himself, and not only gave his young admirer a ticket of admission, but
desired his acquaintance." From this artistic _contretemps_, then, arose
a friendship alike creditable to the goodness and generosity of Gluck,
as it was to the sincerity and high order of Méhul's musical talent.

Gluck's death, in 1787, was caused by overindulgence in wine at a dinner
which he gave to some of his friends. The love of stimulants had grown
upon him in his old age, and had become almost a passion. An enforced
abstinence of some months was succeeded by a debauch, in which he drank
an immense quantity of brandy. The effects brought on a fit of apoplexy,
of which he died, aged seventy-three.

Gluck's place in musical history is peculiar and well marked, he entered
the field of operatic composition when it was hampered with a great
variety of dry forms, and utterly without soul and poetic spirit. The
object of composers seemed to be to show mere contrapuntal learning, or
to furnish singers opportunity to display vocal agility. The opera, as
a large and symmetrical expression of human emotions, suggested in the
collisions of a dramatic story, was utterly an unknown quantity in art.
Gluck's attention was early called to this radical inconsistency; and,
though he did not learn for many years to develop his musical ideas
according to a theory, and never carried that theory to the logical
results insisted on by his great after-type, Wagner, he accomplished
much in the way of sweeping reform. He elaborated the recitative or
declamatory element in opera with great care, and insisted that his
singers should make this the object of their most careful efforts. The
arias, duos, quartets, etc., as well as the choruses and orchestral
parts, were made consistent with the dramatic motive and situations.
In a word, Gluck aimed with a single-hearted purpose to make music the
expression of poetry and sentiment.