Life of Mozart Volume 2 — CHAPTER XVIII. FRENCH OPERA, Part 2

(16) Grétry accomplished wonders for musical form, as far as grace and freshness, lively emotion and wit go, but his powers did not attain to anything truly great or important to art.

The art of melodious expression was developed by him almost to the exclusion of other means, such as rich and well-chosen härmonies,[47] artistic accompaniments, and instrumental effects, all of which he treated as subordinate and unimportant.

He inveighs against the misuse of the instruments, especially of the wind instruments, which Gluck's example had introduced, even if he were not personally responsible for it;[48] but he recommends the moderate use of them for characterisation,[49] and prides himself on his very questionable invention in his "Andromaque" of assigning special instruments to the recitatives of each principal character--Andromache, for instance, having always three flutes.

[50] A saying of Grétry's, that in opera song is the statue, and the orchestra the pedestal, and that Mozart sometimes put the pedestal on the stage, has often been repeated.

Whether this is authentic or not, the fact remains that Grétry's neglect of the orchestra was not altogether of set purpose, but that this branch of artistic education was unknown to him and interested him as little as did the minute elaboration and hard study which are dear to all first-rate musicians.

His idea that a musician of genius may spoil his inventive powers by too much study is truly comical; what he tells of his own studies shows how shallow they were, and his productions are all of a piece.

On the other hand he lays great weight upon reflection, which does not properly concern music at all; but his simplicity, which almost amounted to barrenness, served to heighten his truly excellent qualities, and to make him the popular idol he was.

It is quite conceivable that the encyclopedists, who were the champions of Italian music, should have seen in him the man who united beauty and melody with Italian truth and characteristic expression.

Diderot wrote under {GLUCK.

} (17) Grétry's portrait the motto: "Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet, ut magus";[51] Rousseau thanked him for having reopened his heart to emotion by his music;[52] Grimm, who had received him with approbation from the first,[53] declared during the heat of the struggle between Gluckists and Piccinnists that connoisseurs and others were all agreed that no composer had succeeded like Grétry in fitting Italian melody to the French language, and in satisfying the national taste for wit and delicacy.

[54] Suard and Arnaud, Gluck's supporters, stood by Grétry,[55] as well as Marmontel, who was opposed to Gluck.

[56] And with what enthusiasm the public received his operas!

Many of them--to mention only "Zemire and Azor"--made their way throughout Europe, and had unquestionably much influence on the formation of musical taste.

While comic opera was thus flourishing more and more richly and abundantly, the grand opera was confined almost exclusively to Lully and Rameau; it might almost seem that it had reached its limits, and that the interest of the public was henceforth to be centred on comic opera.

[57] But fresh trials awaited the grand opera.

Doubtless the light breezes which sprang from the reformed comic opera were precursors of the coming storm; but the actual impulse to it was not given in Paris itself.

{FRENCH OPERA.

} (18) Christ.

Wilh.

Gluck (1714-1787), after doing good service to Italian opera in Italy and London, went to Vienna in 1748, and there wrote, partly for the Prince of Hildburg-hausen, partly and chiefly for the imperial court, a succession of Italian operas of no very striking originality.

It was precisely the time when the traditional forms were becoming more and more conventional formulas, and when the vocal art was demanding the sacrifice of simplicity, nature, and truth to the whim of each virtuoso.

The decadence of operatic music, which Metastasio bitterly laments (Vol. I.

, p. 163), inspired Gluck with the desire to lead it back to its first principles.

He was a man of earnest thought and strong will.

The tendency of German literature to give dignity and importance to poetry did not pass by him unnoticed, and he was a warm admirer of Klopstock, whose odes he set to music.

[58] The efforts then being made to raise the German stage in Vienna had an influence on him, and his own first attempts at reformation were greeted with loud applause by Sonnenfels.

Gluck has professed his principles of dramatic composition in the well-known dedication to his "Alceste."

He declares his opposition to the abuses introduced by the vanity of singers and the servility of composers, by which the most beautiful and stately drama becomes the most tiresome; he refused to interrupt the action at a wrong time by a ritornello, to sacrifice expression to a run or a cadenza, to neglect the second part of a song when the situation demands that peculiar stress shall be laid on it, in obedience to the custom which requires the fourfold repetition of the words of the first part, or to give an ending to the song against the sense of the text; his overtures were to be characteristic of the drama which was to follow, and to prepare the minds of the spectators for it.

