Christoph Willibald von GLUCK

Born in Bavaria, Gluck began his musical education in Prague, then went on to study in Vienna and Milan where he was taught by Sammartini (1736). His first operas, in the Italian tradition, were a huge success in the 1740s. During the following decade, he settled in Vienna, where he was appointed Kapellmeister at the court at the young age of 30. He continued to write Italian operas while adapting fashionable French operas for the Austrian stage. The ballet Don Juan (1761) and particularly the opera Orfeo ed Euridice (1762) marked the start for him of a period of reform which was to have a lasting effect on musical composition in Europe. It also put him at the forefront of classical composers, while establishing him as an essential benchmark for the early Romantics, such as Hector Berlioz. Keeping naturalness and simplicity as his watchwords, he won great success in Paris in 1774 with Iphigénie en Aulide and the French translation of Orphée. These triumphs provoked a vitriolic response from the advocates of Italian opera in France, supporters of Niccolò Piccinni, and gave rise to an artistic battle which was to last several years. This quarrel was punctuated by a great many successes: Alceste (1776), Armide (1776), Iphigénie en Tauride (1779); and by the resounding failure of Écho et Narcisse (1779), after which the composer left Paris for good. The author of 107 operas, opéras comiques, and ballet-pantomimes, Gluck also produced various pieces of instrumental music and sacred works (particularly a De profundis).