Famous composers and their works, Vol. 1

by Unknown

CHRISTOPH WILIBALD GLUCK

OETRY and Music, gracious twin-sisters sent from Heaven to comfort suffering humanity, are seldom intimately united in the history of Art; it may even be affirmed that the story of their evolution presents a picture of ceaseless struggle in which the one is ever striving for mastery over the other. Although these sister-arts (neither of which can claim the right of primogeniture) at the time of the highest development of Greek art displayed in united action an inconceivable power which has never since been attained, they were compelled after a brief period, with the rise of sophistic philosophy, to descend from that lofty position. While language and music were developed as separate arts it was indeed possible for them individually to reach a state of perfection, but the efficiency subsequently attained by united strength and harmonious coalescence was then impossible.

In like manner in the Middle Ages poetry and music strove for supremacy. After the solemn melodies of St. Gregory, linked so closely with the words, had comforted, inspired and sustained the Western World in a time of her deepest abasement, song, which had been hitherto for one voice, developed into polyphony, and with this mighty advance in music the friendly relations between these arts was once more disturbed. In the joy at overcoming difficulties which part-music offered the composers as well as the singers, the former completely lost sight of their duty toward the words, and were so utterly indifferent to the text of vocal work that they did not hesitate to use in the same piece two poems upon quite different subjects, yes, even in different languages, and in so doing argued, and not without reason, that in the intricacy of the vocal parts the words would scarcely be heard.

At the appearance of the modern opera in the year 1600, the struggle of the two sister-arts was especially severe. Even as proposed by its founders, who saw in it a revival of the antique drama, poets and composers, during the first decades, were eager to coöperate. When, however, the passion for the opera was no longer confined to the circle of the aristocracy, when special buildings had been erected to which the public could gain access for a consideration (the "Cassiano" in Venice, in 1637, being the first), the noble simplicity striven for by those lovers of antiquity came to an end. The popular craving for the spectacular and the desire for music which was pleasing to the ear strongly affected the further growth of the opera. In Italy, which country in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries set the fashion for all Europe in operatic and musical matters, the public was especially enthusiastic over strong, well-trained voices. No matter how high the point of perfection reached by the art of singing, the singers, male and female, received but one-sided recognition. Soon these obtained undisputed control of the opera; in order to please the taste of the masses, directors, even poets and composers felt obliged to surrender. For them only was the libretto arranged, and in order to satisfy their vanity did the composer tax his imagination. In vain did truly artistic men—among them the Venetian composer Benedetto Marcello with his satire "Il teatro alla moda" (1720)—raise their voices against "the mighty abuse of music at the cost of the sister-arts," their warning words fell unheeded. It was reserved for a German, after a desperate struggle, to put an end to the nuisance of the singers' sovereignty and to give once more to the opera a truly artistic significance, and this German was Gluck.

Christoph Wilibald Gluck was born on the 2d of July, 1714, at Weidenwang, a village of the Caprische Obersalz. He was the son of a forester, and in childhood had occasion to steel himself bodily and mentally for the warfare which in later years was waged against the power of fashion and prejudice. When an old man, the master in friendly converse loved to recall those early days when he and his brother followed their father barefoot to the forest. Dreaming in the shadows of the woods, listening to the rustling of the tree-tops and the songs of birds, unconsciously a sense of music was awakened in the boy; there was no indication of any special gift, however, and indeed, had such been shown, under the circumstances it would hardly have been encouraged, for the father was extremely practical and governed the education of his children accordingly. The desire to give them a better education than was possible in the vicinity of Weidenwang may have occasioned his moving to Bohemia in 1722 and entering the service, first of Prince Kindsky and then of Prince Lobwitz. Mention may also be made here of a third office held by him upon the Bohemian possessions of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, in whose service he died in 1747.

In the schools of the little towns of Kamitz and Eisenberg, which henceforth became the homes of the family of Gluck, the young Christoph found his first inspiration, for in all Catholic countries the scholars were obliged to take part in the musical part of the service and received not only the necessary vocal instruction, but instrumental as well; and it is said the boy played both violin and violoncello with passable skill. Beyond this, the schooling was so superficial that his father placed him, in 1726, at the Jesuit College at Kommatau (Bohemia). That the Jesuits are most thorough in their instruction is well known; but whether the blind obedience and abject slavery exacted of the scholars in the name of "a true Church" is calculated to develop mind and character successfully, seems doubtful. Gluck's strength of character through life shows that the pernicious influence of the Jesuitical teaching had no serious effect upon his nature. Among the advantages derived from his sojourn in Kommatau, the instruction received upon the piano and organ is of the greatest importance.

Yet violin and violoncello were still his favorite instruments; they were his comfort and support during years of study and wandering, for from his slender income the father could but partially pay for his son's maintenance. This did not deter Gluck, in 1732, from bravely taking his staff in hand and turning his steps toward Prague that he might be better informed both in music and science. Whether he then contemplated becoming a musician or composer is uncertain; we simply know that in order to make his living he taught the violoncello and singing, and that in church celebrations, notably in those of the Tein Church, under the leadership of the celebrated composer Czernohorsky, he played in the orchestra. In his leisure hours and upon the numerous festival days of the Catholics he did not hesitate to wander to the neighboring villages and by his dance-music and his singing to earn a piece of money or a meal. Toward the end of his sojourn at Prague, however (1736), he had made such strides in music that he ventured his productions in larger cities and before cultured audiences. By his rendering of violoncello music he succeeded in attracting attention in the circles of the aristocracy, and the princely family of Lobkowitz showed him special favor. Under the protection of the influential and enthusiastic prince, Gluck boldly ventured to express a wish to devote himself exclusively to music, and the same year, encouraged by his patron, that he might better accomplish his end he went to Vienna, then the fountain-head of musical activity, where J. J. Fux, Conti and Caldara, musicians of European fame, were at work together.

Unfortunately there are no reliable accounts of Gluck's first stay in Vienna and the nature of his study there, but without doubt his part in the musical life corresponded with the peculiar kind of training he had previously received. An important fact remarked by A. L. Marx ("Gluck und die Oper," I., 20) is that up to this time Gluck had held aloof from the piano, "that curious instrument which is unsatisfactory in every tone, and in melody suffers by comparison with every other, which is yet the blessed parent of creative phantasies and lends itself to rich and ever-varying expression ... which is capable of presenting various melodies simultaneously, grouping independent voices and producing dramatic effect with them; in a word, the only proper polyphonic auxiliary to the dramatic in music." While for all the great masters of the century, for Bach as for Handel, for Mozart as for Beethoven, the piano was the basis of musical education, the lever of their creative power, Gluck confined himself almost exclusively to vocal music and stringed instruments, a significant fact which explains the merits as well as defects in the master's later activity. The freedom and perfect ease with which the aforesaid musicians overcame the difficulties of counterpoint, we miss in Gluck's music, even at the time of maturity; and if it be urged that his musical plans for reform did not allow a development of the art of counterpoint, it may be remarked how little of it he showed in his church compositions. True, he has given us but one work of this kind, which appeared in Paris and later in Leipsic, a "De profundis" which seems, with its frequent but never quite complete examples of polyphony, a convincing proof that Gluck was not wholly familiar with polyphonic expression.