[...]... opera — The environment harmful nature required to rise above in the in meeting with CalzaOrfeo ed Euridice libretto The The poem of Orfeo The music — first Ezio xix Contents —Les Pterins Mecque— The engraving of Orfeo —Philidor and the of Gluck II —La —Short of Gluck —Producof Vienna— The and French —Paride ed forms of the opera — The music Elena The dedicatory —L'Atto Baud Filemone— L'Atto i Gluck' s... GLUCK' S RELATIONS TO THE INTELLECTUJL LIFE OF HIS EPOCH CHAPTER Course of the Opera I in Italy An outgrowth of the — The " music of the Greeks of the ReImitation of antique — —Declamation the opera Mytho— weak produce genuine drama— Gorgeous decoration the opera from the Courts public — Growth of the element— Rise of the The domination of not wholly harmful — Need Renaissance The Florentine reformers... nature of the case the knowledge of these men cannot be extensive enough to cover the whole field of music ; so that the art finds itself in some such tific method to the Gluck and the Opera 4 dilemma as this : the men who can look at musical same way as at other products of the human mind which is the indispensable basis of have not a sufficient knowlegde of rational criticism creations in the — music... of the technical side of the opera This can be had in many excellent works, and superfluous to devote another volume to the it were task I have rather endeavoured to view the subject philosophically, and to bring the opera of the eighteenth century in general, and Gluck' s work in particular, into line Preface xiii with the whole intellectual tendencies of the time Thus in the sketches in development... from the usual German articles in the French and Dictionaries and Histories, and the treatment of Gluck in books and articles dealing with the history of the opera, there are several foreign studies of the Anton Schmid's and works of the master *' C life W Ritter von Gluck, dessen Leben'und Wirken"(Leipzig, 1854), is a very detailed biography, containing almost known of the everything that is the best... in the Free article Review for April 1895, in which the psychological meaning of the evolution of musical form is correlated with the general logical movement of the mind in other departments t See M Arthur Coquard, "La musique en France depuis Hameau," p 175 Gluck and 6 the Opera yet apparently not the slightest perception of their and of the peculiar historical conditions under which each of them... light upon the still less method that Wagner One have followed disciples entity " music," and other the upon the future practically the Hegelian poetry," other method an essay in the Hegelian process of ingenious eclecticism, is called is by a history, re-written to suit the supposed gyrations of these two entities about a common They centre begin by being united j then the earth-spirit, in the plenitude... particular all eternity But manner they remain inefficient as the method with regard to the future, regard to the past will it is not less so with There never has been such an Gluck and lo Opera the entity as "poetry," nor such an entity as " music," nor have these two been turning each an eye on the other throughout the ages Art has not developed on any preconceived plan, nor has the evolution from form to... de Rameau of " the technical points of lation of the musical discussion," on the ground that these cannot interest now conclusive On the other hand, the haphazard and in- method of professed musical typiiied in Professor Knight, who in his sestheticians is " Philosophy of the Beautiful " not only omits any discussion of the late Edmund Gurney's brilliant book on " The Power of Sound " the ablest of... to anticipate in Trills the Ritornelli ^The Essay ? Algarotti's aria CHAPTER The preface to Alceste III The music to second the poetry Banishment of abuses from the opera to prepare the spectators for the main purpose " to seek a p 228 The overture —His " — His coming action noble simplicity Contents Gluck' s — Contradictions from Calzabigi assistance conversations other writings and in attempted . were superfluous to devote another volume to the task. I have rather endeavoured to view the subject philosophi- cally, and to bring the opera of the eighteenth century in general, and Gluck& apos;s work in particular, into. culture in England j while those who wish to supplement the account of the intellectual develop- ment of music in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by an account of the formal development of the expressive side of music. works are of course indis- pensable ; while the general musical life ofthe eighteenth century is well illustrated in Vernon Lee's " Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy." Berlioz' " A travers