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The fifth book of 'Meister' produced in him a 'veritable intoxication'; yet its quality was strikingly unlike that of 'Werther' or 'Iphigenie', and totally different from anything that he himself had done or could possibly do.
Maurice, appeared several times in their armies, mounted and equipped in ancient style, and fought for them, Castor and Pollux appeared several times in battles and fought for the Romans against their enemies; if a ram was miraculously found to be offered as a sacrifice in the place of Isaac, whom his father Abraham was about to sacrifice, the Goddess Vesta also sent a heifer to be sacrificed in the place of Metella, daughter of Metellus: the Goddess Diana sent a hind in the place of Iphigenie when she was at the stake to be sacrificed to her, and by this means Iphigenie was saved.
But upon Armida the composer concentrated the full lens of his genius, and for her he wrote music which satisfies every requirement of dramatic truth, without losing touch of the lyrical beauty and persuasive passion which breathes life into soulless clay. In 'Iphigénie en Tauride, the last of his great works, which was produced in 1778, Gluck reached his highest point.
Beautiful and quaint that ball was, breezy with victory and duty well performed, the glorious scars of the old Iphigenie mingling with the splendour of the flowers and the lights. After staying a month at Havana, as there was no question of pirates, I was ordered to take the Creole back to Brest, where I arrived in March, 1839.
When Gluck brought out his great work, "Iphigénie en Tauride," in 1779, however, the Piccinists quitted the field and acknowledged the reformer's superiority. "Echo et Narcisse" was written in the same year, but "Iphigénie en Tauride" was his last great work. He retired shortly afterwards to Vienna, where he died Nov. 15, 1787.
They fêted and praised Gluck, declaring he had discovered the music of the ancient Greeks, that he was the only man in Europe who could express real feelings in music. Marie Antoinette wrote to her sister: "We had, on the nineteenth, the first performance of Gluck's 'Iphigénie, and it was a glorious triumph. I was quite enchanted, and nothing else is talked of.
The director, however, insisted, and soon after the second Iphigénie appeared. The first night the opera did not greatly please; the next night proved a comic tragedy, as the prima donna was intoxicated. After a couple of days' imprisonment she returned and sang well. But the war between the two factions continued till the death of Gluck, and the retirement of Piccini.
The citizens, delighted at the contrast which their frequent visits to the capital afforded to the marked dislike of it shown by the late king, crowded the theatre on every night on which they were expected; and on one of these occasions Gluck's "Iphigénie" was the opera selected for performance.
I saw them get out of the carriage at Neuilly, without for an instant suspecting the risk they had run. But the time soon came for me to go to sea again, and I was ordered to join the frigate Iphigenie, of which my old captain, M. de Parseval, had taken command, as full lieutenant, and we started for the Levant station.
After that time Gluck wrote all his greatest works for the French stage, and became so completely identified with the country of his adoption, that nowadays we are far more apt to think of him as a French than as a German composer. 'Iphigénie en Aulide' is founded upon Racine's play, which in its turn had been derived from the tragedy of Euripides.
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