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Updated: May 13, 2025
There was no machine of thought which he could employ with perfect ease, confidence, and freedom. He had German enough to scold his servants, or to give the word of command to his grenadiers; but his grammar and pronunciation were extremely bad. He found it difficult to make out the meaning even of the simplest German poetry. On one occasion a version of Racine's Iphigénie was read to him.
The whole theatre resounded with applause, expressed in such a way as to mark that it was to the queen's brother, fully as much as to the emperor, that the homage was paid. The opera was "Iphigénie," the chorus in which, "Chantons, célébrons notre reine," had by this time been almost as fully adopted, as the expression of the national loyalty, as "God save the Queen" is in England.
Throughout the score of 'Iphigénie en Tauride' the declamation is as vivid and true as in 'Alceste, while the intrinsic loveliness of the music yields not a jot to the passion-charged strains of 'Armide. The overture paints the gradual awakening of a tempest, and when the storm is at its height the curtain rises upon the temple of Diana at Tauris, where Iphigenia, snatched by the goddess from the knife of the executioner at Aulis, has been placed as high priestess.
Iphigenie, Torquato Tasso, Wilhelm Meister, are the fruits and the interpreters of this conception of the moral world. What ripened and perfected it so as to raise it into a general view, not only of morality, but also of the great philosophical questions which man is called upon to answer, was his study of nature, greatly furthered during his stay in Italy.
'Echo et Narcisse, an opera cast in a somewhat lighter mould, which was produced in 1779, seems to have failed to please, and 'Iphigénie en Tauride' may be safely taken as the climax of Gluck's career. It is the happiest example of his peculiar power, and shows more convincingly than any of its predecessors where the secret of his greatness really lay.
There all artists and authors of France were encouraged and patronized—with the exception of Voltaire; the queen refused to patronize a man whose view upon morality had caused so much trouble. Music and the drama received especial protection from her. The triumph of Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide, in 1774, was the first victory of Marie Antoinette over the former mistress and the Piccini party.
Two other dramas, the Clavigo and the Egmont, fall below the Iphigenie by the very character of their pretensions; the first as too openly renouncing the grandeurs of the ideal; the second as confessedly violating the historic truth of character, without temptation to do so, and without any consequent indemnification.
This exquisite poem has been translated into English hexameters with great fidelity by Miss Ellen Frothingham. "Iphigenie auf Tauris" handles a Greek theme, exhibits Greek characters, and was hailed on its first appearance as a genuine echo of the Greek drama. Mr. Lewes denies it that character; and certainly it is not Greek, but Christian, in sentiment.
Some of the Courtiers are dissatisfied at the Relaxation of Etiquette. Marie Antoinette is accused of Austrian Preferences. Settlement of the Queen's Allowance. Character and Views of Turgot. She induces Gluck to visit Paris. Performance of his Opera of "Iphigénie en Aulide." The First Encore. Marie Antoinette advocates the Re-establishment of the Parliaments, and receives an Address from them.
With the exception of one only, all the works of GLUCK have remained as stock-pieces, and are played from time to time. They are five in number; namely, Iphigenie en Aulide, Iphigenie en Tauride, Orphee et Euridice, Armide, and Alceste. That which could not maintain its ground, and consequently fell, was Narcisse.
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