is career, as Clara Wieck
did Robert Schumann, but in the cultivated atmosphere of the court he
found one woman who afterward aided him with all the force of her rank
and influence,--his pupil, Marie Antoinette, the future Queen of France.

Even at Vienna Gluck was planning the reforms in opera that were to
banish the prevailing vocal inanities from the stage, and make his name
immortal. He did not minimize the beauty of contemporary operatic music,
but claimed that it consisted merely of a set of conventional arias and
scenas, and that the music did not in any way emphasize or illustrate
the meaning of the words. As in the well-known sextet from "Lucia,"
which divides the sheep from the goats in our own day, the character of
the music was often directly at variance with the spirit of the words.
His memorable production of "Orfeo," though not remodelling the world at
a single stroke, won a full triumph, and showed all music lovers the
force of the new theories.

[Illustration: MARIE ANTOINETTE]

It was the French attache, Du Rollet, actuated by a sincere admiration
of the Vienna master's works, who first proposed to have Gluck come to
Paris. One of the directors of the Royal Academy of Music, to whom Du
Rollet addressed himself, made the matter public in France, but did not
reply. After some time Gluck himself renewed the agitation for a
hearing, with no better results. That his work was understood is shown
by a note from the Academy to Du Rollet, wherein one of the directors
promises to accept Gluck's opera if he will contract to furnish six
more; for one such work would overthrow all the French operas produced
up to that time. Finding the directors unable to come to a decision,
Gluck appealed directly to the Dauphine Marie Antoinette, who gave the
necessary orders, removed all difficulties, and invited Gluck to the
city where she was to be his faithful friend and patroness through all
struggles and trials.

Of the success of Gluck in Paris, this is hardly the place to speak.
Through all the intrigues of his musical enemies, the queen remained a
firm adherent of the new school. The contest was long and fierce.
Singers left or pleaded some excuse at the last moment; rival composers
produced opera after opera in hope of eclipsing him; critics, for and
against, entered into a protracted war of words and wit; and finally
Gluck's opponents, under the lead of Madame Du Barry, brought in the
Italian Piccini, with the avow