His fundamental law of operatic music was its due subordination to the words, so that every turn in the action should be suitably expressed, without any superfluous adornment, just as colour gives life and expression to a {CALSABIGI'S LIBRETTI.

} (19) sketch.

He professed his highest aim to be simple beauty;[59] he condemned all difficulties which hinder clearness, all novelties which do not proceed from the necessities of the situation; he set aside all rule in order to obtain true effects.

There can hardly be a doubt as to the justice of these principles in general, and we are only concerned with the result of their adoption on musical progress.

[60] Our remarks on a style of music which professes itself the handmaid of poetry, and is content with giving the fittest expression to verse, must be prefaced by some notice of the poets who supplied the verse.

Ranieri de' Calsabigi came to Vienna in 1761, after making himself known by an edition of Metastasio's works, with an aesthetic introduction proving their perfection as tragedies and operas; he had also written several libretti for operas and cantatas.

He had formed an idea that music fitted for dramatic poetry must approach as nearly as possible to natural, energetic declamation; for since declamation was only unperfected music, dramatic song could only be elaborated declamation enriched by the harmonies of the accompaniment.

The poetry for such music must be intense, forcible, passionate, moving, and harmonious, and it could not fail of its result.

Full of this idea he wrote "Orfeo," and submitted it to Count Durazzo; the latter wished it to be put on the stage, and recommended Gluck as the composer who could best carry out the intentions of the poet.

Calsabigi declaimed his "Orfeo" repeatedly before Gluck, and noted his declamation in the text-book with signs which he illustrated by remarks.

[61] Gluck, while giving full justice to the impulse {FRENCH OPERA.

} (20) which he had received from his poet,[62] could only partially yield to his whimsical exaggeration of declamatory music.

But Calsabigi's ideas accorded with his own so far as to aid him in giving them clearness and precision.

Gluck's demands on the musical drama went farther and deeper than Calsabigi's comprehension and powers could reach.

[63] But in the meantime he accepted what was offered to him, and so were produced "Orfeo ed Euridice" (1762), "Alceste" (1767), and "Paride ed Elena" (1769).

Not one of these works betrays any apprehension of true tragedy, any trace of the antique mind; when the poet seeks to escape from the rhetoric of Italian poetry, he draws not from the Greek but from the French tragedy.

Nor do the operas possess any proper dramatic interest.

Instead of having a well-connected, symmetrical plot, they consist of a succession of detached situations closely resembling each other, which are too often repeated, while in details they are too broad and rhetorical.

Gluck's principle of making music the simple exponent of the poet's words was calculated to give them dignity and influence.

Gluck possessed not only boldness and energy united with intellectual acuteness; he had, what is a rare quality at all times, a deep perception of true grandeur.

But although Calsabigi strove to simplify his plots and to excite the deeper and more powerful emotions of his audience, of _greatness_ there was no trace in his librettos.

Gluck, perceiving the latent capabilities which the poet had failed to develop, brought them out, as it were, instinctively, and while he believed himself to be following the poet, he was in reality himself creating all that was great and new in the work.

His fame will be immortal, and rests upon the stately breadth of his designs, upon the simple truth of his representations--in short, upon the greatness of his artistic genius.

His weakness consisted in his one-sided tendency {GLUCK'S OPERAS.

} (21) to characterisation, a tendency in no way identical with those qualities which made his reputation.

Gluck does not abandon any of the accepted forms in his Italian operas;

he rather, in many respects, revives older traditions.

His strict treatment of the aria, the simplicity of his melodies, and the moderation of his adornments, together with his careful recitative, and especially his correct expression, were certainly variations on the then ruling taste, but not innovations on the earlier method.

But in his desire to replace by accurate musical characterisation the ear-flattering artificial degeneration of operatic singing, he made use of stronger means than had hitherto been known.

His harmonies in especial are not only more important and interesting in themselves, but they are used of set purpose for dramatic characterisation.

In a similar manner the orchestra is made of higher use.

The instruments are treated according to their individualities, not as combining to a purely musical effect, but as giving by their tone-colouring definite expression to a variety of moods; light and shade are carefully adjusted, and much lively execution is allotted to the orchestra.

