WHIZZER AND CHIPS
N
ow, bearing in mind that opera has been seen by some as having had its day, Gluck's move is interpreted by some as a kind of 'so what?' move. But not by Gluck. And, to be fair, Gluck had the advantage over some in that he was a traveller. He'd been around, got ideas, nicked ideas: heard styles, nicked styles. He'd also married the daughter of one of the wealthiest bankers in Vienna - for love, you understand - and so could more or less sit back and write what he liked, anyway. And what did he like? Well, he liked realism. He wanted there to be more realism in music - less 'music for music's sake' and more 'this bit of music is meant to sound like this', or 'this section of music is meant to be imitating that'. He'd tried it in a ballet already, based on Moliere's Don Juan, and he'd rather liked it. So he did it again, this time in an opera.
He got his mate, who ran the local lottery, to provide the libretto* and, well, Robert be thine uncle, as they said back then. He had a hit. Audiences had heard nothing quite like it before. It was real humanity on stage, real truth. And it all sounded much more dramatic than anything they'd heard before, mainly because Gluck of the Mildly Amusing Middle Name was trying out new sound effects, if you like, using the full orchestra. The audiences felt they could actually hear the thunder in the music, touch the wrath of the Furies, and almost see the beauty of the Elysian fields. Could opera be a hit, once again? Well, Gluck of the Mildly Amusing Middle Name certainly thought so. And what was this work that made the difference again for opera? Well, would you credit it, it was a reworking of the story that had become more or less the first ever opera hit, back in 1607. It was Orfeo and Euridice.
ORPHEUS IN HIS UNDERPANTS
? rfeo and Euridice - Gluck. La Favola d'Orfeo - Monteverdi.
Orphee aux Enfers - Offenbach. Even Orpheus and Eurydyke -Krenek. It's amazing to see how this story has been constantly recycled. As an opera libretto, it has been used more frequendy than any other and, on at least two occasions, was right there at the forefront of innovation in music. Unsurprising, then, to hear that the story is, of course, all about the 'inventor of music', Orpheus, who recovers his beloved Eurydice from Hades, only to lose her again in the moment fi Hence the now famous tenor love song cIt could be you!3 of reunion. Gluck, interestingly, gave it a happy ending - Amor appears and restores Eurydice to life - in sharp contrast to Monteverdi's tragic denouement, where Orpheus loses Eurydice but, by way of recompense, is transferred to the stars by Apollo. A classic story, making at least three classic operas, in their own ways. In fact, as we're talking about the inventor of music, let's just sit back and take stock a moment.
YOUR NAME NOT BACH?
? ach has now got the job he'd finally been expecting -Kapellmeister to the Heavenly Host: which he would eventually job share with Handel. I imagine Big George would probably have been content to sit out rehearsals as long as there was roast chicken provided - liked his food, our Handel. In their place, Haydn was just beginning to make a name for himself/ Gluck's doing his bit for opera. But what of the time? What of the year? It's 1763. What's going on?
1763, and the generals in the Seven Years War looked at the fourth official and, with no stoppage time to fight, blew the final whistle - the Peace of Paris, as it was called. In England we'd already had Pitt the Elder, we'd just got Pitt the Younger, but the latest thing to hit the news was Pit - the pony. 1763 saw the first use of these sad creatures down the mines.
The travelling music man, Charles Burney^, was thirty-seven and was making Michael Palin look like a couch potato. In France, Rameau has just one year left in him. In Austria, Mozart is seven - no doubt about to retire already. You have to remember that Mozart years are rather like the inverse of dog years. So 'seven' is actually about twenty-one or so, as far as a mere mortal is concerned. Hence, 1» Knowing Haydn, if he were to make a name for himself, it would be out of macrame… not the most exciting man in the world, Haydn. Of course, you didn't hear it from me, OK? fifi Charles Burney was actually a doctor from Shrewsbury, who travelled extensively throughout Europe, writing up his musical experiences into a book, The History of Music. A case of 'right place, right time' made an otherwise minor doctor and music lover a must for anyone with more than a passing interest in the music of the time. -. lie was chucking out music like it was going out of fashion and making I mint with concerts all over Europe.
