To see how the appearance of the lusty hero in the halls of
woe can heighten the tragic interest by the sheer force of contrast, we
must turn to the 'Alcestis' of Euripides, where the death of Alcestis
and the strange conflict of Hercules with Death is treated with just
that touch of mystery and unearthliness which is absent from the
libretto which Gluck was called upon to set. Of the music of 'Alceste,'
its passion and intensity, it is impossible to speak too highly. It has
pages of miraculous power, in which the deepest tragedy and the most
poignant pathos are depicted with unfaltering certainty. It is strange
to think by what simple means Gluck scaled the loftiest heights.
Compared with our modern orchestra the poverty of the resources upon
which he depended seems almost ludicrous. Even in the vocal part of
'Alceste' he was so careful to avoid anything like the sensuous beauty
of the Italian style, that sometimes he fell into the opposite extreme
and wrote merely arid rhetoric. Yet he held so consistently before him
his ideal of dramatic truth, that his music has survived all changes of
taste and fashion, and still delights connoisseurs as fully as on the
day it was produced. 'Paride ed Elena,' Gluck's next great work, shows
his genius under a more lyrical aspect. Here he gives freer reign to the
romanticism which he had designedly checked in 'Alceste,' and much of
the music seems in a measure to anticipate the new influences which
Mozart was afterwards to infuse into German music.
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