Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck (German: Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck, July 2, 1714, Erasbach - November 15, 1787, Vienna) is a German composer, mainly opera, one of the largest representatives of musical classicism. Gluck's name is associated with the reform of Italian opera-seria and French lyrical tragedy in the second half of the 18th century, and if the works of Gluck the composer were not always popular, the ideas of Gluck the reformer determined the further development of the opera theater.

Christoph Willibald Gluck was a composer of mainly operas, but the exact number of operas belonging to him has not been established: on the one hand, some compositions have not survived, on the other hand, Gluck repeatedly redid his own operas. "Musical Encyclopedia" calls the number 107, while listing only 46 operas

In 1930, E. Braudo regretted that Gluck's "true masterpieces", both of his "Iphigeneia", had now completely disappeared from the theater repertoire. However, in the middle of the 20th century, interest in the composer's work revived, and his operas "Orpheus and Eurydice", "Alcesta", "Iphigenia in Avlis", "Iphigenia in Tauris" have not left the stage for many years and have an extensive discography, even more popular symphonic fragments from his operas are used, which long ago found an independent life on the concert stage. In 1987, the International Glyukovskoe Society was founded in Vienna to study and promote the composer's work.

At the end of his life, Gluck said that "only a foreigner of Saliera" adopted his manners from him, "because no German wanted to learn them"; nevertheless, he had many followers in different countries, each of whom in his own way applied his principles in his own work - in addition to Antonio Saliera, these were first of all Luigi Cherubina, Gaspare Spontina and L. van Beethoven, and later Hector Berlioz, who called Glyuka "Aeschylus of Music"; among his closest followers, the composer's influence is sometimes noticeable even outside of opera, as in Beethoven, Berlioz, and Franz Schubert. As for Glück's creative ideas, they determined the further development of the opera theater, in the 19th century there was no major opera composer who did not experience the influence of these ideas to a greater or lesser extent; another opera reformer, Richard Wagner, approached Glück, who half a century later encountered the same "costumed concert" on the opera stage, against which Glück's reform was directed. The composer's ideas turned out to be no stranger to Russian opera culture either, from Mikhail Glinka to Alexander Serov.

Gluck also composed a number of compositions for orchestra - symphony or overture (at the time of the composer's youth, the distinction between these genres was not yet clear enough), concerto for flute with orchestra (G-dur), 6 trio sonatas for 2 violins and bass-general, written back in the 40s. In partnership with G. Anjolina, in addition to "Don Juan", Gluck created three more ballets: "Alexander" (1765), as well as "Semiramis" (1765) and "The Chinese Orphan" - both based on Voltaire's tragedies.