development of events on the stage. A flexible, dynamic change of recitative, aria, ballet and choral episodes has developed into a musical and plot eventfulness, 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 petrify, and it was easier to develop its healthy tendencies from the inside than in the opera seria. Commissioned by the court, Gluck continued to write operas in the traditional style, generally preferring comic opera. A new and more perfect embodiment of his dream of a musical drama was the heroic opera Alceste, created in collaboration with Calzabidgi in 1767, presented in its 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 music should play in relation to a poetic work the same role played by the brightness of colors and correctly distributed effects of chiaroscuro, enlivening the figures without changing their contours in relation to the drawing ... I tried to expel from music all the excesses against which they protest in vain common sense and justice. 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 conditioned by the interest and tension of the situations ... All my work should have been reduced to the search for noble simplicity, freedom from the ostentatious heap of difficulties at the expense of clarity; the introduction of some new techniques seemed to me valuable insofar as it corresponded to the situation. And finally, there is no such rule that I would not break in order to achieve greater expressiveness. These are my principles.

Such a fundamental subordination of music to a 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 the episodes of the opera into large scenes permeated with a single dramatic development, he tied the opera and the overture to the action, which at that time usually represented a separate concert number; in order to achieve greater expressiveness and drama, he increased the role of the choir and orchestra. Neither Alcesta nor the third reformist opera to Calzabidgi's libretto, Paris and Helena (1770), found support from either the Viennese or the Italian public.

Gluck's duties as court composer also included teaching music to the young Archduchess Marie Antoinette; becoming in April 1770 the wife of the heir to the French throne, Marie Antoinette invited Gluck to Paris. However, other circumstances influenced the composer's decision to move his activities to the capital of France to a much greater extent.

Glitch in Paris

In Paris, meanwhile, a struggle was going on around the opera, which became the second act of the struggle between the adherents of the Italian opera (“buffonists”) and the French (“anti-buffonists”) that had died down back in the 50s. This confrontation even split the royal family: the French king Louis XVI preferred the Italian opera, while his Austrian wife Marie Antoinette supported the national French. 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. The foreigner 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 of those years, Niccolò Piccinni, the third act of this musical and public polemic went down in history as a struggle between the “gluckists” and "picchinists". In a struggle that seemed to unfold around styles, the dispute in reality was about what an opera performance should be - just an opera, a luxurious spectacle with beautiful music and beautiful vocals, or something significantly more: the encyclopedists were waiting for a new social content, consonant with pre-revolutionary era. In the struggle between the “glukists” and the “picchinists”, which 200 years later already seemed like a grandiose theatrical performance, as in the “war of the buffoons”, according to S. Rytsarev, “powerful cultural layers of aristocratic and democratic art” entered into controversy.

In the early 1970s Gluck's reformist 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 Calzabidgi diverged: with the reorientation to 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), staged in Paris on April 19, 1774, was written for the French public. The success was consolidated, although it caused fierce controversy, the new, French edition of Orpheus and Eurydice.

Statue of K. V. Gluck at the Grand Opera

Recognition in Paris did not go unnoticed in Vienna: if Marie Antoinette granted 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, after a short stay in Vienna, Gluck 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, - a new edition of Alcesta.

The Parisian period is considered by music historians to be the most significant in Gluck's work. The struggle between the "glukists" and "picchinists", which inevitably turned into personal rivalry between the composers (which, however, did not affect their relationship), went on with varying success; by the mid-70s, the "French Party" also split into adherents of traditional French opera (J. B. Lully and J. F. Rameau), on the one hand, and Gluck's new French opera, on the other. Willingly or unwittingly, Gluck himself challenged the traditionalists, using for his heroic opera Armida a libretto written by F. Kino (based on the poem Jerusalem Liberated by T. Tasso) for the eponymous opera by Lully. "Armida", which premiered at the Royal Academy of Music on September 23, 1777, was apparently perceived so differently by representatives of various "parties" that even 200 years later, some spoke of a "tremendous success", others of a "failure". ".

Nevertheless, this struggle ended with the victory of Gluck, when on May 18, 1779, his opera “Iphigenia in Tauris” was presented at the Royal Academy of Music (to the libretto by N. Gniyar and L. du Roullet based on the tragedy of Euripides), which many still consider composer's best opera. Niccolo Piccinni himself acknowledged Gluck's "musical revolution". Even earlier, J. A. Houdon sculpted a white marble bust of the composer with an 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 turned into partial paralysis. In the autumn of the same year, Gluck returned to Vienna, which he never left again: a new attack of the disease occurred in June 1781.

