Biography Christoph Gluck

A large mythological opera, experiencing an acute crisis, gained in the work of a glitch of the quality of a genuine musical tragedy, filled with strong passions, exalting 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, wanderings, the development of various opera genres of that time.

Gluck lived an amazing life, completely devoting himself to a musical theater. Gluck was born in the Forest family. The father considered the profession of a musician an unworthy occupation and in every possible way prevented his son’s musical hobbies. Therefore, as a teenager, the glitch leaves the house, wanders, dreams of getting a good education by this time he graduated from the Jesuit collegium.

In Gluck he entered Prague University. The student of the Faculty of Philosophy gave a lot of time to musical studies - he took lessons from the famous Czech composer Boguslav Montenegorsky, sang in the choir of the Church of St. Gluck, the already established professional musician, goes to Vienna and enters the service of the chapel. Soon, the Italian philanthropist A.

Meltsi offered Gluck the place of the chamber musician of the court chapel in Milan. In Italy, the path of glitch as an opera composer begins; He gets acquainted with the work of the largest Italian masters, is engaged in the composition under the leadership of J. for almost 5 years the preparatory stage continued; Only in December, Gluck receives numerous orders from the theaters of Venice, Turin, Milan and for four years creates several more opera-seria Demetrius, Porot, Demophone, Hypermintra and others.

The new stage of the composer’s life and work begins with the move to Vienna, where Gluck soon took up the post of conductor and composer of the Providvoye Opera, and in G. Continuing to compose operas-Seria, Gluck also addresses new genres. The French comic operas, written on the texts of famous French playwrights, enriched the composer style with new intonations, compositional techniques, responded to the needs of listeners in life, democratic art.

Of great interest is the work of Gluck in the ballet genre. In cooperation with the talented Viennese choreographer G. Anjolini created the Don-Juan Ballet Pantomim. The novelty of this performance - genuine choreographic drama - is determined in many respects by the character of the plot: not traditionally fabulous, allegorical, but deeply tragic, acutely conflict, affecting the eternal problems of human existence.

The most important event in the creative evolution of the composer and in the musical life of Vienna was the prime minister of the first reformal opera - Orpheus, in which the absolute unity of musical and stage development was achieved. The Orpheus was followed by 2 more reforming operas - “Alcesta” and “Paris and Elena” without finding proper support from the Vienna and Italian public GLUK go to Paris.

The years spent in the capital of France is the time of the highest creative activity of the composer. Gluck writes and puts new reformal operas at the Royal Academy of Music, processes Orpheus and Alcesta, in accordance with the traditions of the French theater. Gluck's activity stirred the musical life of Paris, caused the most acute aesthetic discussions. On the side of the composer are French enlighteners, encyclopedists D.

Didro, J. Rousseau, J. Grimm, who greeted the birth of a truly high heroic style in the opera; His opponents are adherents of the old French lyrical tragedy and opera-seria. In an effort to shake the position of Gluck, they invited N. Pichchinni to Paris, who used a European recognition at that time. The polemic between the supporters of Gluck and Pichchinni went down in the history of the French opera called the “War of the Gluckers and Pichchinnists”.

The composers themselves, who belonged to each other with sincere sympathy, remained far from these "aesthetic battles." In the last years of his life that have been in Vienna, Gluck dreamed of creating the German national opera “Battle of Herman”. However, serious illness and age prevented the implementation of this plan.

During the funeral of Gluck in Vienna, his last work “De Profundis” was performed for the choir and orchestra. This peculiar requem was conducted by Gluck's student - A. The stylistics of the musical tragedies of Gluck - the exalted 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 - dates back to the traditions of ancient tragedy.

Created in the heyday of the educational movement on the eve of the Great French Revolution, they respected the needs of time in great heroic art. The directed selection and concentration of means of musical and dramatic characteristics, a strict subordination of all links of a large composition-these are the most important discoveries of Gluck, which were of great importance both for the updating of the opera drama and for the approval of new, symphonic thinking.