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Biography

Christoph Willibald Gluck was born into the family of a forester, was passionate about music since childhood, and since his father did not want to see his eldest son as a musician, Gluck, having graduated from the Jesuit college in Kommotau, left home as a teenager. After long wanderings, he ended up in Prague in 1731 and entered the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Prague; At the same time, he took lessons from the then famous Czech composer Boguslav of Montenegro, sang in the choir of the Church of St. James, and played the violin and cello in traveling ensembles.

Having received his education, Gluck went to Vienna in 1735 and was accepted into the chapel of Count Lobkowitz, and a little later received an invitation from the Italian philanthropist A. Melzi to become a chamber musician at the court chapel in Milan. In Italy, the birthplace of opera, Gluck had the opportunity to become acquainted with the work of the greatest masters of this genre; at the same time, he studied composition under the guidance of Giovanni Sammartini, a composer not so much of opera as of symphony.

In Vienna, gradually becoming disillusioned with the traditional Italian opera seria - “opera-aria”, in which the beauty of melody and singing acquired a self-sufficient character, and composers often became hostages to the whims of prima donnas - Gluck turned to French comic opera (“The Island of Merlin”, “ The Imaginary Slave”, “The Reformed Drunkard”, “The Fooled Cadi”, etc.) and even to ballet: created in collaboration with the choreographer G. Angiolini, the pantomime ballet “Don Juan” (based on the play by J.-B. Molière), a real choreographic drama, became the first embodiment of Gluck's desire to turn the opera stage into a dramatic one.

In search of musical drama

K.V. Gluck. Lithograph by F. E. Feller

In his quest, Gluck found support from the chief intendant of the opera, Count Durazzo, and his compatriot, poet and playwright Ranieri de Calzabigi, who wrote the libretto of Don Giovanni. The next step in the direction of musical drama was their new joint work - the opera “Orpheus and Eurydice”, staged in the first edition in Vienna on October 5, 1762. Under the pen of Calzabigi, the ancient Greek myth turned into ancient drama, in full accordance with the tastes of that time, but the opera was not successful with the public either in Vienna or in other European cities.

By order of the court, Gluck continued to write operas in the traditional style, without, however, abandoning his idea. A new and more perfect embodiment of his dream of musical drama was the heroic opera Alceste, created in collaboration with Calzabigi in 1767, presented in the first edition in Vienna on December 26 of the same year. Dedicating the opera to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the future Emperor Leopold II, Gluck wrote in the preface to Alceste:

It seemed to me that music should play in relation to a poetic work the same role as the brightness of colors and correctly distributed effects of chiaroscuro, which animate the figures, without changing their contours in relation to the drawing... I tried to expel from music all the excesses against which common sense and justice protest in vain. I believed that the overture should illuminate the action for the audience and serve as an introductory overview of the content: the instrumental part should be determined by the interest and tension of the situations... All my work should have been reduced to the search for noble simplicity, freedom from an ostentatious accumulation of difficulties at the expense of clarity; the introduction of some new techniques seemed to me valuable insofar as it suited the situation. And finally, there is no rule that I would not break in order to achieve greater expressiveness. These are my principles."

Such a fundamental subordination of music to poetic text was revolutionary for that time; In an effort to overcome the number structure characteristic of the then opera seria, Gluck combined episodes of the opera into large scenes, permeated with a single dramatic development, he tied the overture to the action of the opera, which at that time was usually a separate concert number, and increased the role of the choir and orchestra... Neither Alceste, nor the third reform opera based on Calzabigi's libretto - Paris and Helena () found support from either the Viennese or Italian public.

Gluck's duties as a court composer also included teaching music to the young Archduchess Marie Antoinette; Having become the wife of the heir to the French throne in April 1770, Marie Antoinette invited Gluck to Paris. However, the composer’s decision to move his activities to the capital of France was influenced to a much greater extent by other circumstances.

Glitch in Paris

In Paris, meanwhile, there was a struggle around the opera, which became the second act of the struggle that had died down back in the 50s between adherents of Italian opera (“Buffonists”) and French opera (“anti-Buffonists”). This confrontation split even the crowned family: the French king Louis XVI preferred Italian opera, while his Austrian wife Marie Antoinette supported national French opera. The split also struck the famous “Encyclopedia”: its editor D’Alembert was one of the leaders of the “Italian party”, and many of its authors, led by Voltaire and Rousseau, actively supported the French one. The stranger Gluck very soon became the banner of the “French party”, and since the Italian troupe in Paris at the end of 1776 was headed by the famous and popular composer Niccolo Piccini in those years, the third act of this musical and social polemic went down in history as a struggle between the “Gluckists” and “ Piccinists." The debate was not about styles, but about what an opera performance should be - just an opera, a luxurious spectacle with beautiful music and beautiful vocals, or something significantly more.

In the early 1970s, Gluck's reform operas were unknown in Paris; in August 1772, the attaché of the French embassy in Vienna, François le Blanc du Roullet, brought them to the attention of the public in the pages of the Parisian magazine Mercure de France. The paths of Gluck and Calzabigi diverged: with a reorientation towards Paris, du Roullet became the main librettist of the reformer; in collaboration with him, the opera “Iphigenia in Aulis” (based on the tragedy of J. Racine) was written for the French public, staged in Paris on April 19, 1774. The success was consolidated by the new, French edition of Orpheus and Eurydice.

The recognition in Paris did not go unnoticed in Vienna: on October 18, 1774, Gluck was awarded the title of “actual imperial and royal court composer” with an annual salary of 2,000 guilders. Thanking for the honor, Gluck returned to France, where at the beginning of 1775 a new edition of his comic opera “The Enchanted Tree, or the Deceived Guardian” (written back in 1759) was staged, and in April, at the Grand Opera, a new edition "Alceste".

Music historians consider the Paris period to be the most significant in Gluck's work; the struggle between the “Gluckists” and the “Piccinists,” which inevitably turned into personal rivalry between the composers (which, according to contemporaries, did not affect their relationships), proceeded with varying degrees of success; by the mid-70s, the “French party” split into adherents of traditional French opera (J.B. Lully and J.F. Rameau), on the one hand, and the new French opera of Gluck, on the other. Willingly or unwittingly, Gluck himself challenged the traditionalists by using for his heroic opera “Armida” a libretto written by F. Kino (based on T. Tasso’s poem Jerusalem Liberated) for Lully’s opera of the same name. "Armide", which premiered at the Grand Opera on September 23, 1777, was apparently received so differently by representatives of the various "parties" that even 200 years later, some spoke of a "tremendous success", others - of " failure."

And yet, this struggle ended in Gluck’s victory, when on May 18, 1779, his opera “Iphigenia in Tauris” (on a libretto by N. Gniyar and L. du Roullet based on the tragedy of Euripides) was presented at the Paris Grand Opera, which to this day many considered the composer's best opera. Niccolò Piccinni himself recognized Gluck's "musical revolution". At the same time, J. A. Houdon sculpted a white marble bust of Gluck, which was later installed in the lobby of the Royal Academy of Music between the busts of Rameau and Lully.

Last years

On September 24, 1779, the premiere of Gluck's last opera, Echo and Narcissus, took place in Paris; however, even earlier, in July, the composer was struck by a serious illness that resulted in partial paralysis. In the autumn of the same year, Gluck returned to Vienna, which he never left again (a new attack of illness occurred in June 1781).

Monument to K. W. Gluck in Vienna

During this period, the composer continued his work on odes and songs for voice and piano, begun back in 1773, based on the poems of F. G. Klopstock (Klopstocks Oden und Lieder beim Clavier zu singen in Musik gesetzt), and dreamed of creating a German national opera based on Klopstock’s story “ Battle of Arminius", but these plans were not destined to come true. Anticipating his imminent departure, in 1782 Gluck wrote “De profundis” - a short work for a four-voice choir and orchestra on the text of the 129th Psalm, which on November 17, 1787, at the composer’s funeral, was performed by his student and follower Antonio Salieri.

