Niccolo Piccini, who was not less than fifty years of age when he left
Naples for the purpose of outrivaling Gluck, was born at Bari, in the
kingdom of Naples, in 1728. His father, also a musician, had destined
him for holy orders, but Nature made him an artist. His great delight
even as a little child was playing on the harpsichord, which he quickly
learned. One day the bishop of Bari heard him playing and was amazed
at the power of the little _virtuoso_. "By all means, send him to a
conservatory of music," he said to the elder Piccini. "If the vocation
of the priesthood brings trials and sacrifices, a musical career is
not less beset with obstacles. Music demands great perseverance and
incessant labor. It exposes one to many chagrins and toils."
By the advice of the shrewd prelate, the precocious boy was placed at
the school of St. Onofrio at the age of fourteen. At first confided to
the care of an inferior professor, he revolted from the arid teachings
of a mere human machine. Obeying the dictates of his daring fancy,
though hardly acquainted with the rudiments of composition, he
determined to compose a mass. The news got abroad that the little
Niccolo was working on a grand mass, and the great Leo, the chief of the
conservatory, sent for the trembling culprit.
"You have written a mass?" he commenced.
"Excuse me, sir, I could not help it," said the timid boy.
"Let me see it."
Niccolo brought him the score and all the orchestral parts, and Leo
immediately went to the concert-room, assembled the orchestra, and
gave them the parts. The boy was ordered to take his place in front and
conduct the performance, which he went through with great agitation.
"I pardon you this time," said the grave maestro, at the end; "but, if
you do such a thing again, I will punish you in such a manner that you
will remember it as long as you live. Instead of studying the
principles of your art, you give yourself up to all the wildness of your
imagination; and, when you have tutored your ill-regulated ideas into
something like shape, you produce what you call a mass, and no doubt
think you have produced a masterpiece."
When the boy burst into tears at this rebuke, Leo clasped him in his
arms, told him he had great talent, and after that took him under
his special instruction. Leo was succeeded by Durante, who also loved
Piccini, and looked forward to a future greatness for him. He was wont
to say the others were his pupils, but Piccini was his son. After
twelve years spent in the conservatory, Piccini commenced an opera. The
director of the principal Neapolitan theatre said to Prince Vintimille,
who introduced the young musician, that his work was sure to be a
failure.
"How much can you lose by his opera," the prince replied, "supposing it
be a perfect fiasco?" The manager named the sum.
"There is the money, then," replied Piccini's generous patron, handing
him a purse. "If the 'Dorme Despetose' (the name of the opera) should
fail, you may keep the money, but otherwise return it to me."
The friends of Lagroscino, the favorite composer of the day, were
enraged when they heard that the next new work was to be from an obscure
youth, and they determined to hiss the performance. So great, however,
was the delight of the public with the freshness and beauty of Piccini's
music, that even those who came to condemn remained to applaud. The
reputation of the composer went on increasing until he became the
foremost name of musical Italy, for his fertility of production was
remarkable; and he gave the theatres a brilliant succession of comic and
serious works. In 1758 he produced at Rome his "Alessandro nell' Indie,"
whose success surpassed all that had preceded it, and two years later
a still finer masterpiece, "La Buona Figluola," written to a text
furnished by the poet Goldoni, and founded on the story of Richardson's
"Pamela." This opera was produced at every playhouse on the Italian
peninsula in the course of a few years. A pleasant _mot_ by the Duke of
Brunswick is worth preserving in this connection. Piccini had married a
beautiful singer named Vicenza Sibilla, and his home was very happy. One
day the German prince visited Piccini, and found him rocking the cradle
of his youngest child, while the eldest was tugging at the paternal
coat-tails. The mother, being _en déshabille_, ran away at the sight
of a stranger. The duke excused himself for his want of ceremony, and
added, "I am delighted to see so great a man living in such simplicity,
and that the author of 'La Bonne Fille' is such a good father."
Piccini's placid and pleasant life was destined, however, to pass into
stormy waters.
His sway over the stage and the popular preference continued until
1773, when a clique of envious rivals at Rome brought about his first
disaster. The composer was greatly disheartened, and took to his bed,
for he was ill alike in mind and body. The turning-point in his career
had come, and he was to enter into an arena which taxed his powers in a
contest such as he had not yet dreamed of. His operas having been
heard and admired in France, their great reputation inspired the
royal favorite, Mme. du Barry, with the hope of finding a successful
competitor to the great German composer, patronized by Marie Antoinette.
