Portrait of Gluck, made during his stay in Paris by Aug. de St. Aubin. From a delicate engraving on copper.
Professor Forkel, one of the first musical authorities of North Germany, pronounced an even harsher and more unjust judgment on the master. As late as 1778, when the latter was about to attain the highest point of his activity with the "Iphigénie in Tauris," Forkel published in his "Critical Musical Library" a criticism of 157 pages on the works of Gluck, in which he exerted all his energy and made use of all his musical knowledge in order to prove their worthlessness. The professor took special exception to the passage in the preface to "Alceste" in which Gluck says he was trying to attain to a noble simplicity. "What the Chevalier is pleased to call 'noble simplicity,'" says Forkel, "is, in our opinion, nothing more than a miserable, empty, or, to speak more clearly, an ignoble stupidity arising from a lack of skill and knowledge; it is like the stupid simplicity of common people compared with the noble simplicity in the conduct and conversation of those of culture and refinement. In the one case all is awkward, faulty and defective, in the other graceful, true and perfect. In short, Gluck's kind of noble simplicity resembles the style of our bar-room artists, which has simplicity enough, it is true, but, at the same time, much that is repulsive."
Similar expressions of professional prejudice—not to say stupidity—might be cited by the dozen; but the reader may prefer, in conclusion, to hear the voices of the noblest, most enlightened of his countrymen, which amply indemnify the master for the injustice done him by the "Leckmessern" of his time. Goethe expressed his reverence for Gluck in the beautiful verses which accompanied the copy of "Iphigénie in Tauris" which he sent the singer Milder:
"Dies unschuldvolle, fromme Spiel
Das edlen Beifall sich errungen,
Erreichte doch ein höheres Ziel
Von Gluck betont, von dir gesungen."
(This noble drama, from corruption free
Won the unfeigned applause of thoughtful men,
But reached a still more lofty purpose, when