GluckPresentation.pptx composer of the classical period of classical music

Christoph Willibald Gluck - a chronological history of his life and his works.

1. ChRISTOPH WILLIBALD (RITTER VON) Gluck (1714 – 1787) Prepared by: Alexander Jabbar I. Marohombsar

2. Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (1714-1787), German-born composer (raised in Bohemia), a.k.a. “the Reformer (of opera)”, and one of the great masters of the early classical period of music, was born in Erasbach , Upper Palatinate, July 2, 1714.

3. While almost nothing is known about Gluck’s mother, Maria Walburga , his father, Alexander, was a forester, and the family originated in that part of the old Bohemia which formed the Lobkowitz family estates. He went to school at Kamnitz and Albersdorf and possibly spent the years from 13 to 18 at the Jesuit College in Komotau ( Chomutov ).

4. The Alsatian painter Johann Christian von Mannlich relates in his memoirs, published in 1810, that Gluck told him about his early life in 1774. He quotes Gluck as saying:

5. My father was forest master at N... in Bohemia and he planned that eventually I should succeed him. In my homeland everyone is musical; music is taught in the schools, and in the tiniest villages the peasants sing and play different instruments during High Mass in their churches. As I was passionate about the art, I made rapid progress. I played several instruments and the schoolmaster, singling me out from the other pupils, gave me lessons at his house when he was off duty. I no longer thought and dreamt of anything but music; the art of forestry was neglected.

6. In 1727 or 1728, when Gluck was 13 or 14, he went to Prague. Prague since then became the object of Gluck’s travels; in 1731, he may have matriculated in logic and mathematics at the University of Prague. At the time the University of Prague boasted a flourishing musical scene that included performances of both Italian opera and oratorio.

7. Gluck sang and played violin and cello, and also the organ at Týn Church. Gluck sang and played violin and cello, and also the organ at Týn Church. Gluck eventually left Prague without taking a degree, and vanishes from the historical record until 1737. In 1734 Gluck arrived in Vienna where he likely was employed by the Lobkowitz family at their palace in the Minoritenplatz as a chamber musician.

8. Gluck sang and played violin and cello, and also the organ at Týn Church. He was introduced (likely by the Lobkowitz family) to the Milanese nobleman Prince Antonio Maria Melzi , who engaged Gluck to become a player in his orchestra in Milan. In 1737 Gluck arrived in Milan, and was introduced to Giovanni Battista Sammartini , who, according to Giuseppe Carpani , taught Gluck “practical knowledge of all the instruments”.

9. Gluck sang and played violin and cello, and also the organ at Týn Church. He studied for three years with the great chamber-music composer producing his first opera, Artaserse , at the end of 1741. Set to a libretto by Metastasio, the opera opened the Milanese Carnival of 1742.

10. Gluck sang and played violin and cello, and also the organ at Týn Church. Thereafter Gluck led the life of a successful Italian composer: he composed an opera for each of the next four Carnivals at Milan, and also wrote operas for other cities of Northern Italy in between Carnival seasons, including Turin and Venice, where his Ipermestra was given during November 1744 at the Teatro San Giovanni Crisostomo.

11. Nearly all of his operas in this period were set to Metastasio’s texts, despite the poet’s dislike for his style of composition. In 1745 he accompanied the son of his first master, violinist Ferdinand Philipp Joseph von Lobkowitz , to London, as he accepted an invitation to become house composer at London’s King’s Theatre.

12. While travelling through Paris, he heard and admired the music of Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-1764). Six trio sonatas were the immediate fruits of his time in London.

13. In London, Gluck was exposed to the music of Handel—whom he later credited as a great influence on his style—and the naturalistic acting style of David Garrick , an English theatrical reformer. On April 14, 1746 Gluck gave a concert on the musical glasses (or the glass harmonica).

14. The years 1747 and 1748 brought Gluck two highly prestigious engagements which resulted to two successful and greatly acclaimed works, the operas Le nozze d’Ercole e d’Ebe , performed by Pietro Mingotti’s troupe, to celebrate a royal double wedding, and Metastasio’s La Semiramide riconosciuta , to celebrate Maria Theresa's birthday, which was appointed to him by the Viennese court.

15. In 1750 he returned to Prague and more consistently so that his stay there occasioned a major event in his life—his marriage to Maria Anna Bergin on September 15. In 1752 the San Carlo Opera commissioned an opera based on the poet Metastasio’s book La clemenza di Tito . Gluck conducted this work himself, causing considerable interest and jealousy among Neapolitan musicians and winning the approval of the noted composer and teacher, Francesco Durante.

16. Gluck finally settled in Vienna, where he became Kapellmeister invited by Prince Joseph of Saxe- Hildburghausen . After his opera Antigono was performed in Rome in February 1756, Gluck was made a Knight of the Golden Spur by Pope Benedict XIV. From that time on, Gluck used the title “Ritter von Gluck” or “Chevalier de Gluck”.

17. REFORM OPERA Gluck turned his back on Italian opera seria and began to write opéra comiques. Gluck had long pondered the fundamental problem of form and content in opera. He thought both of the main Italian operatic genres, opera buffa and opera seria , had strayed too far from what opera should really be and seemed unnatural.

18. REFORM OPERA Gluck wanted to return opera to its origins, focusing on human drama and passions and making words and music of equal importance . Opera buffa had long lost its original freshness. Its jokes were threadbare and the repetition of the same characters made them seem no more than stereotypes. In opera seria , the singing was devoted to superficial effects and the content was uninteresting and fossilised .

