uck was forty-eight when he wrote "Orpheus," and fifty-three when
"_Alceste_" appeared.

Galled by the criticisms of his countrymen, and encouraged by the
friendship of the French ambassador, Gluck now went to Paris, where
his operas were presently brought out, but with the same varying favor
as at home. Marie Antoinette, who had been his pupil, befriended him
and granted him a pension of 6,000 francs. Thus supported, he brought
out still another grand opera in the French language, "_Iphigenie en
Aulide_," produced at Paris in 1774. In this work classical severity
was scrupulously observed, and the opera is full of telling points of
dramatic musical coloration. In "_Armide_," 1777, he endeavored to
show that he was equally at home in richly conceived sensuous music,
and succeeded so well that the famous controversy was precipitated
with the Italian composer, Piccini, who had just arrived in Paris,
preparatory to bringing out his opera of "Roland." Volumes were
written in praise of Italian music, and in disparagement of the
roughnesses of that of Gluck. On the other hand, the friends of Gluck
stood up for him manfully, and the contest raged fiercely--with the
usual result of thoroughly advertising the music of both. Gluck's last
opera for Paris was "_Iphigenie en Tauride_," 1779, the same subject
already having been treated by his rival Piccini. The superiority of
Gluck's was incontestable. He died at Vienna, of apoplexy, November
15, 1787.

Gluck's place in art has been well summed up by Padre Martini, and the
opinion is all the more worthy of attention from the general charge of
Gluck's enemies that his music had overturned the traditions of pure
Italian art. He says: "All the finest qualities of Italian, and many
of those of French music, with the great beauties of the German
orchestra, are united in his work." This is tantamount to crediting
Gluck with having created a cosmopolitan music--which is precisely the
position which posterity has assigned him. For the time when he wrote,
his music is wonderfully fine. It still retains its vitality, as has
been vividly shown in several revivals of his "Orpheus" within recent
years, in two of which (in America and in Italy) the American prima
donna, Mme. Helene Hastreiter, has nobly distinguished herself.

The third force alluded to at the outset of the chapter, as having
been mainly influential in German opera during the eighteenth century
(and until our own time, it migh