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Christopher Willibald Gluck short biography. Gluck's biography and a brief description of the composer's work

Gluck, Christoph Willibald (Gluck, Christoph Willibald) (1714-1787), German composer, operatic reformer, one of the greatest masters of the Classical era. Born July 2, 1714 in Erasbach (Bavaria), in the family of a forester; Gluck's ancestors came from Northern Bohemia and lived on the lands of Prince Lobkowitz. Gluck was three years old when the family returned to their homeland; he studied at the schools of Kamnitz and Albersdorf. In 1732 he went to Prague, where he apparently listened to lectures at the university, earning a living by singing in church choirs and playing the violin and cello. According to some reports, he took lessons from the Czech composer B. Chernogorsky (1684–1742).

In 1736, Gluck arrived in Vienna in the retinue of Prince Lobkowitz, but the very next year he moved to the chapel of the Italian Prince Melzi and followed him to Milan. Here Gluck studied composition for three years with the great master of chamber genres G. B. Sammartini (1698–1775), and at the end of 1741 Gluck's first opera Artaxerxes (Artaserse) was premiered in Milan. Further, he led the life usual for a successful Italian composer, i.e. continuously composed operas and pasticcios (opera performances in which the music is composed of fragments of various operas by one or more authors). In 1745 Gluck accompanied Prince Lobkowitz on his journey to London; their path lay through Paris, where Gluck first heard the operas of J.F. Rameau (1683–1764) and highly appreciated them. In London, Gluck met with Handel and T. Arn, staged two of his pasticcios (one of them, The Fall of the Giants, La Caduta dei Giganti, is a play on the topic of the day: it is about the suppression of the Jacobite uprising), gave a concert in which he played on a glass harmonica of his own design, and published six trio sonatas. In the second half of 1746 the composer was already in Hamburg, as conductor and choirmaster of P. Mingotti's Italian opera troupe. Until 1750, Gluck traveled with this troupe to different cities and countries, composing and staging his operas. In 1750 he married and settled in Vienna.

None of Gluck's operas of the early period fully disclosed the extent of his talent, but nevertheless, by 1750 his name already enjoyed some fame. In 1752, the Neapolitan theater "San Carlo" commissioned him the opera La Clemenza di Tito, a libretto by Metastasio, a major playwright of that era. Gluck himself conducted, and aroused both keen interest and jealousy of local musicians and received praise from the venerable composer and teacher F. Durante (1684–1755). Upon his return to Vienna in 1753, he became Kapellmeister at the court of the Prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen and remained in this position until 1760. In 1757, Pope Benedict XIV awarded the composer the title of knight and awarded him the Order of the Golden Spur: since then, the musician signed - "Cavalier Gluck" ( Ritter von Gluck).

During this period, the composer entered the circle of the new manager of the Vienna theaters, Count Durazzo, and composed a lot both for the court and for the count himself; in 1754 Gluck was appointed conductor of the court opera. After 1758, he diligently worked on creating works on French librettos in the style of a French comic opera, which was planted in Vienna by the Austrian envoy in Paris (meaning such operas as Merlin's Island, L "Isle de Merlin; The Imaginary Slave, La fausse esclave; Fooled The dream of an "opera reform", the aim of which was to restore the drama, originated in northern Italy and dominated the minds of Gluck's contemporaries, and these tendencies were especially strong at the court of Parma, where French influence played a large role. Durazzo came from Genoa; the years of Gluck's creative development took place in Milan; they were joined by two more artists originally from Italy, but who had experience working in theaters of different countries - the poet R. Calzabidgi and the choreographer G. Angioli. Thus, a "team" of gifted, intelligent people, moreover, influential enough to translate common ideas into practice.The first fruit of their cooperation was the ballet Don Juan (Don Juan, 1761), then were Orpheus and Eurydice (Orfeo ed Euridice, 1762) and Alceste (Alceste, 1767) - Gluck's first reformist operas.

In the preface to the score of Alceste, Gluck formulates his operatic principles: the subordination of musical beauty to dramatic truth; the destruction of incomprehensible vocal virtuosity, all sorts of inorganic inserts in musical action; interpretation of the overture as an introduction to the drama. In fact, all this was already present in modern French opera, and since the Austrian princess Marie Antoinette, who in the past took singing lessons from Gluck, then became the wife of the French monarch, it is not surprising that Gluck was soon commissioned a number of operas for Paris. The premiere of the first, Iphigenia in Aulis (Iphignie en Aulide), was conducted by the author in 1774 and served as a pretext for a fierce struggle of opinions, a real battle between supporters of French and Italian opera, which lasted about five years. During this time, Gluck staged two more operas in Paris - Armide (Armide, 1777) and Iphigenia in Tauris (Iphignie en Tauride, 1779), and also reworked Orpheus and Alceste for the French stage. The fanatics of the Italian opera specially invited the composer N. Piccinni (1772–1800) to Paris, who was a talented musician, but still could not withstand the rivalry with the genius of Gluck. At the end of 1779 Gluck returned to Vienna. Gluck died in Vienna on November 15, 1787.

Gluck's biography is interesting for understanding the history of the development of classical music. This composer was a major reformer of musical performances, his ideas were ahead of their time and influenced the work of many other composers of the 18th and 19th centuries, including Russian ones. Thanks to him, the opera acquired a more harmonious look and dramatic completeness. In addition, he worked on ballets and small musical compositions - sonatas and overtures, which are also of considerable interest to contemporary performers, who willingly include their excerpts in concert programs.

Youth years

Gluck's early biography is not well known, although many scholars are actively investigating his childhood and adolescence. It is reliably known that he was born in 1714 in the Palatinate in the family of a forester and was educated at home. Also, almost all historians agree that already in childhood he showed outstanding musical abilities and knew how to play musical instruments. However, his father did not want him to become a musician, and sent him to the gymnasium.

However, the future wanted to connect his life with music and therefore left home. In 1731 he settled in Prague, where he played the violin and cello under the direction of the famous Czech composer and theorist B. Chernogorsky.

Italian period

Gluck's biography can be conditionally divided into several stages, choosing as a criterion the place of his residence, work and active creative activity. In the second half of the 1730s he came to Milan. At this time, one of the leading Italian musical authors was J. Sammartini. Under his influence, Gluck began to write his own compositions. According to critics, during this period of time he mastered the so-called homophonic style - a musical direction, which is characterized by the sound of one main theme, while the rest play a supporting role. Gluck's biography can be considered extremely rich, as he worked hard and actively and brought a lot of new things to classical music.

Mastering the homophonic style was a very important achievement of the composer, since polyphony dominated the European musical school of the time in question. During this period, he creates a number of operas ("Demetrius", "Por" and others), which, despite their imitation, bring him fame. Until 1751 he toured with an Italian group, until he received an invitation to move to Vienna.

Opera reform

Christoph Gluck, whose biography should be inextricably linked with the history of the formation of operatic art, did a lot to reform this musical performance. In the XVII-XVIII centuries, the opera was a magnificent musical spectacle with beautiful music. Much attention was paid not so much to the content as to the form.

Often, composers wrote exclusively for a specific voice, not caring about the plot and semantic load. Gluck strongly opposed this approach. In his operas, music was subordinated to the drama and individual experiences of the characters. In his work Orpheus and Eurydice, the composer skillfully combined elements of ancient tragedy with choral numbers and ballet performances. This approach was innovative for its time, and therefore was not appreciated by contemporaries.

