Ancestry Gluck's earliest known ancestor is his great-grandfather, Simon Gluckh von Rockenzahn, whose name is recorded in the marriage contract (1672) of his son, the
forester Johann (Hans) Adam Gluck (c. 1649–1722) and grandfather of Christoph. 'Rockenzahn' is believed to be
Rokycany, located in the central part of western
Bohemia (about 70 km southwest of
Prague and 16 km east of
Pilsen). The family name Gluck (also spelled Gluckh, Klugh, Kluch, etc.) likely comes from the Czech word for boy (
kluk). one of four sons of Hans Adam Gluck who became foresters or gamekeepers. Alexander served in a contingent of about 50 soldiers under Philipp Hyazinth von Lobkowitz, the son of Ferdinand August von Lobkowitz, during the
War of Spanish Succession, and, according to Gluck family tradition, rose to the level of gunbearer to the great general of the imperial forces,
Eugene of Savoy. In 1711 Alexander settled outside
Berching as a forester and hunter in the service of the monastery Seligenporten,
Plankstetten Abbey, and the mayors of
Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz. He took the vacant position of hunter in
Erasbach in 1711 or 1712 (his predecessor had been found shot in the forest). , constructed in 1713 by Gluck's father, where many believe the composer was born. About Gluck's mother, Maria Walburga, almost nothing is known, including her surname, but she probably grew up in the same area as she was named after
Saint Walburga, the sister of
Saint Willibald, the first bishop of nearby
Eichstätt.
Birth Although there is no documentary record with Gluck's birthdate at the time of his birth, he himself gave it as 2 July 1714 on an official document requested by Paris that he signed in 1785 in Vienna in the presence of the French ambassador
Emmanuel Marie Louis de Noailles. This has long been the commonly accepted date. He was baptized Christophorus Willibaldus on 4 July 1714 in the village of Weidenwang, a
parish that at that time also included Erasbach. In the year of Gluck's birth, the
Treaty of Rastatt and the
Treaty of Baden ended the
War of Spanish Succession and brought Erasbach under
Bavarian control. Gluck's father had to reapply to retain his position and received no salary until after 1715, when he began receiving 20
gulden. He obtained additional employment in the vicinity of Weidenwang in 1715 as a forester in the service of Seligenporten Monastery, and after 1715, also with Plankstetten Abbey. In 1716 Alexander Gluck was cited for poor performance and warned he might be terminated. He sold his house in August 1717 and voluntarily left Erasbach near the end of September to take up employment as head forester in
Reichstadt, serving the Duchess of Tuscany, the wealthy
Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg, since 1708 separated from her husband
Gian Gastone de' Medici, the last duke of Tuscany. On 1 April 1722 Alexander Gluck took a position as forest-master under Count
Philipp Joseph von Kinsky in
Böhmisch Kamnitz, where Kinsky had increased his domains. The family moved to the forester's house in nearby
Oberkreibitz. In 1727 Alexander moved with his family to Eisenberg (Jezeří in
Horní Jiřetín) to take his final post, head forester to Prince Philipp Hyazinth von Lobkowitz. It is unclear if Christoph was sent to the
Jesuit college in
Chomutov, 20 km southwest. 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:
Early life In 1727 or 1728, when Gluck was 13 or 14, he went to
Prague. A childhood flight from home to Vienna is included in several contemporary accounts of Gluck's life, including Mannlich's. However, some scholars have cast doubt on Gluck's picturesque tales of earning food and shelter by his singing as he travelled. Most scholars now feel it is more likely that the object of Gluck's travels was not Vienna but Prague. Gluck's German biographer Hans Joachim Moser claimed in 1940 to have found documents showing Gluck matriculated in logic and mathematics at the
University of Prague in 1731.
Gerhard and Renate Croll find this astonishing, and other biographers have been unable to find any documents supporting Moser's claim. At the time the University of Prague boasted a flourishing musical scene that included performances of both Italian opera and
oratorio. Gluck eventually left Prague without taking a degree and vanishes from the historical record until 1737.
