basis, the trade being handed down from father to son. An interesting phase of the development is that, in addition to the factory work, a large amount of the industry is in the hands of “home workers” both in the town and country districts. Gloversville, settled originally about 1770, was known for some time as Stump City, its present name being adopted in 1832. It was incorporated as a village in 1851 and was chartered as a city in 1890.
GLOW-WORM, the popular name of the wingless female of the beetle Lampyris noctiluca, whose power of emitting light has
been familiar for many centuries. The luminous organs of the
glow-worm consist of cells similar to those of the fat-body,
grouped into paired masses in the ventral region of the hinder
abdominal segments. The light given out by the wingless
female insect is believed to serve as an attraction to the flying
male, whose luminous organs remain in a rudimentary condition.
The common glow-worm is a widespread European and Siberian
insect, generally distributed in England and ranging in Scotland
northwards to the Tay, but unknown in Ireland. Exotic species
of Lampyris are similarly luminous, and light-giving organs are
present in many genera of the family Lampyridae from various
parts of the world. Frequently—as in the south European Luciola
italica—both sexes of the beetle are provided with wings, and both
male and female emit light. These luminous, winged Lampyrids
are generally known as “fire-flies.” In correspondence with their
power of emitting light, the insects are nocturnal in habit.
Elongate centipedes of the family Geophilidae, certain species of which are luminous, are sometimes mistaken for the true glow-worm.
GLOXINIA, a charming decorative plant, botanically a species
of Sinningia (S. speciosa), a member of the natural order Gesneraceae
and a native of Brazil. The species has given rise under
cultivation to numerous forms showing a wonderful variety of
colour, and hybrid forms have also been obtained between these
and other species of Sinningia. A good strain of seed will
produce many superb and charmingly coloured varieties, and
if sown early in spring, in a temperature of 65° at night, they
may be shifted on into 6-in. pots, and in these may be flowered
during the summer. The bulbs are kept at rest through the
winter in dry sand, in a temperature of 50°, and to yield a succession
should be started at intervals, say at the end of February and
the beginning of April. To prolong the blooming season, use
weak manure water when the flower-buds show themselves.
GLUCINUM, an alternative name for Beryllium (q.v.). When
L. N. Vauquelin in 1798 published in the Annales de chimie an
account of a new earth obtained by him from beryl he refrained
from giving the substance a name, but in a note to his paper
the editors suggested glucine, from γλυκύς, sweet, in reference
to the taste of its salts, whence the name Glucinum or Glucinium
(symbol Gl. or sometimes G). The name beryllium was given
to the metal by German chemists and was generally used until
recently, when the earlier name was adopted.
GLUCK,[1] CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD (1714–1787), operatic
composer, German by his nationality, French by his place in art, was born at Weidenwang, near Neumarkt, in the upper Palatinate, on the 2nd of July 1714. He belonged to the lower middle class, his father being gamekeeper to Prince Lobkowitz; but the boy’s education was not neglected on that account. From his twelfth to his eighteenth year he frequented the Jesuit school of Kommotau in the neighbourhood of Prince Lobkowitz’s estate in Bohemia, where he not only received a
good general education, but also had lessons in music. At the age of eighteen Gluck went to Prague, where he continued his musical studies under Czernohorsky, and maintained himself by the exercise of his art, sometimes in the very humble capacity of fiddler at village fairs and dances. Through the introductions
of Prince Lobkowitz, however, he soon gained access to the best
families of the Austrian nobility; and when in 1736 he proceeded
to Vienna he was hospitably received at his protector’s palace.
Here he met Prince Melzi, an ardent lover of music, whom he
accompanied to Milan, continuing his education under Giovanni
Battista San Martini, a great musical historian and contrapuntist,
who was also famous in his own day as a composer of
church and chamber music. We soon find Gluck producing
operas at the rapid rate necessitated by the omnivorous taste
of the Italian public in those days. Nine of these works were
produced at various Italian theatres between 1741 and 1745.
Although their artistic value was small, they were so favourably
received that in 1745 Gluck was invited to London to compose
for the Haymarket. The first opera produced there was called
La Caduta dei giganti; it was followed by a revised version of
one of his earlier operas. Gluck also appeared in London as a
performer on the musical glasses (see Harmonica).
The success of his two operas, as well as that of a pasticcio (i.e. a collection of favourite arias set to a new libretto) entitled Piramo e Tisbe, was anything but brilliant, and he accordingly left London. But his stay in England was not without important consequences for his subsequent career. Gluck at this time was rather less than an ordinary producer of Italian opera. Handel’s well-known saying that Gluck “knew no more counterpoint than his cook” must be taken in connexion with the less well-known fact that that cook was an excellent bass singer who performed in many of Handel’s own operas. But it indicates the musical reason of Gluck’s failure, while Gluck himself learnt the dramatic reason through his surprise at finding that arias which in their original setting had been much applauded lost all effect when adapted to new words in the pasticcio. Irrelevant as Handel’s criticism appears, it was not without bearing on Gluck’s difficulties. The use of counterpoint has very little necessary connexion with contrapuntal display; its real and final cause is a certain depth of harmonic expression which Gluck attained only in his most dramatic moments, and for want of which he, even in his finest works, sometimes moved very lamely. And in later years his own mature view of the importance of harmony, which he upheld in long arguments with Grétry, who believed only in melody, shows that he knew that the dramatic expression of music must strike below the surface. At this early period he was simply producing Handelian opera in an amateurish style, suggesting an unsuccessful imitation of Hasse; but the failure of his pasticcio is as significant to us as it was to him, since it shows that already the effect of his music depended upon its characteristic treatment of dramatic situations. This characterizing power was as yet not directly evident, and it needed all the influence of the new instrumental resources of the rising sonata-forms before music could pass out of what we may call its architectural and decorative period and enter into dramatic regions at all.
It is highly probable that the chamber music of his master, San Martini, had already indicated to Gluck a new direction which was more or less incompatible with the older art; and there is nothing discreditable either to Gluck or to his contemporaries in the failure of his earlier works. Had the young composer been successful in the ordinary opera seria, there is reason to fear that the great dramatic reform, initiated by him, might not have taken place. The critical temper of the London public fortunately averted this calamity. It may also be assumed that the musical atmosphere of the English capital, and especially the great works of Handel, were not without beneficial influence upon the young composer. But of still greater importance in this respect was a short trip to Paris, where Gluck became for the first time acquainted with the classic traditions and the declamatory style of the French opera—a sphere of music in which his own greatest triumphs were to be achieved. Of these great issues little trace, however, is to be found in the works produced by Gluck during the fifteen years after his return from England. In this period Gluck, in a long course of works by no means free from the futile old traditions, gained technical experience and important patronage, though his success was not uniform. His first opera written for Vienna, La Semiramide riconosciuta, is again an ordinary opera seria, and little more can be said of Telemacco, although thirty years later Gluck was able to use most of its overture and an energetic duet in one of his greatest works, Armide.
- ↑ Not, as frequently spelt, Glück.
