From the Archives: Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck
(Erasbach, 2 July 1714 – Vienna, 15 November 1787)
Christopher Gluck. London: Published by W. Pinnock, 267, Strand, 1 July, 1823.
Line engraving with some stipple by an unidentified engraver. The image was produced as an illustration in The Harmonicon, a magazine by this publisher, with other issues including portraits of Purcell, Haydn, Mozart, Bach, Hummel and Spohr.
Gluck travelled to London 1745 at the request of the King’s Theatre for which he had accepted the request to compose two new operas for the 1746 season, namely La caduta de’ giganti (first performed on 7 January) and Artemene (4 March). Although these works were of little success, with few complete performances given, it was customary in the eighteenth century that audiences heard, in the main, new music. When the Society’s annual fundraising concert that year, on 25 March at the King’s Theatre, was programmed it included the overture and at least three arias from La caduta de’ giganti., works by Handel, an aria by Lampugnani, and extracts from Galuppi’s opera Il Trionfo della continenza. We presume that Handel and Gluck must likely have met on at least this occasion during Gluck’s time in London.
The Harmonicon was published by William Pinnock’s Music Warehouse, in its first 14 months, and then taken on by Samuel Leigh. As a handsomely produced journal it included frontispiece plates of portraits of composers in the first two years, as well as musical pieces in future times, helped by the slightly larger size when compared with a standard book format. Pinnock seems to have parted company with the enterprise of publishing this journal, with Leigh engraving his own frontispiece plates in the second year. As is often the way with periodical publications, and their “ephemeral” observance of the moment, they are digested and destroyed without very many sets surviving the course of time; collectors and interested parties have often removed the portrait plates to keep (rather than whole volumes) and the link with the original published title is severed and often forgotten.
Further reading:
Langley, Leanne, ‘The life and death of The Harmonicon: an analysis’, in Research Chronicle, no.22 (London: Royal Musical Association, 1988), pp.137-163