Christoph Willibald Gluck - Early Years

Early Years

Gluck was born in Erasbach (now a district of Berching, Bavaria) the first of six surviving children. His father, Alexander Johannes, came from a long line of foresters, and married Gluck's mother, Maria Walburga, in about 1711. During 1717 the family moved to Bohemia, where the father became head forester in the service of Prince Philipp Hyazinth von Lobkowitz in 1727. According to J. C. von Mannlich, who shared rooms with Gluck in Paris, it was as a Bohemian schoolboy that Gluck received his first musical training, both as a singer in the church choir and by learning. Gluck later wrote:

My father was a head forester in in Bohemia and he had brought me up to follow in his footsteps. At that time music was all the rage. Unfortunately, inflamed with a passion for this art, I soon made astounding progress and was able to play several instruments. My whole being became obsessed with music and I left all thoughts of a forester's life behind."

A childhood flight from home to Vienna is included in several contemporary accounts of Gluck's life, including Mannlich's, but recent scholarship has cast doubt on Gluck's picturesque tales of earning food and shelter by his singing as he travelled. Most now claim that, if this incident happened at all, it occurred later, and the object of Gluck's journeying was not Vienna but Prague, and connected to his studies at the University of Prague, where according to early biographies he began studying logic and mathematics in 1731. At that time the University boasted a flourishing musical scene that included performances of both Italian opera and oratorio. Gluck eventually left Prague without taking a degree, and vanishes from the historical record until 1737, a possible year (likely to have been 1736) in Vienna apart.