Creation

Christoph Willibald Gluck was a composer primarily of opera; he owns 107 operas, of which “Orpheus and Eurydice” (), “Alceste” (), “Iphigenia in Aulis” (), “Armida” (), “Iphigenia in Tauris” () are still on the stage. Even more popular are individual fragments from his operas, which have long acquired an independent life on the concert stage: Dance of Shadows (aka “Melody”) and Dance of the Furies from “Orpheus and Eurydice”, overtures to the operas “Alceste” and “Iphigenia in Aulis” and others.

Interest in the composer’s work is growing, and over the past decades, the forgotten “Paris and Helen” (Vienna, libretto by Calzabigi), “Aetius”, and the comic opera “An Unforeseen Encounter” (Vienna, libr. by L. Dancourt) have been returned to listeners. , the ballet “Don Juan”... His “De profundis” has not been forgotten either.

At the end of his life, Gluck said that “only the foreigner Salieri” adopted his manners from him, “for not a single German wanted to study them”; nevertheless, Gluck’s reforms found many followers in different countries, each of whom applied his principles in their own work - in addition to Antonio Salieri, these were primarily Luigi Cherubini, Gaspare Spontini and L. van Beethoven, and later Hector Berlioz, who called Gluck “Aeschylus of music,” and Richard Wagner, who half a century later encountered on the opera stage the same “costuming concert” against which Gluck’s reform was directed. In Russia, his admirer and follower was Mikhail Glinka. Gluck's influence on many composers is noticeable even outside of opera; besides Beethoven and Berlioz, this also applies to Robert Schumann.

Gluck also wrote a number of works for orchestra - symphonies or overtures, a concerto for flute and orchestra (G major), 6 trio sonatas for 2 violins and a general bass, written back in the 40s. In collaboration with G. Angiolini, in addition to “Don Juan,” Gluck created three more ballets: “Alexander” (), as well as “Semiramide” () and “The Chinese Orphan” - both based on the tragedies of Voltaire.

In astronomy

The asteroids 514 Armida, discovered in 1903, and 579 Sidonia, discovered in 1905, are named after the characters in Gluck's opera Armida.

Notes

Literature

Knights S. Christoph Willibald Gluck. - M.: Music, 1987.
Kirillina L. Gluck's reformist operas. - M.: Classics-XXI, 2006. 384 p. ISBN 5-89817-152-5

short biography

Christoph Willibald von Gluck(German: Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck, July 2, 1714, Erasbach - November 15, 1787, Vienna) - German composer, mainly operatic, one of the largest representatives of musical classicism. The name of Gluck is associated with the reform of the Italian opera seria and French lyric tragedy in the second half of the 18th century, and if the works of Gluck the composer were not popular at all times, then the ideas of Gluck the reformer determined the further development of the opera theater.

early years

Information about the early years of Christoph Willibald von Gluck is extremely scarce, and much of what was established by the composer's early biographers was disputed by later ones. It is known that he was born in Erasbach (now the Berching district) in the Upper Palatinate in the family of the forester Alexander Gluck and his wife Maria Walpurga, was passionate about music from childhood and, apparently, received a home musical education, common in those days in Bohemia, where in 1717 the family moved. Presumably, for six years Gluck studied at the Jesuit gymnasium in Komotau and, since his father did not want to see his eldest son as a musician, he left home, ended up in Prague in 1731 and studied for some time at the University of Prague, where he attended lectures on logic and mathematics, earning a living by playing music. A violinist and cellist who also had good vocal abilities, Gluck sang in the choir of St. Jakub and played in the orchestra conducted by the greatest Czech composer and music theorist Boguslav Chernogorsky, sometimes he went to the outskirts of Prague, where he performed for peasants and artisans.

Gluck attracted the attention of Prince Philipp von Lobkowitz and in 1735 was invited to his Viennese house as a chamber musician; Apparently, the Italian aristocrat A. Melzi heard him in the Lobkowitz house and invited him to his private chapel - in 1736 or 1737 Gluck ended up in Milan. In Italy, the birthplace of opera, he had the opportunity to become acquainted with the work of the greatest masters of this genre; At the same time, he studied composition under the guidance of Giovanni Sammartini, a composer not so much of opera as of symphony; but it was under his leadership, as S. Rytsarev writes, that Gluck mastered “modest” but confident homophonic writing,” which was already fully established in Italian opera, while the polyphonic tradition still dominated in Vienna.

In December 1741, the premiere of Gluck's first opera, the opera seria Artaxerxes, with a libretto by Pietro Metastasio, took place in Milan. In Artaxerxes, as in all of Gluck's early operas, the imitation of Sammartini was still noticeable, nevertheless it was a success, which entailed orders from different cities of Italy, and in the next four years no less successful opera seria were created. Demetrius", "Porus", "Demophon", "Hypermnestra" and others.

In the autumn of 1745, Gluck went to London, from where he received an order for two operas, but in the spring of the following year he left the English capital and joined the Italian opera troupe of the Mingotti brothers as a second conductor, with whom he toured Europe for five years. In 1751, in Prague, he left Mingotti for the post of conductor in the troupe of Giovanni Locatelli, and in December 1752 he settled in Vienna. Having become conductor of the orchestra of Prince Joseph of Saxe-Hildburghausen, Gluck led its weekly concerts - “academies”, in which he performed both other people's compositions and his own. According to contemporaries, Gluck was an outstanding opera conductor and knew well the peculiarities of ballet art.

In search of musical drama

In 1754, at the suggestion of the manager of the Viennese theaters, Count G. Durazzo, Gluck was appointed conductor and composer of the Court Opera. In Vienna, gradually becoming disillusioned with the traditional Italian opera seria - “opera-aria”, in which the beauty of melody and singing acquired a self-sufficient character, and composers often became hostages to the whims of prima donnas - he turned to French comic opera (“The Island of Merlin”, “ The Imaginary Slave”, “The Reformed Drunkard”, “The Fooled Cadi”, etc.) and even to ballet: created in collaboration with the choreographer G. Angiolini, the pantomime ballet “Don Juan” (based on the play by J.-B. Molière), a real choreographic drama, became the first embodiment of Gluck's desire to transform the opera stage into a dramatic one.

K.V. Gluck. Lithograph by F. E. Feller

In his quest, Gluck found support from the chief intendant of the opera, Count Durazzo, and his compatriot, poet and playwright Ranieri de Calzabigi, who wrote the libretto of Don Giovanni. The next step in the direction of musical drama was their new joint work - the opera Orpheus and Eurydice, staged in the first edition in Vienna on October 5, 1762. Under the pen of Calzabigi, ancient Greek myth turned into ancient drama, in full accordance with the tastes of the time; however, neither in Vienna nor in other European cities did the opera achieve success with the public.

The need to reform the opera seria, writes S. Rytsarev, was dictated by objective signs of its crisis. At the same time, it was necessary to overcome “the centuries-old and incredibly strong tradition of opera-spectacle, a musical performance with a firmly established division of the functions of poetry and music.” In addition, opera seria was characterized by static dramaturgy; it was justified by the “theory of affects”, which assumed for each emotional state - sadness, joy, anger, etc. - the use of certain means of musical expressiveness established by theorists, and did not allow the individualization of experiences. The transformation of stereotyping into a value criterion gave rise in the first half of the 18th century, on the one hand, to a boundless number of operas, and on the other, to their very short life on stage, on average from 3 to 5 performances.

Gluck in his reform operas, writes S. Rytsarev, “made the music “work” for the drama not at individual moments of the performance, which was often found in contemporary opera, but throughout its entire duration. Orchestral means acquired effectiveness, a secret meaning, and began to counterpoint the development of events on stage. A flexible, dynamic change of recitative, aria, ballet and choral episodes has developed into a musical and plot event, entailing a direct emotional experience.”