During this period, the composer continued the work begun back in 1773 on odes and songs for voice and piano to the verses 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 the plot Klopstock "Battle of Arminius", but these plans were not destined to come true. Anticipating his imminent departure, approximately in 1782, Gluck wrote "De profundis" - a small work for a four-part choir and orchestra on the text of the 129th psalm, which was performed on November 17, 1787 at the composer's funeral by his student and follower Antonio Salieri. On November 14 and 15, Gluck survived three more strokes; he died on November 15, 1787, and was originally buried in the church cemetery in the suburb of Matzleinsdorf; in 1890 his ashes were transferred to the Vienna Central Cemetery.

Creation

Christoph Willibald Gluck was a predominantly operatic composer, but the exact number of operas he owned has not been established: on the one hand, some compositions have not survived, on the other hand, Gluck repeatedly remade his own operas. "Musical Encyclopedia" calls the number 107, while listing only 46 operas.

Monument to K. V. 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 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, even more popular symphonic excerpts from his operas are used, which have long since acquired an 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, "because not a single German wanted to learn them"; nevertheless, he found many followers in different countries, each of whom applied his principles in his own way in his own work - in addition to Antonio Salieri, this is primarily Luigi Cherubini, Gaspare Spontini and L. van Beethoven, and later Hector Berlioz, who called Gluck "Aeschylus of Music"; among his closest followers, the influence of the composer is sometimes noticeable outside of operatic creativity, as with Beethoven, Berlioz and Franz Schubert. As for the creative ideas of Gluck, they determined the further development of the opera house; 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; Gluck was also approached by another operatic reformer, Richard Wagner, who half a century later encountered on the opera stage the same “costume concerto” 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 (in the days of the composer's youth, the distinction between these genres was still not clear enough), a concerto for flute and orchestra (G-dur), 6 trio sonatas for 2 violins and general bass, written by back in the 40s. In collaboration with G. Angiolini, in addition to Don Giovanni, Gluck created three more ballets: Alexander (1765), as well as Semiramide (1765) and The Chinese Orphan - both based on the tragedies of Voltaire.

Possessing also good vocal skills, Gluck sang in the choir of the Cathedral of St. Jakub and played in an orchestra conducted by the largest Czech composer and musical theorist Boguslav Chernogorsky, sometimes went to the vicinity 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, in the house of Lobkowitz, the Italian aristocrat A. Melzi heard him 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 get 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 an opera as of a symphony; but it was under his leadership, as S. Rytsarev writes, that Gluck mastered the ““modest” but confident homophonic writing”, which was already fully established in Italian opera, while the polyphonic tradition still dominated in Vienna.

In December 1741, Gluck's first opera, the opera seria Artaxerxes, to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio, premiered in Milan. In "Artaxerxes", as in all of Gluck's early operas, the imitation of Sammartini was still noticeable, nevertheless, he was a success, which entailed orders from different cities of Italy, and in the next four years no less successful opera series were created " Demetrius", "Por", "Demophon", "Hypermnestra" and others.

In the autumn of 1745, Gluck went to London, from where he received an order for two operas, but already in the spring of the following year he left the English capital and joined the Mingotti brothers' Italian opera troupe as a second conductor, with whom he toured Europe for five years. In 1751 in Prague he left Mingotti for the post of bandmaster in the company of Giovanni Locatelli, and in December 1752 settled in Vienna. Having become bandmaster of the orchestra of Prince Joseph of Saxe-Hildburghausen, Gluck led his weekly concerts - "academies", in which he performed both other people's compositions and his own. According to contemporaries, Gluck was also an outstanding opera conductor and knew the peculiarities of ballet art well.

In search of musical drama

In 1754, at the suggestion of the manager of the Vienna theaters, Count J. 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 took on a self-sufficient character, and composers often became hostages to the whims of prima donnas, he turned to the French comic opera (“Merlin’s Island”, “ The Imaginary Slave, The Reformed Drunkard, The Fooled Cady, etc.) and even for the ballet: created in collaboration with the choreographer G. Angiolini, the pantomime ballet Don Giovanni (based on the play by J.-B. Molière), a real choreographic drama, became the first incarnation of Gluck's desire to turn the operatic stage into a dramatic one.

In his quest, Gluck found support from the chief intendant of the opera, Count Durazzo, and his compatriot poet and playwright Ranieri de Calzabidgi, who wrote the libretto of Don Giovanni. The next step in the direction of musical drama was their new joint work - the opera Orpheus and Eurydice, in the first edition staged in Vienna on October 5, 1762. Under the pen of Calzabigi, the ancient Greek myth turned into an ancient drama, in full accordance with the tastes of that time; however, neither in Vienna nor in other European cities was the opera successful with the public.

