The contest between Gluck and Piccini, or rather the cabals who adopted
the two musicians as their figure-heads, was brought to an end by the
death of the former. An attempt was made to set up Sacchini in his
place, but it proved unavailing, as the new composer proved to be quite
as much a follower of the prevailing Italian method as of the new school
of Gluck. The French revolution swept away Piccini's property, and he
retired to Italy. Bad fortune pursued him, however. Queen Caroline of
Naples conceived a dislike to him and used her influence to injure his
career, out of a fit of wounded vanity.
"Do you not think I remember my sister, Marie Antoinette?" queried the
somewhat ill-favored queen. Piccini, embarrassed but truthful, replied:
"Your majesty, there maybe a family likeness, but no resemblance." A
fatality attended him even to Venice. In 1792 he was mobbed and his
house burned, because the populace regarded him as a republican, for
he had a French son-in-law. Some partial musical successes, however,
consoled him, though they flattered his _amour propre_ more than they
benefited his purse. On his return to Naples he was subjected to a
species of imprisonment during four years, for royal displeasure in
those days did not confine itself merely to lack of court favor. Reduced
to great poverty, the composer who had been the favorite of the rich and
great for so many years knew often the actual pangs of hunger, and eked
out his subsistence by writing conventual psalms, as payment for the
broken food doled out by the monks.
At last he was released, and the tenor, David, sent him funds to pay his
journey to Paris. Napoleon, the first consul, received him cordially in
the Luxembourg palace.
"Sit down," said he to Piccini, who remained standing, "a man of your
greatness stands in no one's presence." His reception in Paris was,
in fact, an ovation. The manager of the opera gave him a pension of
twenty-four hundred francs, a government pension was also accorded, and
he was appointed sixth inspector at the Conservatory. But the benefits
of this pale gleam of wintry sunshine did not long remain. He died at
Passy in the year 1800, and was followed to the grave by a great throng
of those who loved his beautiful music and admired his gentle life.
In the present day Gluck appears to have vanquished Piccini, because
occasionally an opera of the former is performed, while Piccini's works
are only known to the musical antiquarian. But even the marble temples
of Gluck are moss-grown and neglected, and that great man is known to
the present day rather as one whose influence profoundly colored and
changed the philosophy of opera, than through any immediate acquaintance
with his productions. The connoisseurs of the eighteenth century found
Piccini's melodies charming, but the works that endure as masterpieces
are not those which contain the greatest number of beauties, but those
of which the form is the most perfect. Gluck had larger conceptions
and more powerful genius than his Italian rival, but the latter's
sweet spring of melody gave him the highest place which had so far been
attained in the Italian operatic school.
"Piccini," says M. Genguèné, his biographer, "was under the middle size,
but well made, with considerable dignity of carriage. His countenance
was very agreeable. His mind was acute, enlarged, and cultivated. Latin
and Italian literature was familiar to him when he went to France, and
afterward he became almost as well acquainted with French literature. He
spoke and wrote Italian with great purity, but among his countrymen
he preferred the Neapolitan dialect, which he considered the most
expressive, the most difficult and the most figurative of all languages.
He used it principally in narration, with a gayety, a truth, and a
pantomimic expression after the manner of his country, which delighted
all his friends, and made his stories intelligible even to those who
knew Italian but slightly."
As a musician Piccini was noticeable, according to the judgment of his
best critics, for the purity and simplicity of his style. He always
wished to preserve the supremacy of the voice, and, though he well knew
how to make his instrumentation rich and effective, he was a resolute
opponent to the florid and complex accompaniments which were coming into
vogue in his day. His recorded opinion on this subject may have some
interest for the musicians of the present day: "Were the employment
which Nature herself assigns to the instruments of an orchestra
preserved to them, a variety of effects and a series of infinitely
diversified pictures would be produced. But they are all thrown in at
once and used incessantly, and they thus overpower and indurate the
ear, without presenting any picture to the mind, to which the ear is
the passage. I should be glad to know how they will arouse it when it
is accustomed to this uproar, which will soon happen, and of what new
witchcraft they will avail themselves.... It is well known what occurs
to palates blunted by the use of spirituous liquors. In a few
months everything may be learned which is necessary to produce these
exaggerated effects, but it requires much time and study to be able to
excite genuine emotion." Piccini followed strictly the canons of the
Italian school; and, though far inferior in really great qualities to
his rival Gluck, his compositions had in them so much of fluent grace
and beauty as to place him at the head of his predecessors. Some curious
critics have indeed gone so far as to charge that many of the finest
arias of Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini owe their paternity to this
composer, an indictment not uncommon in music, for most of the great
composers have rifled the sweets of their predecessors without scruple.