Christoph Willibald Gluck was born in Erasbach, Upper Palatinate, on
July 2, 1714, the son of a forester on the estate of Prince Lobkowitz.
Gluck received his early music instruction in his native country from
local teachers. He then earned his living playing the violin and cello
in rural orchestras. In 1736 he came to Vienna where soon thereafter he
began to serve as chamber musician for Prince Lobkowitz. After a period
of study and travel in Italy he returned to Vienna, now to become one of
its most influential musicians. In Vienna he had produced several of his
early operas, all of them in the traditional Italian style of that
period. But he soon drew away from the stilted conventions of the
Italian opera to achieve a fusion of music and drama new to opera, as
well as dramatic truth, simplicity, and directness of emotional appeal.
His works in this new style, with which a new epoch in opera was
launched, included _Orfeo ed Euridice_ in 1762, _Alceste_ in 1767, and
_Iphigénie en Aulide_ in 1774, the last written for the Paris stage.
After living in Paris from 1773 to 1779, Gluck returned to Vienna to
remain there the rest of his life. During his last years he was an
invalid. He died in Vienna on November 15, 1787.
Gluck was a giant in the early history of opera. With Rameau, he was a
pioneer in establishing music drama as opposed to formal Italian opera.
_Orfeo ed Euridice_, produced in Vienna on October 5, 1762—with which
Gluck first set forth his new ideas and theories about opera—is the
earliest opera to have survived in the permanent repertory.
A delightful _Ballet Suite_, adapted by Felix Mottl from various
orchestral dances from several of Gluck’s greatest operas, is an
orchestral work by which the composer is most often represented on
semi-classical as well as symphonic programs. This suite includes the
following: “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” from _Orfeo ed Euridice_;
“_Air gai_” and “_Lento_” from _Iphigénie en Aulide_; and two old
baroque dances, the “Musette” and “Sicilienne” from _Armide_.
The “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” is one of the loveliest of all
Gluck’s melodies, and one of the most famous from 18th century opera.
This is a beatific song mainly for flute solo and strings, describing
Elysium, to which Orfeo has come in search of his wife, Eurydice. Fritz
Kreisler’s transcription for violin and piano is entitled _Mélodie_.
Sgambati arranged it for piano solo, and Gruenfeld for cello and piano.