The effect is still further heightened by the frequent use of the chorus, which is intricately treated, and so becomes a powerful factor in the musical characterisation.

Gluck extended his care to the details of scenery, to marches and dances; everything was to be in accordance with and characteristic of the situation.

Here he had been preceded by Jean George Noverre (1727-1810) who, in his "Lettres sur la Danse et sur les Ballets" in 1760, strove for a reformation in the ballet on the same principles which Gluck employed for the opera.

He condemned stereotyped forms of set dances, and demanded a plot for the ballet; expression should be the task of the dancer, with nature for his model, and the ballet-master should be both poet and painter.

The ballets which he produced upon these principles at Stuttgart until 1764, then at Vienna, and after 1776 at Paris, were finished productions of a very pure taste, and effected a complete revolution in the art of dancing.

Gluck laid great stress upon recitative.

He almost entirely abandoned the customary plain recitative, and used {FRENCH OPERA.

} (22) accompanied recitative as most fitting for the dignified language of musical drama.

Truth and power of expression are combined with a wealth of delicate and characteristic detail, and Gluck rarely falls into the error of destroying the impression of the whole by over-elaboration of detail; his nature was averse to all forms of triviality.

But here again the one-sided application of Gluck's principle becomes a weakness.

As, according to his view, music is to be subservient to the words, he follows with his strongly marked recitative every turn of the dialogue, rhetorical and inflated as it might be, so that he not only employs all the resources of his art on an unworthy object, but fritters away the interest, on which he makes claims at once too extensive and too rapidly succeeding one another.

Musical representation works immediately upon the mind and the emotions, and can do this so much more strongly and vividly than verse, which, however forcibly declaimed, appeals primarily to the intellect and the imagination, that a painful incongruity occurs when music, with all her resources of accurate characterisation, follows step by step the words of the poet.

It is therefore an error to suppose that the music must always yield to the words; "as in a correct and well-composed picture," adds Gluck, "the animation of the colouring and of well-disposed light and shade vivifies the forms without distorting the outlines."

But the true painter does not colour or illumine the naked outline; he considers the form in its total effect as a piece of colouring, and it exists for him only in this totality, which it is his object to represent.

The distinction between form and colour is only technically important, and does not affect artistic perception and production.

In the same way the musician has something more to do with respect to the words of his text than to colour given outlines.

The conceptions which the poet has formed, with the consciousness that they could only attain complete independence by their combination with music, must be absorbed by the musician, and reproduced in the forms appointed by the nature of his art.

The exaggerations attending on all forms of opposition and attempted reformation will not suffice to explain this {GLUCK'S MUSIC.

} (23) important error.

[64] In dealing with so great and powerful a mind as Gluck's we must go deeper, and seek for the cause in his artistic organisation alone.

An ardent admirer of Gluck has pronounced[65] that he was "more intellectually than musically great"; and certainly his musical productions do not correspond to the energy of his feelings and his will.

His organisation fitted him for a reformer; as a creative artist his weakness became apparent.

Gluck's works are not exactly one-sided; he expressed every variety of passion with equal skill, and he is never wanting in grace and charm; but he cannot be said to be rich or spontaneous.

The lofty sentiment which he expresses in firm and comprehensive melodies is natural to him, but his exact and confined mode of composition is in part the result of his limited power of invention.

The final cause of his desire to deprive music of her rights as an independent art in favour of verse lies in this weakness of his musical organisation.

Closely connected with this is another phenomenon.

It has been justly remarked[66] that Gluck's powers of characterisation extend only to soliloquies, that he failed to give proper expression to the dialogue proper, the contrast of voices and characters which, either in opposition or agreement, demonstrate their different natures; the polyphonal power of music, in its intellectual sense, remained undeveloped by Gluck.

Failing in this, he failed in the highest object of music, by virtue of which alone she can make any claim to dramatic force.

The fact that Gluck did not feel himself impelled to express his dramatic situations after this fashion is a proof that his imagination was more easily stirred poetically than musically.

The narrow limits within which he occasionally confines even the music whose expression is intended to be purely lyrical may be traced to the same source.

For Gluck did not think it necessary that action on the musical stage should maintain the same uninterrupted {FRENCH OPERA.

} (24) flow as in real life.

