From the age of twelve to eighteen, however, he attended the Jesuit school at Kommotau in the neighborhood of the Lobkowitz estate and there, besides receiving a good general education, he learned to sing and play the violin and the 'cello, as well as the clavichord and organ. In 1732 he went to Prague and studied under Czernohorsky.[8] Here he was soon able to earn a modest living--a welcome circumstance, for there were six younger children at home, for whom his father provided with difficulty. In Prague he gave lessons in singing and on the 'cello; he played and sang in various churches; and on holidays made the rounds of the neighboring country as a fiddler, receiving his payment in kind, for the good villagers, it is said, often rewarded him with fresh eggs. Through the introductions of his patron, Prince Lobkowitz, it was not long before he obtained access to the homes of the music-loving Bohemian nobility, and when he went to Vienna in 1736 he was hospitably received in his protector’s palace. Prince Lobkowitz also made it possible for him to begin the study of composition. In Vienna he chanced to meet the Italian Prince Melzi, who was so pleased with his singing and playing that he made him his chamber musician and took him with him to Milan. Here, during four years, from 1737 to 1741, Gluck studied the theory of music under the celebrated contrapuntist Giovanni Battista Sammartini, and definitely decided upon musical composition as a career. His studies completed, he made his debut as a creative artist at the age of twenty-seven, with the opera _Artaserse_ (Milan, 1741), set to a libretto of Metastasio. It was the first of thirty Italian operas, composition of which extended over a period of twenty years, and which are now totally forgotten. The success of _Artaserse_ was instantaneous. We need not explain the reasons for this success, nor the circumstances that, together with its fellows, from _Demofoonte_ to _La finta schiava_, it has fallen into oblivion.