Facts from life to glitch. Biography of Christoph Gluck
The famous composer Christoph Willibald Gluck was able to offer the musical community a new dramaturgy of opera, other forms of musical expression, and "liberated" operatic art from court aesthetics. All operas composed by the composer have full psychological truthfulness, depth of feelings and passions.
Formationcomposer
Christoph Willibald Gluck was born on July 2, 1714 in the town of Erasbach, located in the Austrian state of Falz. Christoph's father, a forester by profession, considered music an unworthy occupation and in every possible way interfered with his son's education.
A teenager who passionately loved music could not stand such an attitude and left home. He traveled a lot and dreamed of getting a good education. Wanderings led Christoph to Prague, where in 1731 he managed to enter the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Prague. Gluck successfully combines his studies at the university and music lessons, sings in the choir of the Church of St. Jacob. In addition, the young man often travels around Prague, memorizes and analyzes Czech folk music.
Four years later, Christoph Willibald becomes an established musician and receives an offer to become a chamber musician of the Milan court chapel. Since 1735, Gluck's creative path as an opera composer began: in Milan, he got acquainted with the work of the best Italian composers, took lessons in creating opera music from G. Sammartini.
Recognition of creative talent
The first great success came to the composer in 1741, when the premiere of the opera "Artaxerxes" took place, which brought fame and popularity to the young author. Orders for essays were not long in coming. For three years, Gluck created the opera seria Demetrius, Poro, Demofont and others.
The composer is invited on tour to England. During performances in London, Gluck gets the strongest impressions from the oratorio he listened to by another. Subsequently, Christoph set such a monumental and majestic musical style as his creative guide. The European tour not only allowed the composer to reveal himself, but also to get acquainted with various opera schools, draw a lot of ideas, and make interesting creative contacts.
With the move to the Austrian capital in 1752, a new stage in the composer's creative career begins. Gluck became the conductor of the court opera, and in 1774 he was awarded the title of "actual imperial court composer." Christophe continues to write operatic music, mainly to comic librettos by French composers. Among them are "Merlin's Island", "The Imaginary Slave" and others. In collaboration with the French choreographer Angiolini, the composer creates the pantomime ballet Don Giovanni. The ballet was staged based on a tragic story from a play by Moliere, rare for that time, touching on the eternal questions of human existence.
"Orpheus". Revolution in opera
The most important milestone in the work of Gluck, from the point of view of the development of world musical art, is the opera Orpheus. This reformist work, created by Christoph Gluck in collaboration with the librettist R. Calzabidgi, has become a delightful example of the construction of a major operatic form, which perfectly combined the musical and stage development of the plot. The arias of the ancient Greek myth hero Orpheus, the flute solo and many other fragments of the opera revealed the melodic genius of Christoph Gluck.
Shortly after the premiere of Orpheus, in 1767-1770, two more operas of the reformist style created by Gluck were released: Alceste and Paris and Helena. However, the composer's innovative ideas were not properly appreciated by the Austrian and Italian public. Gluck moves to Paris, where he spends the most fruitful creative period of his life.
Here is an incomplete list of the composer's Parisian works:
- "Iphigenia in Aulis" (1774);
- "Armida" (1777);
- "Iphigenia in Tauris" (1779);
- "Echo and Narcissus" (1779).
The Parisian cultural elite was divided in their assessment of the composer's work. The French Enlighteners were wholly and completely carried away by Gluck's works, but adherents of the old French operatic school sought in every possible way to prevent his work in Paris. The composer has to return to the Austrian capital. On November 15, 1787, the seriously ill Christoph Gluck passed away.
