The great principles adopted and successfully illustrated by Gluck are best described in his own words, which are taken from the dedication to Alceste, translated in Lady Wallace’s Letters of Distinguished Musicians, other versions appearing in Hogarth’s Musical History, etc.:—
“When I undertook to compose music to Alceste, I proposed entirely to abolish all those abuses introduced by the injudicious vanity of singers, or by the excessive complaisance of masters, which have so long disfigured the...