Other composers also searched in this direction, including in the genre of comic opera, Italian and French: this young genre had not yet had time to fossilize, and it was easier to develop its healthy tendencies from within than in opera seria. By order of the court, Gluck continued to write operas in the traditional style, generally giving preference to comic opera. A new and more perfect embodiment of his dream of musical drama was the heroic opera Alceste, created in collaboration with Calzabigi in 1767, presented in the first edition in Vienna on December 26 of the same year. Dedicating the opera to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the future Emperor Leopold II, Gluck wrote in the preface to Alceste:

It seemed to me that music should play in relation to a poetic work the same role as the brightness of colors and correctly distributed effects of chiaroscuro, which animate the figures, without changing their contours in relation to the drawing... I tried to expel from music all the excesses against which they protest in vain common sense and justice. I believed that the overture should illuminate the action for the audience and serve as an introductory overview of the content: the instrumental part should be determined by the interest and tension of the situations... All my work should have been reduced to the search for noble simplicity, freedom from an ostentatious accumulation of difficulties at the expense of clarity; the introduction of some new techniques seemed to me valuable insofar as it suited the situation. And finally, there is no rule that I would not break in order to achieve greater expressiveness. These are my principles.

Such a fundamental subordination of music to poetic text was revolutionary for that time; in an effort to overcome the number structure characteristic of the opera seria of that time, Gluck not only combined the episodes of the opera into large scenes permeated with a single dramatic development, he tied the overture to the action of the opera, which at that time was usually a separate concert number; In order to achieve greater expressiveness and drama, he increased the role of the choir and orchestra. Neither Alceste, nor the third reform opera based on Calzabigi's libretto, Paris and Helena (1770), found support among either the Viennese or Italian public.

Gluck's responsibilities as a court composer included teaching music to the young Archduchess Marie Antoinette; Having become the wife of the heir to the French throne in April 1770, Marie Antoinette invited Gluck to Paris. However, the composer’s decision to move his activities to the capital of France was influenced to a much greater extent by other circumstances.

Glitch in Paris

In Paris, meanwhile, there was a struggle around the opera, which became the second act of the struggle that had died down back in the 50s between adherents of Italian opera (“Buffonists”) and French opera (“anti-Buffonists”). This confrontation split even the crowned family: the French king Louis XVI preferred Italian opera, while his Austrian wife Marie Antoinette supported national French opera. The split also struck the famous “Encyclopedia”: its editor D’Alembert was one of the leaders of the “Italian party”, and many of its authors, led by Voltaire, actively supported the French one. The stranger Gluck very soon became the banner of the “French party”, and since the Italian troupe in Paris at the end of 1776 was headed by the famous and popular composer Niccolo Piccinni in those years, the third act of this musical and social polemic went down in history as a struggle between the “Gluckists” and "Piccinists". In the struggle that seemed to unfold around styles, the dispute was actually about what an opera performance should be - just an opera, a luxurious spectacle with beautiful music and beautiful vocals, or something significantly more: the encyclopedists were waiting for a new social content, in tune with pre-revolutionary era. In the struggle of the “Gluckists” with the “Piccinists,” which 200 years later already seemed like a grandiose theatrical performance, as in the “War of the Buffons,” “powerful cultural strata of aristocratic and democratic art” entered into polemics, according to S. Rytsarev.

In the early 1970s, Gluck's reform operas were unknown in Paris; in August 1772, the attaché of the French embassy in Vienna, François le Blanc du Roullet, brought them to the attention of the public in the pages of the Parisian magazine Mercure de France. The paths of Gluck and Calzabigi diverged: with a reorientation towards Paris, du Roullet became the main librettist of the reformer; in collaboration with him, the opera “Iphigenia in Aulis” (based on the tragedy by J. Racine) was written for the French public, staged in Paris on April 19, 1774. The success was consolidated, although it caused fierce controversy, by the new French edition of Orpheus and Eurydice.

Statue of K. W. Gluck at the Grand Opera

Recognition in Paris did not go unnoticed in Vienna: if Marie Antoinette awarded Gluck 20,000 livres for “Iphigenia” and the same for “Orpheus”, then Maria Theresa on October 18, 1774 in absentia awarded Gluck the title of “actual imperial and royal court composer” with an annual salary of 2000 guilders. Thanking for the honor, Gluck, after a short stay in Vienna, returned to France, where at the beginning of 1775 a new edition of his comic opera “The Enchanted Tree, or the Deceived Guardian” (written back in 1759) was staged, and in April, at the Royal Academy music, - new edition of “Alceste”.

Music historians consider the Paris period to be the most significant in Gluck's work. The struggle between the “Gluckists” and the “Piccinists,” which inevitably turned into personal rivalry between the composers (which, however, did not affect their relationship), proceeded with varying degrees of success; by the mid-70s, the “French party” split into adherents of traditional French opera (J.B. Lully and J.F. Rameau), on the one hand, and the new French opera of Gluck, on the other. Willingly or unwittingly, Gluck himself challenged the traditionalists by using for his heroic opera “Armida” a libretto written by F. Kino (based on T. Tasso’s poem “Jerusalem Liberated”) for Lully’s opera of the same name. "Armida", which premiered at the Royal Academy of Music on September 23, 1777, apparently was received so differently by representatives of different "parties" that even 200 years later some spoke of a "tremendous success", others - of a "failure" "

Nevertheless, this struggle ended in Gluck’s victory, when on May 18, 1779, his opera “Iphigenia in Tauris” (on a libretto by N. Gniar and L. du Roullet based on the tragedy of Euripides) was presented at the Royal Academy of Music, which many still consider the composer's best opera. Niccolò Piccinni himself recognized Gluck's "musical revolution". Even earlier, J. A. Houdon sculpted a white marble bust of the composer with the inscription in Latin: “Musas praeposuit sirenis” (“He preferred the muses to the sirens”) - in 1778 this bust was installed in the foyer of the Royal Academy of Music next to the busts of Lully and Rameau.

Last years

On September 24, 1779, the premiere of Gluck's last opera, Echo and Narcissus, took place in Paris; However, even earlier, in July, the composer was struck by a stroke, which resulted in partial paralysis. In the autumn of the same year, Gluck returned to Vienna, which he never left: a new attack of illness occurred in June 1781.

During this period, the composer continued his work on odes and songs for voice and piano, which he had begun back in 1773, based on the poems of F. G. Klopstock (German: Klopstocks Oden und Lieder beim Clavier zu singen in Musik gesetzt), and dreamed of creating a German national opera based on the plot Klopstock's "Battle of Arminius", but these plans were not destined to come true. Anticipating his imminent departure, around 1782 Gluck wrote “De profundis” - a short work for a four-voice choir and orchestra on the text of the 129th Psalm, which on November 17, 1787, at the composer’s funeral, was performed by his student and follower Antonio Salieri. On November 14 and 15, Gluck experienced three more apoplexy attacks; he died on November 15, 1787 and was initially buried in the church cemetery of the suburb of Matzleinsdorf; in 1890 his ashes were transferred to the Vienna Central Cemetery.

Creation

Christoph Willibald Gluck was a composer primarily of opera, but the exact number of operas he owned has not been established: on the one hand, some works have not survived, on the other, Gluck repeatedly reworked his own operas. The Musical Encyclopedia gives the number 107, but lists only 46 operas.

Monument to K. W. Gluck in Vienna

In 1930, E. Braudo regretted that Gluck’s “true masterpieces,” both of his Iphigenias, had now completely disappeared from the theatrical repertoire; but in the middle of the 20th century, interest in the composer’s work was revived; for many years they have not left the stage and have an extensive discography of his operas “Orpheus and Eurydice”, “Alceste”, “Iphigenia in Aulis”, “Iphigenia in Tauris”, which are even more popular they use symphonic fragments from his operas, which have long acquired an independent life on the concert stage. In 1987, the International Gluck Society was founded in Vienna to study and promote the composer's work.