Question of Gluck's native language According to the music historian
Daniel Heartz, there has been considerable controversy concerning Gluck's native language. Gluck's protégé in Vienna, the Italian-born
Antonio Salieri, wrote in his memoirs (translated into German by
Ignaz von Mosel), that "Gluck, whose native tongue was
Czech, expressed himself in German only with effort, and still more so in French and Italian." Salieri also mentions that Gluck mixed several languages when speaking: German, Italian and French, like Salieri himself. Gluck's first biographer, , wrote that Gluck grew up in a German-speaking area, and that Gluck learned to speak Czech, but did not need it in Prague and in his later life. Heartz writes: "More devious manoeuvres have been attempted by Gluck's German biographers of this [the 20th] century, while the French ones have, without exception, taken Salieri at his word. His German biographer Max Arend objected that not a single letter written in Czech can be found, to which
Jacques-Gabriel Prod'homme countered that "no letters written by
Liszt in Hungarian were known either, but does this make him a German?" Hans Joachim Moser wanted a lyric work in Czech as proof. In fact, the music theorist Laurent Garcin, writing in 1770 (published 1772) before Gluck arrived in Paris, included Gluck in a list of several composers of Czech
opéras-comiques (although such a work by Gluck has yet to be documented). A presentation by Irene Brandenburg classifying Gluck as a Bohemian composer was considered controversial by her German colleagues.
Italy 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". Apparently, this relationship lasted for several years. Primarily, Sammartini was not a composer of opera for his main output was sacred music and symphonies. However, Milan boasted a vibrant opera scene, and Gluck soon formed an association with one of the city's up-and-coming opera houses, the
Teatro Regio Ducale. There his first opera
Artaserse was performed on 26 December 1741, dedicated to
Otto Ferdinand von Abensberg und Traun. Set to a libretto by
Metastasio, the opera opened the Milanese Carnival of 1742. According to one anecdote, the public would not accept Gluck's style until he inserted an
aria in the lighter Milanese manner for contrast. Nevertheless, Gluck composed an opera for each of the next four
Carnivals in Milan, with renowned
castrato Giovanni Carestini appearing in many of the performances. He also wrote operas for other cities of Northern Italy in between Carnival seasons, including Turin and Venice, where his
Ipermestra was performed in November 1744 at the
Teatro San Giovanni Crisostomo. Nearly all of his operas in this period were set to Metastasio's texts, despite the poet's dislike for his style of composition.
Travels: 1745–1752 In 1745, Gluck accepted an invitation from
Lord Middlesex to become house composer at London's
King's Theatre. Gluck may have traveled to England via Frankfurt and in the company of the violinist Ferdinand Philipp Joseph von Lobkowitz, the son of Phillip Hyazinth. The timing was unfortunate, as the
Jacobite Rebellion had caused much panic in London and, for most of the year, the King's Theatre was closed. Six trio sonatas were the immediate fruits of his time. Gluck's two London operas (''
La caduta de' giganti and Artamene
), performed in 1746, borrowed much from his earlier works. Gluck performed works by Galuppi and Lampugnani, who both had worked in London. A more long-term benefit was exposure 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 25 March, shortly after the production of Artamene'', Handel and Gluck gave a concert in the
Haymarket Theatre consisting of works by Gluck and an organ concerto by Handel, played by the composer. On 14 April Gluck played on a
glassharmonica in
Hickford's Rooms, a concert hall in
Brewer Street, Soho. Handel's own experience of Gluck pleased that composer less:
Charles Burney reports Handel as saying that "he [Gluck] knows no more of
contrapunto, as my cook,
Waltz". Gluck spent most of 1751 commuting between Prague and Vienna. The year 1752 brought another major commission to Gluck. He was asked to set Metastasio's
La clemenza di Tito (the specific libretto was the composer's choice) for the name day celebrations of King
Charles VII of Naples. The opera was performed on 4 November at the
Teatro di San Carlo, and the world-famous
castrato Caffarelli took the role of Sextus. For Caffarelli, Gluck composed the famous, but notoriously difficult, aria "Se mai senti spirarti sul volto", which provoked admiration and vituperation in equally large measures. Gluck later reworked this aria for his
Iphigénie en Tauride. According to one account, the Neapolitan composer
Francesco Durante claimed that his fellow composers "should have been proud to have conceived and written [the aria]". Durante simultaneously declined to comment whether or not it was within the boundaries of the accepted compositional rules of the time.
