1.
Mayfair
–
Mayfair is an affluent area in the West End of London towards the east edge of Hyde Park, in the City of Westminster, between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane. It is one of the most expensive districts in London and the world, the area around Mayfair was originally part of the manor of Eia and remained largely rural in nature until the early 18th century. It became well known for the annual May Fair that took place from 1686 to 1764 in what is now Shepherd Market, the fair attracted an unpleasant, downmarket element and gradually became a public nuisance. The Grosvenor family, later to become the Dukes of Westminster, acquired land through marriage, the work included three major squares – Hanover Square, Berkeley Square and Grosvenor Square, all of which were surrounded by luxury homes, and the church of St George Hanover Square. By the end of the 18th century, most of Mayfair was built on with prestigious housing to suit the upper class, unlike some nearby areas of London, it has never lost its affluent status. There remains a substantial quantity of luxury property, upmarket shops and restaurants. Mayfairs prestigious status has been commemorated by being the most expensive property square on the London Monopoly board. The Mayfair area is in the London Borough of Westminster and mainly consists of the estate of Grosvenor, along with the estates of Albemarle, Berkeley, Burlington. It is bordered on the west by Park Lane, north by Oxford Street, east by Regent Street, beyond the bounding roads, to the north is Marylebone, to the east, Soho and to the southwest, Knightsbridge and Belgravia. Mayfair is surrounded by parkland, both Hyde Park and Green Park run along its boundary, the 8-acre Grosvenor Square is roughly in the centre of Mayfair, and is the centrepiece of the area, containing numerous expensive and desirable properties. There has been speculation that the Romans settled in the area before establishing Londinium, the proposal has been disputed owing to lack of archaeological evidence. This area was known as the manor of Eia in the Domesday Book and it was subsequently given to the Abbey of Westminster, who owned it until 1536 when it was taken over by Henry VIII. Mayfair was mainly open fields until development started in the Shepherd Market area around 1686-8 to accommodate the May Fair that had moved from Haymarket in St Jamess because of overcrowding. There were some buildings before 1686 – a cottage in Stanhope Row, dating from 1618, a 17th century English Civil War fortification was established in what is now Mount Street in Mayfair, and known as Olivers Mount by the 18th century. The May Fair was held every year at Great Brookfield from 1 –14 May and it was established during the reign of Edward I, where the area beyond St. James was open fields. The fair was recorded as Saint Jamess fayer by Westminster in 1560 and it was postponed briefly in 1603 because of plague, but otherwise continued throughout the 17th century. In 1686, the moved to what is now Mayfair. By the 18th, it had attracted various showmen, jugglers and fencers, popular attractions included bare-knuckle fighting, semolina eating contests and womens foot racing
2.
George Frideric Handel
–
George Frideric Handel was a German, later British baroque composer who spent the bulk of his career in London, becoming well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, and organ concertos. Handel received important training in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712 and he was strongly influenced both by the great composers of the Italian Baroque and by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition. Within fifteen years, Handel had started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera, musicologist Winton Dean writes that his operas show that Handel was not only a great composer, he was a dramatic genius of the first order. As Alexanders Feast was well received, Handel made a transition to English choral works, after his success with Messiah he never composed an Italian opera again. Almost blind, and having lived in England for nearly fifty years, he died in 1759 and his funeral was given full state honours, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey in London. Handel was born in 1685 in Halle-on-Saal, Duchy of Magdeburg, to Georg Händel and his father,63 when George Frideric was born, was an eminent barber-surgeon who served the court of Saxe-Weissenfels and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Georg Händel was the son of a coppersmith, Valentin Händel who had emigrated from Eisleben in 1608 with his first wife Anna Belching and they were Protestants and chose reliably Protestant Saxony over Silesia, a Hapsburg possession as religious tensions mounted in the years before the Thirty Years War. Halle was a prosperous city, home of a salt-mining industry. Even the smaller churches all had able organists and fair choirs, and humanities, the Thirty Years War brought extensive destruction to Halle, and by the 1680s it was impoverished. But since the middle of the war the city was under the administration of the Duke of Saxony, the arts and music, however, flourished only among the higher strata, which did not describe Handels family. Handel was the child of this marriage, the first son died still born. Two younger sisters were born after the birth of George Frideric, Dorthea Sophia, born 6 October 1687 and Johanna Christiana, born 10 January 1690. Early in his life Handel is reported to have attended the gymnasium in Halle, Mainwaring is the source for almost all information of Handels childhood, and much of that information came from J. C. Smith, Jr. Handels confidant and copyist. Whether they came from Smith or elsewhere, Mainwaring frequently relates misinformation and it is from Mainwaring that the portrait of Handels father as implacably opposed to any musical education comes. This did nothing to dampen young Handels inclination, in fact, Mainwaring tells the story of Handels secret attic spinnet, Handel found means to get a little clavichord privately conveyd to a room at the top of the house. To this room he constantly stole when the family was asleep, but Handel had to have had some experience with the keyboard to have made the impression in Weissenfels that resulted in his receiving formal musical training. Somehow Handel made his way to the organ, where he surprised everyone with his playing. Overhearing this performance and noting the youth of the performer caused the Duke to recommend to Georg Händel that Handel be given musical instruction, Handels father engaged the organist at the Halle parish church, the young Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, to instruct Handel
3.
Jimi Hendrix
–
James Marshall Jimi Hendrix was an American rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music, born in Seattle, Washington, Hendrix began playing guitar at the age of 15. In 1961, he enlisted in the U. S. Army and trained as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division, within months, Hendrix had earned three UK top ten hits with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Hey Joe, Purple Haze, and The Wind Cries Mary. Hendrix was inspired musically by American rock and roll and electric blues and he favored overdriven amplifiers with high volume and gain, and was instrumental in utilizing the previously undesirable sounds caused by guitar amplifier feedback. He helped to popularize the use of a pedal in mainstream rock. Holly George-Warren of Rolling Stone commented, Hendrix pioneered the use of the instrument as a sound source. Hendrix was the recipient of several awards during his lifetime. In 1967, readers of Melody Maker voted him the Pop Musician of the Year, disc and Music Echo honored him with the World Top Musician of 1969 and in 1970, Guitar Player named him the Rock Guitarist of the Year. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, Jimi Hendrix was of African American descent. Both his mother Lucille and father Al were African Americans and his paternal grandmother, Zenora Nora Rose Moore, was African American and one-quarter Cherokee. On June 10,1919, Hendrix and Moore had a son they named James Allen Ross Hendrix, in 1941, Al met Lucille Jeter at a dance in Seattle, they married on March 31,1942. Al, who had been drafted by the U. S. Army to serve in World War II, Johnny Allen Hendrix was born on November 27,1942, in Seattle, he was the first of Lucilles five children. In 1946, Johnnys parents changed his name to James Marshall Hendrix, in honor of Al and he spent two months locked up without trial, and while in the stockade received a telegram announcing his sons birth. During Als three-year absence, Lucille struggled to raise their son, when Al was away, Hendrix was mostly cared for by family members and friends, especially Lucilles sister Delores Hall and her friend Dorothy Harding. Al received a discharge from the U. S. Army on September 1,1945. After returning from service, Al reunited with Lucille, but his inability to find steady work left the family impoverished and they both struggled with alcohol, and often fought when intoxicated. The violence sometimes drove Hendrix to withdraw and hide in a closet in their home and his relationship with his brother Leon was close but precarious, with Leon in and out of foster care, they lived with an almost constant threat of fraternal separation. In addition to Leon, Hendrix had three siblings, Joseph, born in 1949, Kathy in 1950, and Pamela,1951, all of whom Al and Lucille gave up to foster care
4.
Brook Street
–
Brook Street is one of the principal streets on the Grosvenor Estate in the exclusive central London district of Mayfair. Named after the Tyburn Brook that formerly ran nearby, it was developed in the first half of the 18th century, the continuation from Grosvenor Square to Park Lane is called Upper Brook Street. Both sections originally consisted of typical London terraced houses, mostly built to individual designs, some of them are quite grand and were designed by well known architects for aristocratic clients, especially near Grosvenor Square, while others are more modest. Some of the houses survive while others have been replaced by buildings from a variety of periods. Features of the include the grand hotel Claridges, at the junction with Davies Street, and Le Gavroche. The United States Embassy, which abuts Upper Brook Street and Grosvenor Square, has necessitated security arrangements which impede access to the former. The Embassy of Argentina is at number 65, the Handel House Museum is also in Brook Street. A curiosity is the placing of two blue plaques on adjoining houses, numbers 23 and 25, both for famous musicians,24 Upper Brook Street, Richard Bull, MP and art collector
5.
Harpsichord
–
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed, Harpsichord designates the whole family of similar plucked keyboard instruments, including the smaller virginals, muselar, and spinet. The harpsichord was used in Renaissance and Baroque music. During the late 18th century, it disappeared from the musical scene with the rise of the piano. In the 20th century, it made a resurgence, being used in historically informed performances of music, in compositions. Harpsichords vary in size and shape, but all have the basic functional arrangement. The player depresses a key that rocks over a pivot in the middle of its length, the other end of the key lifts a jack that holds a small plectrum, which plucks the string. When the player releases the key, the far end returns to its rest position, the plectrum, mounted on a tongue that can swivel backwards away from the string, passes the string without plucking it again. As the key reaches its rest position, a felt damper atop the jack stops the strings vibrations and these basic principles are explained in detail below. The keylever is a pivot, which rocks on a balance pin that passes through a hole drilled through the keylever. The jack is a thin, rectangular piece of wood that sits upright on the end of the keylever, the jacks are held in place by the registers. These are two strips of wood, which run in the gap between pinblock and bellyrail. The registers have rectangular mortises through which the pass as they can move up. The registers hold the jacks in the location needed to pluck the string. In the jack, a plectrum juts out almost horizontally and passes just under the string, historically, plectra were made of bird quill or leather, many modern harpsichords have plastic plectra. When the front of the key is pressed, the back of the key rises, the jack is lifted, the vertical motion of the jack is then stopped by the jackrail, which is covered with soft felt to muffle the impact. When the key is released, the falls back down under its own weight. This is made possible by having the plectrum held in a tongue attached with a pivot and a spring to the body of the jack
6.