At the end of his life, Gluck said that “only the foreigner Salieri” adopted his manners from him, “for not a single German wanted to study them”; nevertheless, he found many followers in different countries, each of whom applied his principles in their own work - in addition to Antonio Salieri, these were primarily Luigi Cherubini, Gaspare Spontini and L. van Beethoven, and later Hector Berlioz, who called Gluck's Aeschylus of Music; among his closest followers, the composer’s influence is sometimes noticeable even outside of operatic creativity, as in Beethoven, Berlioz and Franz Schubert. As for Gluck’s creative ideas, they determined the further development of the opera theater; in the 19th century there was no major opera composer who would not have been influenced by these ideas to a greater or lesser extent; Gluck was also approached by another opera reformer, Richard Wagner, who half a century later encountered on the opera stage the same “costume concert” against which Gluck’s reform was directed. The composer's ideas turned out to be not alien to Russian opera culture - from Mikhail Glinka to Alexander Serov.

Gluck also wrote a number of works for orchestra - symphonies or overtures (during the composer’s youth the distinction between these genres was not yet clear enough), a concerto for flute and orchestra (G major), 6 trio sonatas for 2 violins and a general bass, written back in the 40s. In collaboration with G. Angiolini, in addition to Don Juan, Gluck created three more ballets: Alexander (1765), as well as Semiramis (1765) and The Chinese Orphan - both based on the tragedies of Voltaire.

Christoph Willibald Gluck (German: Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck, July 2, 1714, Erasbach - November 15, 1787, Vienna) - Austrian composer, mainly operatic, one of the largest representatives of musical classicism.

I. Chernyavsky (violin) and S. Kalinin (organ). Performing a melody from the opera Orpheus and Eurydice (3.56), Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787). Kharkov House of Organ Music, 2008.

The name of Gluck is associated with the reform of the Italian opera seria and French lyric tragedy in the second half of the 18th century, and if the works of Gluck the composer were not popular at all times, then the ideas of Gluck the reformer determined the further development of the opera theater.

Born into the family of a forester...
Graduated from the Jesuit College...
Entered the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Prague...
He took lessons from the Czech composer Boguslav Chernogorsky, sang in the choir of the Church of St. James, played the violin and cello in traveling ensembles...
Wrote 107 operas...

German composer. The largest opera reformer, representative of musical classicism. Author of 107 operas. Together with his like-minded poet and playwright Calzabigi (author of the libretto for a number of Gluck's most important works), Gluck attempted to update the opera seria. On this path, Gluck met fierce resistance from adherents of traditional Italian opera, led by Piccinni.
This artistic controversy went down in musical history as the “war of the Gluckists and the Piccinnists.” The main essence of the reform is the subordination of all means of artistic expression to the dramatic concept, the desire for naturalness. Gluck deepened the role of the orchestra, developed musical stages, and choirs. His achievements in the field of expressing human feelings cannot be overestimated. He abandoned the naked virtuosity of vocal parts in the name of expressiveness of the musical image.
The following operas by Gluck have the greatest reform significance: “Orpheus and Eurydice” (1762), “Alceste” (1767), “Paris and Helen” (1770, Vienna, libr. Calzabigi), “Iphigenia in Aulis” (1774), “Armide” "(1777), "Iphigenia in Tauris" (1779). Among Gluck’s comic operas, “An Unforeseen Meeting” (1764, Vienna, libr. L. Dancourt), which anticipates in many ways (including in its Eastern Turkish flavor) “The Abduction from the Seraglio” by Mozart, stands out.
France played a big role in Gluck's life. It was here that a number of his main works were staged, including the 2nd ed. opera "Orpheus and Eurydice" (1774, Paris).
In Russia, the composer's work has always aroused interest. His operas have been performed on the Russian stage several times. Berlioz listened to the production of the opera “Orpheus and Eurydice” in 1868 (Mariinsky Theater), who gave an enthusiastic review of the performance. The production of the same opera at the Mariinsky Theater in 1911 (director Meyerhold, designer A. Golovin, conductor Napravnik, Sobinov performed the role of Orpheus) is recognized as historical. Let us also note the production at the Bolshoi Theater of the opera “Iphigenia in Aulis” (1983, conductor Ermler).
The discography of Gluck's operas is very extensive. The leading role in this area undoubtedly belongs to the English conductor Gardiner, who recorded a number of the composer’s most significant works with the Lyon Opera Orchestra and the Monteverdi Chorus.
E. Tsodokov

GLITCH (Gluck) Christoph Willibald (1714-1787), German composer. Worked in Milan, Vienna, Paris. Gluck's opera reform, carried out in line with the aesthetics of classicism (noble simplicity, heroism), reflected new trends in the art of the Enlightenment. The idea of subordinating music to the laws of poetry and drama greatly influenced musical theater in the 19th and 20th centuries. Operas (over 40): "Orpheus and Eurydice" (1762), "Alceste" (1767), "Paris and Helen" (1770), "Iphigenia in Aulis" (1774), "Armide" (1777), "Iphigenia in Taurida" (1779).

GLITCH(Gluck) Christoph Willibald (Cavalier Gluck, Ritter von Gluck) (July 2, 1714, Erasbach, Bavaria - November 15, 1787, Vienna), German composer.

Becoming

Born into the family of a forester. Gluck's native language was Czech. At the age of 14 he left his family, wandered, earning money by playing the violin and singing, then in 1731 he entered the University of Prague. During his studies (1731-34) he served as a church organist. In 1735 he moved to Vienna, then to Milan, where he studied with the composer G. B. Sammartini (c. 1700-1775), one of the largest Italian representatives of early classicism.

In 1741, Gluck's first opera, Artaxerxes, was staged in Milan; this was followed by the premieres of several more operas in different cities of Italy. In 1845, Gluck received an order to compose two operas for London; in England he met G.F. In 1846-51 he worked in Hamburg, Dresden, Copenhagen, Naples, and Prague. In 1752 he settled in Vienna, where he took the position of accompanist, then bandmaster at the court of Prince J. Saxe-Hildburghausen. In addition, he composed French comic operas for the imperial court theater and Italian operas for palace entertainment. In 1759, Gluck received an official position in the court theater and was soon awarded a royal pension.

Fruitful collaboration

Around 1761, Gluck began collaborating with the poet R. Calzabigi and choreographer G. Angiolini (1731-1803). In their first joint work, the ballet "Don Juan", they managed to achieve amazing artistic unity of all components of the performance. A year later, the opera "Orpheus and Eurydice" appeared (libretto by Calzabigi, dances choreographed by Angiolini) - the first and best of Gluck's so-called reform operas. In 1764, Gluck composed the French comic opera "An Unexpected Meeting, or Pilgrims from Mecca", and a year later - two more ballets. In 1767, the success of "Orpheus" was consolidated by the opera "Alceste", also with a libretto by Calzabigi, but with dances staged by another outstanding choreographer - J.-J. Noverra (1727-1810). The third reform opera, Paris and Helena (1770), had more modest success.

In Paris

In the early 1770s, Gluck decided to apply his innovative ideas to French opera. In 1774, Iphigenia in Aulis and Orpheus, the French version of Orpheus and Eurydice, were staged in Paris. Both works received an enthusiastic reception. Gluck's series of Parisian successes was continued by the French edition of Alceste (1776) and Armide (1777). The last work gave rise to a fierce controversy between the “Gluckists” and supporters of traditional Italian and French opera, which was personified by the talented composer of the Neapolitan school N. Piccinni, who came to Paris in 1776 at the invitation of Gluck’s opponents. Gluck's victory in this controversy was marked by the triumph of his opera “Iphigenia in Tauris” (1779) (however, the opera “Echo and Narcissus” staged in the same year failed). In the last years of his life, Gluck carried out the German edition of Iphigenia in Tauris and composed several songs. His last work was the psalm De profundis for choir and orchestra, which was performed under the direction of A. Salieri at Gluck’s funeral.