Vienna period

One from the 18th century is Christoph Willibald Gluck. The biography of this musician is important for understanding the formation of the classical school that we know today. Until 1770 he worked in Vienna at the court of Marie Antoinette. It was during this period that his creative principles took shape and received their final expression. Continuing to work in the genre of comic opera traditional for that time, he created a number of original operas in which he subordinated the music to poetic meaning. These include the work "Alceste", created after the tragedy of Euripides.

In this opera, the overture, which had an independent, almost entertaining meaning for other composers, acquired a great semantic load. Her melody was organically woven into the main plot and set the tone for the entire performance. This principle was guided by his followers and musicians of the 19th century.

Paris stage

The 1770s are considered the most eventful in Gluck's biography. A brief summary of his history must necessarily include a brief description of his participation in the dispute that flared up in Parisian intellectual circles over what an opera should be like. The dispute was between supporters of the French and Italian schools.

The former advocated the need to bring drama and semantic harmony to a musical performance, while the latter emphasized vocals and musical improvisations. Gluck defended the first point of view. Following his creative principles, he wrote a new opera based on Euripides' play Iphigenia in Tauris. This work was recognized as the best in the composer's work and strengthened his European fame.

Influence

In 1779, due to a serious illness, the composer Christopher Gluck returned to Vienna. The biography of this talented musician cannot be imagined without mentioning his latest works. Even when seriously ill, he composed a number of odes and songs for the piano. In 1787 he died. He had many followers. The composer himself considered A. Salieri his best student. The traditions laid down by Gluck became the basis for the work of L. Beethoven and R. Wagner. In addition, many other composers imitated him not only in composing operas, but also in symphonies. Of the Russian composers, M. Glinka highly valued the work of Gluck.

Professions Genres Awards

Biography

Christoph Willibald Gluck was born into the family of a forester, was passionate about music from childhood, and since his father did not want to see his eldest son as a musician, Gluck, after graduating from the Jesuit college in Kommotau, left home as a teenager. After long wanderings, he ended up in Prague in 1731 and entered the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Prague; at the same time he took lessons from the then-famous Czech composer Boguslav Chernogorsky, sang in the choir of the Church of St. Jacob, played the violin and cello in traveling ensembles.

Having received his education, Gluck went to Vienna in 1735 and was admitted to the chapel of Count Lobkowitz, and a little later he received an invitation from the Italian philanthropist A. Melzi to become a chamber musician of the court chapel in Milan. In Italy, the birthplace of opera, Gluck had the opportunity to get acquainted with the work of the greatest masters of this genre; at the same time, he studied composition under the guidance of Giovanni Sammartini, a composer not so much of an opera as of a symphony.

In Vienna, gradually becoming disillusioned with the traditional Italian opera seria - "opera aria", in which the beauty of melody and singing acquired a self-sufficient character, and composers often became hostages to the whims of prima donnas, Gluck turned to French comic opera ("Merlin's Island", " The Imaginary Slave, The Reformed Drunkard, The Fooled Cady, etc.) and even for the ballet: created in collaboration with the choreographer G. Angiolini, the pantomime ballet Don Giovanni (based on the play by J.-B. Molière), a real choreographic drama, became the first incarnation of Gluck's desire to turn the operatic stage into a dramatic one.

In search of musical drama

K. V. Gluck. Lithograph by F. E. Feller

In his quest, Gluck found support from the chief intendant of the opera, Count Durazzo, and his compatriot poet and playwright Ranieri de Calzabidgi, who wrote the libretto of Don Giovanni. The next step in the direction of musical drama was their new joint work - the opera Orpheus and Eurydice, in the first edition staged in Vienna on October 5, 1762. Under the pen of Calzabidgi, the ancient Greek myth turned into an ancient drama, in full accordance with the tastes of that time, however, neither in Vienna nor in other European cities, the opera was a success with the public.

By order of the court, Gluck continued to write operas in the traditional style, without parting, however, with his idea. A new and more perfect embodiment of his dream of a musical drama was the heroic opera Alceste, created in collaboration with Calzabidgi in 1767, presented in Vienna on December 26 of the same year in its first edition. Dedicating the opera to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the future Emperor Leopold II, Gluck wrote in the preface to Alceste:

It seemed to me that music should play in relation to a poetic work the same role played by the brightness of colors and correctly distributed effects of chiaroscuro, enlivening the figures without changing their contours in relation to the drawing ... I tried to expel from music all the excesses against which common sense and justice protest in vain. I believed that the overture should illuminate the action for the audience and serve as an introductory overview of the content: the instrumental part should be conditioned by the interest and tension of the situations ... All my work should have been reduced to the search for noble simplicity, freedom from the ostentatious accumulation of difficulties at the expense of clarity; the introduction of some new techniques seemed to me valuable insofar as it corresponded to the situation. And finally, there is no such rule that I would not break in order to achieve greater expressiveness. Those are my principles."

Such a fundamental subordination of music to a poetic text was revolutionary for that time; in an effort to overcome the number structure characteristic of the then opera seria, Gluck combined the episodes of the opera into large scenes, permeated with a single dramatic development, he tied the overture to the action of the opera, which at that time usually represented a separate concert number, increased the role of the choir and orchestra ... Neither "Alcesta" nor the third reformist opera to the libretto of Calzabidgi - "Paris and Elena" () did not find support from either the Viennese or the Italian public.

Gluck's duties as court composer also included teaching music to the young Archduke Marie Antoinette; having become the wife of the heir to the French throne in April 1770, Marie Antoinette invited Gluck to Paris. However, other circumstances influenced the composer's decision to move his activities to the capital of France to a much greater extent.

Glitch in Paris

In Paris, meanwhile, a struggle was going on around the opera, which became the second act of the struggle between the adherents of the Italian opera (“buffonists”) and the French (“anti-buffonists”) that had died down back in the 50s. This confrontation even split the royal family: the French king Louis XVI preferred the Italian opera, while his Austrian wife Marie Antoinette supported the national French. The split also struck the famous Encyclopedia: its editor, D'Alembert, was one of the leaders of the "Italian Party", and many of its authors, led by Voltaire and Rousseau, actively supported the French. The foreigner Gluck very soon became the banner of the "French party", and since the Italian troupe in Paris at the end of 1776 was headed by the famous and popular composer of those years Niccolò Piccini, the third act of this musical and public controversy went down in history as a struggle between the "gluckists" and " picchinists." The debate was not about styles, but about what an opera performance should be - just an opera, a luxurious spectacle with beautiful music and beautiful vocals, or something substantially more.

In the early 1970s Gluck's reformist operas were unknown in Paris; in August 1772, the attache of the French embassy in Vienna, François le Blanc du Roullet, brought them to the attention of the public in the pages of the Parisian magazine Mercure de France. The paths of Gluck and Calzabidgi diverged: with the reorientation to Paris, du Roullet became the main librettist of the reformer; in collaboration with him, the opera Iphigenia in Aulis (based on the tragedy by J. Racine), staged in Paris on April 19, 1774, was written for the French public. The success was consolidated by the new, French edition of Orpheus and Eurydice.

Recognition in Paris did not go unnoticed in Vienna: on October 18, 1774, Gluck was awarded the title of "actual imperial and royal court composer" with an annual salary of 2,000 guilders. Thanking for the honor, Gluck returned to France, where at the beginning of 1775 a new edition of his comic opera The Enchanted Tree, or the Deceived Guardian (written back in 1759) was staged, and in April, at the Grand Opera, a new edition "Alceste".