He thought it far more important to give a well-sustained musical representation of some one mood or disposition;

and the more broadly such moods were indicated by the poet the better he was pleased.

It is true that even then he keeps within the limits of the strictest form, but he is fond of employing frequent repetition, particularly when the chorus and a solo voice are set in opposition to each other.

This way of rendering a dramatic idea is often of powerful effect; but, considered from an artistic point of view, it should be subordinated to the design of a grandly conceived composition expanding into a living organism.

It cannot be denied, therefore, that Gluck failed in the working out of his subjects, and that he sometimes betrays a certain amount of weakness as well in the structure of his compositions as in their details.

It was not for want of industry or care; it was that he did not feel the necessity for mastering this important side of musical representation, and the fact affords fresh testimony of the singularity of his musical organisation.

Gluck's first opera, "Orfeo ed Euridice," adheres most closely to the usual Italian style, and was indeed successfully performed in Italy.

[67] Of action in this opera there is hardly any; the introduction of Cupid at the beginning and the end gives it the cold allegorical character of the then customary festival entertainments.

The broadly represented situations in which Orpheus mourns for Eurydice, and charms by his music the demons of the lower world, form the main portions of the opera; and they are expressed with striking fidelity and fervour of sentiment, as well as with great force and beauty.

The use which is made of the chorus, and the cultivation of the orchestra, betoken great and important advances on the older style.

The opera was well received by connoisseurs, both in Vienna and Paris,[68] but it does not appear to have been regarded as the inauguration of a reformation {"ALCESTE," 1767.

} (25) in music; indeed, during the next few years Gluck composed several Italian operas quite after the old fashion.

"Alceste," however, is an avowed attempt towards a reformation of dramatic music, and it manifests the settled purpose and the complete individuality of the master.

The poet offers nothing but a succession of situations without any progressive action; the situations turn exclusively on the decision of Alceste, and are employed less as psychological developments of character than as opportunities for a rhetorical representation of certain frames of mind.

The character of Hercules is omitted, and the task of deliverance is entrusted to Apollo as an apparition in the clouds; this destroys an effective contrast; and the two confidants retain a suspicious likeness to the _parte seconde_ of Italian opera.

But Gluck considered the separate scenes not only with regard to their fitness for musical treatment; he felt firm ground in which he might strike root.

It testifies to his marvellous energy of mind that no weakness was discernible in the repetition of such closely allied situations, and that he had always new shades of expression and climacteric effects at his command.

The connection with the forms of Italian opera is not by any means completely severed; an unprejudiced survey discovers numerous traces of this, and many of the main features of the composition are the results of the particular way in which Gluck made use of these forms.

The Vienna public received the opera with indifference, but the critics welcomed it eagerly as the inauguration of a new era.

Unhappily the critics were not by any means competent judges; Sonnenfels and Riedel were not cultivated musical connoisseurs.

[69] The opera scarcely reached a more extended circle; in Italy little notice was taken of it; Frederick the Great had several portions of it performed before him without finding any enjoyment in them;[70] North German {FRENCH OPERA.

} (26) critics, while doing full justice to the new work, raised objections to some of the essential points of Gluck's principles, as carried out in it.

[71] Gluck remarks with some resentment, in his dedication to "Paride ed Elena," on the lukewarmness of the public, and the want of insight and justice on the part of the critics; he goes on to blame the cowardice and stupidity of musicians, none of whom had ventured to follow his lead, and proudly declares his intention of maintaining his principles, to the correctness of which this new opera was to testify on altogether new grounds.

This was an unlucky announcement, for "Paride ed Elena" gave no proof of Gluck's exceptional powers.

The subject, a sufficiently poor one, is deprived of every vestige of interest by the interposition of Cupid in disguise between the lovers--a fiction which turns the whole drama into an absurdity.

The meagre story is spun out into five acts, while to the love scenes, which are wanting in any true passion, independent choruses and dances are attached, calling for nothing beyond outward display.

Gluck's genius for depicting the wider and deeper emotions found no task fitted to its powers, and the inclination to mere grace and superficiality was one altogether foreign to his nature.

Beauties of detail do not suffice in the consideration of a work of art.

The opera was a failure, however, and it does not appear to have been reproduced.

Perhaps Gluck would now have paused in his endeavours,[72] had not new prospects opened which seemed to promise good results.

