258 



GLUCINUM 



GLUCK 



and a considerable trade in grain. In the vicinity 

 is the chief source for porcelain clay in the empire. 

 Pop. (1880) 16,440; (1895) 17,369. 



Glucinum, or BERYLLIUM ( syrn. Gl., eq. 9-4), is 

 a metal with a specific gravity of 2'1. It is white, 

 malleahle, and fusible Ibelow the melting-point of 

 silver. It does not burn in air, oxygen, or sulphur, 

 but in the first two substances it becomes covered 

 with a thin coat of oxide. It combines readily 

 with chlorine, iodine, and silicon. Even when 

 heated to redness, it does not decompose water. 

 It dissolves readily in hydrochloric and sulphuric 

 acids, and in a solution of potash, but is insoluble 

 in ammonia, and only slightly acted on by nitric 

 acid. Glucinum was first obtained from glucina by 

 Wohler in 1827, who procured it by decomposing 

 the chloride of glucimun, obtained by evaporating 

 a solution of glucina in hydrochloric acid. Debray 

 afterwards (1854) obtained it much more abun- 

 dantly by a method similar to that employed by 

 Sainte-Claire Deville for the reduction of alu- 

 minium. The name glucinum or glycinum (from 

 the Gr. glukus or glykys, ' sweet ' ) was given to the 

 metal on account of the taste of its salts. 



Glucina, G1O, the one oxide formed by glucinum, 

 is an earth obtained by Vauquelin in 1797 from the 

 emerald, and which was afterwards found in the 

 beryl and a few minerals. Glucina is a white, 

 loosely coherent powder, without taste or smell. 

 When heated to the strongest temperature of a 

 wind furnace it assumes the form of microscopical 

 prisms resembling corundum. Glucina is perfectly 

 insoluble in water, and only dissolves in dilute acids 

 when it has not been ignited strongly. It is easily 

 soluble in boiling concentrated sulphuric acid, and 

 if fused with an alkali, and the cold mass treated 

 with water, the glucina goes into solution. Gluci- 

 num hydroxide, G1(OH) 2 , is thrown down as a 

 gelatinous precipitate when a glucinum salt is pre- 

 cipitated with ammonia. Glucinum forms salts 

 with the various acids ; they are colourless, and 

 much resemble those of aluminium. The mineral 

 phenakite is a pure silicate of glucina. The beryl, 

 of which the emerald is a variety, is a double 

 silicate of glucina and alumina. The mineral 

 euclase is also a double silicate of the same earths ; 

 while the chrysoberyl is an aluminate of glucina, 

 coloured with ferric oxide. 



CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD, HITTER VON, 

 the reformer of opera, and the first great name 

 among modern opera writers, was born 2d July 

 1714, at Weidenwang, a small village of Bavaria, 

 24 miles N. of Ingolstadt. His mother, like 

 those of Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert, seems 

 to have been a cook ; his father had been one 

 of those German free-lances who sold their mili- 

 tary service to the highest bidder during the 

 troublous times of the Marlborough campaigns, 

 and now, tired of fighting, had taken service under 

 various princelets in the capacity of forester. 

 Gluck had given no indication that music was to 

 be anything more to him than a favourite recrea- 

 tion, until at Prague University he found him- 

 self forced to supplement a very scanty allowance 

 by teaching music ; and at the age of twenty-two 

 the call of art had become so imperative that he 

 decided to try his fortune among the musicians of 

 Vienna. There the good offices of his patron 

 Prince Lobkowitz, and the friendship he contracted 

 with Count Melzi, another noble amateur, were of 

 great service to him. He was introduced to the 

 best society and placed for four years under the 

 famous Sammartini (or San-Martini), the prede- 

 cessor of Haydn, and a composer of great energy 

 and originality. In 1741 he received a commission 

 for his first opera, Artaserce (in one act), and six 

 others followed in the succeeding four years. The 



growing fame of the young composer travelled as 

 far as England, and in 1745 Lord Middlesex, the 

 enthusiastic operatic entrepreneur, invited him to 

 London, when a new opera, La Caduta de 1 Giganti, 

 was performed. Handel, an autocrat at that time 

 in London, pronounced the stranger's music 'de- 

 testable,' and declared ' he knows no more about 

 counterpoint than my cook.' Gluck's London visit 

 must be called the turning-point in his career. 

 His study of Handel's work revealed to him some 

 unsuspected capabilities of music in illustrating the 

 text ; and the complete failure of Piramo ea 

 Tisbe, a miserable pasticcio, or collection of shreds 

 and patches from various sources, and dignified by 

 the name of opera, turned his thoughts to the con- 

 sideration of truths which, however unsuited or 

 antagonistic to the demands of popular taste and 

 usual practice, lie deep down at the foundation of 

 all dramatic art. A visit to Paris gave him an 

 opportunity of hearing the excellent ' recitative ' 

 writing of Rameau, and thus inspired him anew for 

 his great mission ; and when in 1746 he left London 

 for Vienna by Hamburg and Dresden, noting 

 doubtless in these great opera schools more to avoid 

 and more to strive after, we may say that his first 

 period of work was completed. 



The next opera he contributed to the Vienna 

 stage shows signs of the direction in which his 

 ideal was tending, and some of the music in 

 Telemaco (produced in Rome, 1750) and La Clem- 

 enza de Tito (Naples, 1751) he afterwards con- 

 sidered good enougn to be incorporated in Armide 

 and Iphigenie ; but the transition period during 

 which in 1755 or 1756 the pope made him a 

 ' knight of the Golden Spur ' has not much 

 of interest to offer. The light and frivolous 

 Metastasio held as it were a monopoly in Vienna 

 as librettist, and his plots were more suited to 

 the kindred genius of Hasse than to that of the 

 serious reformer. Gluck turned to Calzabigi, 

 imperial councillor and well-known literary ama- 

 teur, and in 1762, after much ruthless digging 

 among the rubbish of Italian opera to provide a 

 firm foundation, he succeeded triumphantly in lay- 

 ing the corner-stone of the modern music drama in 

 Orfeo, with the notable title, ' Dramma per Musica.' 

 Constant collaboration with the librettist was of 



great assistance to both in the production of a co- 

 erent organic whole. This work was followed in 

 1766 by Alceste, with a simple pathetic plot, and 

 even more severely classical than its predecessor in 

 libretto and treatment. The letter of dedication to 

 the Duke of Tuscany, which was printed as a pre- 

 face, at once explains his theories and proclaims 

 the careful and logical thought which led him to 

 adopt them. 



Tne standard of ideal opera was still further 

 advanced in Paride ed Elenna ( 1769), the last work 

 written for Vienna before he entered on his brilliant 

 career in Paris. The popularity of the dauphiness, 

 who as Marie Antoinette had been his pupil in 

 Vienna, was of great assistance to Gluck in his 

 attempt to establish himself on the then premier 

 opera stage of Europe. His first work there, Iphi- 

 genie en Aulide, on Racine's play, proved an enor- 

 mous success, and Orphee, an adaptation of his 

 earlier Orfeo, stirred the utmost enthusiasm among 

 the rapidly increasing number of his supporters. 

 The French version of Alceste, though received 

 coldly at first, became quite as popular. Gluck was 

 at the summit of his success when the storm broke 

 the famous Gluck and Piccini war began. An eye 

 to business more probably than the usual charge of 

 jealousy seems to have been the motive for inviting 

 the well-known Italian composer Piccini to Paris 

 and pitting him directly against Gluck. Musical 

 Paris was immediately and sharply divided into 

 Gluckists and Piccinists. The comparative failure 



