Piccini’s _Roland_ followed _Alceste_ in a few months, January, 1778. It was a success, but only a temporary one. After twelve well-attended performances it ceased to draw. Nevertheless it fanned the flame of controversy. The fight of Gluckists and Piccinnists, in continuation of the _Guerre des bouffons_, of which the principals, by the way, were quite innocent, was at its height. Men addressed each other with the challenge ‘Êtes-vous Gluckiste ou Piccinniste?’ Piccini was placed at the head of an Italian troupe which was engaged to give performances on alternate nights at the _Académie_. The two ‘parties’ were now on equal footing. Finally it occurred to the director to have the two rivals treat the same subject and he selected Racine’s _Iphigénie en Tauride_. Piccini was handicapped from the start. His text was bad, neither his talent nor his experience was so suited to the task as Gluck’s. The latter’s version was ready in May, 1779, and was a brilliant success. According to the _Mercure de France_ no opera had ever made so strong and so universal an impression upon the public. ‘Pure musical beauty as sweet as that of _Orfeo_, tragic intensity deeper than that of _Alceste_, a firm touch, an undaunted courage, a new subtlety of psychological insight, all combine to form a masterpiece such as throughout its entire history the operatic stage has never known.’ Piccini, who meantime had produced his _Atys_, brought out his _Iphigénie_ in January, 1781. Despite many excellences it was bound to be anti-climax to Gluck’s. Needless to say it admits of no comparison. Too great stress has often been laid on the quarrels of the ‘Gluckists’ and ‘Piccinnists,’ which, it is true, went to absurd lengths. As is usually the case with partisanship in art, the chief characters themselves were not personal enemies. The Italian sympathizers merely took up the cry which the Buffonists had formerly raised against the opera of Rameau. According to them Gluck’s music was made up of too much noise and not enough song. ‘But the Buffonist agitation had been justified by results; it had produced the _opéra comique_, which had assimilated what it could use of the Italian _opera buffa_.’ Not so this new controversy. Hence, despite a few days of glory for Piccini, his party was not able to reawaken in France a taste for the superficial charm of Italian music. ‘The crowd is for Gluck,’ sighed La Harpe. And when, after the glorious success of _Iphigénie en Tauride_, Piccini’s _Didon_ was given in 1783, it owed the favor with which it was received largely to the fact that in style and expression it followed Gluck’s model.