Who was Christoph Willibald Gluck?
(Jul 2, 1714-Nov. 15, 1787) Waking up with a throbbing headache is not fun. Though I was informed that barometric pressure causes a lot of discomfort for those headache sufferers. Do composers get headache like the rest of us? I wonder if my featured composer ever had a headache. Composers in general should be free from headaches since music is one thing that tranquilizes emotions. Music expresses emotions that are beyond speech. Bohemian composer, Christoph Willibald Gluck achieved an important reform of serious opera in the mid-18th century, paring back the excesses of Baroque vocal style in favor of a purer, more direct melding of words and music. He was the son and grandson of gamekeepers in the employ of the Lobkowitz family, large landowners in what is today northeastern Bavaria, bordering the Czech Republic. As a child, he studied music in school and learned to sing and play the violin and cello; one early account of his life claims that rather than acquiesce to his father’s wis
