Gluck

"This volume presents a collection of essays by leading Gluck scholars which highlight the best of recent and classic contributions to Gluck scholarship, many of which are now difficult to access. Tracing Gluck's life, career and legacy, the essays offer a variety of approaches to the major issues and controversies surrounding the composer and his works and range from the degree to which reform elements are apparent in his early operas to his contribution to changing perceptions of Hellenism. The introduction identifies the major topics investigated and highlights the innovatory nature of many of the approaches, particularly those which address perceptions of the composer in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This volume, which focuses on one of the most fascinating and influential composers of his era, provides an indispensable resource for academics, scholars and libraries."--Provided by publisher Celebrated today for his historical significance as the one composer who did most to effect the transition between baroque and classical opera, Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) was, in his lifetime, both controversial and colourful. The documents portray a man of enormous physical energy, relish for good food and good company, and passion for his art. Patricia Howard draws on a variety of contemporary sources in an attempt to construct a portrait of one of the most interesting musicians of the eighteenth century. The basis of the book is the body of letters to and from Gluck. Also included are a wealth of factual documents and informal anecdotes, not easily accessible in the original German, French, or Italian, and almost none of which has ever been translated. The material has been arranged with the aim of providing readers with a lively, continuous narrative of Gluck's life, while at the same time indicating the principal locations of the published and unpublished sources. "Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-87) holds an unassailable place in the history of music as the central figure in the reform of eighteenth-century opera. The bulk of Gluck scholarship is focused on his role as a reformer, and there is little that has been written about him that does not touch on his innovative approach, whether identifying the elements of his reforms, placing his achievements in the context of parallel developments by contemporary composers, libretists, choreaographers, designers, actors and even singers, or inferring his influence on his successors."