The need to reform the opera seria, writes S. Rytsarev, was dictated by the objective signs of its crisis. At the same time, it was necessary to overcome "the age-old and incredibly strong tradition of opera-spectacle, a musical performance with a well-established separation of the functions of poetry and music" . In addition, the dramaturgy of static was characteristic of the opera seria; it was justified by the “theory of affects”, which suggested for each emotional state - sadness, joy, anger, etc. - the use of certain means of musical expression established by theorists, and did not allow 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, their very short life on stage, on average from 3 to 5 performances.

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 petrify, and it was easier to develop its healthy tendencies from the inside than in the opera seria. Commissioned by the court, Gluck continued to write operas in the traditional style, generally preferring comic opera. A new and more perfect embodiment of his dream of a musical drama was the heroic opera Alceste, created in collaboration with Calzabidgi in 1767, in its first edition presented 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 music should play in relation to a poetic work the same role played by the brightness of colors and correctly distributed effects of chiaroscuro, enlivening the figures without changing their contours in relation to the drawing ... I tried to expel from music all the excesses against which they protest in vain common sense and justice. 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 conditioned by the interest and tension of the situations ... All my work should have been reduced to the search for noble simplicity, freedom from the ostentatious heap of difficulties at the expense of clarity; the introduction of some new techniques seemed to me valuable insofar as it corresponded to the situation. And finally, there is no such rule that I would not break in order to achieve greater expressiveness. These are my principles.

Gluck's duties as 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, other circumstances influenced the composer's decision to move his activities to the capital of France to a much greater extent.

Glitch in Paris

In Paris, meanwhile, a struggle was going on around the opera, which became the second act of the struggle between the adherents of the Italian opera (“buffonists”) and the French (“anti-buffonists”), which had died down back in the 50s. This confrontation even split the royal family: the French king Louis XVI preferred the Italian opera, while his Austrian wife Marie Antoinette supported the national French. 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 and Rousseau, actively supported the French. 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 of those years Niccolò Piccinni, the third act of this musical and public polemic went down in history as a struggle between the "gluckists" and "picchinists". In a struggle that seemed to unfold around styles, the dispute in reality was about what an opera performance should be - just an opera, a luxurious spectacle with beautiful music and beautiful vocals, or something significantly more: the encyclopedists were waiting for a new social content, consonant with pre-revolutionary era. In the struggle between the “glukists” and the “picchinists”, which 200 years later already seemed like a grandiose theatrical performance, as in the “war of the buffoons”, according to S. Rytsarev, “powerful cultural layers of aristocratic and democratic art” entered into controversy.

Recognition in Paris did not go unnoticed in Vienna: if Marie Antoinette granted 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 with a salary of 2000 guilders. Thanking for the honor, after a short stay in Vienna, Gluck 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, - a new edition of Alcesta.

The Parisian period is considered by music historians to be the most significant in Gluck's work. The struggle between the "glukists" and "picchinists", which inevitably turned into personal rivalry between the composers (which, however, did not affect their relationship), went on with varying success; by the mid-70s, the “French Party” also split into adherents of traditional French opera (J. B. Lully and J. F. Rameau), on the one hand, and Gluck’s new French opera, on the other. Willingly or unwittingly, Gluck himself challenged the traditionalists, using for his heroic opera Armida a libretto written by F. Kino (based on the poem Jerusalem Liberated by T. Tasso) for the opera of the same name by Lully. "Armida", which premiered at the Royal Academy of Music on September 23, 1777, was apparently perceived so differently by representatives of various "parties" that even 200 years later, some spoke of a "tremendous success", others - of a "failure". » .

Last years

During this period, the composer continued the work begun back in 1773 on odes and songs for voice and piano to the verses 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 the plot of Klopstock's "Battle of Arminius", but these plans were not destined to come true. Anticipating his imminent departure, approximately in 1782, Gluck wrote "De profundis" - a small work for a four-part choir and orchestra on the text of the 129th psalm, which was performed on November 17, 1787 at the composer's funeral 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 originally buried in the church cemetery in the suburb of Matzleinsdorf; in 1890 his ashes were transferred to the Vienna Central Cemetery.

Creation

At the end of his life, Gluck said that "only the foreigner Salieri" adopted his manners from him, "because not a single German wanted to learn them"; nevertheless, he found many followers in different countries, each of whom applied his principles in his own way in his own work - in addition to Antonio Salieri, this is primarily Luigi Cherubini, Gaspare Spontini and L. van Beethoven, and later Hector Berlioz, who called Gluck "Aeschylus of Music"; among the closest followers, the composer's influence is sometimes noticeable outside of operatic creativity, as with Beethoven, Berlioz and Franz Schubert. As for the creative ideas of Gluck, they determined the further development of the opera house, 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; Gluck was also approached by another operatic reformer - Richard Wagner, who half a century later encountered on the opera stage the same "costume concert" against which Gluck's reform was directed. The composer's ideas were not alien to the Russian opera cult - from Mikhail Glinka to Alexander Serov.