Gluck's contribution

In total, Gluck wrote about 40 operas - Italian and French, comic and serious, traditional and innovative. It was thanks to the latter that he secured a strong place in the history of music. The principles of Gluck's reform are set out in his preface to the publication of the score of Alceste (written, probably with the participation of Calzabigi). They boil down to the following: music must express the content of the poetic text; orchestral ritornellos and, especially, vocal embellishments, which only distract attention from the development of the drama, should be avoided; the overture should anticipate the content of the drama, and the orchestral accompaniment of the vocal parts should correspond to the nature of the text; in recitatives the vocal-declamatory beginning should be emphasized, that is, the contrast between the recitative and the aria should not be excessive. Most of these principles are embodied in the opera "Orpheus", where recitatives with orchestral accompaniment, arioso and arias are not separated from each other by sharp boundaries, and individual episodes, including dances and choruses, are combined into large scenes with end-to-end dramatic development. Unlike the plots of opera seria with their intricate intrigues, disguises and sidelines, the plot of "Orpheus" appeals to simple human feelings. In terms of skill, Gluck was noticeably inferior to his contemporaries such as C. F. E. Bach and J. Haydn, but his technique, for all its limitations, fully met his goals. His music combines simplicity and monumentality, unstoppable energy (as in the “Dance of the Furies” from Orpheus), pathos and sublime lyricism.

Possessing also good vocal abilities, Gluck sang in the choir of the Cathedral of St. Jakub and played in the orchestra conducted by the largest Czech composer and music theorist Boguslav Chornohirsky, sometimes he went to the outskirts of Prague, where he performed for peasants and artisans.

Gluck attracted the attention of Prince Philipp von Lobkowitz and in 1735 was invited to his Viennese house as a chamber musician; Apparently, the Italian aristocrat A. Melzi heard him in Lobkowitz's house and invited him to his private chapel - in 1736 or 1737 Gluck ended up in Milan. In Italy, the birthplace of opera, he had the opportunity to become acquainted with the work of the greatest masters of this genre; At the same time, he studied composition under the guidance of Giovanni Sammartini, a composer not so much of opera as of symphony; but it was under his leadership, as S. Rytsarev writes, that Gluck mastered “modest” but confident homophonic writing,” which was already fully established in Italian opera, while the polyphonic tradition still dominated in Vienna.

In December 1741, Gluck's first opera, the opera seria Artaxerxes, with a libretto by Pietro Metastasio, premiered in Milan. In Artaxerxes, as in all of Gluck's early operas, the imitation of Sammartini was still noticeable, nevertheless it was a success, which entailed orders from different cities of Italy, and in the next four years no less successful opera seria were created. Demetrius", "Por", "Demophon", "Hypermnestra" and others.

In the autumn of 1745, Gluck went to London, from where he received an order for two operas, but in the spring of the following year he left the English capital and joined the Italian opera troupe of the Mingotti brothers as a second conductor, with whom he toured Europe for five years. In 1751 in Prague he left Mingotti for the post of conductor in Giovanni Locatelli's troupe, and in December 1752 he settled in Vienna. Having become conductor of the orchestra of Prince Joseph of Saxe-Hildburghausen, Gluck led its weekly concerts - “academies”, in which he performed both other people's compositions and his own. According to contemporaries, Gluck was an outstanding opera conductor and knew well the peculiarities of ballet art.

In search of musical drama

In his quest, Gluck found support from the chief intendant of the opera, Count Durazzo, and his compatriot, poet and playwright Ranieri de Calzabigi, who wrote the libretto of Don Giovanni. The next step in the direction of musical drama was their new joint work - the opera “Orpheus and Eurydice”, staged in the first edition in Vienna on October 5, 1762. Under the pen of Calzabigi, ancient Greek myth turned into ancient drama, in full accordance with the tastes of the time; however, the opera was not a success with the public either in Vienna or in other European cities.

Gluck in his reform operas, writes S. Rytsarev, “made the music “work” for the drama not at individual moments of the performance, which was often found in contemporary opera, but throughout its entire duration. Orchestral means acquired effectiveness, a secret meaning, and began to counterpoint the development of events on stage. The flexible, dynamic change of recitative, aria, ballet and choral episodes has developed into musical and plot eventfulness, entailing direct emotional experience.”

It seemed to me that music should play in relation to a poetic work the same role as the brightness of colors and correctly distributed effects of chiaroscuro, which animate the figures, without changing their contours in relation to the drawing... I tried to expel from music all the excesses against which they protest in vain common sense and justice. I believed that the overture should illuminate the action for the audience and serve as an introductory overview of the content: the instrumental part should be determined by the interest and tension of the situations... All my work should have been reduced to the search for noble simplicity, freedom from an ostentatious accumulation of difficulties at the expense of clarity; the introduction of some new techniques seemed to me valuable insofar as it suited the situation. And finally, there is no rule that I would not break in order to achieve greater expressiveness. These are my principles.

Such a fundamental subordination of music to poetic text was revolutionary for that time; in an effort to overcome the number structure characteristic of the opera seria of that time, Gluck not only combined the episodes of the opera into large scenes permeated with a single dramatic development, he tied the overture to the action of the opera, which at that time was usually a separate concert number; In order to achieve greater expressiveness and drama, he increased the role of the choir and orchestra. Neither Alceste nor the third reform opera based on Calzabigi's libretto, Paris and Helena (1770), found support among either the Viennese or Italian public.

Glitch in Paris

In Paris, meanwhile, there was a struggle around the opera, which became the second act of the struggle that had died down back in the 50s between adherents of Italian opera (“Buffonists”) and French opera (“anti-Buffonists”). This confrontation split even the crowned family: the French king Louis XVI preferred Italian opera, while his Austrian wife Marie Antoinette supported national French opera. The split also struck the famous “Encyclopedia”: its editor D’Alembert was one of the leaders of the “Italian party”, and many of its authors, led by Voltaire and Rousseau, actively supported the French one. The stranger Gluck very soon became the banner of the “French party”, and since the Italian troupe in Paris at the end of 1776 was headed by the famous and popular composer Niccolo Piccinni in those years, the third act of this musical and social polemic went down in history as a struggle between the “Gluckists” and "Piccinists". In the struggle that seemed to unfold around styles, the dispute was actually about what an opera performance should be - just an opera, a luxurious spectacle with beautiful music and beautiful vocals, or something significantly more: the encyclopedists were waiting for a new social content, in tune with pre-revolutionary era. In the struggle of the “Gluckists” with the “Piccinists,” which 200 years later already seemed like a grandiose theatrical performance, as in the “War of the Buffons,” according to S. Rytsarev, “powerful cultural strata of aristocratic and democratic art” entered into polemics.

In the early 1970s, Gluck's reform operas were unknown in Paris; in August 1772, the attache of the French embassy in Vienna, François le Blanc du Roullet, attracted public attention to them in the pages of the Parisian magazine Mercure de France. The paths of Gluck and Calzabigi diverged: with a reorientation towards Paris, du Roullet became the main librettist of the reformer; in collaboration with him, the opera “Iphigenia in Aulis” (based on the tragedy of J. Racine) was written for the French public, staged in Paris on April 19, 1774. The success was consolidated, although it caused fierce controversy, by the new, French edition of Orpheus and Eurydice.

Music historians consider the Paris period to be the most significant in Gluck's work. The struggle between the “Gluckists” and the “Piccinists,” which inevitably turned into personal rivalry between the composers (which, however, did not affect their relationship), proceeded with varying degrees of success; by the mid-70s, the “French party” split into adherents of traditional French opera (J.B. Lully and J.F. Rameau), on the one hand, and the new French opera of Gluck, on the other. Willingly or unwittingly, Gluck himself challenged the traditionalists by using for his heroic opera “Armida” a libretto written by F. Kino (based on the poem “Jerusalem Liberated” by T. Tasso) for Lully’s opera of the same name. "Armida", which premiered at the Royal Academy of Music on September 23, 1777, apparently was received so differently by representatives of the different "parties" that even 200 years later some spoke of a "tremendous success" and others of a "failure" ".

Last years

On September 24, 1779, the premiere of Gluck's last opera, Echo and Narcissus, took place in Paris; however, even earlier, in July, the composer was struck by a stroke, which resulted in partial paralysis. In the autumn of the same year, Gluck returned to Vienna, which he never left: a new attack of illness occurred in June 1781.