Vienna (1973). The work is very much in the vein of the chinoiserie so popular in its time. Le cinesi
reflects cultural overlap between the Austrian court and the distant Chinese court. In Le cinesi'', Metastasio gives a lesson on the different forms of theatre: pastoral, comedy and tragedy. Gluck settled in Vienna, where he became
Kapellmeister, having been invited by
Prince Joseph of Saxe-Hildburghausen. He wrote
Le cinesi for a festival in 1754 and
La danza for the eighth birthday of the future
Emperor Leopold II the following year. After his opera
Antigono was performed in February 1756 in Rome, 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". Gluck took a break from Italian
opera seria and began to write
opéra comiques. In 1761 Gluck produced the groundbreaking ballet-pantomime
Don Juan in collaboration with the choreographer
Gasparo Angiolini. The climax of Gluck's opéra comique writing was
La rencontre imprévue in 1764. By that time, Gluck created musical drama, based on
Greek tragedy, with more compassion, influencing the latest style
Sturm und Drang. Under the teaching of Gluck,
Marie Antoinette developed into a good musician. She learned to play the
harp, the
harpsichord and the
flute. She sang during the family's evening gatherings, as she had a beautiful voice. All her brothers and sisters were involved in playing Gluck's music; on 24 January 1765 her brother
Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor directed one of Gluck's compositions,
Il Parnaso confuso. In Spring 1774, she took Gluck under her patronage and introduced him to the Paris public. For that purpose, she asked him to compose a new opera,
Iphigénie en Aulide. Mindful of the
Querelle des Bouffons between adherents of Italian and French opera, she asked the composer to set the libretto in French. To achieve her goals she was assisted by the singers
Rosalie Levasseur and
Sophie Arnould. Gluck demandded strict adherence from the cast when rehearsing. Gluck told the bass-bariton
Henri Larrivée to change his ways. The soprano Arnould was replaced. He insisted that the chorus to act and become a part of the drama – that they could no longer just stand there and without expression while singing their lines. Gluck was assisted by
François-Joseph Gossec, director of the
Concert Spirituel. The
Chevalier de Saint-Georges attended the first performance on 19 April;
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was delighted with Gluck's melodic style. Marie Antoinette received a large share of the credit.
Operatic reforms Gluck surveyed 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 from what opera should be and seemed unnatural.
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. 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 recognise the original melody. Gluck wanted to return opera to its origins, focusing on human drama and passions and making words and music of equal importance.