The Parisian period is considered by music historians to be the most significant in Gluck's work; the struggle between the “glukists” and the “picchinists”, which inevitably turned into personal rivalry between the composers (which, according to contemporaries, did not affect their relationship), went on with varying success; by the mid-70s, the “French Party” also split into adherents of traditional French opera (J. B. Lully and J. F. Rameau), on the one hand, and Gluck’s new French opera, on the other. Willingly or unwittingly, Gluck himself challenged the traditionalists, using for his heroic opera Armida a libretto written by F. Kino (based on the poem Jerusalem Liberated by T. Tasso) for the eponymous opera by Lully. "Armida", which premiered at the Grand Opera on September 23, 1777, was apparently perceived so differently by representatives of various "parties" that even 200 years later, some spoke of "tremendous success", others - about " failure."

Nevertheless, this struggle ended with the victory of Gluck, when on May 18, 1779, at the Paris Grand Opera, his opera Iphigenia in Tauris was presented (to the libretto by N. Gniyar and L. du Roullet based on the tragedy of Euripides), which to this day many is considered the composer's best opera. Niccolo Piccinni himself acknowledged Gluck's "musical revolution". At the same time, J. A. Houdon sculpted a white marble bust of Gluck, later installed in the lobby of the Royal Academy of Music between the busts of Rameau and Lully.

Last years

On September 24, 1779, the premiere of Gluck's last opera, Echo and Narcissus, took place in Paris; however, even earlier, in July, the composer was struck by a serious illness that turned into partial paralysis. In the autumn of the same year, Gluck returned to Vienna, which he never left again (a new attack of the disease occurred in June 1781).

Monument to K. V. Gluck in Vienna

During this period, the composer continued his work on odes and songs for voice and piano on the verses of F. G. Klopstock (Klopstocks Oden und Lieder beim Clavier zu singen in Musik gesetzt), begun in 1773, dreamed of creating a German national opera based on the plot of Klopstock " Battle of Arminius", but these plans were not destined to come true. Anticipating his imminent departure, in 1782 Gluck wrote "De profundis" - a small work for a four-part choir and orchestra on the text of the 129th psalm, which was performed on November 17, 1787 at the composer's funeral by his student and follower Antonio Salieri.

Creation

Christoph Willibald Gluck was a predominantly operatic composer; he owns 107 operas, of which Orpheus and Eurydice (), Alceste (), Iphigenia in Aulis (), Armida (), Iphigenia in Tauris () still do not leave the stage. Even more popular are individual fragments from his operas, which have long acquired an independent life on the concert stage: the Shadow Dance (aka Melody) and the Dance of the Furies from Orpheus and Eurydice, overtures to the operas Alceste and Iphigenia in Aulis and others.

Interest in the composer's work is growing, and over the past decades, the forgotten at one time "Paris and Elena" (, Vienna, libretto by Calzabigi), "Aetius", the comic opera "An Unforeseen Meeting" (, Vienna, libre. L. Dancourt) have been returned to listeners , the ballet "Don Juan" ... His "De profundis" is not forgotten either.

At the end of his life, Gluck said that "only the foreigner Salieri" adopted his manners from him, "because not a single German wanted to learn them"; nevertheless, Gluck's reforms found many followers in different countries, each of whom applied his principles in his own way in his own work - in addition to Antonio Salieri, this is primarily Luigi Cherubini, Gaspare Spontini and L. van Beethoven, and later - Hector Berlioz, who called Gluck "Aeschylus of music", and Richard Wagner, who half a century later faced on the opera stage with the same "costume concert" against which Gluck's reform was directed. In Russia, Mikhail Glinka was his admirer and follower. The influence of Gluck in many composers is also noticeable outside of operatic creativity; besides Beethoven and Berlioz, this also applies to Robert Schumann.

Gluck also wrote a number of works for orchestra - symphonies or overtures, a concerto for flute and orchestra (G-dur), 6 trio sonatas for 2 violins and a general bass, written back in the 40s. In collaboration with G. Angiolini, in addition to Don Giovanni, Gluck created three more ballets: Alexander (), as well as Semiramide () and The Chinese Orphan - both based on the tragedies of Voltaire.

In astronomy

The asteroids 514 Armida, discovered in 1903, and 579 Sidonia, discovered in 1905, are named after the characters in Gluck's opera Armida.

Notes

Literature

Knights S. Christoph Willibald Gluck. - M.: Music, 1987.
Kirillina L. Gluck's reformist operas. - M.: Classics-XXI, 2006. 384 p. ISBN 5-89817-152-5

Links

Summary (synopsis) of the opera "Orpheus" on the site "100 operas"
Gluck: sheet music of works at the International Music Score Library Project

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Biography, life story of Gluck Christoph Willibald

Gluck (Gluck) Christoph Willibald (1714-1787), German composer. Worked in Milan, Vienna, Paris. Gluck's operatic reform, carried out in line with the aesthetics of classicism (noble simplicity, heroism), reflected new trends in the art of the Enlightenment. The idea of subordinating music to the laws of poetry and drama had a great influence on musical theater in the 19th and 20th centuries. Operas (over 40): Orpheus and Eurydice (1762), Alceste (1767), Paris and Helena (1770), Iphigenia in Aulis (1774), Armida (1777), Iphigenia in Tavrida" (1779).

Gluck (Gluck) Christoph Willibald (Cavalier Gluck, Ritter von Gluck) (July 2, 1714, Erasbach, Bavaria - November 15, 1787, Vienna), German composer.

Formation
Born in the family of a forester. Gluck's native language was Czech. At the age of 14, he left his family, wandered, earning money by playing the violin and singing, then in 1731 he entered the University of Prague. During his studies (1731-34) he served as a church organist. In 1735 he moved to Vienna, then to Milan, where he studied with the composer G. B. Sammartini (c. 1700-1775), one of the largest Italian representatives of early classicism.
Gluck's first opera, Artaxerxes, was staged in Milan in 1741; this was followed by the premieres of several more operas in different cities of Italy. In 1845 Gluck was commissioned to compose two operas for London; in England he met H. F. Handel. In 1846-51 he worked in Hamburg, Dresden, Copenhagen, Naples, Prague. In 1752 he settled in Vienna, where he took the position of concertmaster, then bandmaster at the court of Prince J. Saxe-Hildburghausen. In addition, he composed French comic operas for the imperial court theater and Italian operas for palace amusements. In 1759, Gluck received an official position in the court theater and soon received a royal pension.

fruitful community
Around 1761, Gluck began collaborating with the poet R. Calzabidgi and the choreographer G. Angiolini (1731-1803). In their first joint work, the ballet Don Giovanni, they managed to achieve an amazing artistic unity of all components of the performance. A year later, the opera Orpheus and Eurydice appeared (libretto by Calzabidgi, dances staged by Angiolini) - the first and best of Gluck's so-called reformist operas. In 1764, Gluck composed the French comic opera An Unforeseen Meeting, or The Pilgrims from Mecca, and a year later, two more ballets. In 1767 the success of "Orpheus" was confirmed by the opera "Alceste" also on the libretto of Calzabidgi, but with dances staged by another outstanding choreographer - J.-J. Noverre (1727-1810). The third reformist opera Paris and Helena (1770) was a more modest success.