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Notes

, With. 466.
, With. 40.
, With. 244.
, With. 41.
, With. 42-43.
, With. 1021.
, With. 43-44.
, With. 467.
, With. 1020.
, With. chapter 11.
, With. 1018-1019.
Gozenpud A. A. Opera dictionary. - M.-L. : Music, 1965. - S. 290-292. - 482 p.
, With. ten.
Rosenshield K.K. Affect theory // Musical Encyclopedia (edited by Yu. V. Keldysh). - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1973. - T. 1.
, With. 13.
, With. 12.
Gozenpud A. A. Opera dictionary. - M.-L. : Music, 1965. - S. 16-17. - 482 p.
Cit. by: Gozenpud A. A. Decree. op., p. 16
, With. 1018.
, With. 77.
, With. 163-168.
, With. 1019.
, With. 6:12-13.
, With. 48-49.
, With. 82-83.
, With. 23.
, With. 84.
, With. 79, 84-85.
, With. 84-85.
. Ch. W. Gluck. Gluck-Gesamtausgabe. Forschungsstelle Salzburg. Retrieved December 30, 2015.
, With. 1018, 1022.
Tsodokov E.. Belcanto.ru. Retrieved February 15, 2013.
, With. 107.
. Internationale Gluck-Gesellschaft. Retrieved December 30, 2015.
, With. 108.
, With. 22.
, With. 16.
, With. 1022.

Literature

Markus S. A. Gluck K. V. // Musical encyclopedia / ed. Yu. V. Keldysh. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1973. - T. 1. - S. 1018-1024.
Knights S. Christoph Willibald Gluck. - M .: Music, 1987.
Kirillina L.V. Gluck's reformist operas. - M .: Classics-XXI, 2006. - 384 p. - ISBN 5-89817-152-5.
Konen V.D. Theater and symphony. - M .: Music, 1975. - 376 p.
Braudo E.M. Chapter 21 // General history of music. - M ., 1930. - T. 2. From the beginning of the 17th to the middle of the 19th century.
Balashsha I., Gal D. Sh. Guide to Operas: In 4 volumes. - M .: Soviet sport, 1993. - T. 1.
Bamberg F.(German) // Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. - 1879. - Bd. 9 . - S. 244-253.
Schmid H.(German) // Neue Deutsche Biographie. - 1964. - Bd. 6. - S. 466-469.
Einstein A. Gluck: Sein Leben - seine Werke. - Zürich; Stuttgart: Pan-Verlag, 1954. - 315 p.
Grout D.J., Williams H.W. The Operas of Gluck // A Short History of Opera. - Columbia University Press, 2003. - S. 253-271. - 1030 p. - ISBN 9780231119580.
Lippman E.A. Operatic Aesthetics // A History of Western Musical Aesthetics. - University of Nebraska Press, 1992. - S. 137-202. - 536 p. - ISBN 0-8032-2863-5.

Excerpt characterizing Gluck, Christoph Willibald

“A sacrament, mother, great,” the clergyman answered, running his hand over his bald head, along which lay several strands of combed half-gray hair.
- Who is this? Was he the commander in chief? asked at the other end of the room. - What a youthful! ...
- And the seventh decade! What, they say, the count does not know? Wanted to congregate?
- I knew one thing: I took unction seven times.
The second princess had just left the patient's room with tearful eyes and sat down beside Dr. Lorrain, who was sitting in a graceful pose under the portrait of Catherine, leaning on the table.
“Tres beau,” said the doctor, answering a question about the weather, “tres beau, princesse, et puis, a Moscou on se croit a la campagne.” [beautiful weather, princess, and then Moscow looks so much like a village.]
- N "est ce pas? [Isn't it?] - said the princess, sighing. - So can he drink?
Lorren considered.
Did he take medicine?
- Yes.
The doctor looked at the breguet.
- Take a glass of boiled water and put une pincee (he showed with his thin fingers what une pincee means) de cremortartari ... [a pinch of cremortartar ...]
- Do not drink, listen, - the German doctor said to the adjutant, - that the shiv remained from the third blow.
And what a fresh man he was! the adjutant said. And who will this wealth go to? he added in a whisper.
“The farmer will be found,” the German replied, smiling.
Everyone again looked at the door: it creaked, and the second princess, having made the drink shown by Lorrain, carried it to the patient. The German doctor approached Lorrain.
"Maybe it'll make it to tomorrow morning, too?" the German asked, speaking badly in French.
Lorren, pursing his lips, sternly and negatively waved his finger in front of his nose.
“Tonight, not later,” he said quietly, with a decent smile of self-satisfaction in that he clearly knows how to understand and express the situation of the patient, and walked away.

