Christoph Willibad Gluck was born near Neumarkt in the Upper Palatinate (Austria) in 1714. He was educated in music in Prague and in Vienna; and fortunately attracted the attention of Prince Melzi, who took him to Milan to direct his private Orchestra. We all know how his successful operas in Vienna prepared the way for still greater triumphs in Paris, where Gluck enjoyed the patronage of the Queen Marie Antoinette, who, being an Austrian, had known and loved Gluck’s works in Vienna. [Illustration: GLUCK _By Duplessis_] All the histories and memoirs of the time speak of the quarrel between the followers of Gluck and Piccini. Piccini represented the old Italian style and Gluck stood for the new dramatic style—the latest thing out it happened to be. The Piccinists accused Gluck of composing operas with little melody, no truth to nature, little elegance or refinement, and a noisy Orchestra. “Gluck’s modulations,” they said, “were awkward and he had no originality, no finish, no polish.” In short, Gluck was everything that was abominable. Dr. Burney informs us that: “No door in Paris was opened to a visitor without the question being asked—‘Monsieur, are you a Picciniste, or a Gluckiste?’” The Piccinists are forgotten: the Gluckists still live. We are among them; for, to our way of thinking, nothing more noble and inspired than _Orfeo_ was ever written. And if polish and elegance are to be found anywhere in music, they appear in the scores of Gluck. “Yet, if he had merely carried to perfection the work begun by Lully and Rameau; if his efforts had been limited to removing the harpsichord from the Orchestra, introducing the harp and trombones, employing the clarinets, scoring with skill and effect, giving more importance and interest to the overture and using with such magic effect the artifice of momentary pauses to vary or emphasize speech in music,—if he had done no more than this, he would have earned our gratitude, but he would not in that case have been one of the monarchs of art. “What then did he accomplish that was so extraordinary? “He grasped the idea that the mission of music was not merely to afford gratification to the senses, and he proved that the expression of moral qualities is within its reach. He disdained all such tricks of the trade as do not appeal to the heart—in fact, he preferred the Muses to the Sirens. He aimed at depicting historic, or legendary, characters and antique social life; and in his works of genius he put into the mouths of each of his heroes accents suited to their sentiments and to the spirit of the time in which they lived. He made use of the Orchestra to add to the force of a dramatic situation, or (in one noble instance) to contrast external repose with the internal agitation of a remorseful conscience. In a word, all his French operas show him to have been a noble musician, a true poet and a deep thinker.”