Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/719

This page needs to be proofread.
GLU—GLU
695

composer, and no notice need be taken of the few works belonging to a different sphere. In connexion with its dramatic purpose his music ought always to be judged. He never was a great contrapuntist in the sense that Bach and Handel were. But neither was there much room for polyphonous display in the music-drama as he understood it. The chorus of Scythians in the second Ip/e-igenia (“Il nous falloit du sang ”) would not gain in effect if it contained an elaborate fugue. This and other choruses in the same great work at the same time illustrate (lluck’s power of rendering musically national as well as individual characteristics. As a masterly trait of psycho- logical characterization may further be cited the accompani- ment to Orestes’s air, also in [pic-igénie en Taurz'dc (“Le calme rentre dans mon coeur ”), where the unfortunate man in vain tries to find relief from the pangs of conscience, distinctly heard in the unceasing semiquavers of the orchestral accompaniment. The severe censure passed on Gluck for drowning the voices by the instruments posterity has converted into one of the composer’s highest claims to fame. N 0t only has Gluck developed the orchestra as re- gards mere beauty and volume of sound, but he also has made it an important factor in the dramatic organism. Instances from the second I plufgénie alone might again be multiplied. The savage Scythians, for instance, are charac- terized by the noise of brass and percussion; while Iphi- génie's simple prayer is accompanied by the strings and two oboes. The care bestowed by Gluck upon a correct and emphatic declamation of the words is another important point in his dramatic reform. Readers interested in the matter will have noticed the striking parallelism between the views and aims advocated by Gluck in the 18th century and by Wagner in the 19th century—a parallelism which may be extended to the bitter animadversions evoked by these theories amongst contemporary critics. The means, however, by which the theories were to be realized are very different in the two cases. Gluck’s reform is essen- tially directed against the encroachments of the singer; \Vagner’s against those of the composer as an independent artist. Gluck, it is true, felt the necessity of a perfect unity between music and poetry, but he never intended to bring about this desirable effect by surrendering any of the strict forms of his own art. The consequence was that the poet was more than over bound to adapt his work to the demands of the composer, and that the latter remained practically the omnipotent ruler on the operatic stage. Wagner at last has made dramatic purpose the supreme consideration to which the forms of music, as a separate

art, have to submit.


An altogether satisfactory biography of Gluck remains still to be written. “'ith regard to the life, Anton Sehmid’s 0hr. IV. Ri‘ltcr Ton Gluck may be consulted. Herr Marx, in his Gluck and (lie Opera, has attempted to define the composer’s position in the history of dramatic music. M. Desnoircsterres’s Gluck ct Picciml refers to the most important portion of the composer’s career. For it must always be remembered that Gluek, although a German by birth, belongs as an artist to France rather than to his native country. His works form as it were the musical complement to the tragedy of Corncille and Racine. In France he was first appre- ciated, and in France also his traditions were continued by a school of highly gifted composers.

(f. h.)

GLÜCKSTADT, a town of Prussia, in the province of Schleswig-Holstein, is situated on the right bank of the Elbe, where it receives the small river Rhin, and on the railway from Itzehoe to Elmshorn, 28 miles N. W. of Altona. It has a Protestant and a Catholic church, a synagogue, a gymnasium, a provincial prison, and a provincial penitenti- ary. The inhabitants are chiefly engaged in commerce and fishing; but the frequent losses from inundations have greatly retarded the prosperity of the town. It suffers at the same time from a very deficient water supply for culinary purposes.


Gliiekstadt was founded by Christian IV. of Denmark in 1616, and fortified in 1620. It was formerly the seat of the royal dukes of Schlcswig-Holstein, who assumed from it the name of Holstein- Gliiekstadt. In 1627–8 it was besieged for fifteen weeks by Tilly, without success. In 1814 it was blockadcd by the allies and capitu- lated, whereupon its fortifications were demolished. In 1830 it was made a frce. port. It came into the posseSsion of Prussia along with the rest of Schleswig-Holstein in 1866. The population in 1875 was 5031.

GLUCOSE, a species of sugar, on the chemical and other properties and the occurrence and manufacture of which see articles Chemistry, vol. v. pp. 564, 572; Dextrin and Diabetes, vol. vii. pp. 146, 147; Fermentation, vol. ix. pp. 93, 94, 96, 97; Gallic Acid, vol. x. p. 413 and Sugar.

GLUE. See Gelatin.

GLUKHOFF, or Gluchow, as the name is transliterated in German, a town of Russia, at the head of a district in the government of Tchernigoff, 132 miles E. of Tchernigoff in 51° 54’ N. lat. and 33° 35' E. long., on the highway between Moscow and Kieff. It is situated on the sloping banks of the Yasmin, a subtributary of the Desna, which in its turn unites with the Dnieper. Among its buildings are eleven churches and two Jewish meeting-houses, a district school, an almshouse, and a hospital. In 1860 its population, mainly engaged in agricultural pursuits and petty commerce, amounted to 10,008, of whom 4998 were males; in 1873 it was 10,747 ; and according to the St Pctersbmy Calendar for 1878, it has increased to 13,398. The Jews in 1860 numbered 2517. About 4 miles from the town, near the village of Poloshek, there exists an extensive deposit of white clay, which supplies nearly all the porcelain factories in Russia. Glukhoff is mentioned in the Laurentian Chronicle as early as 1152. For some time it was in the hands of a branch of the ducal family of Tchernigofi', which retired before the encroachments of the Tartars in the middle of the 13th century. Before its final incorporation with Russia, it passed under the sway first of the Lithuanians and then of the Poles. On the destruction of Baturin by Peter I. in 1708, it was made the residence of the hetmans.

GLUTEN, a tough, tenacious, ductile, somewhat elastic,

nearly tasteless, and greyish-yellow albuminous substance, obtained from the flour of wheat by washing in water, in which it is insoluble. In Martin’s apparatus for the pre- paration of gluten on the large scale, balls of dough are worked backwards and forwards in troughs by means of cylinders, whilst water plays upon them in fine jets delivered by copper pipes. A sack of flour may be thus made to yield about 110 lb of moist gluten, and twice that quantity of dry starch. Good samples of white English wheat con- tain some 10 or 11 per cent. of gluten 3 from hard Venezuela wheat as much as 2275 per cent. has been pro- cured. The outer and inner coats of wheat, separated from it as bran, contain respectively 4 or 5 and 14 to 20 per cent. of gluten. Gluten, when dried, loses about two-thirds of its weight, becoming brittle and semi-transparent ; when strongly heated it crackles and swells, and burns like feather or horn. It is soluble in strong acetic acid, and in caustic alkalies, which latter may be used for the purification of starch in which it is present. \Vhen treated with '1 to '2 per cent. solution of hydrochloric acid it swells up, and at length forms a liquid resembling a solution of albumin, and lzevorotatory as regards polarized light. Moistened with water and exposed to the air gluten putrefies, and evolves carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and sulphuretted hydrogen, and in the end is almost entirely resolved into a liquid, which contains leucin and ammonium phosphate and acetate. On analysis gluten shows a composition of about 53 per cent. of carbon, 7 per cent. of hydrogen, and nitrogen 15 to 18 per cent, besides oxygen, and about 1 per cent. of sulphur,

and a small quantity of inorganic matter. It is not a