Francesco Algarotti's
Essay on the Opera (1755) proved to be an inspiration for Gluck's reforms. 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. Several composers of the period, including
Niccolò Jommelli and
Tommaso Traetta, attempted to put these ideals into practice (and added more ballets). 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. The first result of reform was Gluck's ballet
Don Juan. On 5 October 1762,
Orfeo ed Euridice was given its first performance, on a
libretto by Calzabigi, set to music by Gluck. Gluck tried to achieve a noble,
Neo-Classical or "beautiful simplicity". 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. 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. In 1765,
Melchior Grimm published
"Poème lyrique", an influential article for the
Encyclopédie on
lyric and opera
librettos. '' Gluck and Calzabigi followed
Orfeo with
Alceste (1767) and
Paride ed Elena (1770), dedicated to his friend
João Carlos de Bragança (Duke de Lafões), an expert on music and mythology, pushing their innovations even further. Calzabigi wrote a preface to
Alceste, which Gluck signed, setting out the principles of their reforms: • 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 •
accompanied rather than
secco recitative • simpler, more flowing melodic lines • an
overture that is linked by theme or mood to the ensuing action
Joseph von Sonnenfels praised Gluck's tremendous imagination and the
setting after attending a performance of
Alceste. In 1769 Gluck performed his operas in
Parma. On 2 September 1771
Charles Burney visited Gluck, who was living in Sankt Marx. Burney thought Gluck's preface, in which Gluck gives his “reasons for deviating from the beaten track”, important enough to give it almost in its entirety: "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 out-line." On 11 September Burney went to see Gluck to say goodbye; Gluck was still in bed, as he used to work in the night.
Paris As his operas were not appreciated by
Frederick II of Prussia, Gluck began to focus on France. Under the patronage of Marie Antoinette, who had married the future French King
Louis XVI in 1770, Gluck signed a contract for six stage works with the management of the Paris Opéra. He began with
Iphigénie en Aulide. The premiere on 19 April 1774 sparked a huge controversy, not seen in the city since the
Querelle des Bouffons. 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". The composers themselves took no part in the polemics, but when Piccinni was asked to set the libretto to
Roland, on which Gluck was also known to be working, Gluck destroyed everything he had written for that opera up to that point. - Bust of Christoph Willibald Gluck
Cleveland Museum of Art On 2 August 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. In the same year, Gluck returned to Vienna, where he was appointed composer to the imperial court (18 October 1774) after 20 years serving as
Kapellmeister. Over the next few years, the composer would travel back and forth between Paris and Vienna. He became friends with the poet
Klopstock in Karlsruhe. On 23 April 1776, the French version of
Alceste was given. ,
Louvre During the rehearsals for
Echo et Narcisse in September 1779, Gluck became dangerously ill. Since the opera itself was a failure, running for only 12 performances, Gluck decided to return to Vienna within two weeks. In that city
Die unvermuthete Zusammenkunft or
Die Pilgrime von Mekka (1772), a German version of
La rencontre imprévue, had been performed 51 times. His musical heir in Paris was the composer
Antonio Salieri, who had been Gluck's protégé since he arrived in Vienna in 1767 and later had made friends with Gluck. Gluck brought Salieri to Paris with him and bequeathed him the libretto for
Les Danaïdes by
François-Louis Gand Le Bland Du Roullet and
baron de Tschudi. The opera was announced as a collaboration between the two composers. However, after the overwhelming success of its premiere on 26 April 1784, Gluck revealed to the prestigious
Journal de Paris that the work was wholly Salieri's.
Last years and death In Vienna, Gluck wrote a few more minor works, spending the summer with his wife in
Perchtoldsdorf. Gluck suffered from
melancholy and high blood pressure. On 23 March 1783 he seems to have attended a concert by
Mozart who played
KV 455, variations on
La Rencontre imprévue by Gluck (Wq. 32). On 15 November 1787, lunching with friends, Gluck suffered a
heart arrhythmia and died a few hours later, at the age of 73. Usually, it is mentioned Gluck had several strokes and became paralyzed on his right side. Robl, a family doctor, had doubts as Gluck was still able to play his
clavichord or piano in 1783. At a formal commemoration on 8 April 1788, his friend, pupil and successor Salieri conducted Gluck's
De profundis, and a
Requiem by the Italian composer
Niccolò Jommelli. His death opened the way for Mozart at court, according to
H. C. Robbins Landon. Gluck was buried in the
Matzleinsdorfer Friedhof. On 29 September 1890, his remains were transferred to the
Zentralfriedhof; a tomb was erected containing the original plaque. ==Legacy==