Meanwhile, Prince Vasily opened the door to the princess's room.
The room was semi-dark; only two lamps were burning in front of the images, and there was a good smell of smoke and flowers. The whole room was set with small furniture of chiffonieres, cupboards, tables. From behind the screens one could see the white bedspreads of a high feather bed. The dog barked.
“Ah, is that you, mon cousin?”
She got up and straightened her hair, which she always, even now, was so unusually smooth, as if it had been made from one piece with her head and covered with varnish.
- What, something happened? she asked. - I'm already so scared.
- Nothing, everything is the same; I just came to talk to you, Katish, about business, - the prince said, wearily sitting down on the chair from which she got up. “How hot you are, however,” he said, “well, sit down here, causons. [talk.]
“I thought, did something happen? - said the princess, and with her unchanging, stonyly stern expression, sat down opposite the prince, preparing to listen.
“I wanted to sleep, mon cousin, but I can’t.
- Well, what, my dear? - said Prince Vasily, taking the hand of the princess and bending it down according to his habit.
It was evident that this "well, what" referred to many things that, without naming, they understood both.
The princess, with her incongruously long legs, dry and straight waist, looked directly and impassively at the prince with bulging gray eyes. She shook her head and sighed as she looked at the icons. Her gesture could be explained both as an expression of sadness and devotion, and as an expression of fatigue and hope for a quick rest. Prince Vasily explained this gesture as an expression of fatigue.
“But for me,” he said, “do you think it’s easier?” Je suis ereinte, comme un cheval de poste; [I'm mortified like a mail horse;] but still I need to talk to you, Katish, and very seriously.
Prince Vasily fell silent, and his cheeks began to twitch nervously, first to one side, then to the other, giving his face an unpleasant expression, which was never shown on the face of Prince Vasily when he was in drawing rooms. His eyes, too, were not the same as always: now they looked insolently jokingly, now they looked around in fright.
The princess, with her dry, thin hands holding the little dog on her knees, looked attentively into the eyes of Prince Vasily; but it was clear that she would not break the silence with a question, even if she had to remain silent until morning.
“You see, my dear princess and cousin, Katerina Semyonovna,” continued Prince Vasily, apparently starting to continue his speech not without internal struggle, “at such moments as now, everything must be thought about. We need to think about the future, about you ... I love you all like my children, you know that.
The princess looked at him just as dull and motionless.
“Finally, we need to think about my family,” Prince Vasily continued, angrily pushing the table away from him and not looking at her, “you know, Katish, that you, the three Mammoth sisters, and even my wife, we are the only direct heirs of the count. I know, I know how hard it is for you to talk and think about such things. And it's not easier for me; but, my friend, I'm in my sixties, I have to be ready for anything. Do you know that I sent for Pierre, and that the count, directly pointing to his portrait, demanded him to himself?
Prince Vasily looked inquiringly at the princess, but could not understand whether she understood what he said to her, or simply looked at him ...
“I do not stop praying to God for one thing, mon cousin,” she answered, “that he would have mercy on him and let his beautiful soul leave this one in peace ...
“Yes, it’s true,” Prince Vasily continued impatiently, rubbing his bald head and again angrily pushing the pushed table towards him, “but, finally ... finally, the point is, you yourself know that last winter the count wrote a will, according to which he all the estate , in addition to the direct heirs and us, gave to Pierre.
- Didn't he write wills! the princess said calmly. - But he could not bequeath to Pierre. Pierre is illegal.
“Ma chere,” Prince Vasily suddenly said, pressing the table to himself, perking up and starting to talk more quickly, “but what if the letter is written to the sovereign, and the count asks to adopt Pierre? You see, according to the merits of the count, his request will be respected ...
The princess smiled, the way people smile who think they know a thing more than those they talk to.
“I’ll tell you more,” continued Prince Vasily, grabbing her by the hand, “the letter was written, although not sent, and the sovereign knew about it. The only question is whether it is destroyed or not. If not, then how soon everything will end, - Prince Vasily sighed, making it clear that he meant by the words everything will end, - and the count's papers will be opened, the will with the letter will be handed over to the sovereign, and his request will probably be respected. Pierre, as a legitimate son, will receive everything.
What about our unit? asked the princess, smiling ironically as if anything but this could happen.
- Mais, ma pauvre Catiche, c "est clair, comme le jour. [But, my dear Katish, it's clear as day.] He alone then is the rightful heir to everything, and you won't get any of this. You should know, my dear, were the will and letter written and destroyed, and if for some reason they are forgotten, then you should know where they are and find them, because ...