Clavichord
–
The clavichord is a European stringed keyboard instrument known from the late Medieval, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. Historically, it was used as a practice instrument and as an aid to composition. The clavichord produces sound by striking brass or iron strings with metal blades called tangents. Vibrations are transmitted through the bridge to the soundboard, the name is derived from the Latin word clavis, meaning key and chorda meaning string, especially of a musical instrument. An analogous name is used in other European languages, many languages also have another name derived from Latin manus, meaning hand. Other names refer to the nature of a fully fretted clavichord. Italian also used sordino, a reference to its quiet sound, the clavichord was invented in the early fourteenth century. In 1504, the German poem Der Minne Regeln mentions the terms clavicimbalum and clavichordium, One of the earliest references to the clavichord in England occurs in the privy-purse expenses of Elizabeth of York, queen of Henry VII, in an entry dated August 1502, Item. The same day, Hugh Denys for money by him delivered to a stranger that gave the queen a payre of clavycordes, in crowns form his reward iiii libres. The clavichord was very popular from the 16th century to the 18th century, but mainly flourished in German-speaking lands, Scandinavia, and it had fallen out of use by 1850. In the late 1890s, Arnold Dolmetsch revived clavichord construction and Violet Gordon-Woodhouse, among others, although most of the instruments built before the 1730s were small, the latest instruments were built up to seven feet long with a six octave range. Today clavichords are played primarily by Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical music enthusiasts and they attract many interested buyers, and are manufactured worldwide. There are now numerous clavichord societies around the world, and some 400 recordings of the instrument have made in the past 70 years. Leading modern exponents of the instrument have included Derek Adlam, Christopher Hogwood, Richard Troeger, Thurston Dart, Wim Winters, stevie Wonder uses a Clavinet in many of his songs, such as Superstition and Higher Ground. A Clavinet played through an instrument amplifier with guitar effect pedals is often associated with funky, guy Sigsworth has played clavichord in a modern setting with Björk, notably on the studio recording of All Is Full of Love. Björk also made use of and even played the instrument herself on the song My Juvenile of her 2007 album Volta. Tori Amos uses the instrument on Little Amsterdam from the album Boys for Pele, Amos also featured her use of the Clavinet on her 2004 recording Not David Bowie, released as part of her 2006 box set, A Piano, The Collection. In 1976 Oscar Peterson played songs from Porgy And Bess on the clavichord, keith Jarrett also recorded an album entitled Book of Ways in which he plays a series of clavichord improvisations
7.
Organ (music)
–
In music, the organ is a keyboard instrument of one or more pipe divisions, each played with its own keyboard, played either with the hands on a keyboard or with the feet using pedals. The organ is an old musical instrument, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria. It was played throughout the Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman world, subsequently it re-emerged as a secular and recital instrument in the Classical music tradition. Pipe organs use air moving through pipes to produce sounds, since the 16th century, pipe organs have used various materials for pipes, which can vary widely in timbre and volume. The pipes are divided into ranks and controlled by the use of hand stops, although the keyboard is not expressive as on a piano and does not affect dynamics, some divisions may be enclosed in a swell box, allowing the dynamics to be controlled by shutters. Some organs are enclosed, meaning that all the divisions can be controlled by one set of shutters. Some special registers with free reed pipes are expressive and these instruments vary greatly in size, ranging from a cubic yard to a height reaching five floors, and are built in churches, synagogues, concert halls, and homes. Small organs are called positive or portative, increasingly hybrid organs are appearing in which pipes are augmented with electronic additions. Great economies of space and cost are possible especially when the lowest of the pipes can be replaced, non-piped organs include the reed organ or harmonium, which like the accordion and harmonica use air to excite free reeds. Electronic organs or digital organs, notably the Hammond organ, generate electronically produced sound through one or more loudspeakers, mechanical organs include the barrel organ, water organ, and Orchestrion. These are controlled by means such as pinned barrels or book music. Little barrel organs dispense with the hands of an organist and bigger organs are powered in most cases by a grinder or today by other means such as an electric motor. The pipe organ is the grandest musical instrument in size and scope, along with the clock, it was considered one of the most complex human-made mechanical creations before the Industrial Revolution. Pipe organs range in size from a short keyboard to huge instruments with over 10,000 pipes. A large modern organ typically has three or four keyboards with five each, and a two-and-a-half octave pedal board. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart called the organ the King of instruments, some of the biggest instruments have 64-foot pipes, and it sounds to an 8 Hz frequency fundamental tone. For instance, the Wanamaker organ, located in Philadelphia, USA, has sonic resources comparable with three simultaneous symphony orchestras, most organs in Europe, the Americas, and Australasia can be found in Christian churches. The introduction of organs is traditionally attributed to Pope Vitalian in the 7th century
8.
Viyella
–
Viyella was a blend of wool and cotton first woven in 1893 in England, and soon to be the first branded fabric in the world. It was made of 55 percent merino wool and 45 percent cotton in a weave, developed by James and Robert Sissons of William Hollins & Company. The brand name, first registered as a trademark in 1894, and registered in the United States in 1907, soon covered not only the fabric, to be sold by the yard. At first this was made by businesses, but it was not long before Hollins started producing their own clothes. Following increasing emphasis on garment manufacture over the years, Viyella is now a brand for clothes. The original wool/cotton blend is no longer on sale, Viyella was a soft dress-weight fabric that was more resistant to shrinkage than any comparable pure wool alternative. In its early years it was marketed as a fabric which combined lightness and fashion with warmth, one 1920s advertisement called it a guaranteed unshrinkable fine wool flannel for women who wanted both daintiness and protectiveness. Towards the end of the 20th century it was woven in 150cm wide lengths suitable for modern garment design and production. The first ready-made garments using Viyella were shirts and nightgowns, and soon came dresses, slips and other clothing and it was also made into sheets, and at one time Viyella yarn was available for home knitting. Officers in the British and other Commonwealth armies purchased their own uniforms during the Second World War, in the late 20th century it was re-invented as fashionable fabric. In 1987 The Times said it was used by designers interested in style, like Laura Ashley. Clydella was a cheaper, less soft alternative made with 81 per cent cotton, produced at factories in the Clydeside area, including Glasgow and Hamilton, Hollins also produced the related Dayella cloth used especially for babies clothes. The name Viyella is based on the valley road, Via Gellia, near Matlock. Hollins had started business in 1784 in Pleasley, about 20 miles away on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border, later their offices were at Viyella House in Nottingham. In the 21st century much of Coats manufacturing has been moved abroad, Viyella Ladieswear has since added home furnishings to its range of goods. The fashion chain entered Administration on 7 January 2009 citing an assessment of the current economic situation, in 2009, the upmarket retailer Austin Reed agreed to buy Viyella for an undisclosed sum. In late 2011, Viyella opened its store next to Austin Reed at 92 Regent Street
9.
George II of Great Britain
–
George II was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 until his death. George was the last British monarch born outside Great Britain, he was born, after the deaths of Sophia and Anne, Queen of Great Britain, in 1714, his father George I, Elector of Hanover, inherited the British throne. In the first years of his fathers reign as king, George was associated with opposition politicians, as king from 1727, George exercised little control over British domestic policy, which was largely controlled by the Parliament of Great Britain. As elector, he spent twelve summers in Hanover, where he had direct control over government policy. He had a relationship with his eldest son, Frederick. During the War of the Austrian Succession, George participated at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743, Frederick died unexpectedly in 1751, nine years before his father, and so George II was ultimately succeeded by his grandson, George III. For two centuries after George IIs death, history tended to him with disdain, concentrating on his mistresses, short temper. Since then, most scholars have reassessed his legacy and conclude that he held and exercised influence in foreign policy and military appointments. George was born in the city of Hanover in Germany, and was the son of George Louis, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg, both of Georges parents committed adultery, and in 1694 their marriage was dissolved on the pretext that Sophia had abandoned her husband. She was confined to Ahlden House and denied access to her two children, George and his sister Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, who never saw their mother again. George spoke only French, the language of diplomacy and the court, until the age of four, after which he was taught German by one of his tutors, Johann Hilmar Holstein. In addition to French and German, he was schooled in English and Italian. Georges second cousin once removed, Queen Anne, ascended the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1702, consequently, after his grandmother and father, George was third in line to succeed Anne in two of her three realms. England and Scotland united in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, Georges father did not want his son to enter into a loveless arranged marriage as he had, and wanted him to have the opportunity of meeting his bride before any formal arrangements were made. Negotiations from 1702 for the hand of Princess Hedvig Sophia of Sweden, Dowager Duchess and regent of Holstein-Gottorp, the English envoy to Hanover, Edmund Poley, reported that George was so taken by the good character he had of her that he would not think of anybody else. A marriage contract was concluded by the end of July, on 22 August /2 September 1705O. S. /N. S. Caroline arrived in Hanover for her wedding, which was held the evening in the chapel at Herrenhausen. George was keen to participate in the war against France in Flanders, in early 1707, Georges hopes were fulfilled when Caroline gave birth to a son, Frederick
10.
Chapel Royal
–
A Chapel Royal is, in both Canada and the United Kingdom, an eccesiastical body of clergy, singers and vestry officers appointed to serve the spiritual needs of the countrys reigning sovereign. In the UK, it is a department of the Ecclesiastical Household, the household is further divided into two parts, an ecclesiastical household each for Scotland and England, belonging to the Church of Scotland and the Church of England respectively. The latter was designated as a Chapel Royal in 2004 by Queen Elizabeth II and is under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Ontario, in April 2016 the Queen approved in principle that St. Catherines Chapel, Massey College, Toronto be designated a Chapel Royal. In their early history, the English and Scottish Chapels Royal travelled, like the rest of the court, with the monarch, the first records of the Scottish Chapel Royal date from the eleventh century. James IV of Scotland established a building for the Chapel Royal in Stirling Castle in 1501, the Italianate building was used for the christening of Jamess son, Prince Henry. The English Chapel Royal had emerged as a body by the eleventh century. The chapel achieved its greatest eminence during the reign of Elizabeth I, the Master of the Children had, until at least 1684, the power to impress promising boy trebles from provincial choirs for service in the chapel. In the 17th century the Chapel Royal had its own building in Whitehall, in the 18th century the choristers sang the soprano parts in performances of Handels oratorios and other works. Under Charles II, the choir was augmented by violinists from the royal consort, at various times the chapel has also employed composers, lutenists. The Chapel Royal refers not to a building but to an establishment in the Royal Household, the term is also, however, applied to those buildings used as chapels by the priests and singers of the Chapel Royal for the performance of their duties. The two currently regularly used British Chapels Royal are located in St. Jamess Palace in London, the Chapel Royal, since such establishments are outside the usual diocesan structure, they are classified as royal peculiars. He is assisted by the Revd William Whitcombe and the Revd Richard Bolton, the Chapels Royal are served by a choir, six Gentlemen-in-Ordinary and ten Children of the Chapel— all boys. The current Director of Music of the English Chapel Royal is Huw Williams who is assisted by a sub organist, the Chapel Royal occupies a number of buildings. The Chapel Royal conducts the Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph in Whitehall and this building has been used regularly since 1702 and is the most commonly used facility today. Located in the block of St Jamess Palace, it was built circa 1540 and altered since. The large window to the right of the gatehouse is in the north wall of this chapel which is laid out on a north-south rather than the usual east-west axis. Its ceiling richly decorated with initials and coats of arms is said to have been painted by Holbein. From the 1690s it was used by Continental Protestant courtiers and became known as the German chapel, after the adjacent apartments burnt down in 1809 they were not replaced, and in 1856-57 Marlborough Road was built between the palace and the chapel
11.
