United States or Cook Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Vapidly pretty Italian operas were in fashion, and Piccinni was the favorite composer. It was some years afterward that the great contest between the Piccinnists and Gluckists culminated in the victory of the latter, though "Alceste," had already been produced, and "Iphigenia" was soon to follow.
The Gluckists and the Piccinists themselves forgot their differences, to occupy themselves exclusively with the new comer.
"Devoted to his art, foreign to all intrigue, to all ambition, to the morals, tastes, customs, and language of the country, Piccinni lived in his family circle, and devoted himself quietly to his work, in oblivion of the efforts that the Gluckists made to thwart the success, and even to prevent the representation, of his work.
But, alas! it was no cheerful music which the fingers of the queen drew from the keys; it was only the notes of pain, only cries of grief; and yet they recalled the happy by-gone times those golden, blessed days, when the Queen of France was the friend of the arts, and when she received her early teacher, the great maestro and chevalier, Gluck, in Versailles; when she took sides for him against the Italian maestro Lully, and when all Paris divided into two parties, the Gluckists and Lullyists, waging a bloodless war against each other.
At the time I gave my concerts people had taste and leisure for amusement, and even some years later the love of music was so general that it occasioned a serious quarrel between those who were called Gluckists and Piccinists. All amateurs were divided into two opposing factions. The usual field of battle was the garden of the Palais Royal.
After what he had said of the intolerable horrors of French music, the directors of the theatre can hardly be accused of vindictiveness in releasing him from them. Some twenty years after , when Paris was torn asunder by the violence of the two great factions of the Gluckists and Piccinists, Rousseau retracted his opinion as to the impossibility of wedding melody to French words.
It may not, perhaps, be unseasonable to remind you that, from twenty to twenty-five years ago, when the old operas of LULLI and RAMEAU were laid aside, and replaced by modern works, two parties were formed, which, from the name of the musician that each adopted, were called, the one, Gluckists; and the other, Piccinists.
It aroused an unprecedented excitement. Piccini was at that time in Paris. He was the representative of the old Italian school. His partisans gathered about him, and a furious war was waged between the Gluckists and Piccinists for three or four years; the combatants displaying a bitterness of criticism and invective even worse than that which Wagner brought down upon his devoted head.
"Go to France," said Monsieur de Metternich to Gall, "and if they laugh at your bumps you will be famous." Mesmer had disciples and antagonists as ardent for and against his theories as the Piccinists and the Gluckists for theirs. Scientific France was stirred to its center; a solemn conclave was opened.
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.
Word Of The Day