- It just wasn't enough! the princess interrupted him, smiling sardonically and without changing the expression of her eyes. - I am a woman; according to you we are all stupid; but I know so well that an illegitimate son cannot inherit ... Un batard, [Illegal,] - she added, believing that this translation would finally show the prince his groundlessness.
- How can you not understand, finally, Katish! You are so smart: how can you not understand - if the count wrote a letter to the sovereign, in which he asks him to recognize his son as legitimate, then Pierre will no longer be Pierre, but Count Bezukha, and then he will receive everything according to the will? And if the will with the letter is not destroyed, then you, except for the consolation that you were virtuous et tout ce qui s "en suit, [and everything that follows from this] will have nothing left. That's right.
– I know that the will is written; but I also know that it is not valid, and you seem to consider me a complete fool, mon cousin, ”said the princess with that expression with which women speak, believing that they said something witty and insulting.
“You are my dear Princess Katerina Semyonovna,” Prince Vasily spoke impatiently. - I came to you not to quarrel with you, but to talk about your own interests as with my own, good, kind, true relatives. I tell you for the tenth time that if a letter to the sovereign and a will in favor of Pierre are in the papers of the count, then you, my dear, and with your sisters, are not an heiress. If you don’t believe me, then believe people who know: I just spoke with Dmitri Onufriich (he was the lawyer at home), he said the same thing.
Apparently, something suddenly changed in the thoughts of the princess; thin lips turned pale (the eyes remained the same), and her voice, while she spoke, broke through with such peals as she herself apparently did not expect.
“That would be good,” she said. I didn't want anything and don't want to.
She kicked her dog off her knees and straightened the folds of her dress.
“This is gratitude, this is gratitude to the people who sacrificed everything for him,” she said. - Wonderful! Very well! I don't need anything, prince.
“Yes, but you are not alone, you have sisters,” Prince Vasily answered.
But the princess did not listen to him.
“Yes, I knew this for a long time, but I forgot that, apart from baseness, deceit, envy, intrigues, except ingratitude, the blackest ingratitude, I could not expect anything in this house ...
Do you or don't you know where this will is? asked Prince Vasily with even more twitching of his cheeks than before.
- Yes, I was stupid, I still believed in people and loved them and sacrificed myself. And only those who are vile and vile have time. I know whose intrigues it is.
The princess wanted to get up, but the prince held her by the hand. The princess had the appearance of a man suddenly disillusioned with the whole human race; she glared angrily at her interlocutor.
“There is still time, my friend. You remember, Katish, that all this happened by accident, in a moment of anger, illness, and then forgotten. Our duty, my dear, is to correct his mistake, to ease his last moments by preventing him from doing this injustice, not to let him die thinking that he made those people unhappy ...
“Those people who sacrificed everything for him,” the princess picked up, trying to get up again, but the prince did not let her in, “which he never knew how to appreciate. No, mon cousin,” she added with a sigh, “I will remember that in this world no reward can be expected, that in this world there is neither honor nor justice. In this world, one must be cunning and evil.
- Well, voyons, [listen,] calm down; I know your beautiful heart.
No, I have a bad heart.
“I know your heart,” the prince repeated, “I appreciate your friendship and would like you to have the same opinion about me.” Calm down and parlons raison, [let's talk plainly,] while there is time - maybe a day, maybe an hour; tell me everything you know about the will, and, most importantly, where it is: you must know. We'll take it now and show it to the count. He probably forgot about him already and wants to destroy him. You understand that my one desire is to sacredly fulfill his will; I then just came here. I'm only here to help him and you.
“Now I understand everything. I know whose intrigues it is. I know, - said the princess.
“That is not the point, my soul.
- This is your protegee, [favorite,] your dear Princess Drubetskaya, Anna Mikhailovna, whom I would not want to have a maid, this vile, vile woman.
– Ne perdons point de temps. [Let's not waste time.]
- Oh, don't talk! Last winter she rubbed herself in here and said such nasty things, such nasty things to the count about all of us, especially Sophie - I can’t repeat it - that the count became ill and did not want to see us for two weeks. At this time, I know that he wrote this nasty, vile paper; but I thought this paper meant nothing.
– Nous y voila, [That's the point.] Why didn't you tell me before?
“In the mosaic briefcase he keeps under his pillow. Now I know,” said the princess, without answering. “Yes, if there is a sin for me, a big sin, then it is hatred for this bastard,” the princess almost shouted, completely changed. “And why is she rubbing herself here?” But I will tell her everything, everything. The time will come!