During this period, the composer continued the work he had begun in 1773 on odes and songs for voice and piano based on poems by F. G. Klopstock (German). Klopstocks Oden und Lieder beim Clavier zu singen in Musik gesetzt ), dreamed of creating a German national opera based on Klopstock's story "The Battle of Arminius", but these plans were not destined to come true. Anticipating his imminent departure, around 1782 Gluck wrote “De profundis” - a short work for a four-voice choir and orchestra on the text of the 129th Psalm, which on November 17, 1787, at the composer’s funeral, was performed by his student and follower Antonio Salieri. On November 14 and 15, Gluck suffered three more strokes of apoplexy; he died on November 15, 1787 and was initially buried in the church cemetery of the suburb of Matzleinsdorf; in 1890 his ashes were transferred to the Vienna Central Cemetery.

Creation

At the end of his life, Gluck said that “only the foreigner Salieri” adopted his manners from him, “for not a single German wanted to study them”; nevertheless, he found many followers in different countries, each of whom applied his principles in their own work - in addition to Antonio Salieri, these were primarily Luigi Cherubini, Gaspare Spontini and L. van Beethoven, and later Hector Berlioz, who called Gluck's Aeschylus of Music; among his closest followers, the composer’s influence is sometimes noticeable even outside of operatic creativity, as in Beethoven, Berlioz and Franz Schubert. As for Gluck's creative ideas, they determined the further development of the opera theater; in the 19th century there was no major opera composer who would not have been influenced to a greater or lesser extent by these ideas; Gluck was also approached by another opera reformer, Richard Wagner, who half a century later encountered the same “costume concert” on the opera stage against which Gluck’s reform was directed. The composer's ideas turned out to be not alien to the Russian opera cult - from Mikhail Glinka to Alexander Serov.

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Notes

, With. 466.
, With. 40.
, With. 244.
, With. 41.
, With. 42-43.
, With. 1021.
, With. 43-44.
, With. 467.
, With. 1020.
, With. Chapter 11.
, With. 1018-1019.
Gozenpud A. A. Opera Dictionary. - M.-L. : Music, 1965. - pp. 290-292. - 482 s.
, With. 10.
Rosenschild K.K. Affect theory // Musical encyclopedia (edited by Yu. V. Keldysh). - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1973. - T. 1.
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, With. 12.
Gozenpud A. A. Opera Dictionary. - M.-L. : Music, 1965. - pp. 16-17. - 482 s.
Quote by: Gozenpud A. A. Decree. cit., p. 16
, With. 1018.
, With. 77.
, With. 163-168.
, With. 1019.
, With. 6, 12-13.
, With. 48-49.
, With. 82-83.
, With. 23.
, With. 84.
, With. 79, 84-85.
, With. 84-85.
. Ch. W. Gluck. Gluck-Gesamtausgabe. Forschungsstelle Salzburg. Retrieved December 30, 2015.
, With. 1018, 1022.
Tsodokov E.. Belcanto.ru. Retrieved February 15, 2013.
, With. 107.
. Internationale Gluck-Gesellschaft. Retrieved December 30, 2015.
, With. 108.
, With. 22.
, With. 16.
, With. 1022.

Literature

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Rytsarev S. Christoph Willibald Gluck. - M.: Music, 1987.
Kirillina L.V. Gluck's reform operas. - M.: Classics-XXI, 2006. - 384 p. - ISBN 5-89817-152-5.
Konen V.D. Theater and symphony. - M.: Music, 1975. - 376 p.
Braudo E. M. Chapter 21 // General history of music. - M., 1930. - T. 2. From the beginning of the 17th to the middle of the 19th century.
Balashsha I., Gal D. Sh. Guide to Operas: In 4 volumes. - M.: Soviet sport, 1993. - T. 1.
Bamberg F.(German) // Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. - 1879. - Bd. 9 . - S. 244-253.
Schmid H.(German) // Neue Deutsche Biographie. - 1964. - Bd. 6. - S. 466-469.
Einstein A. Gluck: Sein Leben - seine Werke. - Zurich; Stuttgart: Pan-Verlag, 1954. - 315 pp.
Grout D. J., Williams H. W. The Operas of Gluck // A Short History of Opera. - Columbia University Press, 2003. - pp. 253-271. - 1030 s. - ISBN 9780231119580.
Lippman E. A. Operatic Aesthetics // A History of Western Musical Aesthetics. - University of Nebraska Press, 1992. - pp. 137-202. - 536 p. - ISBN 0-8032-2863-5.

Excerpt characterizing Gluck, Christoph Willibald

“It’s a great sacrament, mother,” answered the clergyman, running his hand over his bald spot, along which ran several strands of combed, half-gray hair.
-Who is this? was the commander in chief himself? - they asked at the other end of the room. - How youthful!...
- And the seventh decade! What, they say, the count won’t find out? Did you want to perform unction?
“I knew one thing: I had taken unction seven times.”
The second princess just left the patient’s room with tear-stained eyes and sat down next to Doctor Lorrain, who was sitting in a graceful pose under the portrait of Catherine, leaning his elbows on the table.
“Tres beau,” said the doctor, answering a question about the weather, “tres beau, princesse, et puis, a Moscou on se croit a la campagne.” [beautiful weather, princess, and then Moscow looks so much like a village.]
“N"est ce pas? [Isn’t that right?],” said the princess, sighing. “So can he drink?”
Lorren thought about it.
– Did he take the medicine?
- Yes.
The doctor looked at the breget.
– Take a glass of boiled water and put in une pincee (with his thin fingers he showed what une pincee means) de cremortartari... [a pinch of cremortartar...]
“Listen, I didn’t drink,” the German doctor said to the adjutant, “so that after the third blow there was nothing left.”
– What a fresh man he was! - said the adjutant. – And who will this wealth go to? – he added in a whisper.
“There will be a okotnik,” the German answered, smiling.
Everyone looked back at the door: it creaked, and the second princess, having made the drink shown by Lorren, took it to the sick man. The German doctor approached Lorren.
- Maybe it will last until tomorrow morning? - asked the German, speaking bad French.
Lorren, pursing his lips, sternly and negatively waved his finger in front of his nose.
“Tonight, not later,” he said quietly, with a decent smile of self-satisfaction in the fact that he clearly knew how to understand and express the patient’s situation, and walked away.