Elsewhere - and as they say in some very strange places where you have to know Otto to get in - 'Bach is dead, long live the Bachs!' OK, no one actually said that. I made it up. All I mean is that 'Bach' Bach - Johann Sebastian, the big one - is dead. But there are still two other Bachs knocking around, somewhere, keeping the brand name going, as it were. Operating out of England, there's JC Bach - known accurately, if somewhat unspectacularly, as 'The English Bach', while in Germany, there's Carl Phillip Emmanuel, CPE Bach, known as… well, known as CPE Bach, actually. The English Bach is said to have visited London and loved it so much, he bought the company - that is, stayed. He became friends with Gainsborough, went to posh parties, everything. In fact while I'm about it, let me round up that list of the Bachs in full. /5 Bach - Daddy Bach JC Bach - The English Bach (youngest son of above) CPE Bach - The No Nickname Bach (second son of above) LBWBach - The Cricketing Bach © SAS Bach - The Daring Bach © TCP Bach - The Gargling Bach © NCPBach - The 'Oiyou can't park there' Bach® HSBC Bach - The Listening Bach © You see: 1763 -positively dripping with Bachs. But as for the rest of classical music, if I were to step back for a moment, to have a sort of musical 'out of body' experience, what would I see? Well, classical music as we now know it is more or less 'in'. Baroque and rococo are still around, but very 'last year' - or very 'week one', as they say in Big Brother. Going, going, gone is the 'diddle-iddle-iddle-iddle' contrapuntal stuff, and coming up now is a more pared-down sound, albeit with much more intricate forms. Of course, they didn't just happen - 'Yawn… mmm, I think I'd like to invent… a symphony' 'And so you shall!' said the Fairy Godmother, with a PING! and a whoosh - no, they sort of evolved, all Darwinesque. As the Bible would have said: Opera begat the opera overture, opera overture begat the stand-alone overture, the stand-alone overture begat the sinfonia and the sinfonia begat the symphony. After that, well, it was a bit like teams of Arctic explorers all working separately to conquer the pole - all the composers working in different camps, each tweaking a little here, or sticking an idea in there. And not just with regards to the symphony, but about all music. Music as a whole is getting go-faster stripes.
You've got a Bach in England, a Bach in Germany, a Haydn in Austria, and of course, a Gossec in Belgium.
I say, 'You've got a Gossec in Belgium!' Tell you what, nip to the top drawer of the sideboard, get yourself that pen that doesn't really work and leaves inky blotches yet you still keep putting it back in the drawer, and write down the name Gossec. Keep it handy in the kitchen, perhaps on one of those magnet sets based on Michelangelo's David. Then next time you're playing Ten Famous Belgians and you've reached Jean-Claude Van Damme and stopped, run to the fridge, memorize the name between the kitchen and the living room and coolly lob in the grenade 'Francois Joseph Gossec'. Nice.
GOT ANY GOSSEC?
F
rancois Joseph Gossec was a Walloon - what a lovely word: Waaaaalllloooonnnnn. Lovely. And even nicer when spoken like you are winding down. To be precise, Gossec was a Walloon who moved away from Antwerp, where he was a boy soprano, and went to work in France. If you were 'the Music Business' in 1763, then he was 'our man in Paris', developing, in his own special way, his symphonies, his string quartets, and all manner of other stuff. In fact, he was the first real symphony man in France, and he wrote hundreds and hundreds of different and, at the time, important works. But now? Well, now he's remembered pretty much for one work. It's not a symphony, sadly, considering that he was a bit of a pioneer in this area; it's not a string quartet. It's a piddly little piece of flute music called Tam-bourin, the favourite of novice flautists the world over, because it's not too hard and it makes them sound like James Galway for just a few minutes, instead of the soundtrack to the Clangers.