Accordingly, Piccini was offered an indemnity of six thousand francs,
and a residence in the hotel of the Neapolitan ambassador. When the
Italian arrived in Paris, Gluck was in full sway, the idol of the court
and public, and about to produce his "Armide."
Piccini was immediately commissioned to write a new opera, and he
applied to the brilliant Marmontel for a libretto. The poet rearranged
one of Quinault's tragedies, "Roland," and Piccini undertook the
difficult task of composing music to words in a language as yet unknown
to him. Marcnontel was his unwearied tutor, and he writes in his
"Memoirs" of his pleasant yet arduous task: "Line by line, word by word,
I had everything to explain; and, when he had laid hold of the meaning
of a passage, I recited it to him, marking the accent, the prosody,
and the cadence of the verses. He listened eagerly, and I had the
satisfaction to know that what he heard was carefully noted. His
delicate ear seized so readily the accent of the language and the
measure of the poetry, that in his music he never mistook them. It was
an inexpressible pleasure to me to see him practice before my eyes an
art of which before I had no idea. His harmony was in his mind. He wrote
his airs with the utmost rapidity, and when he had traced its designs,
he filled up all the parts of the score, distributing the traits of
harmony and melody, just as a skillful painter would distribute on his
canvas the colors, lights, and shadows of his picture. When all this
was done, he opened his harpsichord, which he had been using as his
writing-table; and then I heard an air, a duet, a chorus, complete in
all its parts, with a truth of expression, an intelligence, a unity
of design, a magic in the harmony, which delighted both my ear and my
feelings."
Piccini's arrival in Paris had been kept a close secret while he was
working on the new opera, but Abbé du Rollet ferreted it out, and
acquainted Gluck, which piece of news the great German took with
philosophical disdain. Indeed, he attended the rehearsal of "Roland;"
and when his rival, in despair over his ignorance of French and the
stupidity of the orchestra, threw down the baton in despair, Gluck took
it up, and by his magnetic authority brought order out of chaos
and restored tranquillity, a help as much, probably, the fruit of
condescension and contempt as of generosity.
Still Gluck was not easy in mind over this intrigue of his enemies, and
wrote a bitter letter, which was made public, and aggravated the war
of public feeling. Epigrams and accusations flew back and forth like
hailstones.*
* See article on Gluck in "Great German Composers."
"Do you know that the Chevalier (Gluck's title) has an Armida and
Orlando in his portfolio?" said Abbé Arnaud to a Piccinist.
"But Piccini is also at work on an Orlando," was the retort.
"So much the better," returned the abbé, "for then we shall have an
Orlando and also an Orlandino," was the keen answer.
The public attention was stimulated by the war of pamphlets, lampoons,
and newspaper articles. Many of the great _literati_ were Piccinists,
among them Marmontel, La Harpe, D'Alembert, etc. Suard du Rollet and
Jean Jacques Rousseau fought in the opposite ranks. Although the nation
was trembling on the verge of revolution, and the French had just lost
their hold on the East Indies; though Mirabeau was thundering in the
tribune, and Jacobin clubs were commencing their baleful work, soon to
drench Paris in blood, all factions and discords were forgotten.
The question was no longer, "Is he a Jansenist, a Molinist, an
Encyclopædist, a philosopher, a free-thinker?" One question only was
thought of: "Is he a Gluckist or Piccinist?" and on the answer often
depended the peace of families and the cement of long-established
friendships.
Piccini's opera was a brilliant success with the fickle Parisians,
though the Gluckists sneered at it as pretty concert music. The retort
was that Gluck had no gift of melody, though they admitted he had the
advantage over his rival of making more noise. The poor Italian was so
much distressed by the fierce contest that he and his family were in
despair on the night of the first representation. He could only say
to his weeping wife and son: "Come, my children, this is unreasonable.
Remember that we are not among savages; we are living with the politest
and kindest nation in Europe. If they do not like me as a musician, they
will at all events respect me as a man and a stranger." To do justico
to Piccini, a mild and timid man, he never took part in the controversy,
and always spoke of his opponent with profound respect and admiration.