Hanover Square, Westminster
–
Hanover Square is a square in Mayfair, Westminster, situated to the south west of Oxford Circus, the major junction where Oxford Street meets Regent Street. The streets which converge at Hanover Square are, Brook Street, Dering Street, Hanover Street, Harewood Place and Princes Street. Hanover Square was developed from 1713 as a residential address by Richard Lumley, 1st Earl of Scarbrough. Like Scarbrough, most of the residents were staunch supporters of the Hanoverian succession of 1714. Early Hanover Square was decidedly Whig and most decidedly military, commented the architectural historian Sir John Summerson, early residents included Generals Earl Cadogan, Sir Charles Wills, Stewart, Evans, Lord Carpenter and John Pepper, names conspicuously associated with episodes in Marlborough’s war and the Fifteen. While a few of the 18th-century houses remain intact, most of the square has been reconstructed in a variety of periods. The parish church of St Georges, Hanover Square, is a distance to the south of the square at the junction of St George Street and Maddox Street. In 1759 James Abercrombie, commander-in-chief of British forces in North America during the French and Indian War, bibliography Sir John Summerson, Georgian London, London, Penguin,1969 Edward Walford, Hanover Square and neighbourhood, Old and New London, Volume 4, pp. 314–326
12.
Grosvenor Square
–
Grosvenor Square /ˈɡroʊvnər/ is a large garden square in the Mayfair district of London. It is the centrepiece of the Mayfair property of the Duke of Westminster, Sir Richard Grosvenor obtained a licence to develop Grosvenor Square and the surrounding streets in 1710, and development is believed to have commenced in around 1721. The early houses were generally of five or seven bays, with basement, there were mews behind all four sides. Many of the houses were later in the 18th century or during the 19th century. It was demolished and rebuilt again in the 1860s, nearly all of the older houses were demolished during the 20th century and replaced with blocks of flats in a neo-Georgian style, hotels and embassies. The central garden, which was reserved for the use of the occupants of the houses as was standard in a London square, is now a public park managed by The Royal Parks. At the eastern end of the garden there is a memorial dedicated to the British victims of the September 11 attacks. The memorial includes a granite block engraved with the names of the victims. So common was the sight of their large, green sports cars parked ad hoc outside their flats, Grosvenor Square has been the traditional home of the official American presence in London since John Adams established the first American mission to the Court of St. Jamess in 1785. Adams lived, from 1785 to 1788, in the house still stands on the corner of Brook. During the Second World War, Dwight D. Eisenhower established a headquarters at 20 Grosvenor Square. Until 2009, the United States Navy continued to use this building as its headquarters for United States Naval Forces Europe. A statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt, sculpted by Sir William Reid Dick, stands in the square, the square also contains the Eagle Squadrons Memorial. In 1960, a new United States Embassy was built on the side of Grosvenor Square. This was a large and architecturally significant modern design by Eero Saarinen, in March and October 1968, there were large demonstrations in the square against US involvement in the Vietnam War. On both occasions, the protest became violent, since 2001, a series of anti-terrorist devices have been installed around the embassy, and the road running along the front of the embassy has been closed completely to traffic. In 2008, the United States Government chose a site for a new embassy in the Nine Elms area of the London Borough of Wandsworth, south of the River Thames. Construction of the new Embassy of the United States in London is expected to begin in 2012 or 2013, in October 2009, following a recommendation by English Heritage, the building was granted Grade II listed status
13.
No fixed abode
–
In law, no fixed abode or without fixed abode is not having a fixed geographical location as a residence. Nomadic peoples and traveller groups, as well as individuals who adopt a lifestyle, living in narrowboats. The term of no fixed abode or no fixed address is used as a description by the police. People may be homeless because of natural disaster or conflict. Refugees fleeing a war zone are regarded as homeless. A person with no fixed address may have mail addressed to a Poste restante service, such persons may also have problems receiving government social services and registering to vote, and may be deprived of many common services. Hunter-gatherer Perpetual traveler RV lifestyle Showmen
14.
John Monckton, 1st Viscount Galway
–
John Monckton was a British 18th century Whig politician. He was elevated to the Irish peerage as the first Viscount Galway, John Monckton was the eldest son of Robert Monckton, lord of the manors of Cavil, near Howden, and Hodroyd, near Barnsley, Yorkshire. A strong opponent of the policies of James II, Robert Monckton had gone into exile in the Netherlands, roberts wife, and Johns mother, was Theodosia Fountaine, an heiress from Melton, East Riding of Yorkshire. John Monckton was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, which he entered in 1713, Monckton stood unsuccessfully as a Whig candidate for Clitheroe at the election of 1722. Victory in the seat depended on control of burgages, having bought a number of burgages to no effect, Monckton decided to sell them to Sir Nathaniel Curzon, one of the victorious Tory candidates. As part of the deal, Curzon deferred to Monckton for the following parliament, on 17 July 1727 the grateful Whig government of Robert Walpole made Monckton Viscount Galway and Baron of Killard, both in the Irish peerage. An Irish peerage allowed the holder to continue sitting in the British parliament, in 1729 Galway purchased 77 burgages in Pontefract, his fathers former constituency, for £6000 from the Bland, Dawnay, Frank families. This placed himself and Sir William Lowther in joint control of the borough, when Galways tenure at Clitheroe elapsed in 1734, he was elected MP for Pontefract, along with Lowther. He held the seat until 1747, when he ceded it to his eldest son, from 1734, Galway profited enormously from offices in the patronage of the government. First he was appointed Commissioner of Revenue in Ireland, a post he held until 1748, in 1749 he was recommended for the post of Surveyor-General of Lands, Woods and Forests in England and Wales by the Prime Minister, his brother-in-law, Henry Pelham. Galway held the post of Surveyor General and the Pontefract constituency until his death in 1751, Monckton inherited the family estate of Hodryd Hall from his father in 1722. It had been the seat of the Moncktons since the early 17th century, in 1725 he purchased the Serlby estate in North Nottinghamshire and began the building of the new family seat of Serlby Hall, where he built up a notable collection of paintings. He was a member of the Society of Dilettanti, Moncktons first wife was Lady Elizabeth Manners, daughter of John Manners, 2nd Duke of Rutland. Their children were, William Monckton-Arundell, later 2nd Viscount Galway Robert Monckton, Galways second wife was Jane, daughter of Henry Warner Westenra of Rathleagh, Queens County. She outlived him, surviving to 1788 and their children were John Monckton, of Fineshade Abbey, Northamptonshire Henry Monckton, a notable army officer killed at the Battle of Monmouth, New Jersey. Edward Monckton, of Somerford, Staffordshire, an MP for 32 years, mary Monckton, a notable literary and political hostess who married Edmund Boyle, 7th Earl of Cork
15.
Georgian architecture
–
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I, George II, George III, and George IV—who reigned in continuous succession from August 1714 to June 1830. The style of Georgian buildings is very variable, but marked by a taste for symmetry and proportion based on the architecture of Greece and Rome. Ornament is also normally in the tradition, but typically rather restrained. In towns, which expanded greatly during the period, landowners turned into property developers, even the wealthy were persuaded to live in these in town, especially if provided with a square of garden in front of the house. There was an amount of building in the period, all over the English-speaking world. The period saw the growth of a distinct and trained architectural profession, before the mid-century the high-sounding title and this contrasted with earlier styles, which were primarily disseminated among craftsmen through the direct experience of the apprenticeship system. Authors such as the prolific William Halfpenny published editions in America as well as Britain, mail-order kit homes were also popular before World War II. The architect James Gibbs was a figure, his earlier buildings are Baroque, reflecting the time he spent in Rome in the early 18th century. Other prominent architects of the early Georgian period include James Paine, Robert Taylor, and John Wood, the styles that resulted fall within several categories. In the mainstream of Georgian style were both Palladian architecture—and its whimsical alternatives, Gothic and Chinoiserie, which were the English-speaking worlds equivalent of European Rococo. John Nash was one of the most prolific architects of the late Georgian era known as The Regency style, greek Revival architecture was added to the repertory, beginning around 1750, but increasing in popularity after 1800. Leading exponents were William Wilkins and Robert Smirke, regularity of housefronts along a street was a desirable feature of Georgian town planning. In Britain brick or stone are almost invariably used, brick is often disguised with stucco, in America and other colonies wood remained very common, as its availability and cost-ratio with the other materials was more favourable. Versions of revived Palladian architecture dominated English country house architecture, Houses were increasingly placed in grand landscaped settings, and large houses were generally made wide and relatively shallow, largely to look more impressive from a distance. The height was usually highest in the centre, and the Baroque emphasis on corner pavilions often found on the continent generally avoided, in grand houses, an entrance hall led to steps up to a piano nobile or mezzanine floor where the main reception rooms were. A single block was typical, with a perhaps a small court for carriages at the front marked off by railings and a gate, but rarely a stone gatehouse, or side wings around the court. Windows in all types of buildings were large and regularly placed on a grid, this was partly to minimize window tax and their height increasingly varied between the floors, and they increasingly began below waist-height in the main rooms, making a small balcony desirable
16.
