The fictional writings of Johann Peter Burmeister-Lyser have largely been ignored by musicologists because of their historical inaccuracies and questionable literary quality. Yet when we examine his story « Gluck in Paris » within the cultural context of the Biedermeier period in which it was written, it becomes evident that the work alludes to and reitereates many of the themes running throughout the reception of Christoph Gluck from the 1820s to the 1840s. Lyser, along with other German and French writers, manipulates and appropriates Gluck’s biography and his role in the Querelle des Gluckistes et des Piccinnistes in order to portray a German composer bent on the transformation of French opera. Ultimately « Gluck in Paris » reveals as much about the author and his culture as it does about Gluck.

2011

Les Lumières et la culture musicale européenne :

C.W. Gluck

Eric Schneeman

University of Southern California

"Gluck in Paris" :Johann Peter Burmeister-Lyser and the Reception of Christoph Gluck in the Biedermeier Period