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In Paris
In the early 1770s, Gluck decided to apply his innovative ideas to French opera. In 1774, Iphigenia at Aulis and Orpheus, the French version of Orpheus and Eurydice, were staged in Paris. Both works received enthusiastic reception. Gluck's series of Parisian successes was continued by the French edition of Alceste (1776) and Armide (1777). The latter work gave rise to a fierce controversy between the "glukists" and supporters of traditional Italian and French opera, which was personified by the talented composer of the Neapolitan school N. Piccinni, who came to Paris in 1776 at the invitation of Gluck's opponents. Gluck's victory in this controversy was marked by the triumph of his opera Iphigenia in Tauris (1779) (however, the opera Echo and Narcissus, staged in the same year, failed). In the last years of his life, Gluck made a German version of Iphigenia in Tauris and composed several songs. His last work was the psalm De profundis for choir and orchestra, which was performed under the baton of A. Salieri at Gluck's funeral.

Gluck's contribution
In total, Gluck wrote about 40 operas - Italian and French, comic and serious, traditional and innovative. It was thanks to the latter that he secured a firm place in the history of music. The principles of Gluck's reform are outlined in his preface to the edition of the score of "Alcesta" (probably written with the participation of Calzabidgi). They boil down to the following: music must express the content of the poetic text; orchestral ritornellos and, especially, vocal embellishments, which only divert attention from the development of the drama, should be avoided; the overture should anticipate the content of the drama, and the orchestral accompaniment of the vocal parts should correspond to the nature of the text; in recitatives, the vocal-declamatory beginning should be emphasized, that is, the contrast between the recitative and the aria should not be excessive. Most of these principles were embodied in the opera Orpheus, where recitatives with orchestral accompaniment, ariosos and arias are not separated from each other by sharp boundaries, and individual episodes, including dances and choirs, are combined into large scenes with through dramatic development. Unlike the plots of the opera series with their intricate intrigues, disguises and sidelines, the plot of Orpheus appeals to simple human feelings. In terms of skill, Gluck was noticeably inferior to such contemporaries as K. F. E. Bach and J. Haydn, but his technique, for all its limitations, fully met his goals. His music combines simplicity and monumentality, unstoppable energy pressure (as in the "Dance of the Furies" from "Orpheus"), pathos and sublime lyrics.

Possessing also good vocal skills, Gluck sang in the choir of the Cathedral of St. Jakub and played in an orchestra conducted by the largest Czech composer and musical theorist Boguslav Chernogorsky, sometimes went to the vicinity of Prague, where he performed for peasants and artisans.

Gluck attracted the attention of Prince Philipp von Lobkowitz and in 1735 was invited to his Viennese house as a chamber musician; apparently, in the house of Lobkowitz, the Italian aristocrat A. Melzi heard him and invited him to his private chapel - in 1736 or 1737 Gluck ended up in Milan. In Italy, the birthplace of opera, he had the opportunity to get acquainted with the work of the greatest masters of this genre; At the same time, he studied composition under the guidance of Giovanni Sammartini, a composer not so much of an opera as of a symphony; but it was under his leadership, as S. Rytsarev writes, that Gluck mastered the ““modest” but confident homophonic writing”, which was already fully established in Italian opera, while the polyphonic tradition still dominated in Vienna.

In December 1741, Gluck's first opera, the opera seria Artaxerxes, to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio, premiered in Milan. In "Artaxerxes", as in all of Gluck's early operas, the imitation of Sammartini was still noticeable, nevertheless, he was a success, which entailed orders from different cities of Italy, and in the next four years no less successful opera series were created " Demetrius", "Por", "Demophon", "Hypermnestra" and others.

In the autumn of 1745, Gluck went to London, from where he received an order for two operas, but already in the spring of the following year he left the English capital and joined the Mingotti brothers' Italian opera troupe as a second conductor, with whom he toured Europe for five years. In 1751 in Prague he left Mingotti for the post of bandmaster in the company of Giovanni Locatelli, and in December 1752 settled in Vienna. Having become bandmaster of Prince Joseph's Orchestra of Saxe-Hildburghausen, Gluck led his weekly concerts - "academies", in which he performed both other people's compositions and his own. According to contemporaries, Gluck was also an outstanding opera conductor and knew the peculiarities of ballet art well.

In search of musical drama

In 1754, at the suggestion of the manager of the Vienna theaters, Count J. Durazzo, Gluck was appointed conductor and composer of the Court Opera. In Vienna, gradually becoming disillusioned with the traditional Italian opera seria - “opera aria”, in which the beauty of melody and singing acquired a self-sufficient character, and composers often became hostages to the whims of prima donnas, he turned to the French comic opera (“Merlin’s Island”, “ The Imaginary Slave, The Reformed Drunkard, The Fooled Cady, etc.) and even for the ballet: created in collaboration with the choreographer G. Angiolini, the pantomime ballet Don Giovanni (based on the play by J.-B. Molière), a real choreographic drama, became the first incarnation of Gluck's desire to turn the operatic stage into a dramatic one.

In his quest, Gluck found support from the chief intendant of the opera, Count Durazzo, and his compatriot poet and playwright Ranieri de Calzabidgi, who wrote the libretto of Don Giovanni. The next step in the direction of musical drama was their new joint work - the opera Orpheus and Eurydice, in the first edition staged in Vienna on October 5, 1762. Under the pen of Calzabigi, the ancient Greek myth turned into an ancient drama, in full accordance with the tastes of that time; however, neither in Vienna nor in other European cities was the opera successful with the public.

The need to reform the opera seria, writes S. Rytsarev, was dictated by the objective signs of its crisis. At the same time, it was necessary to overcome "the age-old and incredibly strong tradition of opera-spectacle, a musical performance with a well-established separation of the functions of poetry and music" . In addition, the dramaturgy of static was characteristic of the opera seria; it was justified by the “theory of affects”, which suggested for each emotional state - sadness, joy, anger, etc. - the use of certain means of musical expression established by theorists, and did not allow individualization of experiences. The transformation of stereotyping into a value criterion gave rise in the first half of the 18th century, on the one hand, to an endless number of operas, on the other hand, their very short life on stage, on average from 3 to 5 performances.

Gluck in his reformist operas, writes S. Rytsarev, “made the music ‘work’ for the drama not in individual moments of the performance, which was often found in contemporary opera, but throughout its entire duration. Orchestral means acquired effectiveness, a secret meaning, they began to counterpoint the development of events on the stage. A flexible, dynamic change of recitative, aria, ballet and choral episodes has developed into a musical and plot eventfulness, entailing a direct emotional experience.

Other composers also searched in this direction, including in the genre of comic opera, Italian and French: this young genre had not yet had time to petrify, and it was easier to develop its healthy tendencies from the inside than in opera seria. Commissioned by the court, Gluck continued to write operas in the traditional style, generally preferring comic opera. A new and more perfect embodiment of his dream of a musical drama was the heroic opera Alceste, created in collaboration with Calzabidgi in 1767, in its first edition presented in Vienna on December 26 of the same year. Dedicating the opera to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the future Emperor Leopold II, Gluck wrote in the preface to Alceste:

It seemed to me that music should play in relation to a poetic work the same role played by the brightness of colors and correctly distributed effects of chiaroscuro, enlivening the figures without changing their contours in relation to the drawing ... I tried to expel from music all the excesses against which they protest in vain common sense and justice. I believed that the overture should illuminate the action for the audience and serve as an introductory overview of the content: the instrumental part should be conditioned by the interest and tension of the situations ... All my work should have been reduced to the search for noble simplicity, freedom from the ostentatious heap of difficulties at the expense of clarity; the introduction of some new techniques seemed to me valuable insofar as it corresponded to the situation. And finally, there is no such rule that I would not break in order to achieve greater expressiveness. These are my principles.