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glitch (Gluck) Christoph Willibald (1714-1787) German composer. One of the most prominent representatives of classicism. In 1731-1734 he studied at the University of Prague, presumably at the same time he studied composition with B. M. Chernogorsky. In 1736 he left for Milan, where he studied for 4 years with G. B. Sammartini. Most of the operas of this period, including Artaxerxes (1741), were written to texts by P. Metastasio. In 1746 Gluck staged two pasticcios in London and took part in a concert together with G. F. Handel. In 1746-1747 he joined the Mingotti itinerant opera troupe, in which he improved his virtuoso vocal writing, staged his own operas; visited Dresden, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Prague, where he became bandmaster of the Locatelli troupe. The culmination of this period is the production of the opera The Mercy of Titus (1752, Naples). From 1752 he lived in Vienna, in 1754 he became a conductor and composer of the court opera. In the person of the intendant of the court opera, Count G. Durazzo, Gluck found an influential patron and like-minded librettist in the field of musical dramaturgy on the way to the reform of the opera seria. An important step in this direction is Gluck's collaboration with the French poet C. S. Favard and the creation of 7 comedies oriented towards French vaudeville and comic opera (An Unforeseen Meeting, 1764). The meeting in 1761 and subsequent work with the Italian playwright and poet R. Calzabidgi contributed to the implementation of the opera reform. Its forerunners were the "dance dramas" created by Gluck in collaboration with Calzabigi and choreographer G. Angiolini (including the ballet "Don Giovanni", 1761, Vienna). The production of the "action theater" (azione teatrale) "Orpheus and Eurydice" (1762, Vienna) marked a new stage in Gluck's work and opened a new era in the European theater. However, fulfilling orders from the court, Gluck also wrote traditional seria operas (The Triumph of Clelia, 1763, Bologna; Telemachus, 1765, Vienna). After the unsuccessful production of the opera Paris and Helena in Vienna (1770), Gluck made several trips to Paris, where he staged a number of reformist operas - Iphigenia in Aulis (1774), Armida (1777), Iphigenia in Tauris, Echo and Narcissus" (both - 1779), as well as newly edited operas "Orpheus and Eurydice" and "Alceste". All productions, except Gluck's last opera, Echo and Narcissus, were a great success. Gluck's activity in Paris caused a fierce "war of Gluckists and Piccinniists" (the latter are adherents of the more traditional Italian operatic style represented in the work of N. Piccinni). From 1781 Gluck practically ceased his creative activity; the exception was odes and songs to verses by F. G. Klopstock (1786) and others.
Gluck's work is an example of purposeful reformatory activity in the field of opera, the principles of which the composer formulated in the preface to the score of Alceste. Music, according to Gluck, is designed to accompany poetry, to enhance the feelings expressed in it. The development of the action is carried out mainly in recitatives - ac - compagnato, due to the abolition of the traditional recitative - secco, the role of the orchestra increases, choral and ballet numbers in the spirit of ancient drama acquire dramatic significance, the overture becomes a prologue to action. The idea that unites these principles was the desire for "beautiful simplicity", and in terms of composition - for a through dramatic development, overcoming the number structure of the opera performance. Gluck's operatic reform was based on the musical and aesthetic principles of the Enlightenment. It reflected new, classicist tendencies in the development of music. Gluck's idea of subordinating music to the laws of drama influenced the development of theater in the 19th and 20th centuries, including the work of L. Beethoven, L. Cherubini, G. Spontini, G. Berlioz, R. Wagner, M. P. Mussorgsky. However, already in the time of Gluck, there was a convincing antithesis to such an understanding of the drama in the operas of W. A. Mozart, who in his concept proceeded from the priority of music.
Gluck's style is characterized by simplicity, clarity, purity of melody and harmony, reliance on dance rhythms and forms of movement, and the sparing use of polyphonic techniques. The recitative-accompagnato, melodically embossed, tense, associated with the traditions of French theatrical recitation, acquires a special role. In Gluck, there are moments of intonational individualization of the character in recitative (“Armida”), reliance on compact vocal forms of arias and ensembles, as well as on ariosos that are transparent in form, is typical.