Meanwhile, Prince Vasily opened the door to the princess’s room.
The room was dim; only two lamps were burning in front of the images, and there was a good smell of incense and flowers. The entire room was furnished with small furniture: wardrobes, cupboards, and tables. The white covers of a high down bed could be seen from behind the screens. The dog barked.
- Oh, is it you, mon cousin?
She stood up and straightened her hair, which had always, even now, been so unusually smooth, as if it had been made from one piece with her head and covered with varnish.
- What, did something happen? – she asked. “I’m already so scared.”
- Nothing, everything is the same; “I just came to talk to you, Katish, about business,” said the prince, wearily sitting down on the chair from which she had risen. “How did you warm it up, however,” he said, “well, sit here, causons.” [let's talk.]
– I was wondering if something had happened? - said the princess and with her unchanged, stone-stern expression on her face, she sat down opposite the prince, preparing to listen.
“I wanted to sleep, mon cousin, but I can’t.”
- Well, what, my dear? - said Prince Vasily, taking the princess’s hand and bending it downwards according to his habit.
It was clear that this “well, what” referred to many things that, without naming them, they both understood.
The princess, with her incongruously long legs, lean and straight waist, looked directly and dispassionately at the prince with her bulging gray eyes. She shook her head and sighed as she looked at the images. Her gesture could be explained both as an expression of sadness and devotion, and as an expression of fatigue and hope for a quick rest. Prince Vasily explained this gesture as an expression of fatigue.
“But for me,” he said, “do you think it’s easier?” Je suis ereinte, comme un cheval de poste; [I'm as tired as a post horse;] but still I need to talk to you, Katish, and very seriously.
Prince Vasily fell silent, and his cheeks began to twitch nervously, first on one side, then on the other, giving his face an unpleasant expression that had never appeared on Prince Vasily’s face when he was in the living rooms. His eyes were also not the same as always: sometimes they looked brazenly joking, sometimes they looked around in fear.
The princess, holding the dog on her knees with her dry, thin hands, looked carefully into the eyes of Prince Vasily; but it was clear that she would not break the silence with a question, even if she had to remain silent until the morning.
“You see, my dear princess and cousin, Katerina Semyonovna,” continued Prince Vasily, apparently not without an internal struggle as he began to continue his speech, “in moments like now, you need to think about everything.” We need to think about the future, about you... I love you all like my children, you know that.
The princess looked at him just as dimly and motionlessly.
“Finally, we need to think about my family,” Prince Vasily continued, angrily pushing the table away from him and not looking at her, “you know, Katisha, that you, the three Mamontov sisters, and also my wife, we are the only direct heirs of the count.” I know, I know how hard it is for you to talk and think about such things. And it’s not easier for me; but, my friend, I’m in my sixties, I need to be prepared for anything. Do you know that I sent for Pierre, and that the count, directly pointing to his portrait, demanded him to come to him?
Prince Vasily looked questioningly at the princess, but could not understand whether she was understanding what he told her or was just looking at him...
“I never cease to pray to God for one thing, mon cousin,” she answered, “that he would have mercy on him and allow his beautiful soul to leave this world in peace...
“Yes, that’s so,” Prince Vasily continued impatiently, rubbing his bald head and again angrily pulling the table pushed aside towards him, “but finally... finally the thing is, you yourself know that last winter the count wrote a will, according to which he has the entire estate , in addition to the direct heirs and us, he gave it to Pierre.
“You never know how many wills he wrote!” – the princess said calmly. “But he couldn’t bequeath to Pierre.” Pierre is illegal.
“Ma chere,” said Prince Vasily suddenly, pressing the table to himself, perking up and starting to speak quickly, “but what if the letter was written to the sovereign, and the count asks to adopt Pierre?” You see, according to the Count’s merits, his request will be respected...
The princess smiled, the way people smile who think they know the matter more than those they are talking to.
“I’ll tell you more,” continued Prince Vasily, grabbing her hand, “the letter was written, although not sent, and the sovereign knew about it.” The only question is whether it is destroyed or not. If not, then how soon will it all be over,” Prince Vasily sighed, making it clear that he meant by the words everything will end, “and the count’s papers will be opened, the will with the letter will be handed over to the sovereign, and his request will probably be respected. Pierre, as a legitimate son, will receive everything.
– What about our unit? - asked the princess, smiling ironically, as if anything but this could happen.
- Mais, ma pauvre Catiche, c "est clair, comme le jour. [But, my dear Catiche, it is clear as day.] He alone is the rightful heir of everything, and you will not get any of this. You should know, my dear, were the will and the letter written, and were they destroyed? And if for some reason they are forgotten, then you should know where they are and find them, because...
- This was all that was missing! – the princess interrupted him, smiling sardonically and without changing the expression of her eyes. - I am a woman; according to you, we are all stupid; but I know so well that an illegitimate son cannot inherit... Un batard, [Illegitimate,] - she added, hoping with this translation to finally show the prince his groundlessness.
- Don’t you understand, finally, Katish! You are so smart: how do you not understand - if the count wrote a letter to the sovereign in which he asks him to recognize his son as legitimate, it means that Pierre will no longer be Pierre, but Count Bezukhoy, and then he will receive everything in his will? And if the will and the letter are not destroyed, then nothing will remain for you except the consolation that you were virtuous et tout ce qui s"en suit, [and everything that follows from here]. This is true.
– I know that the will has been written; but I also know that it is invalid, and you seem to consider me a complete fool, mon cousin,” said the princess with the expression with which women speak when they believe that they have said something witty and insulting.
“You are my dear Princess Katerina Semyonovna,” Prince Vasily spoke impatiently. “I came to you not to pick a fight with you, but to talk about your own interests as with my dear, good, kind, true relative.” I’m telling you for the tenth time that if a letter to the sovereign and a will in favor of Pierre are in the count’s papers, then you, my dear, and your sisters, are not the heir. If you don’t believe me, then trust people who know: I just spoke with Dmitry Onufriich (he was the house’s lawyer), he said the same thing.
Apparently something suddenly changed in the princess’s thoughts; her thin lips turned pale (the eyes remained the same), and her voice, while she spoke, broke through with such peals that she, apparently, herself did not expect.
“That would be good,” she said. – I didn’t want anything and don’t want anything.
She threw her dog off her lap and straightened the folds of her dress.
“That’s gratitude, that’s gratitude to the people who sacrificed everything for him,” she said. - Wonderful! Very good! I don't need anything, prince.
“Yes, but you are not alone, you have sisters,” answered Prince Vasily.
But the princess did not listen to him.
“Yes, I knew this for a long time, but I forgot that except baseness, deception, envy, intrigue, except ingratitude, the blackest ingratitude, I could expect nothing in this house...
– Do you know or don’t you know where this will is? - asked Prince Vasily with an even greater twitching of his cheeks than before.
– Yes, I was stupid, I still believed in people and loved them and sacrificed myself. And only those who are vile and nasty succeed. I know whose intrigue it is.
The princess wanted to get up, but the prince held her hand. The princess had the appearance of a person who had suddenly become disillusioned with the entire human race; she looked angrily at her interlocutor.
“There is still time, my friend.” You remember, Katisha, that all this happened by accident, in a moment of anger, illness, and then forgotten. Our duty, my dear, is to correct his mistake, to make his last moments easier by preventing him from committing this injustice, not letting him die in the thoughts that he made those people unhappy...
“Those people who sacrificed everything for him,” the princess picked up, trying to get up again, but the prince did not let her in, “which he never knew how to appreciate.” No, mon cousin,” she added with a sigh, “I will remember that in this world one cannot expect a reward, that in this world there is neither honor nor justice.” In this world you have to be cunning and evil.
- Well, voyons, [listen,] calm down; I know your beautiful heart.
- No, I have an evil heart.
“I know your heart,” the prince repeated, “I value your friendship and would like you to have the same opinion of me.” Calm down and parlons raison, [let's talk properly] while there is time - maybe a day, maybe an hour; tell me everything you know about the will, and, most importantly, where it is: you must know. We will now take it and show it to the count. He probably already forgot about it and wants to destroy it. You understand that my only desire is to sacredly fulfill his will; I just came here then. I'm only here to help him and you.
– Now I understand everything. I know whose intrigue it is. “I know,” said the princess.
- That’s not the point, my soul.
- This is your protegee, [favorite,] your dear princess Drubetskaya, Anna Mikhailovna, whom I would not want to have as a maid, this vile, disgusting woman.
– Ne perdons point de temps. [Let's not waste time.]
- Ax, don't talk! Last winter she infiltrated here and said such nasty things, such nasty things to the Count about all of us, especially Sophie - I cannot repeat it - that the Count became ill and did not want to see us for two weeks. At this time, I know that he wrote this vile, vile paper; but I thought that this paper meant nothing.
– Nous y voila, [That’s the point.] why didn’t you tell me anything before?
– In the mosaic briefcase that he keeps under his pillow. “Now I know,” said the princess without answering. “Yes, if there is a sin behind me, a great sin, then it is hatred of this scoundrel,” the princess almost shouted, completely changed. - And why is she rubbing herself in here? But I will tell her everything, everything. The time will come!