While such conversations were taking place in the waiting room and in the princess's rooms, the carriage with Pierre (who was sent for) and Anna Mikhailovna (who found it necessary to go with him) drove into the courtyard of Count Bezukhoy. When the wheels of the carriage sounded softly on the straw laid under the windows, Anna Mikhailovna, turning to her companion with consoling words, convinced herself that he was sleeping in the corner of the carriage, and woke him up. Waking up, Pierre got out of the carriage after Anna Mikhailovna, and then only thought of that meeting with his dying father that awaited him. He noticed that they did not drive up to the front, but to the back entrance. While he was getting off the footboard, two men in bourgeois clothes hurriedly ran away from the entrance into the shadow of the wall. Pausing, Pierre saw in the shadow of the house on both sides several more of the same people. But neither Anna Mikhailovna, nor the footman, nor the coachman, who could not but see these people, paid no attention to them. Therefore, this is so necessary, Pierre decided with himself, and followed Anna Mikhailovna. Anna Mikhailovna walked with hasty steps up the dimly lit narrow stone stairs, calling Pierre, who was lagging behind her, who, although he did not understand why he had to go to the count at all, and still less why he had to go along the back stairs, but , judging by the confidence and haste of Anna Mikhailovna, he decided to himself that this was necessary. Halfway down the stairs they were almost knocked down by some people with buckets, who, clattering with their boots, ran towards them. These people pressed against the wall to let Pierre and Anna Mikhailovna through, and did not show the slightest surprise at the sight of them.
- Are there half princesses here? Anna Mikhailovna asked one of them...
“Here,” the footman answered in a bold, loud voice, as if everything was already possible now, “the door is on the left, mother.”
“Perhaps the count did not call me,” said Pierre, while he went out onto the platform, “I would have gone to my place.
Anna Mikhailovna stopped to catch up with Pierre.
Ah, mon ami! - she said with the same gesture as in the morning with her son, touching his hand: - croyez, que je souffre autant, que vous, mais soyez homme. [Believe me, I suffer no less than you, but be a man.]
- Right, I'll go? asked Pierre, looking affectionately through his spectacles at Anna Mikhailovna.
- Ah, mon ami, oubliez les torts qu "on a pu avoir envers vous, pensez que c" est votre pere ... peut etre a l "agonie." She sighed. - Je vous ai tout de suite aime comme mon fils. Fiez vous a moi, Pierre. Je n "oublirai pas vos interets. [Forget, my friend, what was wrong against you. Remember that this is your father... Maybe in agony. I immediately fell in love with you like a son. Trust me, Pierre. I will not forget your interests.]
Pierre did not understand; again it seemed to him even more strongly that all this must be so, and he obediently followed Anna Mikhaylovna, who had already opened the door.
The door opened into the back entrance. In the corner sat an old servant of the princesses and knitted a stocking. Pierre had never been in this half, did not even imagine the existence of such chambers. Anna Mikhailovna asked the girl who was ahead of them, with a decanter on a tray, (calling her sweetheart and dove) about the health of the princesses and dragged Pierre further along the stone corridor. From the corridor, the first door to the left led to the living rooms of the princesses. The maid, with a decanter, in a hurry (as everything was done in a hurry at that moment in this house) did not close the door, and Pierre and Anna Mikhailovna, passing by, involuntarily looked into the room where, talking, the elder princess and Prince Vasily. Seeing the passersby, Prince Vasily made an impatient movement and leaned back; the princess jumped up and with a desperate gesture slammed the door with all her might, shutting it.
This gesture was so unlike the princess’s usual calmness, the fear expressed on the face of Prince Vasily was so unusual for his importance that Pierre, stopping, inquiringly, through his glasses, looked at his leader.
Anna Mikhailovna did not express surprise, she only smiled slightly and sighed, as if to show that she had expected all this.
- Soyez homme, mon ami, c "est moi qui veillerai a vos interets, [Be a man, my friend, I will look after your interests.] - she said in response to his look and went even faster down the corridor.
Pierre did not understand what was the matter, and even less what it meant veiller a vos interets, [observe your interests,] but he understood that all this should be so. They went down a corridor into a dimly lit hall that adjoined the count's waiting room. It was one of those cold and luxurious rooms that Pierre knew from the front porch. But even in this room, in the middle, there was an empty bathtub and water had been spilled over the carpet. To meet them on tiptoe, paying no attention to them, a servant and a clerk with a censer. They entered the reception room, familiar to Pierre, with two Italian windows, access to the winter garden, with a large bust and a full-length portrait of Catherine. All the same people, in almost the same positions, sat whispering in the waiting room. Everyone, falling silent, looked back at Anna Mikhailovna, who entered, with her tear-stained, pale face, and at the fat, big Pierre, who, with lowered head, dutifully followed her.
