text: a blurring of the distinction between recitative and aria, declamatory and lyrical passages, with altogether less recitative
  accompanied rather than secco recitative
  simpler, more flowing melodic lines
  an overture that is linked by theme or mood to the ensuing action
  Joseph von Sonnenfels praised Gluck's tremendous imagination and the setting after attending a performance of Alceste. In 1769 Gluck performed his operas in Parma.
  On 2 September 1771 Charles Burney visited Gluck, living in Sankt Marx. Burney thought Gluck's preface, in which Gluck gives his “reasons for deviating from the beaten track”, important enough to give it almost in its entirety: "It was my intention to confine music to its true dramatic province, of assisting poetical expression, and of augmenting the interest of the fable; without interrupting the action, or chilling it with useless and superfluous ornaments; for the office of music, when joined to poetry, seemed to me, to resemble that of colouring in a correct and well disposed design, where the lights and shades only seem to animate the figures, without altering the out-line." On 11 September Burney went to see Gluck to say goodbye; Gluck was still in bed, as he used to work in the night.