Gluck English
Christoph Willibald Gluck
1714～1787. A German composer and one of the favorite composers for Vernon Lee. He composed an opera Orfeo ed Euridice, ballet music Don Juan and others. Lee loved especially the former and wrote an essay 'Orpheus and Eurydice,' which is contained in Belcaro. Berlioz and Wagner also loved this opera and were influenced by it.
According to Peter Gunn's biography, during stay in Paris, Lee enjoyed Gluck's Orfeo six times at theatre.
In a short story 'Gods and Ritter Tannhuser,' the music heard in the world of the Olympian Gods is compared to that of Gluck. Vernon Lee classified the music of Gluck into 'Apollonian' music. In 'A Wicked Voice,' the name of Gluck is often mentioned.
In 'Orpheus in Rome' in Althea, Baldwin, a mouthpiece of Vernon Lee, is sick in bed and his friend Donna Maria gives him advice to listen to Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice.
In 'Beauty and Sanity' in Laurus Nobilis, Lee wrote: "Historically, all you know is that Gluck's Orpheusmade our ancestors weep; and that Wagner's Tristram makes our contemporaries sob."
In 'High Up' in Genius Loci, she mentioned Orpheus.