A Frenchman named Du Rollet, attached to the embassy at Vienna, and an enthusiast for poetry and music, asserted that the tendency of Gluck's principles was in essentials the same as that of French opera style.

He therefore assured him that in Paris only would his {"IPHIGÉNIE EN AULIDE."

} (27) reformation meet with approval, and urged that a true tragedy ought always to be the foundation of an opera.

As an example, he suggested Racine's "Iphigénie en Aulide," and commissioned him to arrange it as an opera, and to take the preliminary steps for its production in Paris.

Gluck accepted the proposal without hesitation.

, The circumstances were, in fact, very favourable.

The principal difficulty against which Gluck had hitherto to contend, viz.

, the deep-rooted partiality for Italian music and its accepted forms, did not exist in Paris; for opera seria in its developed form had made as little way there as the display of fine execution, and even lovers of Italian music would have been loth to introduce its abuses and exaggerations of set purpose.

French opera, on the contrary, in accordance with the genius of the nation, made its first principle dramatic and characteristic expression, which could only be attained by correct yet free treatment of musical forms, and by well-considered treatment of recitative.

Choruses, too, which were for Gluck an important aid to climax and dramatic effect, were indispensable in French opera; and since Rameau's time the orchestra had been successfully employed as a means of characteristic expression.

But the French school had hitherto failed to combine dignity and beauty with their dramatic force and expression; and here Gluck's Italian training enabled him to supply the deficiency.

As far as comic opera was concerned, Grétry had preceded him with similar efforts, and had accustomed the ear of the Parisians to the mingling of French and Italian music.

But to carry out such a reformation in the grand opera required a man of commanding qualities;

and such an one Gluck had proved himself to be.

The choice of subjects was a happy one.

Racine's tragedy was known as a masterpiece to the whole nation, and unless the adaptation were very clumsily made, success for the poetic share of the opera was assured.

The advance on earlier operas is a very decided one.

An important event forms the centre of the plot, dramatic contrasts, passions, and characters, are effectively portrayed.

It is true that the spirit of the age of Louis XIV.

runs {FRENCH OPERA.

} (28) through it all;[73] we have Greeks in patches and powder, Monseigneur Achille and Princesse Iphigénie behave with becoming courtesy and gallantry, and even the artistic representation is made subordinate to the ceremonial.

But Gluck had been trained among these impressions, the forms were not irksome to him, and the greatness of his artistic individuality is nowhere more plainly seen than in his power of exhibiting at momentous crises the purely human and poetic emotions stripped of their outward disguise, and reflecting the ideal spirit of antique art by means of music in a way of which the poet had never dreamed.

Gluck did not venture to depart from the national form of the versification; he was well aware that he must yield to the demands of French taste if he wished to influence the French on his main points.

He not only strove to conform to external conditions, as, for instance, to the great extension of the ballet,[74] endeavouring to turn them to his own ends; he carefully studied the language, in order to declaim it and treat it musically in a way suitable to its character; he also eagerly studied the operas of his predecessors, Lully and Rameau, that he might adopt all that was truly and genuinely national in them.

The influence of these studies may be recognised even in details; but Gluck turned to account whatever he adopted in a perfectly free and independent manner, and developed it still further.

His most important innovation was the substitution of free Italian recitative, with the grand capabilities for characteristic expression given to it by Gluck himself, for the old "psalmodie."

He changed throughout the fundamental character of the musical representation, and here he had no predecessors; for the treatment of the several parts of the composition after the Italian style, comic opera had, as we have seen, in some degree prepared the way.

A

{PERFORMANCE OF "IPHIGÉNIE," 1774.

} (29) further advance, brought about by the greater vividness of the dramatic impersonations, was the cultivation of ensemble pieces; but this, as has been already remarked, is the weakest side of Gluck's performances.

Although Gluck's "Iphigénie" might rightfully claim to have perfected the French grand opera in its national sense, yet it was a difficult undertaking to gain recognition for this fact in Paris, and to produce there the work of a foreign, if not of an unknown composer.

Du Rollet published a letter to D'Auvergne, one of the directors of the Grand-Opéra, in the "Mercure de France" (October, 1772), in which he acquaints him of Gluck's wish to produce his "Iphigénie" in Paris.