19. REFORM OPERA As in opera buffa , the singers were effectively absolute masters of the stage and the music, decorating the vocal lines so floridly that audiences could no longer recognize the original melody. Francesco Algarotti’s Essay on the Opera (1755) proved to be an inspiration for Gluck's reforms.

20. REFORM OPERA He advocated that opera seria had to return to basics and that all the various elements—music (both instrumental and vocal), ballet, and staging—must be subservient to the overriding drama. A desire to “reform” opera in the interests of reason and dramatic truth had been common in North Italy for at least a generation and was particularly strong wherever, as at the court of Parma, French influence was dominant.

21. REFORM OPERA In Vienna, Gluck met like-minded figures in the operatic world: Count Giacomo Durazzo, the head of the court theatre, and one of the primary instigators of operatic reform in Vienna; the librettist Ranieri de’ Calzabigi , who wanted to attack the dominance of Metastasian opera seria ; the innovative choreographer Gasparo Angiolini ; and the London-trained castrato Gaetano Guadagni .

22. REFORM OPERA In 1761 Gluck produced the groundbreaking ballet-pantomime Don Juan in collaboration with the choreographer Gasparo Angiolini . It was the first result of the new thinking and the first example of their collaboration. And it was followed by the operas Orfeo ed Euridice (1762) and Alceste (1767) , Gluck’s first two masterpieces.

23. REFORM OPERA Orfeo ed Euridice was given its first performance on October 5, 1752, on a libretto by Calzabigi , set to music by Gluck. The dances were arranged by Angiolini and the title role was taken by Guadagni , a catalytic force in Gluck’s reform, renowned for his unorthodox acting and singing style. Orfeo , which has never left the standard repertory, showed the beginnings of Gluck’s reforms.

24. REFORM OPERA His idea was to make the drama of the work more important than the star singers who performed it, and to do away with dry recitative (recitativo secco, accompanied only by continuo) that broke up the action. Written in the preface to Alceste Gluck and Calzabigi set out the principles of their reforms:

25. REFORM OPERA no da capo arias no opportunity for vocal improvisation or virtuosic displays of vocal agility or power no long melismas a more predominantly syllabic setting of the text to make the words more intelligible far less repetition of text within an aria a blurring of the distinction between recitative and aria, declamatory and lyrical passages, with altogether less recitative

26. REFORM OPERA accompanied rather than secco recitative simpler, more flowing melodic lines an overture that is linked by theme or mood to the ensuing action

27. REFORM OPERA “It was my intention to confine music to its true dramatic province, of assisting poetical expression, and of augmenting the interest of the fable; without interrupting the action, or chilling it with useless and superfluous ornaments; for the office of music, when joined to poetry, seemed to me, to resemble that of colouring in a correct and well disposed design, where the lights and shades only seem to animate the figures, without altering the outline.”

28. REFORM OPERA Since these were in fact the principles already existing in French opera, and since an Austrian princess (Marie Antoinette, a former singing pupil of Gluck’s) had recently married the heir to the French throne, it was not surprising that Gluck was soon invited to compose a series of works for the Paris Opéra.

29. REFORM OPERA The first, Iphigénie en Aulide , was given under Gluck’s direction at the Opéra in 1774, and was the occasion of a journalistic war waged during the next five years between the champions of French and Italian music. Gluck's opponents brought the leading Italian composer Niccolò Piccinni to Paris to demonstrate the superiority of Neapolitan opera, and the “whole town” engaged in an argument between “ Gluckists ” and “ Piccinnists ”.

30. REFORM OPERA On August 2, 1774 the French version of Orfeo ed Euridice was performed, more Rameau-like, with the title role transposed from the castrato to the tenor voice. This time Gluck's work was better received by the Parisian public. During this period Gluck produced two new major works in Paris— Armide (1777) and Iphigénie en Tauride (1779)—the latter being a great success and generally acknowledged as his finest work.

31. REFORM OPERA His opponents attempted to stoke up the rivalry between him and Piccinni by asking them both to set an opera on the subject of Iphigenia in Tauris. Although a greatly talented composer, Piccinni possessed none of Gluck’s force or originality; in the event, his Iphigénie en Taurid e was not premiered until January 1781 and did not enjoy the popularity that Gluck’s work did.

32. REFORM OPERA At the end of 1779 Gluck retired to Vienna after his last opera Echo et Narcisse which premiered on September of that year became an operatic failure. He died there on Nov. 15, 1787 after suffering from heart arrythmia, at the age of 73.

33. REFORM OPERA Although only half of his work survived after a fire in 1809, Gluck's musical legacy includes approximately 35 complete full-length operas plus around a dozen shorter operas and operatic introductions, as well as numerous ballets and instrumental works. His reforms influenced Mozart, particularly his opera Idomeneo (1781).

34. REFORM OPERA He left behind a flourishing school of disciples in Paris, who would dominate the French stage throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period. As well as Salieri, they included Sacchini , Cherubini, Méhul and Spontini . His greatest French admirer would be Hector Berlioz, whose epic Les Troyens may be seen as the culmination of the Gluckian tradition.

35. REFORM OPERA Though Gluck wrote no operas in German, his example influenced the German school of opera, particularly Carl Maria von Weber and Richard Wagner, whose concept of music drama was not so far removed from Gluck's own.

36. Orpheo ed Euridice : Vienna version, 1762 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUpZ1Npj23M Based on Paris 1774 version (with English subtitle) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EENw_ptgGcg Orphée et Eurydice : Based on Berlioz’s 1859 revision of Orphée (with English subtitle) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erlvbPmIZss Iphigénie en Tauride : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTgmncbsqzg Links