Gluck, C.W.

Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714 – 1787) was a German composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire, he gained prominence at the Habsburg court at Vienna, where he brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices for which many intellectuals had been campaigning.