He laid stress on Gluck's having preferred the French language and music to the Italian, and declared that his composition of Racine's masterpiece was altogether after the French taste; he hoped in this way to gain the favour of the public and the theatre management.

As this met with no response, Gluck himself published a letter in the "Mercure" (February, 1773), in which, without undue submission, he reiterates the wish; he wastes great praise on J. J.

Rousseau, who was destined to be the most determined opponent of the French language and music.

At last Gluck succeeded in gaining the interest of the Dauphiness, Marie Antoinette, all difficulties were overcome, and in the autumn of 1773 Gluck went to Paris to put his opera in rehearsal.

[75] Again hindrances were thrown in his way which it required all the force and vigour of his character to overcome.

The hardest struggle was with the vocalists, male and female, and with the orchestra; they must be attached to him at all costs.

But he was an implacable conductor,[76] and never gave way before a storm.

[77] After six months rehearsing, "Iphigénie" was performed (February 14, 1774); the success of the first performance was not brilliant, but the second quite confirmed the victory.

Gluck had succeeded (an important point in Paris) in raising public expectation to a high pitch {FRENCH OPERA.

} (30) beforehand, and he found zealous supporters among the journalists, especially the Abbé Arnaud; the opposition engendered by the enthusiastic partisanship of his admirers was in his favour in so far that it prevented the interest of the public from becoming faint.

[78] Opposition came, as might have been expected, from both sides;[79] the followers of Lully and Rameau would not grant any progress made, and saw in Gluck's innovations nothing but the harmful influence of Italian music,[80] while the partisans of the Italians looked upon Gluck's music as essentially identical with the "old French," and complained of the "tudesque" modifications of the Italian style.

[81] As usual, neither party was satisfied with the concessions made to it, and still less would either acknowledge that its strong places had been overthrown.

J.

J.

Rousseau alone acknowledged himself vanquished; and as he had previously done justice to Grétry's efforts, so he now extolled Gluck's music as being genuinely dramatic.

[82] Not so Grimm.

He was too well versed in Italian music not to perceive that if Gluck's ideas became prevalent, those forms which he held to be essential would soon be annihilated; Gluck's operas appeared to him a revival of the old French style, which would {GLUCK'S OPERAS IN VIENNA.

} (31) only hinder or retard the triumph of the Italian.

It is true that out of deference to public opinion, and to that of many of his friends and of Gluck's royal patroness, he does not express himself very positively on the subject, but his real views cannot be mistaken.

[83] With just discrimination the directors had declared that they would not risk appearing before the public with one of Gluck's operas; if he would write six, they might have a chance of success.

Gluck himself was aware that if he was to succeed in the long run, his "Iphigénie" must not be left long alone.

He rapidly revised and elaborated "Orphée et Euridice," not at all to the advantage of the opera, in which he was induced, quite against his principles, to insert a long bravura aria by Bertoni.

[84] It was performed on August 2, 1774, with great success,[85] and was followed on February 27, 1775, by a one-act opera, "L'Arbre Enchanté," and on August 11, 1775, by an opera in three acts, "La Cythère Assiégée," neither of which had any lasting effect.

In order to insure a fresh and lasting success Gluck took in hand his "Alceste" anew.

The text was thoroughly revised by Du Rollet, with the adoption of Rousseau's suggestions, especially in the second act; Hercules is introduced again, but not very skilfully.

[86] Gluck's revision was a very thorough one; the old music was transposed, curtailed, or lengthened, the details altered, and new passages inserted, generally with admirable discrimination.

[87] Then, in order to put new works in direct competition with his old compositions, he undertook to set operas by Quinault to music unaltered, and chose "Roland" and "Armida."

While Gluck was engaged on these works in Vienna, the {FRENCH OPERA.

} (32) supporters of Italian music, who were now convinced of the possibility of procuring foreign composers for the grand opera, sought on their side to oppose a rival to Gluck.

Some time previously Madame Dubarry had been induced by La Borde's influence to obtain the presence in Paris of Piccinni, the most esteemed of Italian composers.

[88] The Neapolitan ambassador, the Marquis Caraccioli, by his intellect and position a powerful patron of the arts and sciences, had been mainly instrumental in summoning Piccinni; and the young Queen, Marie Antoinette, who saw no necessity for bending her inclinations to party interests in the matter of music, and who, like her brother the Emperor, was personally attached to Italian music, gave her consent to Piccinni's appointment.