While such conversations took place in the reception room and in the princess's rooms, the carriage with Pierre (who was sent for) and with Anna Mikhailovna (who found it necessary to go with him) drove into the courtyard of Count Bezukhy. When the wheels of the carriage sounded softly on the straw spread under the windows, Anna Mikhailovna, turning to her companion with comforting words, was convinced that he was sleeping in the corner of the carriage, and woke him up. Having woken up, Pierre followed Anna Mikhailovna out of the carriage and then only thought about the meeting with his dying father that awaited him. He noticed that they drove up not to the front entrance, but to the back entrance. While he was getting off the step, two people in bourgeois clothes hurriedly ran away from the entrance into the shadow of the wall. Pausing, Pierre saw several more similar people in the shadows of the house on both sides. But neither Anna Mikhailovna, nor the footman, nor the coachman, who could not help but see these people, paid no attention to them. Therefore, this is so necessary, Pierre decided to himself and followed Anna Mikhailovna. Anna Mikhailovna walked with hasty steps up the dimly lit narrow stone staircase, calling to Pierre, who was lagging behind her, who, although he did not understand why he had to go to the count at all, and even less why he had to go up the back stairs, but , judging by the confidence and haste of Anna Mikhailovna, he decided to himself that this was necessary. Halfway up the stairs, they were almost knocked down by some people with buckets, who, clattering with their boots, ran towards them. These people pressed against the wall to let Pierre and Anna Mikhailovna through, and did not show the slightest surprise at the sight of them.
– Are there half princesses here? – Anna Mikhailovna asked one of them...
“Here,” the footman answered in a bold, loud voice, as if now everything was possible, “the door is on the left, mother.”
“Maybe the count didn’t call me,” Pierre said as he walked out onto the platform, “I would have gone to my place.”
Anna Mikhailovna stopped to catch up with Pierre.
- Ah, mon ami! - she said with the same gesture as in the morning with her son, touching his hand: - croyez, que je souffre autant, que vous, mais soyez homme. [Believe me, I suffer no less than you, but be a man.]
- Right, I'll go? - asked Pierre, looking affectionately through his glasses at Anna Mikhailovna.
- Ah, mon ami, oubliez les torts qu"on a pu avoir envers vous, pensez que c"est votre pere... peut etre a l"agonie. - She sighed. - Je vous ai tout de suite aime comme mon fils. Fiez vous a moi, Pierre. Je n"oublirai pas vos interets. [Forget, my friend, what was wronged against you. Remember that this is your father... Maybe in agony. I immediately loved you like a son. Trust me, Pierre. I will not forget your interests.]
Pierre did not understand anything; again it seemed to him even more strongly that all this should be so, and he obediently followed Anna Mikhailovna, who was already opening the door.
The door opened into the front and back. An old servant of the princesses sat in the corner and knitted a stocking. Pierre had never been to this half, did not even imagine the existence of such chambers. Anna Mikhailovna asked the girl who was ahead of them, with a decanter on a tray (calling her sweet and darling) about the health of the princesses and dragged Pierre further along the stone corridor. From the corridor, the first door to the left led to the princesses' living rooms. The maid, with the decanter, in a hurry (as everything was done in a hurry at that moment in this house) did not close the door, and Pierre and Anna Mikhailovna, passing by, involuntarily looked into the room where the eldest princess and Prince Vasily. Seeing those passing by, Prince Vasily made an impatient movement and leaned back; The princess jumped up and with a desperate gesture slammed the door with all her might, closing it.
This gesture was so unlike the princess’s usual calmness, the fear expressed on Prince Vasily’s face was so uncharacteristic of his importance that Pierre stopped, questioningly, through his glasses, looked at his leader.
Anna Mikhailovna did not express surprise, she only smiled slightly and sighed, as if showing that she had expected all this.
“Soyez homme, mon ami, c"est moi qui veillerai a vos interets, [Be a man, my friend, I will look after your interests.] - she said in response to his gaze and walked even faster down the corridor.
Pierre did not understand what the matter was, and even less what veiller a vos interets meant, [to look after your interests,] but he understood that all this should be so. They walked through the corridor into a dimly lit hall adjacent to the count's reception room. It was one of those cold and luxurious rooms that Pierre knew from the front porch. But even in this room, in the middle, there was an empty bathtub and water was spilled on the carpet. A servant and a clerk with a censer came out to meet them on tiptoe, not paying attention to them. They entered a reception room familiar to Pierre with two Italian windows, access to the winter garden, with a large bust and a full-length portrait of Catherine. All the same people, in almost the same positions, sat whispering in the waiting room. Everyone fell silent and looked back at Anna Mikhailovna who had entered, with her tear-stained, pale face, and at the fat, big Pierre, who, with his head down, obediently followed her.
Anna Mikhailovna's face expressed the consciousness that the decisive moment had arrived; She, with the manner of a businesslike St. Petersburg lady, entered the room, not letting Pierre go, even bolder than in the morning. She felt that since she was leading the one whom the dying man wanted to see, her reception was guaranteed. Having quickly glanced at everyone who was in the room, and noticing the count's confessor, she, not only bending over, but suddenly becoming smaller in stature, swam up to the confessor with a shallow amble and respectfully accepted the blessing of one, then another clergyman.
“Thank God we made it,” she said to the clergyman, “all of us, my family, were so afraid.” This young man is the count’s son,” she added more quietly. - A terrible moment!
Having uttered these words, she approached the doctor.
“Cher docteur,” she told him, “ce jeune homme est le fils du comte... y a t il de l"espoir? [This young man is the son of a count... Is there hope?]
The doctor silently, with a quick movement, raised his eyes and shoulders upward. Anna Mikhailovna raised her shoulders and eyes with exactly the same movement, almost closing them, sighed and walked away from the doctor to Pierre. She especially respectfully and tenderly sadly addressed Pierre.
“Ayez confiance en Sa misericorde, [Trust in His mercy,”] she told him, showing him a sofa to sit down to wait for her, she silently walked towards the door that everyone was looking at, and following the barely audible sound of this door, disappeared behind it.
Pierre, having decided to obey his leader in everything, went to the sofa that she showed him. As soon as Anna Mikhailovna disappeared, he noticed that the glances of everyone in the room turned to him with more than curiosity and sympathy. He noticed that everyone was whispering, pointing at him with their eyes, as if with fear and even servility. He was shown respect that had never been shown before: a lady unknown to him, who was speaking with the clergy, stood up from her seat and invited him to sit down, the adjutant picked up the glove that Pierre had dropped and handed it to him; the doctors fell silent respectfully as he passed them, and stood aside to give him room. Pierre wanted to sit in another place first, so as not to embarrass the lady; he wanted to lift his glove himself and go around the doctors, who were not standing in the road at all; but he suddenly felt that this would be indecent, he felt that this night he was a person who was obliged to perform some terrible ritual expected by everyone, and that therefore he had to accept services from everyone. He silently accepted the glove from the adjutant, sat down in the lady’s place, placing his large hands on his symmetrically extended knees, in the naive pose of an Egyptian statue, and decided to himself that all this should be exactly like this and that he should do it this evening, so as not to to get lost and not do anything stupid, one should not act according to one’s own considerations, but one must submit oneself completely to the will of those who guided him.
Less than two minutes had passed when Prince Vasily, in his caftan with three stars, majestically, holding his head high, entered the room. He seemed thinner since the morning; his eyes were larger than usual when he looked around the room and saw Pierre. He walked up to him, took his hand (which he had never done before) and pulled it down, as if he wanted to test whether it was holding firmly.
- Courage, courage, mon ami. Il a demande a vous voir. C"est bien... [Don't be discouraged, don't be discouraged, my friend. He wanted to see you. That's good...] - and he wanted to go.
But Pierre considered it necessary to ask:
- How is your health…
He hesitated, not knowing whether it was proper to call a dying man a count; He was ashamed to call him father.
– Il a eu encore un coup, il y a une demi heure. There was another blow. Courage, mon ami... [Half an hour ago he had another stroke. Don't be discouraged, my friend...]
Pierre was in such a state of confusion of thought that when he heard the word “blow,” he imagined the blow of some body. He looked at Prince Vasily, perplexed, and only then realized that a blow was a disease. Prince Vasily said a few words to Lorren as he walked and walked through the door on tiptoe. He could not walk on tiptoes and awkwardly bounced his whole body. The eldest princess followed him, then the clergy and clerks passed, and people (servants) also walked through the door. Movement was heard behind this door, and finally, with the same pale, but firm face in the performance of duty, Anna Mikhailovna ran out and, touching Pierre’s hand, said:
– La bonte divine est inepuisable. C"est la ceremonie de l"extreme onction qui va commencer. Venez. [God's mercy is inexhaustible. The unction will begin now. Let's go.]

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short biography

early years

In search of musical drama

Glitch in Paris

Last years

Creation

In search of musical drama

Glitch in Paris

Last years

Creation

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