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Biography GLUCK Christoph Willibald (1714-87) was a German composer. One of the most prominent representatives of classicism. Christoph Willibald Gluck was born into the family of a forester, was passionate about music from childhood, and since his father did not want to see his eldest son as a musician, Gluck, after graduating from the Jesuit college in Kommotau, left home as a teenager.
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Biography At the age of 14, he left his family, wandered, earning money by playing the violin and singing, then in 1731 he entered the University of Prague. During his studies (1731-34) he served as a church organist. In 1735 he moved to Vienna, then to Milan, where he studied with the composer G. B. Sammartini (c. 1700-1775), one of the largest Italian representatives of early classicism.
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Gluck's first opera, Artaxerxes, was staged in Milan in 1741; this was followed by the premieres of several more operas in different cities of Italy. In 1845 Gluck was commissioned to compose two operas for London; in England he met H. F. Handel. In 1846-51 he worked in Hamburg, Dresden, Copenhagen, Naples, Prague.
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In 1752 he settled in Vienna, where he took the position of concertmaster, then bandmaster at the court of Prince J. Saxe-Hildburghausen. In addition, he composed French comic operas for the imperial court theater and Italian operas for palace amusements. In 1759, Gluck received an official position in the court theater and soon received a royal pension.
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A Fruitful Collaboration About 1761, Gluck began collaborating with the poet R. Calzabidgi and the choreographer G. Angiolini (1731-1803). In their first joint work, the ballet Don Giovanni, they managed to achieve an amazing artistic unity of all components of the performance. A year later, the opera Orpheus and Eurydice appeared (libretto by Calzabidgi, dances staged by Angiolini) - the first and best of Gluck's so-called reformist operas.
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In 1764, Gluck composed the French comic opera An Unforeseen Meeting, or The Pilgrims from Mecca, and a year later, two more ballets. In 1767 the success of "Orpheus" was confirmed by the opera "Alceste" also on the libretto of Calzabidgi, but with dances staged by another outstanding choreographer - J.-J. Noverre (1727-1810). The third reformist opera Paris and Helena (1770) was a more modest success.
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In Paris In the early 1770s, Gluck decided to apply his innovative ideas to French opera. In 1774, Iphigenia at Aulis and Orpheus, the French version of Orpheus and Eurydice, were staged in Paris. Both works received enthusiastic reception. Gluck's series of Parisian successes was continued by the French edition of Alceste (1776) and Armide (1777).
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The latter work gave rise to a fierce controversy between the "glukists" and supporters of traditional Italian and French opera, which was personified by the talented composer of the Neapolitan school N. Piccinni, who came to Paris in 1776 at the invitation of Gluck's opponents. Gluck's victory in this controversy was marked by the triumph of his opera Iphigenia in Tauris (1779) (however, the opera Echo and Narcissus, staged in the same year, failed).
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In the last years of his life, Gluck made a German version of Iphigenia in Tauris and composed several songs. His last work was the psalm De profundis for choir and orchestra, which was performed under the baton of A. Salieri at Gluck's funeral.
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Gluck's contribution In total, Gluck wrote about 40 operas - Italian and French, comic and serious, traditional and innovative. It was thanks to the latter that he secured a firm place in the history of music. The principles of Gluck's reform are outlined in his preface to the edition of the score of "Alcesta" (probably written with the participation of Calzabidgi).
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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 serious illness that turned into partial paralysis. In the autumn of the same year, Gluck returned to Vienna, which he never left. 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. The composer died on November 15, 1787 and was originally buried in the church cemetery of the Matzlinesdorf suburb; later his ashes were transferred to the Vienna Central Cemetery[
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, went to Vienna and entered the service in the chapel of Count Lobkowitz. 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 the largest 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, acutely 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, spent in Vienna, Gluck dreamed of creating a German national opera based on the plot of F. Klopstock's "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. Gluck's student, A. Salieri, conducted this original requiem.
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 terms of the general orientation 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, he 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 ceased 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 virtuosic 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 concept of the decline of the 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 several times recited many fragments, 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.
