ld masters. As a matter of fact, the deviations which, in
performance, are sometimes made from the printed edition of a musical
composition, arise from a variety of causes.

One of these is the discrepancy that exists between various editions
of the same work; and sometimes the confusion is complicated by
different versions having been prepared by the composer himself. This
is notably the case with Gluck's _Orphee_, first written to an Italian
libretto by Calzabigi and produced at Vienna. When Marie Antoinette
called her former Viennese singing-master, Gluck, to Paris, she gave
him an opportunity of displaying his genius by facilitating the
production of his _Iphigenie en Aulide_ at the Opera, in 1774. Its
enthusiastic reception recalled to the composer the like success which
had attended the production of his _Orfeo_ at Vienna. He immediately
set to work to revise it for the Paris Opera, and fit it to a new
French text, the latter supplied him by Moline.[2]

[Footnote 2: Sir George Grove, in the "Dictionary of Music and
Musicians," P. 611, says that the French text is by _Moliere_! This is
a self-evident error.]

But the title-role in the original Italian version was written for,
and sung by, Guadagni, an artificial contralto (_contralto musico_).
In its newer French dress the part was transposed and rearranged for
the tenor Legros; who, judging from the extreme altitude of the
_tessitura_ employed, must have possessed either a _haute-contre_, or
a very high light-tenor voice, and who may have employed the falsetto.
This high _tessitura_, combined with the fact that the pitch has risen
considerably since it was composed, renders the French version
impracticable for tenors of the present day. Here are the concluding
bars of the famous air as written in the original Italian version, and
the same phrase as altered by Gluck, when produced in Paris.

[Music: "Che faro senz' Euridice?"

Dove andro? Che faro? Dove andro senza il mio ben?

(As originally written by Gluck for the Italian version, Vienna.)]

[Music: "J'ai perdu mon Eurydice"

Sort cruel, quelle rigueur! Je succombe a ma douleur, a ma douleur, a
ma douleur!

(As altered by Gluck for Paris; sung by the tenor Legros. From a
manuscript copy, Bibliotheque de l'Opera.)]

[Music: "J'ai perdu mon Eurydice"

Sort cruel, quelle rigueur! Je succombe a ma douleur, a ma douleur, a
ma douleur!

(As sung by Mme. Viardot-Garcia, Theatre-Lyrique, Paris; the part