Marmontel declared himself ready to adapt an opera by Quinault for Piccinni, of whose music he announced himself the champion.

[89] When Gluck heard that the work selected was the "Roland," on which he was already at work, he published a letter ("Année Littéraire," 1776), in which he bitterly complained of this affront, and violently assailed his adversaries.

Open war was now declared between the critics of the Gluckists and the Piccinnists, and carried on in pamphlets, journal articles, and epigrams, with so much violence that even the public were led into a partisanship more eager than had ever before arisen from a question of art.

[90] The leaders of the Piccinnists were Marmontel and La Harpe, while Gluck's faithful partisans were Arnaud and Suard, who appeared as the Anonymous of Vaugirard.

[91] Grimm took no direct share in the contest; but his comments on it show him, {GLUCKISTS AND PICCINNISTS.

} (33) in spite of apparent impartiality, to have been decidedly on the side of Piccinni.

The first performance of "Alceste," on April 23, 1776, was a failure, and it only gained in public favour by slow degrees.

[92] "Iphigénie," too, which was reproduced, was severely criticised.

But this severity served but to increase public sympathy, and Gluck's operas drew full houses, and became more and more unmistakably popular.

Piccinni arrived in Paris quite at the end of 1776. He was welcomed by all the composers, Grétry alone failing to pay his respects to him.

For this he was severely censured, since on first coming to Paris he had announced himself as a pupil of Piccinni, which he was not.

[93] Strange and unknown in Paris, Piccinni took a great distaste to its harsh climate, its unaccustomed way of living.

His ignorance of the French language isolated him and debarred him from any personal share in the contest of which he was the subject.

His easy-going and peace-loving temperament prevented his wishing to join in the fray, while for Gluck's passionate nature it was a satisfaction to give vent to angry vituperation in the public journals.

Marmontel relates how he had to instruct Piccinni in French by reading him his opera every day as a task, and translating what Piccinni had to compose.

[94] Thus slowly proceeded the work of the dissatisfied maestro, and every day he doubted of its success more and more.

[95] Gluck began the rehearsals of his "Armide" in July, 1777, and it was performed on September 23. The opera, on which Gluck had built such confident hopes of success, was very coolly received.

[96] Its failure was owing partly to {PARIS, 1778.

} (34) the dangerous rivalry of Lully, partly to the fact that the subject was not suited to his genius,[97] and partly also to the premonitory shadow of Piccinni's new work.

Justice was not done to "Armide" until later.

[98] La Harpe attacked it bitterly, and Gluck, in a violent retort, called for the aid of the Anonymous of Vaugirard, which did not tarry.

Then began the rehearsals of Piccinni's opera, and the storm of partisanship was let loose.

[99] Piccinni was incapable of restraining it.

While his friends espoused his cause with zeal, while Gluck himself sought to restrain the singers and the orchestra,[100] Piccinni looked sorrowfully to heaven and sighed, "Ah!

toutte va male, toutte!"

Firmly convinced that the opera would be a failure, and resolved to return to Naples on the following day, he went to the first performance (January, 1778), consoling his family with the assurance that a cultivated nation like the French would do a composer no bodily harm, even if they did not admire his operas--and experienced a brilliant triumph.

[101] FOOTNOTES CHAPTER XVIII.

[Footnote 1: Ed.

Fournier, Mozart ä Paris (Revue Franç.

, 1856, II.

, t. 7, p. 28).

] [Footnote 2: Cf.

Histoire du Théätre de l'Opéra en France (Paris, 1753; 2nd Edit.

, 1757).

Castil-Blaze, L'Académie Imp.

de Musique de 1645 ä 1855 (Paris, 1855,1. , II.

).

] [Footnote 3: Grimm, Corr.

inéd. , p. 222; cf.

Corr.

Litt.

, I.

, p. 93. The following is not bad (Corr.

Litt.

, II.

, p. 205): "M.

Hasse, qui avait entendu parler de la légèreté et de la pétulance françaises, ne se lassait point, lorsqu'il fut en ce pays-ci, d'admirer la patience avec laquelle on écoutait ä l'Opéra une musique lourde et monotone."