Anna Mikhailovna's face expressed the consciousness that the decisive moment had arrived; she, with the receptions of a businesslike Petersburg lady, entered the room, not letting go of Pierre, even bolder than in the morning. She felt that since she was leading the one whom she wanted to see dying, her reception was assured. With a quick glance at everyone in the room, and noticing the count's confessor, she, not only bending over, but suddenly becoming smaller, swam up to the confessor with a shallow amble and respectfully accepted the blessing of one, then another clergyman.
“Thank God that we had time,” she said to the clergyman, “all of us, relatives, were so afraid. This young man is the son of a count,” she added more quietly. - Terrible moment!
Having spoken these words, she approached the doctor.
“Cher docteur,” she told him, “ce jeune homme est le fils du comte ... y a t il de l "espoir? [this young man is the son of a count ... Is there any hope?]
The doctor silently, with a quick movement, raised his eyes and shoulders. Anna Mikhailovna raised her shoulders and eyes with exactly the same movement, almost closing them, sighed and moved away from the doctor to Pierre. She turned especially respectfully and tenderly sadly to Pierre.
- Ayez confiance en Sa misericorde, [Trust in His mercy,] - she said to him, showing him a sofa to sit down to wait for her, she silently went to the door at which everyone was looking, and following the barely audible sound of this door she disappeared behind her.
Pierre, deciding to obey his leader in everything, went to the sofa, which she pointed out to him. As soon as Anna Mikhaylovna disappeared, he noticed that the eyes of everyone in the room were fixed on him with more than curiosity and sympathy. He noticed that everyone was whispering, pointing at him with eyes, as if with fear and even servility. He was shown respect that had never been shown before: a lady unknown to him, who spoke with clerics, got up from her seat and invited him to sit down, the adjutant picked up the glove dropped by Pierre and gave it to him; the doctors fell silent respectfully as he passed them, and stepped aside to make room for him. Pierre wanted to first sit down in another place, so as not to embarrass the lady, he wanted to pick up his glove himself and go around the doctors, who did not even stand on the road; but he suddenly felt that it would be indecent, he felt that on this night he was a person who was obliged to perform some kind of terrible and expected by all ceremony, and that therefore he had to accept services from everyone. He silently accepted the adjutant's glove, sat down in the lady's place, placing his large hands on symmetrically exposed knees, in the naive pose of an Egyptian statue, and decided to himself that all this should be exactly like that and that he should not to get lost and not to do stupid things, one should not act according to one’s own considerations, but one must leave oneself completely to the will of those who led him.
Less than two minutes later, Prince Vasily, in his caftan with three stars, majestically, carrying his head high, entered the room. He seemed thinner in the morning; his eyes were larger than usual when he looked around the room and saw Pierre. He went up to him, took his hand (which he had never done before) and pulled it down, as if he wanted to test whether it was holding tight.
Courage, courage, mon ami. Il a demande a vous voir. C "est bien ... [Do not lose heart, do not lose heart, my friend. He wished to see you. It's good ...] - and he wanted to go.
But Pierre saw fit to ask:
- How is your health…
He hesitated, not knowing whether it was proper to call a dying man an earl; it was ashamed to call him a father.
- Il a eu encore un coup, il y a une demi heure. There was another hit. Courage, mon ami… [He had another stroke half an hour ago. Cheer up, my friend…]
Pierre was in such a state of vagueness of thought that at the word "blow" he imagined a blow from some body. He, perplexed, looked at Prince Vasily and only then realized that the disease was called a blow. Prince Vasily said a few words to Lorrain as he walked, and went through the door on tiptoe. He could not walk on tiptoe and jumped awkwardly with his whole body. The eldest princess followed him, then the clergy and clerks passed, the people (servants) also went through the door. Movement was heard behind this door, and finally, still with the same pale, but firm face in the performance of duty, Anna Mikhailovna ran out and, touching Pierre's hand, said:
– La bonte divine est inepuisable. C "est la ceremonie de l" extreme onction qui va commencer. Venez. [The mercy of God is inexhaustible. The assembly will begin now. Let's go.]

Women's Portal Flero

Christopher Willibald Gluck short biography. Christoph Willibald Gluck: biography, interesting facts, video, creativity

short biography

early years

In search of musical drama

Glitch in Paris

Last years

Creation

In search of musical drama

Glitch in Paris

Last years

Creation

Write a review on the article "Gluck, Christoph Willibald"

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Women's Portal Flero

short biography

early years

In search of musical drama

Glitch in Paris

Last years

Creation

In search of musical drama

Glitch in Paris

Last years

Creation

Write a review on the article "Gluck, Christoph Willibald"

Notes

Literature

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Excerpt characterizing Gluck, Christoph Willibald

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