Gluck: Briefe and Dokumente

Description

Christoph Willibald Gluck's work as an opera composer on a European scale was accompanied by a lively correspondence, where the composer cultivated his artistic network and maintained contact with the decision-makers of the aristocracy. Gluck was active in Italy, England, Denmark, Bohemia, Saxony, the Habsburg heartland of Austria and France. Due to the dynastic relationships forged by Empress Maria Theresa's marriage policy, he became Vienna's artistic ambassador in the royal capitals of Paris, Parma and Naples. Furthermore, in the course of the national theatre aspirations of the German-speaking regions, intellectuals, literary figures and theatre people approached Gluck to interest him in relevant music theatre projects or to enter into intellectual exchanges. in addition to this business and artistic correspondence, the composer is also known to have cultivated letterwriting with his family.

Unfortunately, only a fraction of the presumably once extensive corpus of letters addressed to Gluck and written by him has survived. His written legacy, consisting of his music, correspondence and documents (certificates, contracts, etc.) relating to his life and work, fell victim to the Napoleonic Wars after his death. Only officially archived documents found in public hands or in the private possession of third parties were able to survive the times.

In this volume, all letters and selected documents on Gluck's life and work known to scholars, whether in the original or as copies, are reproduced for the first time in their original language (German, French or Italian), annotated in detail and thus made available to a wide readership.