Marie Antoinette, married at fourteen and Queen of France at eighteen,
found herself wearied and annoyed by the excessive etiquette of the
French court, so different from the comparatively simple life she had
led at Vienna. While dauphiness, she often expressed a wish for a
country-house of her own where she could find freedom at times from the
pomp and intrigues of the court, and very soon after his accession
Louis XVI. offered her Little Trianon, which she joyfully accepted.
Built by Louis XV. for Madame du Barry, this charming residence lay in
the midst of a park which was intended to serve both as a school of
gardening and as a botanical garden, and united the various kinds of
gardens then known,--French, Italian, and English. Marie Antoinette
sacrificed the botanical garden, for which she did not much care, in
order to improve and extend the English gardens, which she most
admired, and which were then becoming the fashion on the Continent.
The world was taxed to furnish specimens of trees and plants for her
garden. From North America alone came two hundred and thirty-nine
kinds of trees and shrubs. Besides these, there were everywhere and
always flowers; in the spring, lilacs, then syringas, snowballs,
tuberoses, irises, tulips, hyacinths, and so through the floral
calendar. In addition to these beauties, the park of Trianon was
enhanced by all that the art of the landscape gardener could devise.
Architecture added its gifts in the theatre, the Temple of Love, the
Belvedere, and the palace, where the art of Lagrenée, of Gouthière,
Houdon, and Clodion found expression. And there still remained the
queen's favourite creation, the little hamlet of eight cottages, where
she and her ladies played at farming, with its dairy, its mill, and its
poultry yard.
"At Trianon there was no ceremony, no etiquette, no household, only
friends. When the queen entered the salon, the ladies did not quit
their work nor the men interrupt their game of billiards or of
_trictrac_. It was the life of the château, with all its agreeable
liberty, such as Marie Antoinette had always dreamed, such as was
practised in that patriarchal family of the Hapsburgs, which was, as
Goethe has said, 'Only the first _bourgeoise_ family of the empire.'"
In spite of Marie Antoinette's many kindnesses to authors, it seems
doubtful if she really cared for literature, but of music she was a
constant lover. As a child she had played with Mozart and had received
lessons from Gluck, and when she became queen she still took lessons
both in music and singing.
Gluck was to her not only a great composer, he was one of the dear
memories of her youth, her home, and her country, and also a hope for
reform in French music, which she found monotonous. It was to please
her that the directors of the Grand Opera invited Gluck to come to
Paris and produce some of his works. The great reformer of opera had
long wished for this opportunity, which he seized with alacrity, and
set out from Vienna for Paris in the autumn of 1773. He was received
with every kindness and encouragement by Marie Antoinette and the
court, and proceeded to rehearse his "Iphigenia in Aulis"--not without
difficulties, as he found the French singers and musicians even less
inclined to reforms than those of Vienna. Gluck, however, supported by
the protection of the dauphiness, made short work of those who held
back. To the lady who sang the music of "Iphigenia," and who refused
to obey him at rehearsal, he said, "Mademoiselle, I am here to bring
out 'Iphigenia.' If you will sing, nothing can be better; if not, very
well, I will go the queen and say, 'It is impossible to have my opera
performed;' then I will take my seat in my carriage and return to
Vienna." Doubtless this result would have been much to the prima
donna's liking, but she had to submit.
[Illustration: Gluck at the Trianon. From painting by E. J. C. Hamman.]
"Iphigenia" was produced on April 19, 1774, and Marie Antoinette
applauded from the royal box without ceasing. On the first
representation, opinions were divided, but at the second performance
the approval was unanimous. When Marie Antoinette became queen shortly
afterward, she gave the composer a pension of six thousand francs, with
the entrée to her morning receptions. He often visited her at Trianon,
where the daughter of Maria Theresa was always gracious to the
forester's gifted son. The next work of Gluck to be given in Paris was
his "Orpheus and Eurydice," whose success was greater than that of the
"Iphigenia," and caused Rousseau to publicly acknowledge that he was
mistaken in asserting that the French language was unsuitable to set to
music. He also said that the music of "Orpheus" had reconciled him to
existence, and met the reproach that Gluck's work was lacking in melody
with the words, "I believe that melody proceeds from every pore."
When the composer's next opera, "Alcestis," was produced, in 1776, the
queen gave it her decided approbation, and loyally supported Gluck
against the king's preference for the older form of opera, and the
partisans of the Italian composer Piccini, who was Gluck's rival for
the favour of the Parisians. Great was the battle between the warring
factions, the "Gluckists" and the "Piccinists," whose differences of
opinion sometimes even resulted in personal encounters in the theatre.
Between the two composers themselves, matters were more pleasant. When
Piccini's "Roland" was being studied, the composer, unused to
conducting and unfamiliar with the French language, became confused at
a rehearsal. Gluck happened to be present, and, rushing into the
orchestra, threw off his wig and coat, and led the performance with
such energy and skill that all went smooth again. On the other hand,
Piccini, when he learned of the death of his whilom rival, expressed
his respect for Gluck by starting a subscription for the establishment
of an annual concert to be given upon the anniversary of the composer's
death, at which nothing but his music should be performed.
Gluck's "Armida" was given its first presentation in 1777, and
increased his fame so much that his bust was placed in the Grand Opera
beside those of Lulli, Rameau, and Quinault. "Iphigenia in Tauris" was
produced in 1779, with great success, but "Echo and Narcissus," the
last opera which Gluck gave in Paris, was a failure. He left France
for Vienna in the same year, never to return, though his royal pupil
pressed him to do so in the most flattering manner.
Before taking leave of Gluck, let us read the eloquent words with which
Ernest Newman closes his book on "Gluck and the Opera." "The musician
speaks a language that is in its very essence more impermanent than the
speech of any other art. Painting, sculpture, architecture, and poetry
know no other foe than external nature, which may, indeed, destroy
their creations and blot out the memory of the artist. But the
musician's material is such that, however permanent may be the written
record of his work, it depends not upon this, but upon the permanency
in other men of the spirit that gave his music birth, whether it shall
live in the minds of future generations. Year after year the language
of the art grows richer and more complex, and work after work sinks
into ever-deepening oblivion, until music that once thrilled men with
delirious ecstasy becomes a dead thing, which here and there a student
looks back upon in a mood of scarcely tolerant antiquarianism. In the
temple of the art a hundred statues of the gods are overthrown; and a
hundred others stand with arrested lips and inarticulate tongues, pale
symbols of a vanished dominion which men no longer own. Yet here and
there, through the ghostly twilight, comes the sound of some clear
voice that has defied the courses of the years and the mutations of
taste; and we hear the rich canorous tones of Gluck, not, perhaps, with
all the vigour and the passion that once was theirs, but with the
mellowed splendour given by the touch of time. Alone among his fellows
he speaks our modern tongue, and chants the eternal passions of the
race. He was, indeed, as Sophie Arnould called him, 'The musician of
the soul;' and if we have added new strings to our lyre, and wrung from
them a more poignant eloquence than ever stirred within the heart of
Gluck, none the less do we perceive that music such as his comes to us
from the days when there were giants in the land."