In 1776 the trouble that had been brewing with Gluck’s opponents came to a climax. Piccinni was his great Italian rival and the city of Paris was torn as to who was the better composer. All the literary men and the court were divided into factions, one for and one against Gluck. Some great men, including Jean Jacques Rousseau were Gluckists, while others of importance were Piccinnists. Never had there been so great a contention for musical glory or struggle against new ideas. It was a most extraordinary thing, but it does show that there was great musical interest or people would never have wasted so much time in argument and in writing for or against these men. Finally it came to a head, and it was decided to give them both the same libretto of _Iphigenia in Tauris_ to see who could write the better opera. Gluck completed his within the year and after nearly three years, Piccinni finished his. They were both performed and needless to say Gluck won the award and even Piccinni said himself that Gluck’s was the better. It is nice to know that after Gluck’s death, Piccinni tried to collect funds to raise a memorial as a tribute to him! So artistic rivalry need not dim admiration. In _Iphigenia in Tauris_ again the master rises to great heights. His overture was splendid, his orchestral color was superb. He pictured the different characteristics of the various groups of people and of the individuals themselves in word and music as it never had been done before. He wrote _Armide_ in 1777. It did not succeed although it was very lovely and dreamy and in it, he suggested the sounds of babbling brooks and the song of the nightingales. Gluck wrote thirty operas, seven of which are in his new style: _Don Giovanni_, _Orpheus and Euridice_, _Paris and Helen_, _Alceste_, _Iphigenia in Tauris_, _Iphigenia in Aulis_ and _Armide_. NEW PATHS And thus this great path-breaker advanced _opera seria_ (grand opera). The old _sinfonia_ in three movements which opened the opera, disappeared, and instead came the introduction or overture, suggesting the opera itself. He taught and wrote that composers could do anything to assist the action of the opera; he elevated the story to an important place; the characters in the plot were thought of as people and not as puppets, and they were studied individually and not as machinery only. The situations in the story governed the kind of music he used and he tried hard to make the orchestra a main part of the opera. It seems odd that nobody had thought of this before. Yet you have seen how much time had been given to the voice throughout the ages, and how long it had taken instruments to arrive at their full importance. So we see Gluck improving as he worked with a better librettist. From now the opera writer had to use thought in composition, as he would in writing a play. A VERY CROSS CONDUCTOR!