Such a fundamental subordination of music to a poetic text was revolutionary for that time; in an effort to overcome the number structure characteristic of the then opera seria, Gluck not only combined the episodes of the opera into large scenes, permeated with a single dramatic development, he tied the opera and the overture to the action, which at that time usually represented a separate concert number; in order to achieve greater expressiveness and drama, he increased the role of the choir and orchestra. Neither "Alcesta" nor the third reformist opera to the libretto of Calzabidgi - "Paris and Helena" (1770) did not find support from either the Viennese or the Italian public.

Gluck's duties as court composer also included teaching music to the young Archduchess Marie Antoinette; having become the wife of the heir to the French throne in April 1770, Marie Antoinette invited Gluck to Paris. However, other circumstances influenced the composer's decision to move his activities to the capital of France to a much greater extent.

Glitch in Paris

In Paris, meanwhile, a struggle was going on around the opera, which became the second act of the struggle between the adherents of the Italian opera (“buffonists”) and the French (“anti-buffonists”), which had died down back in the 50s. This confrontation even split the royal family: the French king Louis XVI preferred the Italian opera, while his Austrian wife Marie Antoinette supported the national French. The split also struck the famous Encyclopedia: its editor, D'Alembert, was one of the leaders of the "Italian Party", and many of its authors, led by Voltaire and Rousseau, actively supported the French. The stranger Gluck very soon became the banner of the "French Party", and since the Italian troupe in Paris at the end of 1776 was headed by the famous and popular composer of those years Niccolò Piccinni, the third act of this musical and public polemic went down in history as a struggle between the "gluckists" and "picchinists". In a struggle that seemed to have unfolded around styles, the dispute in reality was about what an opera performance should be - just an opera, a luxurious spectacle with beautiful music and beautiful vocals, or something much more: the encyclopedists were waiting for a new social content, consonant with pre-revolutionary era. In the struggle between the “glukists” and the “picchinists”, which 200 years later already seemed like a grandiose theatrical performance, as in the “war of the buffoons”, according to S. Rytsarev, “powerful cultural layers of aristocratic and democratic art” entered into controversy.

In the early 1970s Gluck's reformist operas were unknown in Paris; in August 1772, the attache of the French embassy in Vienna, François le Blanc du Roullet, brought them to the attention of the public in the pages of the Parisian magazine Mercure de France. The paths of Gluck and Calzabidgi diverged: with the reorientation to Paris, du Roullet became the main librettist of the reformer; in collaboration with him, the opera Iphigenia in Aulis (based on the tragedy by J. Racine), staged in Paris on April 19, 1774, was written for the French public. The success was consolidated, although it caused fierce controversy, the new, French edition of Orpheus and Eurydice.

Recognition in Paris did not go unnoticed in Vienna: if Marie Antoinette granted Gluck 20,000 livres for Iphigenia and the same amount for Orpheus, then Maria Theresa on October 18, 1774 in absentia awarded Gluck the title of “actual imperial and royal court composer” with an annual with a salary of 2000 guilders. Thanking for the honor, after a short stay in Vienna, Gluck returned to France, where at the beginning of 1775 a new version of his comic opera The Enchanted Tree, or the Deceived Guardian (written back in 1759) was staged, and in April, at the Royal Academy music, - a new edition of Alcesta.

The Parisian period is considered by music historians to be the most significant in Gluck's work. The struggle between the “glukists” and the “picchinists”, which inevitably turned into personal rivalry between the composers (which, however, did not affect their relationship), went on with varying success; by the mid-70s, the "French Party" also split into adherents of traditional French opera (J. B. Lully and J. F. Rameau), on the one hand, and Gluck's new French opera, on the other. Willingly or unwittingly, Gluck himself challenged the traditionalists, using for his heroic opera Armida a libretto written by F. Kino (based on the poem Jerusalem Liberated by T. Tasso) for the opera of the same name by Lully. "Armida", which premiered at the Royal Academy of Music on September 23, 1777, was apparently perceived so differently by representatives of various "parties" that even 200 years later, some spoke of a "tremendous success", others of a "failure". » .

Nevertheless, this struggle ended with the victory of Gluck, when on May 18, 1779, his opera “Iphigenia in Tauris” was presented at the Royal Academy of Music (to the libretto by N. Gniyar and L. du Roullet based on the tragedy of Euripides), which is still considered by many to be composer's best opera. Niccolo Piccinni himself acknowledged Gluck's "musical revolution". Even earlier, J. A. Houdon sculpted a white marble bust of the composer with an inscription in Latin: “Musas praeposuit sirenis” (“He preferred the muses to the sirens”) - in 1778 this bust was installed in the foyer of the Royal Academy of Music next to the busts of Lully and Rameau.

Last years

On September 24, 1779, the premiere of Gluck's last opera, Echo and Narcissus, took place in Paris; however, even earlier, in July, the composer was struck by a stroke, which turned into partial paralysis. In the autumn of the same year, Gluck returned to Vienna, which he never left again: a new attack of the disease occurred in June 1781.

During this period, the composer continued his work, begun back in 1773, on odes and songs for voice and piano to the verses of F. G. Klopstock (German. Klopstocks Oden und Lieder beim Clavier zu singen in Musik gesetzt ), dreamed of creating a German national opera based on the plot of Klopstock's "Battle of Arminius", but these plans were not destined to come true. Anticipating his imminent departure, approximately in 1782, Gluck wrote "De profundis" - a small work for a four-part choir and orchestra on the text of the 129th psalm, which was performed on November 17, 1787 at the composer's funeral by his student and follower Antonio Salieri. On November 14 and 15, Gluck experienced three more apoplexy attacks; he died on November 15, 1787, and was originally buried in the church cemetery in the suburb of Matzleinsdorf; in 1890 his ashes were transferred to the Vienna Central Cemetery.

Creation

Christoph Willibald Gluck was a predominantly operatic composer, but the exact number of operas he owned has not been established: on the one hand, some compositions have not survived, on the other hand, Gluck repeatedly remade his own operas. "Musical Encyclopedia" calls the number 107, while listing only 46 operas.

At the end of his life, Gluck said that "only the foreigner Salieri" adopted his manners from him, "because not a single German wanted to learn them"; nevertheless, he found many followers in different countries, each of whom applied his principles in his own way in his own work - in addition to Antonio Salieri, this is primarily Luigi Cherubini, Gaspare Spontini and L. van Beethoven, and later Hector Berlioz, who called Gluck "Aeschylus of Music"; among the closest followers, the composer's influence is sometimes noticeable outside of operatic creativity, as with Beethoven, Berlioz and Franz Schubert. As for the creative ideas of Gluck, they determined the further development of the opera house, in the 19th century there was no major opera composer who, to a greater or lesser extent, would not have been influenced by these ideas; Gluck was also approached by another operatic reformer - Richard Wagner, who half a century later encountered on the opera stage the same "costume concert" against which Gluck's reform was directed. The composer's ideas were not alien to the Russian opera cult - from Mikhail Glinka to Alexander Serov.

Gluck also wrote a number of works for orchestra - symphonies or overtures (in the days of the composer's youth, the distinction between these genres was still not clear enough), a concerto for flute and orchestra (G-dur), 6 trio sonatas for 2 violins and general bass, written by back in the 40s. In collaboration with G. Angiolini, in addition to Don Giovanni, Gluck created three more ballets: Alexander (1765), as well as Semiramide (1765) and The Chinese Orphan - both based on the tragedies of Voltaire.

