GLAZUNOV, ALEXANDER CONSTANTINOVICH (1865- ), Russian musical composer, was born in St Petersburg on the 10th of August 1865, his father being a publisher and bookseller. He showed an early talent for music, and studied for a year or so with Rimsky-Korsakov. At the age of sixteen he composed a symphony (afterwards elaborated and published as op. 5), but his opus 1 was a quartet in D, followed by a pianoforte suite on S-a-c-h-a, the diminutive of his name Alexander. In 1884 he was taken up by Liszt, and soon became known as a composer. His first symphony was played that year at Weimar, and he appeared as a conductor at the Paris exhibition in 1889. In 1897 his fourth and fifth symphonies were performed in London under his own conducting. In 1900 he became professor at the St Petersburg conservatoire. His separate works, including orchestral symphonies, dance music and songs, make a long list. Glazunov is a leading representative of the modern Russian school, and a master of orchestration; his tendency as compared with contemporary Russian composers is towards classical form, and he was much influenced by Brahms, though in “programme music” he is represented by such works as his symphonic poems The Forest, Stenka Razin, The Kremlin and his suite Aus dem Mittelalter. His ballet music, as in Raymonda, achieved much popularity.
GLEBE (Lat. glaeba, gleba, clod or lump of earth, hence soil, land), in ecclesiastical law the land devoted to the maintenance of the incumbent of a church. Burn (Ecclesiastical Law, s.v. “Glebe Lands”) says: “Every church of common right is entitled to house and glebe, and the assigning of them at the first was of such absolute necessity that without them no church could be regularly consecrated. The house and glebe are both comprehended under the word manse, of which the rule of the canon law is, sancitum est ut unicuique ecclesiae unus mansus integer absque ullo servitio tribuatur.” In the technical language of English law the fee-simple of the glebe is said to be in abeyance, that is, it exists “only in the remembrance, expectation and intendment of the law.” But the freehold is in the parson, although at common law he could alienate the same only with proper consent,—that is, in his case, with the consent of the bishop. The disabling statutes of Elizabeth (Alienation by Bishops, 1559, and Dilapidations, &c., 1571) made void all alienations by ecclesiastical persons, except leases for the term of twenty-one years or three lives. By an act of 1842 (5 & 6 Vict. c. 27, Ecclesiastical Leases) glebe land and buildings may be let on lease for farming purposes for fourteen years or on an improving lease for twenty years. But the parsonage house and ten acres of glebe situate most conveniently for occupation must not be leased. By the Ecclesiastical Leasing Acts of 1842 (5 & 6 Vict. c. 108) and 1858 glebe lands may be let on building leases for not more than ninety-nine years and on mining leases for not more than sixty years. The Tithe Act 1842, the Glebe Lands Act 1888 and various other acts make provision for the sale, purchase, exchange and gift of glebe lands. In Scots ecclesiastical law, the manse now signifies the minister’s dwelling-house, the glebe being the land to which he is entitled in addition to his stipend. All parish ministers appear to be entitled to a glebe, except the ministers in royal burghs proper, who cannot claim a glebe unless there be a landowner’s district annexed; and even in that case, when there are two ministers, it is only the first who has a claim.
See Phillimore, Ecclesiastical Law (2nd ed.); Cripps, Law of Church and Clergy; Leach, Tithe Acts (6th ed.); Dart, Vendors and Purchasers (7th ed.).
GLEE, a musical term for a part-song of a particular kind. The word, as well as the thing, is essentially confined to England. The technical meaning has been explained in different ways; but there is little doubt of its derivation through the ordinary sense of the word (i.e. merriment, entertainment) from the A.S. gleov, gleo, corresponding to Lat. gaudium, delectamentum, hence ludus musicus; on the other hand, a musical “glee” is by no means necessarily a merry composition. Gleeman (A.S. “gleo-man”) is translated simply as “musicus” or “cantor,” to which the less distinguished titles of “mimus, jocista, scurra,” are frequently added in old dictionaries. The accomplishments and social position of the gleeman seem to have been as varied as those of the Provençal “joglar.” There are early examples of the word “glee” being used as synonymous with harmony or concerted music. The former explanation, for instance, is given in the Promptorium parvulorum, a work of the 15th century. Glee in its present meaning signifies, broadly speaking, a piece of concerted vocal music, generally unaccompanied, and for male voices, though exceptions are found to the last two restrictions. The number of voices ought not to be less than three. As regards musical form, the glee is little distinguished from the catch,—the two terms being often used indiscriminately for the same song; but there is a distinct difference between it and the madrigal—one of the earliest forms of concerted music known in England. While the madrigal does not show a distinction of contrasted movements, this feature is absolutely necessary in the glee. In the madrigal the movement of the voices is strictly contrapuntal, while the more modern form allows of freer treatment and more compact harmonies. Differences of tonality are fully explained by the development of the art, for while the madrigal reached its acme in Queen Elizabeth’s time, the glee proper was little known before the Commonwealth; and its most famous representatives belong to the 18th century and the first quarter of the 19th. Among the numerous collections of the innumerable pieces of this kind, only one of the earliest and most famous may be mentioned, Catch that Catch can, a Choice Collection of Catches, Rounds and Canons, for three and four voices, published by John Hilton in 1652. The name “glee,” however, appears for the first time in John Playford’s Musical Companion, published twenty-one years afterwards, and reprinted again and again, with additions by later composers—Henry Purcell, William Croft and John Blow among the number. The originator of the glee in its modern form was Dr Arne, born in 1710. Among later English musicians famous for their glees, catches and part-songs, the following may be mentioned:—Attwood, Boyce, Bishop, Crotch, Callcott, Shield, Stevens, Horsley, Webb and Knyvett. The convivial character of the glee led, in the 18th century, to the formation of various societies, which offered prizes and medals for the best compositions of the kind and assembled for social and artistic purposes. The most famous amongst these—The Glee Club—was founded in 1787, and at first used to meet at the house of Mr Robert Smith, in St Paul’s churchyard. This club was dissolved in 1857. A similar society—The Catch Club—was formed in 1761 and is still in existence.
GLEICHEN, two groups of castles in Germany, thus named from their resemblance to each other (Ger. gleich = like, or resembling). The first is a group of three, each situated on a hill in Thuringia between Gotha and Erfurt. One of these called Gleichen, the Wanderslebener Gleiche (1221 ft. above the sea), was besieged unsuccessfully by the emperor Henry IV. in 1088. It was the seat of a line of counts, one of whom, Ernest III., a crusader, is the subject of a romantic legend. Having been captured, he was released from his imprisonment by a Turkish woman, who returned with him to Germany and became his wife, a papal dispensation allowing him to live with two wives at the same time (see Reineck, Die Sage von der Doppelehe eines Grafen von Gleichen, 1891). After belonging to the elector of Mainz the castle became the property of Prussia in 1803. The second castle is called Mühlburg (1309 ft. above the sea). This existed as early as 704 and was besieged by Henry IV. in 1087. It came into the hands of Prussia in 1803. The third castle, Wachsenburg (1358 ft.), is still inhabited and contains a collection of weapons and pictures belonging to its owner, the duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, whose family obtained possession of it in 1368. It was built about 935 (see Beyer, Die drei Gleichen, Erfurt, 1898). The other group consists of two castles, Neuen-Gleichen and Alten-Gleichen. Both are in ruins and crown two hills about 2 m. S.E. from Göttingen.
The name of Gleichen is taken by the family descended from Prince Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg through his marriage with Miss Laura Seymour, daughter of Admiral Sir George Francis Seymour, a branch of the Hohenlohe family having at one time owned part of the county of Gleichen.