Garret
–
A garret is a habitable attic or small and often dismal or cramped living space at the top of a house or larger residential building. In the days before lifts this was the least prestigious position in a building, in this era, the garret often had sloping ceilings. The word entered Middle English via Old French with a connotation of a watchtower or something akin to a garrison. Like garrison it comes from an Old French word garir of ultimately Germanic origin meaning to provide or defend, garrets were very often internal elements of the mansard roof, often with skylights or dormer windows. A bow garret is an outhouse situated at the back of a typical terraced house often used in Lancashire for the hat industry in pre-mechanised days. Bowing was the given to the technique of cleaning up animal fur in the early stages of preparation for turning it into hats. What is now believed to be the last bow garret in existence has now been listed in order to preserve this historical relic, Garratt - a type of steam locomotive Garratt Garet - people Garrett Garrett - history of the name Jarrett Old maid in the garret
17.
Ruckers
–
The Ruckers family were harpsichord and virginal makers from the Southern Netherlands based in Antwerp in the 16th and 17th century. Their influence stretched well into the 18th century, and to the revival of the 20th. In the 18th century, Ruckers instruments were modified by French makers in a process known as ravalement, to allow for an extended range. The family probably originated in Germany, Hans Ruckers was born in Mechelen. In 1575 he married Adriana Cnaeps, harpsichord maker Marten van der Biest was a witness at the wedding, though it is not known what their working relationship was. Hans Ruckers became a member of the Guild of St Luke in 1579, and he signed his instruments by working his initials into the rose. Instruments by him in existence today are virginals from the 1580s and 1590s now in Berlin, Bruges, New York, Paris and Yale University. He was also a builder, though none by him remains, he is known to have worked on the organs of St. Jacobskerk. Joannes Ruckers was the first son of Hans Ruckers, and also became a harpsichord and he lived his life in Antwerp. He and brother Andreas became partners in their fathers business upon his death and he joined the Guild of St Luke in 1611, his entry reads Hans Rukers, sone, claversigmaker, following this he engraved IR into the rose of his instruments, rather than his fathers HR. He worked for the archdukes of the Netherlands in Brussels from 1616 and his nephew Joannes Couchet joined his workshop around 1627, taking it over after his death. Around 35 of his instruments are in existence today, Andreas Ruckers I was the second son of Hans Ruckers, and likewise became a harpsichord maker based in Antwerp. In 1605 he married, three of his children survived to adulthood, details of his life are scarce after he sold his share in the family business to his brother Joannes in 1608. He remained a harpsichord maker, was alive in September 1645. His surviving instruments are dated from 1607 to 1644, and are in all over the world. Andreas Ruckers II was the son of Andreas Ruckers I, from whom he learned his craft, an 1638 entry in the records of the Guild of St Luke that reads, Rickart, claversingelmaker, wijnmeester may refer to him. He married Joanna Hechts that year, they had six children, seven of his instruments, built in the 1640s and 1650s, are known to exist in collections around the world. He was the last of the Ruckers family under that name, see Couchet for another branch of the family
18.
St George's, Hanover Square
–
St Georges, Hanover Square, is an Anglican church in the City of Westminster, central London, built in the early eighteenth century. The land on which the stands was donated by General William Steuart. The church was designed by John James and was constructed under a project to build fifty new churches around London and it is situated in Hanover Square, near Oxford Circus, in what is now the City of Westminster. Owing to its Mayfair location, it has frequently been the venue for society weddings. A civil parish of St George Hanover Square, and a parish, were created in 1724 from part of the ancient parish of St Martin in the Fields. The boundaries of the parish were adjusted in 1830,1835 and 1865 when other parishes were carved out of it. The ecclesiastical parish still exists today and forms part of the Deanery of Westminster St Margaret in the Diocese of London, the land for the church was donated by General Sir William Steuart. The church was constructed in 1721–25, funded by the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches, and designed by John James and its portico, supported by six Corinthian columns, projects across the pavement. There is a tower just behind the portico, rising from the roof above the west end of the nave. The interior is divided into nave and aisles by piers, square up to the height of the galleries, the nave has a barrel vault, and the aisles transverse barrel vaults. The church was a place of worship to have weddings. It was here that Theodore Roosevelt, the future US President, aged 28, married Edith Carow, aged 25, henry Holland married Capability Browns daughter Bridget on 11 February 1773 in the church. John Nash married Mary Ann Bradley on 17 December 1798 in the church, one famous London marriage involved the architect John Shaw Senior to Elizabeth Hester Whitfield in 1799. Other notable people married there include the Eccentric Missionary, Joseph Wolff, in October 1899, Alfreda Ernestina Albertina Bowen, daughter of Sir George Ferguson Bowen and Contessa Diamantina di Roma, married Robert Lydston Newman. Elliot Allard, OBE married Pamela Wigan of St. Johns Wood, great granddaughter of James Wigan, of Mortlake prior owner and founder of Mortlake Brewery, St Georges was opened in the new residential development of Hanover Square with no attached churchyard. Its first burial ground was sited besides its workhouse at Mount Street, when this filled up a larger burial ground was consecrated at Bayswater in 1765. They were closed for burials in 1854, when Londons city churchyards were closed to public health. Burials at St Georges included Mrs Ann Radcliffe, a female writer of the Gothic Novel
19.
Alcina
–
Alcina is an opera seria by George Frideric Handel. Handel used the libretto of Lisola di Alcina, an opera that was set in 1728 in Rome by Riccardo Broschi, partly altered for better conformity, the story was originally taken from Ludovico Ariostos Orlando furioso, an epic poem. The opera contains several musical sequences with opportunity for dance, these were composed for dancer Marie Sallé, Alcina was composed for Handels first season at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London. It premiered on 16 April 1735, like the composers other works in the opera seria genre, Alcina fell into obscurity, after a revival in Brunswick in 1738 it was not performed again until a production in Leipzig in 1928. The Australian soprano Joan Sutherland sang the role in a production by Franco Zeffirelli in which she made her debut at La Fenice in February 1960 and she performed in the same production at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1962. It was given as part of the Ledlanet Nights festival in Scotland in 1969, a major production was the one directed by Robert Carsen and originally staged for the Opéra de Paris in 1999 and repeated at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Both stagings featured Renée Fleming in the title role, the opera was given a concert performance on 10 October 2014 at the Barbican Centre in London. Joyce DiDonato sang the role under Harry Bicket with The English Concert. Alice Coote, Christine Rice and Anna Christy sang other significant roles, the group toured to the European continent with performances in Pamplona, Madrid, Vienna, and Paris and then to Carnegie Hall in New York on 26 October. The background of the opera comes from the poem Orlando Furioso, the heroic knight Ruggiero is destined to a short but glorious life, and a benevolent magician is always whisking him away from the arms of his fiancée, Bradamante. Bradamante is not the type to put up with the constant disappearance of her lover, just before the opera begins she has rescued him from an enchanted castle, only to have her flying horse take a fancy to Ruggiero and fly off with him. Ruggiero and the land on an island in the middle of the ocean. As the hippogriff begins to eat the leaves of a myrtle bush, the bush reveals that it was once a living soul named Sir Astolfo, and the island belongs to the sister sorceresses Alcina and Morgana. The beautiful Alcina seduces every knight that lands on her isle, despite Astolfos warning, Ruggiero strides off to meet this sorceress – and falls under her spell. Bradamante, again searching for her lover, arrives on Alcinas island with Ruggieros former tutor, dressed in armor, Bradamante looks like a young man and goes by the name of her own brother, Ricciardo. She and Melisso possess a magic ring which enables the wearer to see through illusion, the first person they meet is the sorceress Morgana. Barely human and with no understanding of love, she immediately abandons her own lover Oronte for the handsome Ricciardo. Morgana conveys the visitors to Alcinas court, where Bradamante is dismayed to discover that Ruggiero is besotted with Alcina, also at Alcinas court is a boy, Oberto, who is looking for his father, Astolfo, who was last seen heading toward this island
20.
Anna Maria Strada
–
Anna Maria Strada was an Italian soprano of the 18th century. She is best remembered for her association with the composer George Frideric Handel and she made her début as Adelaida in Lotario and was prima donna in all his operas and oratorios until 1737. She sang in a minimum of 24 of Handels operas and the opera-ballet Terpsicore and her roles included Angelica in Orlando, the title role in Partenope, Elmira in Sosarme, Thusnelda in Arminio, and Ariadne in Giustino, and the title role of Atalanta. Strada was the singer of Handels company who did not defect to the rival Opera of the Nobility in 1733. She left, however, London in 1738 and returned to Italy, poet and librettist Paolo Rolli described her as a copy of Faustina with a better voice and better intonation, but without her charm and brio. Her Handel parts reveal her vocal range to have been two octaves during the first part of her career, and the range required by these roles is varied. Winton Dean, Strada, Anna Maria, Grove Music Online ed L. Macy, grovemusic. com, Handel, Thames and Hudson, ISBN 0-500-27498-3
21.