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Notes

, With. 466.
, With. 40.
, With. 244.
, With. 41.
, With. 42-43.
, With. 1021.
, With. 43-44.
, With. 467.
, With. 1020.
, With. chapter 11.
, With. 1018-1019.
Gozenpud A. A. Opera dictionary. - M.-L. : Music, 1965. - S. 290-292. - 482 p.
, With. 10.
Rosenshield K.K. Affect theory // Musical Encyclopedia (edited by Yu. V. Keldysh). - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1973. - T. 1.
, With. 13.
, With. 12.
Gozenpud A. A. Opera dictionary. - M.-L. : Music, 1965. - S. 16-17. - 482 p.
Cit. by: Gozenpud A. A. Decree. op., p. 16
, With. 1018.
, With. 77.
, With. 163-168.
, With. 1019.
, With. 6:12-13.
, With. 48-49.
, With. 82-83.
, With. 23.
, With. 84.
, With. 79, 84-85.
, With. 84-85.
. Ch. W. Gluck. Gluck-Gesamtausgabe. Forschungsstelle Salzburg. Retrieved December 30, 2015.
, With. 1018, 1022.
Tsodokov E.. Belcanto.ru. Retrieved February 15, 2013.
, With. 107.
. Internationale Gluck-Gesellschaft. Retrieved December 30, 2015.
, With. 108.
, With. 22.
, With. 16.
, With. 1022.

Literature

Markus S. A. Gluck K. V. // Musical encyclopedia / ed. Yu. V. Keldysh. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1973. - T. 1. - S. 1018-1024.
Knights S. Christoph Willibald Gluck. - M .: Music, 1987.
Kirillina L.V. Gluck's reformist operas. - M .: Classics-XXI, 2006. - 384 p. - ISBN 5-89817-152-5.
Konen V.D. Theater and symphony. - M .: Music, 1975. - 376 p.
Braudo E.M. Chapter 21 // General history of music. - M ., 1930. - T. 2. From the beginning of the 17th to the middle of the 19th century.
Balashsha I., Gal D. Sh. Guide to Operas: In 4 volumes. - M .: Soviet sport, 1993. - T. 1.
Bamberg F.(German) // Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. - 1879. - Bd. 9 . - S. 244-253.
Schmid H.(German) // Neue Deutsche Biographie. - 1964. - Bd. 6. - S. 466-469.
Einstein A. Gluck: Sein Leben - seine Werke. - Zürich; Stuttgart: Pan-Verlag, 1954. - 315 p.
Grout D.J., Williams H.W. The Operas of Gluck // A Short History of Opera. - Columbia University Press, 2003. - S. 253-271. - 1030 p. - ISBN 9780231119580.
Lippman E.A. Operatic Aesthetics // A History of Western Musical Aesthetics. - University of Nebraska Press, 1992. - S. 137-202. - 536 p. - ISBN 0-8032-2863-5.

Excerpt characterizing Gluck, Christoph Willibald

“A sacrament, mother, great,” the clergyman answered, running his hand over his bald head, along which lay several strands of combed half-gray hair.
- Who is this? Was he the commander in chief? asked at the other end of the room. - What a youthful! ...
- And the seventh ten! What, they say, the count does not know? Wanted to congregate?
- I knew one thing: I took unction seven times.
The second princess had just left the patient's room with tearful eyes and sat down beside Dr. Lorrain, who was sitting in a graceful pose under the portrait of Catherine, leaning on the table.
“Tres beau,” said the doctor, answering a question about the weather, “tres beau, princesse, et puis, a Moscou on se croit a la campagne.” [beautiful weather, princess, and then Moscow looks so much like a village.]
- N "est ce pas? [Isn't it?] - said the princess, sighing. - So can he drink?
Lorren considered.
Did he take medicine?
- Yes.
The doctor looked at the breguet.
- Take a glass of boiled water and put une pincee (he showed with his thin fingers what une pincee means) de cremortartari ... [a pinch of cremortartar ...]
- Do not drink, listen, - the German doctor said to the adjutant, - that the shiv remained from the third blow.
And what a fresh man he was! the adjutant said. And who will this wealth go to? he added in a whisper.
“The farmer will be found,” the German replied, smiling.
Everyone again looked at the door: it creaked, and the second princess, having made the drink shown by Lorrain, carried it to the patient. The German doctor approached Lorrain.
"Maybe it'll make it to tomorrow morning, too?" the German asked, speaking badly in French.
Lorren, pursing his lips, sternly and negatively waved his finger in front of his nose.
“Tonight, not later,” he said quietly, with a decent smile of self-satisfaction in that he clearly knows how to understand and express the situation of the patient, and walked away.

