CHRISTOPH

WILLIBALD GLUCK

A composer of Italian and French opera in

the early classical period.
 Introduction and Timeline

ABOUT C.W • Handel and Gluck take on General Ezio

GLUCK • Christoph Willibald Von Gluck: Orpheus and Eurydice

Glucks Famous Works (Incl. Arias)

 A BRIEF INTRODUCTION ABOUT GLUCK

Christoph Gluck (1714–1787) was an opera composer of the early classical period his most famous
work was Orfeo ed Euridice. Gluck's radical credentials go back to his youth. He ran away to Prague
at about 14, living by his wits, getting musical work where he could.

Life and Music

Gluck found patronage and musical training in Milan, where he probably learnt much from the
symphonist Sammartini.

Milan saw his debut as an opera composer in 1741 with the first of several works he wrote for the
city. In 1761, Gluck set to work on the first of his three so-called 'reform' operas, Orfeo ed Euridice.

Through the reformation, Baroque opera which was full of undramatic conventions, opportunities for
vocal display, and lengthy set pieces, became cleansed of much of its fat. Italian opera now breathed
the spirit of French opera, idealised through the genius of Gluck and Calzabigi.
For his next reform opera, Alceste, Gluck decided to follow the example of some illustrious predecessors
and explain himself: "I have striven to restrict music to its true office of serving poetry by means of
expression and by following the situations of the story, without interrupting the action or stifling it with
a useless superfluity of ornaments".

Gluck wanted music to be the servant of poetry; he wanted drama to lead and the music to follow.
Inevitably, Gluck's passionate interest in French opera led him to France, where he became a key player
in the revival of French opera. He wrote new operas in French and radically overhauled some of his best
Italian works.

In Vienna, Gluck became deeply involved in French productions, to such an extent that he behaved to the
French public and monarchy in a way that would have lost him his head.

His final act of defiance was when his doctor ordered him to stay off the demon drink. But Gluck
enjoyed his indulgent lifestyle far too much to comply and he died in 1787.

Did you know?

Gluck, unhappy with the way rehearsals were going for Iphigénie en Aulide (1774), simply postponed
the performance, in spite of the fact that King Louis XVI and his queen were due to attend.
 HISTORICAL BACKGROUNDS, TIMELINE

• 1673 (Gluck's Earliest Ancestor - His Grandfather)

• 1675 (Gluck's Grandfather Moves To Neustadt)
• 1683 (Birth of Gluck's Father)
• 1712 (The Birth Of Christopher Gluck)
• 1722 (Gluck's Fathers’ New Position)
• 1728 (Gluck's Early Life)
• Question of Gluck's native language
• 1737 (Gluck’s Arrival In Italy)
• 1745 (Gluck being the house composer at London's King's Theatre)
• 1750 (Gluck composing a new opera for the Prague Carnival of 1750)
• 1761 (Gluck producing the ballet-pantomime Don Juan)
• Operatic reforms
• 1762 (Orfeo ed Euridice was given its first performance)
• Last Years
• Legacy
 HANDEL AND GLUCK TAKE ON
GENERAL EZIO

Pietro Metastasio was the embodiment of opera seria. Both before and during his time as ‘Caesarean poet’
to the Habsburg court in Vienna he wrote libretto after libretto on mythological or historical subjects, from
Achilles to Zenobia; and composer after composer set his texts, often more than once. Ezio follows on from
Verdi’s Attila: the victorious general Aetius (Ezio) returns to Rome, where he incurs the resentment of the
emperor Valentinian. In addition, both men love Fulvia, whose father seeks to exploit the situation for his own
ends. As usual in opera seria, virtue triumphs; and, in Ezio, the villainous Maximus is pardoned. There were
only five performances of Handel’s Ezio in the composer’s lifetime.

It has never been rated highly, but this excellent recording should win it new friends. What is particularly
impressive is the way the acres of harpsichord-accompanied recitative are handled. It is the recitatives that
advance the plot: often tedious, they are here delivered with such dramatic force that – following text and
translation in the booklet – you find yourself hanging on every word. In a fine cast, Sonia Prina – in a role
actually written for a contralto, not a castrato – stands out as a believably imperial Valentinian. Gluck’s 1750
setting for Prague – he composed another, for Vienna, in 1763 – is still Baroque in cast, with a preponderance
of da capo arias. One delightful surprise is an early version of what became ‘Che puro ciel’ in Orfeo ed
Euridice. As in the Handel, it is Valentinian – Max Emanuel Cencic – who makes the greatest impression. Both
sets are highly enjoyable.
 CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD VON GLUCK:
ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE

A reform opera. It sounds like a place where bad composers are sentenced to hard labour.

It was Gluck’s attempt to make new things happen in what he considered to be the increasingly stuck-in-
the-mud world of eighteenth-century French opera – or azione teatrale (‘theatrical action’), as he would have
known it. How was it stuck in the mud? Well, it was over-mannered and it was over-reliant on techniques that
meant that works with the loosest of plots were being allowed to pass for operas.

Gluck’s idea, which was developed by composers such as Puccini years later, was to make opera much more real.

Gluck seems to have been adhering to the unwritten law of opera that appears to state that ‘When new
ground is to be broken, it must be to the story of Orpheus’. In his version of the story, out went the dull recitatives,
replaced by fully accompanied ones; out went sheer virtuosity just for virtuosity’s sake and in came singing that
enhanced the plot or advanced the character. It was a revolution both in style and content, which moved the
whole genre of opera into a new place. Other composers raced to embrace Gluck’s trail-blazing ideas.
 GLUCK’S FAMOUS WORKS (INCLUDING ARIAS)

Kreisler's Mélodie (from Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBm9gfd9_SI&list=PLre7tVLACOrUoGTswHxfvrLYyc9wH-wVq

Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice: [Dance of Furies and Spectres]

https://youtu.be/yZLCthUkVn8?list=PLre7tVLACOrUoGTswHxfvrLYyc9wH-wVq

J'ai perdu mon Eurydice (Paris Version)

https://youtu.be/eYdlYGyr8v8?list=PLre7tVLACOrUoGTswHxfvrLYyc9wH-wVq

Christoph Gluck Dance of the Blessed Spirits for Flute and Piano
https://youtu.be/x-OrXOOeA0I

Emmanuel Pahud plays Orfeo ed Euridice by Gluck

https://youtu.be/CnDGL2zS1ME
Se mai senti spirarti sul volto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO8aFGQNGz8

Aria: Senza un addio? (Amanda Forsythe)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svLGvg-cLhg

Di questa cetra in seno

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u548K2ipgTE

Aria from the Opera " Demofoonte"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzs-DsoefNs

Gluck's Opera Alceste "Ombre Larve" Aria

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yqzb7X2lEjs

'Che farò senza Euridice?' Gluck - Irish National Opera

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BjCvWvg0So

Philippe Jaroussky records Gluck: Che farò senza Euridice (Orfeo ed Euridice)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8dIevs0VlU
Gluck: La Clemenza di Tito - Tremo fra dubbi mie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdnAnTI_ZG4

Gluck: Il Parnaso confuso - Di questa cetra in seno

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-qHsFx-O48