Messiah (Handel)
–
It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742 and received its London premiere nearly a year later. After an initially modest public reception, the oratorio gained in popularity, eventually becoming one of the best-known, Handels reputation in England, where he had lived since 1712, had been established through his compositions of Italian opera. He turned to English oratorio in the 1730s in response to changes in public taste, although its structure resembles that of opera, it is not in dramatic form, there are no impersonations of characters and no direct speech. Instead, Jennenss text is a reflection on Jesus as the Messiah called Christ. The text begins in Part I with prophecies by Isaiah and others, and moves to the annunciation to the shepherds, in Part II, Handel concentrates on the Passion and ends with the Hallelujah chorus. In Part III he covers the resurrection of the dead and Christs glorification in heaven, Handel wrote Messiah for modest vocal and instrumental forces, with optional settings for many of the individual numbers. In the years after his death, the work was adapted for performance on a larger scale, with giant orchestras. In other efforts to update it, its orchestration was revised and amplified by Mozart, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries the trend has been towards reproducing a greater fidelity to Handels original intentions, although big Messiah productions continue to be mounted. A near-complete version was issued on 78 rpm discs in 1928, the composer George Frideric Handel, born in Halle, Germany in 1685, took up permanent residence in London in 1712, and became a naturalised British subject in 1727. Within a large and varied output, Handel was a vigorous champion of Italian opera. He subsequently wrote and presented more than 40 such operas in Londons theatres, by the early 1730s public taste for Italian opera was beginning to fade. The popular success of John Gay and Johann Christoph Pepuschs The Beggars Opera had heralded a spate of English-language ballad-operas that mocked the pretensions of Italian opera, with box-office receipts falling, Handels productions were increasingly reliant on private subsidies from the nobility. Such funding became harder to obtain after the launch in 1730 of the Opera of the Nobility, Handel overcame this challenge, but he spent large sums of his own money in doing so. Although prospects for Italian opera were declining, Handel remained committed to the genre, in Rome in 1707–08 he had written two Italian oratorios at a time when opera performances in the city were temporarily forbidden under papal decree. His first venture into English oratorio had been Esther, which was written, in 1732 Handel brought a revised and expanded version of Esther to the Kings Theatre, Haymarket, where members of the royal family attended a glittering premiere on 6 May. Its success encouraged Handel to write two more oratorios, All three oratorios were performed to large and appreciative audiences at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford in mid-1733. Undergraduates reportedly sold their furniture to raise the money for the five-shilling tickets, in 1735 Handel received the text for a new oratorio named Saul from its librettist Charles Jennens, a wealthy landowner with musical and literary interests. Because Handels main creative concern was still with opera, he did not write the music for Saul until 1738, the work, after opening at the Kings Theatre in January 1739 to a warm reception, was quickly followed by the less successful oratorio Israel in Egypt
22.
Charles Burney
–
Charles Burney FRS was an English music historian, composer and musician. He was father of the writers Frances Burney and Sarah Burney, the explorer James Burney, Charles Burney was born at Raven Street in Shrewsbury, fourth of six children of James Macburney, a musician, dancer and portrait painter, and his second wife Ann. In childhood he and a brother, Richard were for unknown reasons sent to the care of a Nurse Ball at nearby Condover, where they lived until 1739. He began formal education at Shrewsbury School in 1737 and was sent in 1739 to The Kings School in Chester. His first music master was a Mr Baker, organist of the cathedral, Burney wrote some music for Thomsons Alfred, which was produced at Drury Lane theatre on 30 March 1745. It was for his health that he went in 1751 to Lynn Regis in Norfolk, where he was elected organist, with a salary of £100. During that time he began to entertain the idea of writing a history of music. The concertos for harpsichord which Burney published soon after his return to London were much admired, in 1766 he produced, at Drury Lane, a translation and adaptation of Jean-Jacques Rousseaus opera Le devin du village, under the title of The Cunning Man. In 1749, while working as an organist and harpsichordist in London, the couple had six children, Esther or Hetty, the explorer James Burney, the celebrated writer Fanny Burney, Susan, Charlotte, and Charles Burney. Charless first wife Esther died in 1761, in 1769 he was married a second time, to Elizabeth Allen of Lynn. From this union he had a son, Richard, and a daughter, Sarah Burney, the University of Oxford honoured Burney, on 23 June 1769, with the degrees of Bachelor and Doctor of Music, and his own work was performed. This consisted of an anthem, with an overture, solos, recitatives and choruses, accompanied by instruments, besides a vocal anthem in eight parts, in 1769 he published An Essay towards a History of Comets. Amidst his various professional avocations, Burney never lost sight of his main project — his History of Music — and decided to travel abroad and collect materials that could not be found in Britain. He left London in June 1770, carrying letters of introduction. The results of his observations were published in a book, The Present State of Music in France. In 1773 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, in 1776 appeared the first volume of Burneys long-projected History of Music. In 1782 Burney published his volume, and in 1789 the third. The fourth volume covers the birth and development of opera and the scene in England in Burneys time
23.
Modena
–
Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. One of Ferraris cars, the 360 Modena, was named after the town itself, the University of Modena, founded in 1175 and expanded by Francesco II dEste in 1686, has traditional strengths in economics, medicine and law and is the second oldest athenaeum in Italy. Italian military officers are trained at the Military Academy of Modena, the Biblioteca Estense houses historical volumes and 3,000 manuscripts. The Cathedral of Modena, the Torre della Ghirlandina and Piazza Grande are a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997, Modena is also known in culinary circles for its production of balsamic vinegar. Modena lies on the Pianura Padana, and is bounded by the two rivers Secchia and Panaro, both affluents of the Po River and their presence is symbolized by the Two Rivers Fountain in the citys center, by Giuseppe Graziosi. The city is connected to the Panaro by the Naviglio channel, the Apennines begin some 10 kilometres from the city, to the south. The commune is divided into four circoscrizioni and these are, Centro storico Crocetta Buon Pastore San Faustino Modena has a humid subtropical climate, with an average annual precipitation of 809 millimetres. Summers are warm and winters are chilly and wetter, with the possibility of snowfall and this climate is described by the Köppen climate classification as Cfa. From 1945 to 1992, Modena had a consecutive series of Communist mayors. From the 1990s, the city has been governed by center-left coalitions, at the April 2006 elections, the city of Modena gave about 50% of its votes to the Democratic Party. The legislative body of the municipality is the City Council which is composed by 35 members elected every five years, Modenas executive body is the City Committee composed by 9 assessors, the deputy-mayor and the mayor. The current mayor of Modena is Giancarlo Muzzarelli, member of the Democratic Party of Italy, the territory around Modena was inhabited by the Villanovans in the Iron Age, and later by Ligurian tribes, Etruscans, and the Gaulish Boii. Livy described it as a fortified citadel where Roman magistrates took shelter, the outcome of the siege is not known, but the city was most likely abandoned after Hannibals arrival. Mutina was refounded as a Roman colony in 183 BC, to be used as a base by Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. In the 1st century BC Mutina was besieged twice, the first siege was by Pompey in 78 BC, when Mutina was defended by Marcus Junius Brutus. The city eventually surrendered out of hunger, and Brutus fled, in the civil war following Caesars assassination, the city was besieged again, this time by Mark Antony, in 44 BC, and defended by Decimus Junius Brutus. Octavian relieved the city with the help of the Senate, cicero called it Mutina splendidissima in his Philippics. It is said that Mutina was never sacked by Attila, for a dense fog hid it, as of December 2008, Italian researchers have discovered the pottery center where the oil lamps that lit the ancient Roman empire were made
24.
Maidstone Museum & Art Gallery
–
The Council subsequently acquired Charles’ house, Chillington Manor, from his executors and, in 1858, opened it as the Charles Museum, later renamed Maidstone Museum. The Museum was one of the first to be opened as a result of the Museums Act and was a member of the Museums Association. Maidstone Museum celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2008 and this museum contains over 600,000 artefacts and specimens. Its collections, housed in the centre of Kent’s county town, are among the most comprehensive in the South East. The Museum is one of three operated by Maidstone Borough Council - alongside the Queens Own Royal West Kent Regimental Museum, the Museums central core consists of an Elizabethan manor house, formerly known as Chillington Manor, completed in 1577 with earlier Tudor buildings to its rear. In the early 18th century a wing was added to the west of the Tudor house. Upon the death of Thomas Charles an in accordance with his estate, Maidstone Borough Council purchased the building in 1856 for the sum of £1,200, investing a further £300 for repairs. On January 20,1858, the Museum opened as one of the UKs first local authority-run museums, after its opening as a museum, the building was further extended to house the growing collections. A new east wing was added in 1869, matched by new wing to the west in 1873 made possible by donations from Julius Brenchley. The eastern elevation was extended in 1889 to accommodate the Bentlif Art Gallery funded by Samuel Bentlif to house the art collection amassed by his brother, George. On the western side, the Victoria Gallery, housing the library, was built between 1897 and 1899 to commemorate Queen Victorias Diamond Jubilee. It operated as a public lending library until 1936. In 1924, the Bentlif Wing was extended and, in 1973, Maidstone Museum & Bentlif Art Gallery is Grade II* listed. The range of historic buildings makes access to parts of the Museum difficult. Significant improvements have been recently to ensure that the Museum meets the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act. The Queens Own Royal West Kent Regiment Museum, an independent charitable trust, has housed in the Museum since 1964. Its collection of regimental memorabilia features over 3,000 medals, the Museum is recognised as having the largest mixed collections in the county and one of the most important in the south-east of England, outside London. The collections consist of over 600,000 artefacts and specimens, three collections are of national importance, Anglo-Saxon - the best collection of artefacts from the richest Anglo-Saxon region of Britain
25.
Kent
–
Kent /ˈkɛnt/ is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south west, the county also shares borders with Essex via the Dartford Crossing and the French department of Pas-de-Calais through the Channel Tunnel. France can be clearly in fine weather from Folkestone and the White Cliffs of Dover. Hills in the form of the North Downs and the Greensand Ridge span the length of the county, because of its relative abundance of fruit-growing and hop gardens, Kent is known as The Garden of England. The title was defended in 2006 when a survey of counties by the UKTV Style Gardens channel put Kent in fifth place, behind North Yorkshire, Devon. Haulage, logistics, and tourism are industries, major industries in north-west Kent include aggregate building materials, printing. Coal mining has played its part in Kents industrial heritage. Large parts of Kent are within the London commuter belt and its transport connections to the capital. Twenty-eight per cent of the county forms part of two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the North Downs and The High Weald, the area has been occupied since the Palaeolithic era, as attested by finds from the quarries at Swanscombe. The Medway megaliths were built during the Neolithic era, There is a rich sequence of Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Roman era occupation, as indicated by finds and features such as the Ringlemere gold cup and the Roman villas of the Darent valley. The modern name of Kent is derived from the Brythonic word Cantus meaning rim or border and this describes the eastern part of the current county area as a border land or coastal district. Julius Caesar had described the area as Cantium, or home of the Cantiaci in 51 BC, the extreme west of the modern county was by the time of Roman Britain occupied by Iron Age tribes, known as the Regnenses. East Kent became a kingdom of the Jutes during the 5th century and was known as Cantia from about 730, the early medieval inhabitants of the county were known as the Cantwara, or Kent people. These people regarded the city of Canterbury as their capital, in 597, Pope Gregory I appointed the religious missionary as the first Archbishop of Canterbury. In the previous year, Augustine successfully converted the pagan King Æthelberht of Kent to Christianity, the Diocese of Canterbury became Britains first Episcopal See with first cathedral and has since remained Englands centre of Christianity. The second designated English cathedral was in Kent at Rochester Cathedral, in the 11th century, the people of Kent adopted the motto Invicta, meaning undefeated. This naming followed the invasion of Britain by William of Normandy, the Kent peoples continued resistance against the Normans led to Kents designation as a semi-autonomous county palatine in 1067. Under the nominal rule of Williams half-brother Odo of Bayeux, the county was granted powers to those granted in the areas bordering Wales
26.