Meanwhile, Prince Vasily opened the door to the princess's room.
The room was semi-dark; only two lamps were burning in front of the images, and there was a good smell of smoke and flowers. The whole room was set with small furniture of chiffonieres, cupboards, tables. From behind the screens one could see the white bedspreads of a high feather bed. The dog barked.
“Ah, is that you, mon cousin?”
She got up and straightened her hair, which she always, even now, was so unusually smooth, as if it had been made from one piece with her head and covered with varnish.
- What, something happened? she asked. - I'm already so scared.
- Nothing, everything is the same; I just came to talk to you, Katish, about business, - the prince said, wearily sitting down on the chair from which she got up. “How hot you are, however,” he said, “well, sit down here, causons. [talk.]
“I thought, did something happen? - said the princess, and with her unchanging, stonyly stern expression, sat down opposite the prince, preparing to listen.
“I wanted to sleep, mon cousin, but I can’t.
- Well, what, my dear? - said Prince Vasily, taking the hand of the princess and bending it down according to his habit.
It was evident that this "well, what" referred to many things that, without naming, they understood both.
The princess, with her incongruously long legs, dry and straight waist, looked directly and impassively at the prince with bulging gray eyes. She shook her head and sighed as she looked at the icons. Her gesture could be explained both as an expression of sadness and devotion, and as an expression of fatigue and hope for a quick rest. Prince Vasily explained this gesture as an expression of fatigue.
“But for me,” he said, “do you think it’s easier?” Je suis ereinte, comme un cheval de poste; [I'm mortified like a mail horse;] but still I need to talk to you, Katish, and very seriously.
Prince Vasily fell silent, and his cheeks began to twitch nervously, first to one side, then to the other, giving his face an unpleasant expression, which was never shown on the face of Prince Vasily when he was in drawing rooms. His eyes, too, were not the same as always: now they looked insolently jokingly, now they looked around in fright.
The princess, with her dry, thin hands holding the little dog on her knees, looked attentively into the eyes of Prince Vasily; but it was clear that she would not break the silence with a question, even if she had to remain silent until morning.
“You see, my dear princess and cousin, Katerina Semyonovna,” continued Prince Vasily, apparently starting to continue his speech not without internal struggle, “at such moments as now, everything must be thought about. We need to think about the future, about you ... I love you all like my children, you know that.
The princess looked at him just as dull and motionless.
“Finally, we need to think about my family,” Prince Vasily continued, angrily pushing the table away from him and not looking at her, “you know, Katish, that you, the three Mammoth sisters, and even my wife, we are the only direct heirs of the count. I know, I know how hard it is for you to talk and think about such things. And it's not easier for me; but, my friend, I'm in my sixties, I have to be ready for anything. Do you know that I sent for Pierre, and that the count, directly pointing to his portrait, demanded him to himself?
Prince Vasily looked inquiringly at the princess, but could not understand whether she understood what he said to her, or simply looked at him ...
“I do not stop praying to God for one thing, mon cousin,” she answered, “that he would have mercy on him and let his beautiful soul leave this one in peace ...
“Yes, it’s true,” Prince Vasily continued impatiently, rubbing his bald head and again angrily pushing the pushed table towards him, “but, finally ... finally, the point is, you yourself know that last winter the count wrote a will, according to which he all the estate , in addition to the direct heirs and us, gave to Pierre.
- Didn't he write wills! the princess said calmly. - But he could not bequeath to Pierre. Pierre is illegal.
“Ma chere,” Prince Vasily suddenly said, pressing the table to him, perking up and starting to talk more quickly, “but what if the letter is written to the sovereign, and the count asks to adopt Pierre? You see, according to the merits of the count, his request will be respected ...
The princess smiled, the way people smile who think they know a thing more than those they talk to.
“I’ll tell you more,” continued Prince Vasily, grabbing her by the hand, “the letter was written, although not sent, and the sovereign knew about it. The only question is whether it is destroyed or not. If not, then how soon everything will end, - Prince Vasily sighed, making it clear that he meant by the words everything will end, - and the count's papers will be opened, the will with the letter will be handed over to the sovereign, and his request will probably be respected. Pierre, as a legitimate son, will receive everything.
What about our unit? asked the princess, smiling ironically as if anything but this could happen.
- Mais, ma pauvre Catiche, c "est clair, comme le jour. [But, my dear Katish, it's clear as day.] He alone is then the rightful heir to everything, and you won't get any of this. You should know, my dear, were the will and letter written and destroyed, and if for some reason they are forgotten, then you should know where they are and find them, because ...
- It just wasn't enough! the princess interrupted him, smiling sardonically and without changing the expression of her eyes. - I am a woman; according to you we are all stupid; but I know so well that an illegitimate son cannot inherit ... Un batard, [Illegal,] - she added, believing that this translation would finally show the prince his groundlessness.
- How can you not understand, finally, Katish! You are so smart: how can you not understand - if the count wrote a letter to the sovereign, in which he asks him to recognize his son as legitimate, then Pierre will no longer be Pierre, but Count Bezukha, and then he will receive everything according to the will? And if the will with the letter is not destroyed, then you, except for the consolation that you were virtuous et tout ce qui s "en suit, [and everything that follows from this] will have nothing left. That's right.
– I know that the will is written; but I also know that it is not valid, and you seem to consider me a complete fool, mon cousin, ”said the princess with that expression with which women speak, believing that they said something witty and insulting.
“You are my dear Princess Katerina Semyonovna,” Prince Vasily spoke impatiently. - I came to you not to quarrel with you, but to talk about your own interests as with my own, good, kind, true relatives. I tell you for the tenth time that if a letter to the sovereign and a will in favor of Pierre are in the papers of the count, then you, my dear, and with your sisters, are not an heiress. If you don’t believe me, then believe people who know: I just spoke with Dmitri Onufriich (he was the lawyer at home), he said the same thing.
Apparently, something suddenly changed in the thoughts of the princess; thin lips turned pale (the eyes remained the same), and her voice, while she spoke, broke through with such peals as she herself apparently did not expect.
“That would be good,” she said. I didn't want anything and don't want to.
She kicked her dog off her knees and straightened the folds of her dress.
“This is gratitude, this is gratitude to the people who sacrificed everything for him,” she said. - Wonderful! Very good! I don't need anything, prince.
“Yes, but you are not alone, you have sisters,” Prince Vasily answered.
But the princess did not listen to him.
“Yes, I knew this for a long time, but I forgot that, apart from baseness, deceit, envy, intrigues, except ingratitude, the blackest ingratitude, I could not expect anything in this house ...
Do you or don't you know where this will is? asked Prince Vasily with even more twitching of his cheeks than before.
- Yes, I was stupid, I still believed in people and loved them and sacrificed myself. And only those who are vile and vile have time. I know whose intrigues it is.
The princess wanted to get up, but the prince held her by the hand. The princess had the appearance of a man suddenly disillusioned with the whole human race; she glared angrily at her interlocutor.
“There is still time, my friend. You remember, Katish, that all this happened by accident, in a moment of anger, illness, and then forgotten. Our duty, my dear, is to correct his mistake, to ease his last moments by preventing him from committing this injustice, not letting him die thinking that he made those people unhappy ...
“Those people who sacrificed everything for him,” the princess picked up, trying to get up again, but the prince did not let her in, “which he never knew how to appreciate. No, mon cousin,” she added with a sigh, “I will remember that in this world no reward can be expected, that in this world there is neither honor nor justice. In this world, one must be cunning and evil.
- Well, voyons, [listen,] calm down; I know your beautiful heart.
No, I have a bad heart.
“I know your heart,” the prince repeated, “I appreciate your friendship and would like you to have the same opinion about me.” Calm down and parlons raison, [let's talk plainly,] while there is time - maybe a day, maybe an hour; tell me everything you know about the will, and, most importantly, where it is: you must know. We'll take it now and show it to the count. He probably forgot about him already and wants to destroy him. You understand that my one desire is to sacredly fulfill his will; I then just came here. I'm only here to help him and you.
“Now I understand everything. I know whose intrigues it is. I know, - said the princess.
“That is not the point, my soul.
- This is your protegee, [favorite,] your dear Princess Drubetskaya, Anna Mikhailovna, whom I would not want to have a maid, this vile, vile woman.
– Ne perdons point de temps. [Let's not waste time.]
- Oh, don't talk! Last winter she rubbed herself in here and said such nasty things, such nasty things to the count about all of us, especially Sophie - I can’t repeat it - that the count became ill and did not want to see us for two weeks. At this time, I know that he wrote this nasty, vile paper; but I thought this paper meant nothing.
– Nous y voila, [That's the point.] Why didn't you tell me before?
“In the mosaic briefcase he keeps under his pillow. Now I know,” said the princess, without answering. “Yes, if there is a sin for me, a big sin, then it is hatred for this bastard,” the princess almost shouted, completely changed. “And why is she rubbing herself here?” But I will tell her everything, everything. The time will come!

