Gluck was called to Rome the next year, and there he had the news that the stern father was dead.  Accordingly, as soon as he could release himself from his engagements, he hastened back to Vienna—­as Schmid puts it—­“auf dem Fluegeln der Liebe nach Wien zurueck” On the 15th of September, he was married to his Maria Anne, “with whom to his death he dwelt in the happiest wedlock, and who went with him on his triumphal journeys four years later.”  In 1754 the Pope knighted him; made him Cavaliere, and henceforth this once poverty-smitten street fiddler and strolling singer was known as Ritter von Gluck, the friend and protege of his countrywoman, Marie Antoinette.

No children were born to the couple, but they took into their home a niece, and Gluck’s wife devoted much of her time to the poor.

“He left his wife the chief heir.  He even left it to her pleasure whether his brothers and sisters should have anything or not, and said in his will, ’Since the fundamental principle of every testament is the appointment of an heir, I hereby appoint my dear wife, M. Anne von Gluck, nee Pergin, as my sole and exclusive heir; and that no doubts may arise, as to whether the silver and other personal property be mine or my wife’s, I hereby also declare all the silver and other valuables to be the sole property of my wife, and consequently not included in my previous bequests,’”

None of the letters of Gluck, that I have been able to find, concern his married life, though many of them are in existence concerning his operatic warfare.

Burney met him in 1773 in Paris, where he was living with his wife and niece.  In 1775, on his way back home from Paris, he stopped off at Strasburg to meet the poet Klopstock.  D.F.  Strauss quotes a description by a merchant of Karlsruhe of this scene:  “Old Gluck sang and played, con amore, many passages from the ‘Messiah’ set to music by himself; his wife accompanying him in a few other pieces.”  On the 15th of November, 1787, when Gluck was seventy-three years old, he was at his home in Vienna under doctor’s care.  After dinner, it was his custom to take coffee out-of-doors, in the free, fresh air and the golden sunlight, where he used to have his piano placed when he would compose.  Two old friends from Paris had dined with him, and they were soon to leave.  Frau von Gluck left the guests for a moment, to order the carriage.  While she was gone, one of the guests declined the liqueur set before him.  Now Gluck was always addicted to looking upon the champagne when it was yellow; in fact, he used always to have a bottle at each wing of his piano, when he composed, and was wont to end his compositions, his bottles, and his sobriety in one grand Fine.  But now he was forbidden to take wine, for fear of heating his blood.