Four-poster bed
–
A four-poster bed is a bed with four vertical columns, one in each corner, that support a tester, or upper panel. This tester or panel will often have rails to allow curtains to be pulled around the bed, there are a number of antique four-poster beds extant dating to the 16th century and earlier, many of these early beds are highly ornate and are made from oak. An example of such an early 16th-century four-poster resides in Crathes Castle, the dormitories in the Harry Potter series have four-poster beds in them
27.
Alexander's Feast (Handel)
–
Alexanders Feast is an ode with music by George Frideric Handel set to a libretto by Newburgh Hamilton. Hamilton adapted his libretto from John Drydens ode Alexanders Feast, or the Power of Music which had written to celebrate Saint Cecilias Day. Jeremiah Clarke set the ode to music. Handel composed the music in January 1736, and the received its premiere at the Covent Garden Theatre. The organ concerto and harp concerto were published in 1738 by John Walsh as the first and last of the Handel organ concertos Op.4, Handel revised the music for performances in 1739,1742 and 1751. Donald Burrows has discussed Handels revisions to the score, the piece was a great success and it encouraged Handel to make the transition from writing Italian operas to English choral works. The soloists at the premiere were the sopranos Anna Maria Strada and Cecilia Young, the tenor John Beard, Alexanders Feast, HWV75, Scores at the International Music Score Library Project Full-text libretto hosted by Stanford University. Score of Alexanders Feast Handels Alexanders Feast adapted by W. A. Mozart, K.591, ed. Andreas Holschneider, Score and critical report in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe
28.
British Library
–
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and the second largest library in the world by number of items catalogued. It holds well over 150 million items from many countries, as a legal deposit library, the British Library receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including a significant proportion of overseas titles distributed in the UK. The Library is a public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media. The Librarys collections include around 14 million books, along with holdings of manuscripts. In addition to receiving a copy of every publication produced in the UK and Ireland, the Library adds some three million items every year occupying 9.6 kilometres of new shelf space. Prior to 1973, the Library was part of the British Museum, the Euston Road building is classified as a Grade I listed building, of exceptional interest for its architecture and history. The British Library was created on 1 July 1973 as a result of the British Library Act 1972. Prior to this, the library was part of the British Museum. In 1983, the Library absorbed the National Sound Archive, which holds many sound and video recordings, with over a million discs, the core of the Librarys historical collections is based on a series of donations and acquisitions from the 18th century, known as the foundation collections. From 1997 to 2009 the main collection was housed in this new building. Construction work on the Newspaper Storage Building was completed in 2013, the collection has now been split between the St Pancras and Boston Spa sites. The British Library Document Supply Service and the Librarys Document Supply Collection is based on the site in Boston Spa. Collections housed in Yorkshire, comprising low-use material and the newspaper and Document Supply collections, the Library previously had a book storage depot in Woolwich, south-east London, which is no longer in use. The new library was designed specially for the purpose by the architect Colin St John Wilson, facing Euston Road is a large piazza that includes pieces of public art, such as large sculptures by Eduardo Paolozzi and Antony Gormley. It is the largest public building constructed in the United Kingdom in the 20th century, in December 2009 a new storage building at Boston Spa was opened by Rosie Winterton. The building was Grade I listed on 1 August 2015, in England, Legal Deposit can be traced back to at least 1610. The other five libraries are, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the University Library at Cambridge, the Trinity College Library at Dublin, in 2003 the Ipswich MP Chris Mole introduced a Private Members Bill which became the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003. The Act extends United Kingdom legal deposit requirements to electronic documents, such as CD-ROMs, the Library also holds the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections which include the India Office Records and materials in the languages of Asia and of north and north-east Africa
29.
Co-op Insurance
–
Co-op Insurance, formerly the Co-operative Insurance Society, is a general insurance company based in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is an owned subsidiary of The Co-operative Group, which also has businesses within the food, travel, electrical, funeralcare. In 2013, Royal London Group agreed to buy the insurance business unit for an estimated £219 million. The Co-operative Insurance Company Limited was formed in 1867 to provide fire, in 1886, at an Annual General Meeting it was resolved. In 1899, industrial life business was introduced and the company was converted into an industrial and provident society. Other classes of business were provided for the public and not just for co-operative societies. The shares of the Society were taken over by the Co-operative Wholesale Society, in 1973, the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society merged with CWS. CWS became The Co-operative Group on merger with Co-operative Retail Services in 2000, in 2011, Co-operative Financial Services became the Co-operative Banking Group. In 2006, CIS split its life and general insurance businesses into two entities, establishing CIS General Insurance Limited within which all new and renewing insurance business was written. All existing CIS general insurance business was reinsured with CISGIL and CIS continued to write long-term savings, CFS Management Services Limited was created at the same time to provide common support services to both CIS and CISGIL. In 2011, after 125 years, The Co-operative Insurance announced that it would cease providing life assurance products, the Societys head office on Miller Street in Manchester city centre was, at the time of completion in 1962, the tallest building in Europe, standing at 387 feet. Since the opening of the Beetham Tower in 2006, it is now the second tallest building in Manchester, in 2006, the CIS Tower was clad in solar panels, becoming Europes largest vertical solar array. The Co-op Insurance has a tradition of football sponsorship and it has previously sponsored the Scottish League Cup in Scotland and the Irish League Cup in Northern Ireland. The intention to sell the general insurance aspect was also announced, although in the event of a sale, in July 2013, Co-operative Insurance Society became a private company limited by shares under the Companies Act, changing its name to Royal London Limited. Subsidiary undertakings, CIS Unit Managers Limited and CIS Policyholder Services Limited became RLUM Limited, the Co-operative Asset Management Limited also transferred, becoming Royal London Asset Management Limited. Excluded from the sale, CIS General Insurance remained with the Co-operative Banking Group, following the recapitalisation of the Co-operative Bank at the end of 2013, The Co-operative Bank is now a separate legal entity to The Co-operative Group. Co-op Insurance now forms part of The Co-operative Group’s family of businesses, in January 2014, The Co-operative Group announced its decision not to sell the GI business. The proceeds of the sale were envisaged to be a part of the Group’s planned £1 billion contribution to the recapitalisation of The Co-operative Bank, Co-op Insurance currently offers business, home, motor and pet insurance products
30.
Listed building
–
A listed building or listed structure, in the United Kingdom, is one that has been placed on the Statutory List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. The statutory bodies maintaining the list are Historic England in England, Cadw in Wales, Historic Scotland in Scotland, however, the preferred term in Ireland is protected structure. In England and Wales, an amenity society must be notified of any work to a listed building which involves any element of demolition. Owners of listed buildings are, in circumstances, compelled to repair and maintain them. When alterations are permitted, or when listed buildings are repaired or maintained, slightly different systems operate in each area of the United Kingdom, though the basic principles of the listing remain the same. It was the damage to caused by German bombing during World War II that prompted the first listing of buildings that were deemed to be of particular architectural merit. The listings were used as a means of determining whether a building should be rebuilt if it was damaged by bombing. Listing was first introduced into Northern Ireland under the Planning Order 1972, the listing process has since developed slightly differently in each part of the UK. In the UK, the process of protecting the historic environment is called ‘designation’. A heritage asset is a part of the environment that is valued because of its historic. Only some of these are judged to be important enough to have legal protection through designation. However, buildings that are not formally listed but still judged as being of heritage interest are still regarded as being a consideration in the planning process. Almost anything can be listed – it does not have to be a building, Buildings and structures of special historic interest come in a wide variety of forms and types, ranging from telephone boxes and road signs, to castles. Historic England has created twenty broad categories of structures, and published selection guides for each one to aid with assessing buildings and these include historical overviews and describe the special considerations for listing each category. Both Historic Scotland and Cadw produce guidance for owners, in England, to have a building considered for listing or delisting, the process is to apply to the secretary of state, this can be done by submitting an application form online to Historic England. The applicant does not need to be the owner of the building to apply for it to be listed, full information including application form guidance notes are on the Historic England website. Historic England assesses buildings put forward for listing or delisting and provides advice to the Secretary of State on the architectural, the Secretary of State, who may seek additional advice from others, then decides whether or not to list or delist the building. In England and Wales the authority for listing is granted to the Secretary of State by the Planning Act 1990, Listed buildings in danger of decay are listed on the Historic England Heritage at Risk Register
31.
Covent Garden
–
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martins Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and with the Royal Opera House. The area was settled in the 7th century when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic. By 1200 part of it had been walled off by Westminster Abbey for use as arable land, referred to as the garden of the Abbey and Convent, and later the Covent Garden, it was seized by Henry VIII and granted to the Earls of Bedford in 1552. The 4th Earl commissioned Inigo Jones to build fine houses to attract wealthy tenants. Jones designed the Italianate arcaded square along with the church of St Pauls, the design of the square was new to London and had a significant influence on modern town planning, acting as the prototype for new estates as London grew. By 1654 a small open-air fruit-and-vegetable market had developed on the side of the fashionable square. Gradually, both the market and the area fell into disrepute, as taverns, theatres, coffee-houses. By the 18th century it had become a well-known red-light district, an Act of Parliament was drawn up to control the area, and Charles Fowlers neo-classical building was erected in 1830 to cover and help organise the market. The market grew and further buildings were added, the Floral Hall, Charter Market, by the end of the 1960s traffic congestion was causing problems, and in 1974 the market relocated to the New Covent Garden Market about three miles south-west at Nine Elms. With the postcode WC2, Covent Garden falls within the London boroughs of Westminster and Camden, the area has been served by the Piccadilly line at Covent Garden tube station since 1907, the journey from Leicester Square, at 300 yards, is the shortest in London. What would become the Strand on the boundary of the future Covent Garden was used during the Roman period as part of a route to Silchester. Excavations in 2006 at St Martin-in-the-Fields revealed a late Roman grave and these revealed Covent Garden as the centre of a trading town called Lundenwic, developed around 600 AD, which stretched from Trafalgar Square to Aldwych. Alfred the Great gradually shifted the settlement into the old Roman town of Londinium from around 886 AD onwards, leaving no mark of the old town, a document from 1200 AD mentions a walled garden owned by the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of St Peter, Westminster. A later document, dated between 1250 and 1283, refers to the garden of the Abbot and Convent of Westminster. By the 13th century this had become a 40-acre quadrangle of mixed orchard, meadow, pasture and arable land and this is how it was recorded from then on. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540, Henry VIII took the land belonging to Westminster Abbey for himself and his son, Edward VI, granted it to John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford, in 1552. The Russell family, who in 1694 were advanced in their peerage from Earl to Duke of Bedford, held the land until 1918
32.