While such conversations were taking place in the reception room and in the princess's rooms, the carriage with Pierre (who was sent for) and Anna Mikhailovna (who found it necessary to go with him) drove into the courtyard of Count Bezukhoy. When the wheels of the carriage sounded softly on the straw laid under the windows, Anna Mikhailovna, turning to her companion with comforting words, convinced herself that he was sleeping in the corner of the carriage, and woke him up. Waking up, Pierre got out of the carriage after Anna Mikhailovna, and then only thought of that meeting with his dying father that awaited him. He noticed that they did not drive up to the front, but to the back entrance. While he was getting off the footboard, two men in bourgeois clothes hurriedly ran away from the entrance into the shadow of the wall. Pausing, Pierre saw in the shadow of the house on both sides several more of the same people. But neither Anna Mikhailovna, nor the footman, nor the coachman, who could not but see these people, paid no attention to them. Therefore, this is so necessary, Pierre decided with himself, and followed Anna Mikhailovna. Anna Mikhailovna with hasty steps walked up the dimly lit narrow stone stairs, calling Pierre, who was lagging behind her, who, although he did not understand why he had to go to the count at all, and still less why he had to go along the back stairs, but , judging by the confidence and haste of Anna Mikhailovna, he decided to himself that this was necessary. Halfway down the stairs they were almost knocked down by some people with buckets, who, clattering with their boots, ran towards them. These people pressed against the wall to let Pierre and Anna Mikhailovna through, and did not show the slightest surprise at the sight of them.
- Are there half princesses here? Anna Mikhailovna asked one of them...
“Here,” the footman answered in a bold, loud voice, as if everything was already possible now, “the door is on the left, mother.”
“Perhaps the count did not call me,” said Pierre, while he went out onto the platform, “I would have gone to my place.
Anna Mikhailovna stopped to catch up with Pierre.
Ah, mon ami! - she said with the same gesture as in the morning with her son, touching his hand: - croyez, que je souffre autant, que vous, mais soyez homme. [Believe me, I suffer no less than you, but be a man.]
- Right, I'll go? asked Pierre, looking affectionately through his spectacles at Anna Mikhailovna.
- Ah, mon ami, oubliez les torts qu "on a pu avoir envers vous, pensez que c" est votre pere ... peut etre a l "agonie." She sighed. - Je vous ai tout de suite aime comme mon fils. Fiez vous a moi, Pierre. Je n "oublirai pas vos interets. [Forget, my friend, what was wrong against you. Remember that this is your father... Maybe in agony. I immediately fell in love with you like a son. Trust me, Pierre. I will not forget your interests.]
Pierre did not understand; again it seemed to him even more strongly that all this must be so, and he obediently followed Anna Mikhaylovna, who had already opened the door.
The door opened into the back entrance. In the corner sat an old servant of the princesses and knitted a stocking. Pierre had never been in this half, did not even imagine the existence of such chambers. Anna Mikhailovna asked the girl who overtook them, with a decanter on a tray (calling her sweetheart and dove) about the health of the princesses and dragged Pierre further along the stone corridor. From the corridor, the first door to the left led to the living rooms of the princesses. The maid, with the decanter, in a hurry (as everything was done in a hurry at that moment in this house) did not close the door, and Pierre and Anna Mikhailovna, passing by, involuntarily looked into the room where, talking, the elder princess and Prince Vasily. Seeing the passersby, Prince Vasily made an impatient movement and leaned back; the princess jumped up and with a desperate gesture slammed the door with all her might, shutting it.
This gesture was so unlike the princess’s usual calmness, the fear expressed on the face of Prince Vasily was so unusual for his importance that Pierre, stopping, inquiringly, through his glasses, looked at his leader.
Anna Mikhailovna did not express surprise, she only smiled slightly and sighed, as if to show that she had expected all this.
- Soyez homme, mon ami, c "est moi qui veillerai a vos interets, [Be a man, my friend, I will look after your interests.] - she said in response to his look and went even faster down the corridor.
Pierre did not understand what was the matter, and even less what it meant veiller a vos interets, [observe your interests,] but he understood that all this should be so. They went down a corridor into a dimly lit hall that adjoined the count's waiting room. It was one of those cold and luxurious rooms that Pierre knew from the front porch. But even in this room, in the middle, there was an empty bathtub and water had been spilled over the carpet. To meet them on tiptoe, paying no attention to them, a servant and a clerk with a censer. They entered the reception room, familiar to Pierre, with two Italian windows, access to the winter garden, with a large bust and a full-length portrait of Catherine. All the same people, in almost the same positions, sat whispering in the waiting room. Everyone, falling silent, looked back at Anna Mikhailovna, who had come in, with her weepy, pale face, and at the fat, big Pierre, who, with lowered head, meekly followed her.
Anna Mikhailovna's face expressed the consciousness that the decisive moment had arrived; she, with the receptions of a businesslike Petersburg lady, entered the room, not letting go of Pierre, even bolder than in the morning. She felt that since she was leading the one whom she wanted to see dying, her reception was assured. With a quick glance at everyone in the room, and noticing the count's confessor, she, not only bending over, but suddenly becoming smaller in stature, swam up to the confessor with a shallow amble and respectfully accepted the blessing of one, then another clergyman.
“Thank God that we had time,” she said to the clergyman, “all of us, relatives, were so afraid. This young man is the son of a count,” she added more quietly. - Terrible moment!
Having spoken these words, she approached the doctor.
“Cher docteur,” she told him, “ce jeune homme est le fils du comte ... y a t il de l "espoir? [this young man is the son of a count ... Is there any hope?]
The doctor silently, with a quick movement, raised his eyes and shoulders. Anna Mikhailovna raised her shoulders and eyes with exactly the same movement, almost closing them, sighed and moved away from the doctor to Pierre. She turned especially respectfully and tenderly sadly to Pierre.
- Ayez confiance en Sa misericorde, [Trust in His mercy,] - she said to him, showing him a sofa to sit down to wait for her, she silently went to the door at which everyone was looking, and following the barely audible sound of this door she disappeared behind her.
Pierre, deciding to obey his leader in everything, went to the sofa, which she pointed out to him. As soon as Anna Mikhaylovna disappeared, he noticed that the eyes of everyone in the room were fixed on him with more than curiosity and sympathy. He noticed that everyone was whispering, pointing at him with eyes, as if with fear and even servility. He was shown respect that had never been shown before: a lady unknown to him, who spoke with clerics, got up from her seat and invited him to sit down, the adjutant picked up the glove dropped by Pierre and gave it to him; the doctors fell silent respectfully as he passed them, and stepped aside to make room for him. Pierre wanted to first sit down in another place, so as not to embarrass the lady, he wanted to pick up his glove himself and go around the doctors, who did not even stand on the road; but he suddenly felt that it would be indecent, he felt that on this night he was a person who was obliged to perform some kind of terrible and expected by all ceremony, and that therefore he had to accept services from everyone. He silently accepted the adjutant's glove, sat down in the lady's place, placing his large hands on symmetrically exposed knees, in the naive pose of an Egyptian statue, and decided to himself that all this should be exactly like that and that he should not to get lost and not to do stupid things, one should not act according to one’s own considerations, but one must leave oneself completely to the will of those who led him.
Less than two minutes later, Prince Vasily, in his caftan with three stars, majestically, carrying his head high, entered the room. He seemed thinner in the morning; his eyes were larger than usual when he looked around the room and saw Pierre. He went up to him, took his hand (which he had never done before) and pulled it down, as if he wanted to test whether it was holding tight.
Courage, courage, mon ami. Il a demande a vous voir. C "est bien ... [Do not lose heart, do not lose heart, my friend. He wished to see you. It's good ...] - and he wanted to go.
But Pierre saw fit to ask:
- How is your health…
He hesitated, not knowing whether it was proper to call a dying man an earl; it was ashamed to call him a father.
- Il a eu encore un coup, il y a une demi heure. There was another blow. Courage, mon ami… [He had another stroke half an hour ago. Cheer up, my friend…]
Pierre was in such a state of vagueness of thought that at the word "blow" he imagined a blow from some body. He, perplexed, looked at Prince Vasily and only then realized that the disease was called a blow. Prince Vasily said a few words to Lorrain as he walked, and went through the door on tiptoe. He could not walk on tiptoe and jumped awkwardly with his whole body. The eldest princess followed him, then the clergy and clerks passed, the people (servants) also went through the door. Movement was heard behind this door, and finally, still with the same pale, but firm face in the performance of duty, Anna Mikhailovna ran out and, touching Pierre's hand, said:
– La bonte divine est inepuisable. C "est la ceremonie de l" extreme onction qui va commencer. Venez. [The mercy of God is inexhaustible. The assembly will begin now. Let's go.]