Goldoni amusingly describes the impression made upon him by the French opera (Mém. , II.

, p. 182).

] [Footnote 4: Grimm, Corr.

Litt.

, XV.

, p. 283; cf.

IV.

, p. 165. Grétry gives more particular instances of the faults of the old style ( Mém. , I.

, p. 301).

] [Footnote 5: The last performance of one of Lully's operas ("Thésée ") was in 1778. ] [Footnote 6: Raguenet, Parallèle des Italiens et François en ce qui regarde la Musique et les Opéras (.

Paris, 1702), translated into German, with notes, and the rejoinder of Freneuse de la Vieuville ( Bonnet, Histoire de la Musique, p. 425; Bourdelot, Hist, de la Mus.

, I.

, p. 291), in Mattheson's Critica Musica (Hamburg, 1712), I. , p. 91, and in Marpurg's Krit.

Briefen, I. , pp. 65, 89, 113, 398. Freneuse, Comparaison de la Mus.

Ital.

et de la Mus.

Franç.

Brussels, 1705 (in Bourdelot'8 Hist, de la Mus.

, 1725 and 1743, II.

-IV.

).

Raguenet, Défense du Parallèle (Paris, 1705).

] [Footnote 7: La Harpe, Corresp.

Litt.

, II.

, p. 302. ] [Footnote 8: When Grimm first came to Paris he wrote to Gottsched: "M. Rameau is rightly considered by all connoisseurs to be the greatest musician who has ever lived" (Danzel Gottsched, p. 349).

His opinion soon changed, but the account he afterwards gives of Rameau (Corr.

Litt.

, IV.

, p. 80), prejudiced as it is, recognises Rameau's merits, though without giving him the credit of them.

In his Lettre sur "Omphale" (1752, Corr.

Litt.

, XV.

, p. 281), Grimm gave a detailed criticism in a very moderate tone.

A good account of him may be found in Ad.

Adam's Derniers Souvenirs d'un Musicien, p. 39. ] [Footnote 9: Hiller, Wöch. Nachr.

, 1770, p. 331. Schelle, N. Ztschr.

f. Mus.

, LVII.

, and LVIII.

, p. 119. ] [Footnote 10: According to Castil-Blaze (L'Opéra Italien, p. 144), the operas produced by the Bouffons were, "La Serva Padrona," by Pergolese; "ü Giocatore," by Orlandini: "ü Maestro di Musica," by Al. Scarlatti; "La Finta Cameri'era," by Atella; "La Donna Superba," by Rinaldo da Capua;

"La Scaltra Gover-natrice," by Cocchi; "ü Cinese Rimpatriato," by Selletti; "La Zingara" by Rinaldo da Capua; "Gli Artigiani Arrichiti," by Ladlla; "II.

Paratajo" by Jomelli; "Bertoldo in Corte," by Ciampi; "I Viaggiatori," by Leo.

] [Footnote 11: The Italian opera was conducted from the pianoforte only, while in the French opera time was beaten audibly with a stick.

Cf.

Grétry, Mém. , I.

p. 39. ] [Footnote 12: The heads of the parties had their regular places below the box of the King and Queen.

] [Footnote 13: It was republished (Corr.

Litt.

, XV.

, p. 315,) and translated into German (N. Ztschr.

f. Mus.

, IV.

, p. 63, where it is wrongly ascribed to Rousseau).

Grimm speaks of its extraordinary success to Gottsched, and Frau Gottsched speaks of an imitation of it directed against Weisse's operetta, "Der Teufel ist los" (Danzel Gottsched, p. 350).

] [Footnote 14: The account which he gives to Rameau's nephew of his uncle and Italian music is graphic enough (Goethe, XXIII.

, p. 208).

] [Footnote 15: This was in the well-known Lettre sur la Musique Française (1753), to which the Lettre d'un symphoniste de l'Académie Royale de Musique ä ses camarades de l'orchestre (1753) was a witty after-piece.

] [Footnote 16: Grétry, Mém. , I.

, p. 279. ] [Footnote 17: Rousseau, Confessions 1. , VIII.

Grimm, Corr.

Litt.

, I.

, p. 92. Fétis, Curios.

Hist, de la Mus.

, p. 107. ] [Footnote 18: Grimm, Corr.

Litt.

, I.