Hanbury Hall
–
Hanbury Hall is a large stately home, built in the early 18th century, standing in parkland at Hanbury, Worcestershire. The main range has two storeys and is built of red brick in the Queen Anne style and it is a Grade I listed building. The associated Orangery and Long Gallery pavilion ranges are listed Grade II*, Hanbury Hall was built by the wealthy chancery lawyer Thomas Vernon in the early 18th century. Thomas Vernon was the grandson of the first Vernon to come to Hanbury, Worcestershire. The date of 1701 above the front door is thought to be a Victorian embellishment, a notable feature of Hanbury Hall is the painting of the staircase, hall ceiling, and other rooms by the English painter Sir James Thornhill. The focus of the paintings around the stairwell is the life of the Greek hero Achilles and they are surmounted by a large representation of the Olympian gods on the ceiling. On the south façade, having removed a doorway he repositioned all the windows to lie under their first floor equivalent, as the house had lain unoccupied for so long, many repairs had to be carried out at that time. Emma died in 1818 and left her cousin, Thomas Shrawley Vernon. Phillips married again and had two daughters in Hanbury before finally moving out in 1829, from then, the eldest son of Emmas heir, Thomas Tayler Vernon, was able to occupy it. His grandson Harry Foley Vernon MP, was created 1st Baronet of Hanbury in 1885, and was succeeded by his son Sir George Hamilton Vernon, 2nd Baronet. Sir George led a life, separating from his wife Doris, and spending his last 10 years living with his secretary and companion Ruth Horton. During this time the depression led to a reduction in rental income. In poor health, Sir George Vernon took his own life in 1940, there were no further heirs to the Baronetcy which became extinct. Sir Georges estranged wife was able to back in after his death. In recent years the hall has been managed more commercially and is now open daily, Vernon archives in the Worcestershire Record Office BA7995
33.
Worcestershire
–
Worcestershire is a county in the West Midlands of England. Between 1974 and 1998, it was merged with the county of Herefordshire as Hereford. The cathedral city of Worcester is the largest settlement and county town, other towns in the county include Redditch, Bromsgrove, Stourport-on-Severn, Droitwich, Evesham, Kidderminster, and Malvern. The north-east of Worcestershire includes part of the industrial West Midlands, the county is divided into six administrive districts, Worcester, Redditch, Wychavon, Malvern Hills, Wyre Forest, and Bromsgrove. The county borders Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, West Midlands, Warwickshire, to the west, the county is bordered by the Malvern Hills and the spa town of Malvern. The south of the county is bordered by Gloucestershire and the edge of the Cotswolds. Two major rivers flow through the county, the Severn and the Avon, Worcestershire was the heartland of the early English kingdom of the Hwicce. It was absorbed by the Kingdom of Mercia during the 7th century and it was a separate ealdormanship briefly in the 10th century before forming part of the Earldom of Mercia in the 11th century. In the years leading up to the Norman conquest, the Church, supported by the cathedral, Evesham Abbey, Pershore Abbey, Malvern Priory, and other religious houses, increasingly dominated the county. The last known Anglo-Saxon sheriff of the county was Cyneweard of Laughern, on 4 August 1265, Simon de Montfort was killed in the Battle of Evesham in Worcestershire. In 1642, the Battle of Powick Bridge was the first major skirmish of the English Civil War, during the Middle Ages, much of the countys economy was based on the wool trade. Many areas of its forests, such as Feckenham Forest, Horewell Forest. Droitwich Spa, situated on large deposits of salt, was a centre of production from Roman times. These old industries have declined, to be replaced by other. The county is home to the worlds oldest continually published newspaper. Malvern was one of the centres of the 19th century rise in English spa towns due to Malvern water being believed to be very pure, containing nothing at all. The 2011 census found the population of Worcestershire to be 566,169, while this change is in line with the nationwide trend of White British peoples share of the population shrinking, Worcestershire is still much more ethnically homogeneous than the national average. In 2011 England as a whole was 79. 8% White British, the most notable were Dudley, Evenlode, and the area around Shipston-on-Stour
34.
Historic Royal Palaces
–
Historic Royal Palaces is an independent charity that manages some of the United Kingdoms unoccupied royal palaces. In 1998 it became an independent charity, which is contracted by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and it receives no funding from the Government or the Crown, depending on the support of visitors, members, donors, volunteers and sponsors. 4.25 million people visited the palaces in the 2014–15 financial year, occupied royal palaces, such as Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, are maintained by the Royal Household Property Section, and some are open to the public. The organisation is jointly curated by Lucy Worsley and Tracy Borman, list of British royal residences Tales from the Palaces
35.
Charles Jennens
–
Charles Jennens was an English landowner and patron of the arts. As a friend of Handel, he helped author the libretti of several of his oratorios, Jennens was brought up at Gopsall Hall in Leicestershire, the son of Charles Jennens and his second wife, Elizabeth Burdett. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, matriculating in 1716, a devout Christian and a non-juror, upholding the legitimacy of the deposed Stuart line. He became interested in primitive Christianity and John Chrysostom, Jennens has been identified as an anti-Deist. Richard Kidders book A Demonstration of the Messias influenced him, remaining unmarried, he was considered melancholic and extravagant, his neighbours calling him Suleyman the Magnificent. As a non-juror, Jennens was ineligible for any public appointment, George Friderick Handels compositions were very much to his musical taste and they became close friends. Handel visited him frequently at Gopsall Hall and in 1749 provided the specification for an organ for his home, thomas Hudsons portrait of Handel was commissioned by Jennens. – and the same artists portrait of Charles Jennens is now in the Handel House Museum in London. Jennens extensive collection of books by Shakespeare, on literature, philology and theology was largely dispersed in a sale in 1918, Jennens deep knowledge of the Bible and wide literary interest led him, from 1735, to prepare or contribute to libretti for Handel. These included Saul, LAllegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, Messiah, Belshazzar and, possibly, the libretti were freely given and always published anonymously. Saul and Belshazzar are said to show an impressive gift for dramatic structure and characterization, well versed in music as well as literature, he annotated his copies of Handels operas, adding corrections, bass figures, rejected pieces and dates. It is also clear that on occasions Handel was prepared to accept Jennens suggestions, the most famous collaboration is Jennens libretto for Messiah, drawn entirely from the Bible, about 60% from the Old Testament. Musicologist Watkins Shaw describes it as a meditation of our Lord as Messiah in Christian thought and belief, some attribute Messiahs emphasis on the Old Testament – and choice of the Old Testament title Messiah – to Jennens theological beliefs. Jennens was less than wholly approving of the setting, writing to Edward Holdsworth, I shall show you a collection I gave Handel, called Messiah. He has made a fine entertainment of it, though not near so good as he might and ought to have done. In the early 1770s Jennens commenced the preparation of critical editions of Shakespeare plays. He completed King Lear, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, by these means he lost all opportunities of improvement, but gained what he preferred to the highest gratifications of wisdom — flattery in excess. Letters and writings of George Frideric Handel Smith, Ruth, Charles Jennens, The Man Behind Handels Messiah. London, The Gerald Coke Handel Foundation, amanda Babington and Ilias Chrissochoidis, Musical References in the Jennens–Holdsworth Correspondence, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle 45,1, 76–129
36.
Thomas Hudson (painter)
–
Thomas Hudson was an English portrait painter. Hudson was born in Devon in 1701 and he studied under Jonathan Richardson in London and against his wishes, married Richardsons daughter at some point before 1725. Hudson was most prolific between 1740 and 1760 and, from 1745 until 1755 was the most successful London portraitist and he had many assistants, and employed the specialist drapery painter Joseph van Aken. Joshua Reynolds, Joseph Wright and the drapery painter Peter Toms were his students, Hudson visited the Low Countries in 1748 and Italy in 1752. In 1753 he bought a house at Cross Deep, Twickenham and he retired toward the end of the 1750s. William Hickey described the elderly Hudson, His figure was rather grotesque, being low in stature, with a prodigious belly. He was remarkably good tempered, and one of my first-rate favourites and he died at Twickenham in 1779. His extensive private art collection was sold off in three separate sales, many of Hudsons works may be seen art galleries throughout the United Kingdom. They include the National Portrait Gallery, the National Maritime Museum, Tate, Foundling Museum, Thomas Hudson online Thomas Hudson on Artnet John Singleton Copley in America, a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Thomas Hudson
37.
