CHAPTER II

THE REFORMS OF GLUCK

The death of Lulli left French opera established upon a sure foundation.  The form which he perfected seemed, with all its faults, to commend itself to the genius of the nation, and for many years a succession of his followers and imitators, such as Campra and Destouches, continued to produce works which differed little in scope and execution from the model he had established.  The French drama of the seventeenth century had reached such a high point of development that its influence over the sister art was all-powerful.  The composers of the French court willingly sacrificed musical to declamatory interest, and thus, while they steered clear of the mere tunefulness which was the rock on which Italian composers made shipwreck, they fell into the opposite extreme and wrote works which seem to us arid and jejune.  Paris at this time was curiously isolated from the world of music, and it is strange to find how little the development of Italian opera affected the French school.  Marais (1650-1718) was more alive to Southern influences than most of his contemporaries, and in his treatment of the aria there is a perceptible approach to Italian methods; but Rameau (1683-1764) brought back French opera once more to its distinctive national style.  Though he followed the general lines of Lulli’s school, he brought to bear upon it a richer sense of beauty and a completer musical organisation than Lulli ever possessed.  In his treatment of declamation pure and simple, he was perhaps Lulli’s inferior, but in all other respects he showed a decided advance upon his predecessor.  He infused new life into the monotonous harmony and well-worn modulations which had done duty for so many years.  His rhythms were novel and suggestive, and the originality and resource of his orchestration opened the eyes of Frenchmen to new worlds of beauty and expression.  Not the least important part of Rameau’s work lay in the influence which his music exerted upon the genius of the man to whom the regeneration of opera is mainly due.  Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) was the son of a forester.  Such musical education as he received he acquired in Italy, and his earlier works are written in the Italian style which was fashionable at the time.  There are few indications in his youthful operas of the power which was destined later to work such changes in the world of opera.  He was at first whole-hearted in his devotion to the school of Porpora, Hasse and the others who did so much to degrade Italian opera.  ‘Artaserse,’ his first work, was produced in 1741, the year in which Handel bade farewell for ever to the stage.  It was successful, and was promptly followed by others no less fortunate.  In 1745 Gluck visited England where he produced ‘La Caduta de’ Giganti,’ a work which excited the contempt of Handel.  In the following year he produced ‘Piramo e Tisbe,’ a pasticcio, which failed completely.  Its production,