soften the dispute and make the two composers friends; so at a
dinner-party, when they were all in their cups, he proposed that they
should compose an opera jointly. This was demurred to; but it was
finally arranged that they should compose an opera on the same subject.

"Iphigenia in Tauris," Gluck's second "Iphigenia," produced in 1779, was
such a masterpiece that his rival shut his own score in his portfolio,
and kept it two years. All Paris was enraptured with this great work,
and Gluck's detractors were silenced in the wave of enthusiasm which
swept the public. Abbé Arnaud's opinion was the echo of the general
mind: "There was but one beautiful part, and that was the whole of it."
This opera may be regarded as the most perfect example of Gluck's
school in making the music the full reflex of the dramatic action. While
Orestes sings in the opera, "My heart is calm," the orchestra continues
to paint the agitation of his thoughts. During the rehearsal the
musician failed to understand the exigency and ceased playing. The
composer cried out, in a rage: "Don't you see he is lying? Go on, go
on; he as just killed his mother." On one occasion, when he was praising
Rameau's chorus of "Castor and Pollux," an admirer of his flattered him
with the remark, "But what a difference between this chorus and that of
your 'Iphigénie'!" "Yet it is very well done," said Gluck; "one is only
a religious ceremony, the other is a real funeral." He was wont to say
that in composing he always tried to forget he was a musician.

Gluck, however, a few months subsequent to this, was so much humiliated
at the non-success of "Echo and Narcissus," that he left Paris in bitter
irritation, in spite of Marie Antoinette's pleadings that he should
remain at the French capital.

The composer was now advanced in years, and had become impatient and