Faustina Bordoni
–
Faustina Bordoni was an Italian mezzo-soprano. She was born in Venice and brought up under the protection of the brother composers Alessandro. Her singing teacher was composer, Michelangelo Gasparini. In 1718 and 1719 in Venice she sang alongside Francesca Cuzzoni, during this period she also performed several times at Reggio nellEmilia, Naples and Parma, and at least once in Milan, Modena and Florence. After her German début in 1723, singing in Pietro Torris Griselda at Munich, she was a great favourite north of the Alps during the 1720s and her nickname was the new siren, and she was commonly known simply as Faustina. Her London début, as Rossane in Handels Alessandro, took place on 5 May 1726, alongside Senesino, during the next two seasons she created four more Handel roles, Alceste in Admeto and Pulcheria in Riccardo Primo, and Emira in Siroe and Elisa in Tolomeo. She also sang in a revival of Radamisto, and in operas by Ariosti and this furore seized the public imagination and a great deal of journalistic exaggeration – the pamphleteer John Arbuthnot published The DEVIL to pay at St. Unlike Cuzzoni, Faustina never returned to England, during the years 1728–1732, she was again much in evidence on the stages of major Italian cities, especially Venice. They were described by the famous librettist Metastasio as truly an exquisite couple, hasse remained at the Saxon court for more than thirty years, and his wife sang in at least fifteen of the operas he composed between Caio Fabricio in 1734 and Ciro riconosciuto. Faustina was, however, permitted to make long trips to Italy, appearing again in Naples, Venice, Parma and elsewhere in operas by Pergolesi, Porpora and Vinci. Though she retired from the theatre in 1751, Faustina kept her salary and title of virtuosa da camera to the Elector until the death of Augustus successor, at this point, she and her husband moved to Vienna, before removing finally to Venice in 1773. They had two daughters, both trained singers, on a visit in 1772, Charles Burney described Faustina as a short, brown, sensible, and lively old woman. With good remains … of that beauty for which she was so celebrated in her youth. Unlike her rival Cuzzoni, who died in poverty, Faustina had a happy, the composer Quantz gave a description of Bordonis qualities, as given to Charles Burney, Faustina had a mezzo-soprano voice, that was less clear than penetrating. Her compass now was only from B flat to G in alt and she possessed what the Italians call un cantar granito, her execution was articulate and brilliant. She had a fluent tongue for pronouncing words rapidly and distinctly, the passages might be smooth, or by leaps, or consisting of iterations of the same note, their execution was equally easy to her as to any instrument whatever. She was, doubtless, the first who introduced with success a swift repetition of the same note and she had a very happy memory in arbitrary changes and embellishments, and a clear and quick judgment in giving to words their full value and expression. In short, she was born for singing and acting, J. Arbuthnot, The Miscellaneous Works of the Late Dr. Arbuthnot, pp 213–214 C
38.
Bartolomeo Nazari
–
Bartolomeo Nazari was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque, mainly active in Venice as a portraitist. By 1716, he had become an apprentice under Angelo Trevisani, but visited in 1723 the Roman studio of Angelos brother, the Venetian Francesco Trevisani, Nazari likely knew personally Fra Galgario, the renowned portraitist from Bergamo, and is described by some as a pupil. He returns to Venice in 1724, and is registered with the Fraglia dei Pittori by 1726, in 1744, he traveled to Frankfurt to paint the emperor Charles VII and his family and other members of the court. In 1756, he was inducted into the newly founded Accademia di Belle Arti of Venice and his son Nazario Nazari was also a painter. Among his patrons were Consul Joseph Smith and the former general Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg and he painted the portraits of a number of operatic singers including Farinelli. He died in Milan, returning from Genoa, where he had painted the Doge, the Nazari-A Forgotten Family of Venetian Portrait Painters, F. J. B. Venice, Googlebooks, Presso Andrea Santini e Figlio
39.
Blue plaque
–
The brainchild of British politician William Ewart in 1863, it is the oldest such scheme in the world. The worlds first blue plaques were erected in London in the 19th century to mark the homes and workplaces of famous people. This scheme continues to the present day, having been administered successively by the Society of Arts, the London County Council, the Greater London Council, many other plaque schemes have since been initiated in the United Kingdom. Some are restricted to a geographical area, others to a particular theme of historical commemoration. The plaques erected by these schemes are manufactured in a variety of designs, shapes, materials, the term blue plaque may be used narrowly to refer to the official English Heritage scheme, but is often used informally to encompass all similar schemes. There are also commemorative plaque schemes throughout the world such as those in Paris, Rome, Oslo, Dublin, and in cities in Australia, Canada, Russia. The forms these take vary, and they tend to be known as historical markers, the original blue plaque scheme was established by the Society of Arts in 1867, and since 1986 has been run by English Heritage. It is the oldest such scheme in the world, since 1984 English Heritage have commissioned Frank Ashworth to make the plaques which have then been inscribed by his wife, Sue, at their home in Cornwall. English Heritage plans to erect an average of twelve new blue plaques each year in London. After being conceived by politician William Ewart in 1863, the scheme was initiated in 1866 by Ewart, Henry Cole and the Society of Arts, the first plaque was unveiled in 1867 to commemorate Lord Byron at his birthplace,24 Holles Street, Cavendish Square. This house was demolished in 1889, the earliest blue plaque to survive, also put up in 1867, commemorates Napoleon III in King Street, St Jamess. Byron’s plaque was blue, but the colour was changed by the manufacturer Minton, in total the Society of Arts put up 35 plaques, fewer than half of which survive today. The Society only erected one plaque within the square-mile of the City of London, in 1879, it was agreed that the City of London Corporation would be responsible for erecting plaques within the City to recognise its jurisdictional independence. This demarcation has remained ever since, in 1901, the Society of Arts scheme was taken over by the London County Council, which gave much thought to the future design of the plaques. It was eventually decided to keep the shape and design of the Societys plaques, but to make them uniformly blue, with a laurel wreath. Though this design was used consistently from 1903 to 1938, some experimentation occurred in the 1920s, in 1921, the most common plaque design was revised, as it was discovered that glazed ceramic Doulton ware was cheaper than the encaustic formerly used. In 1938, a new design was prepared by an unnamed student at the LCCs Central School of Arts and Crafts and was approved by the committee. It omitted the decorative elements of earlier designs, and allowed for lettering to be better spaced and enlarged
40.
Baroque music
–
Baroque music is a style of Western art music composed from approximately 1600 to 1750. This era followed the Renaissance music era, and was followed in turn by the Classical era, Baroque music forms a major portion of the classical music canon, being widely studied, performed, and listened to. The Baroque period saw the creation of tonality, an approach to writing music in which a song or piece is written in a particular key, during the Baroque era, professional musicians were expected to be accomplished improvisers of both solo melodic lines and accompaniment parts. A characteristic Baroque form was the dance suite, while the pieces in a dance suite were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were designed for listening, not for accompanying dancers. During the period, composers and performers used more elaborate ornamentation, made changes in musical notation. Many musical terms and concepts from this era, such as toccata, fugue, dense, complex polyphonic music, in which multiple independent melody lines were performed simultaneously, was an important part of many Baroque choral and instrumental works. The word baroque comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning misshapen pearl, the term Baroque is generally used by music historians to describe a broad range of styles from a wide geographic region, mostly in Europe, composed over a period of approximately 150 years. The systematic application by historians of the baroque to music of this period is a relatively recent development. In 1919, Curt Sachs became the first to apply the five characteristics of Heinrich Wölfflins theory of the Baroque systematically to music, all of these efforts resulted in appreciable disagreement about time boundaries of the period, especially concerning when it began. In English the term acquired currency only in the 1940s, in the writings of Bukofzer, nevertheless, the term has become widely used and accepted for this broad range of music. It may be helpful to distinguish the Baroque from both the preceding and following periods of musical history, the Baroque period is divided into three major phases, early, middle, and late. Although they overlap in time, they are dated from 1580 to 1630, from 1630 to 1680. In reference to music, they based their ideals on a perception of Classical musical drama that valued discourse, the early realizations of these ideas, including Jacopo Peris Dafne and LEuridice, marked the beginning of opera, which were a catalyst for Baroque music. Concerning music theory, the widespread use of figured bass represents the developing importance of harmony as the linear underpinnings of polyphony. Harmony is the end result of counterpoint, and figured bass is a representation of those harmonies commonly employed in musical performance. With figured bass, numbers, accidentals or symbols were placed above the bassline that was read by keyboard instrument players such as players or pipe organists. The numbers, accidentals or symbols indicated to the player what intervals she should play above each bass note. The keyboard player would improvise a chord voicing for each bass note and this led to the idea that certain sequences of chords, rather than just notes, could provide a sense of closure at the end of a piece—one of the fundamental ideas that became known as tonality
41.
Upholstery
–
Upholstery is the work of providing furniture, especially seats, with padding, springs, webbing, and fabric or leather covers. The word upholstery comes from the Middle English word upholder, which referred to a tradesman who held up his goods, a person who works with upholstery is called an upholsterer, an apprentice upholsterer is sometimes called an outsider or trimmer. Traditional upholstery uses materials like coil springs, animal hair, coir, straw and hay, hessians, linen scrims, wadding, etc. and is done by hand, in contrast, modern upholsterers employ synthetic materials like dacron and vinyl, serpentine springs, and so on. Upholder is a term used for upholsterer, but it appears to have a connotation of repairing furniture rather than creating new upholstered pieces from scratch. In 18th-century London, upholders frequently served as interior decorators responsible for all aspects of a rooms decor and these individuals were members of the Worshipful Company of Upholders, whose traditional role, prior to the 18th century, was to provide upholstery and textiles and the fittings for funerals. In the great London furniture-making partnerships of the 18th century, a cabinet-maker usually paired with an upholder, Vile and Cobb, Ince and Mayhew, Chippendale and Rannie or Haig. In the USA, Grand Rapids, Michigan and Hickory, North Carolina are centers for furniture manufacture along with Long Eaton, Nottinghamshire and these craftsmen continue to create or recreate many antique and modern pieces of furniture. Furniture reupholstery continues to thrive in the UK with several businesses small, traditional upholstery is a craft which evolved over centuries for padding and covering chairs, seats and sofas, before the development of sewing machines synthetic fabrics and plastic foam. In the Middle Ages, domestic interiors were becoming more comfortable, by the beginning of the 17th century chair seats were being padded, but this form of upholstery was still fairly basic. The stuffing was heaped on a platform and held in place with a decorative top fabric. This produced a dome shape sloping towards the seat. Only towards the end of the 17th century did upholsterers start to develop the techniques that would distribute, curled horsehair was being used more consistently for stuffing that was easier to hold in place with stitches in twine that were developed from saddlery techniques. Thus layers of stuffing could be distributed evenly and secured to stay in place, on a basic level, squab cushions were made more stable by using tufting ties. Stuffed edge rolls appeared on seat fronts providing support for cushions to be retained, what we now think of as classic upholstery shapes and techniques flourished in the 18th century. Frames of elegant line and proportion were sympathetically matched by expertly executed upholstery, by now, the upholsterers technical knowledge meant that stuffings could be controlled along upright and sloping lines, giving new levels of comfort and a simply stated elegance. Later in the century, the border was replaced by a piece of linen or scrim taken over the stuffed seat. At the same time the blind stitch and top-stitching combination had evolved. In the Victorian era, fashions of opulence and comfort gave rise to excesses of stuffing and padding, mass production techniques made upholstered furniture available in large quantity to all sections of society
42.
Christopher Hogwood
–
Christopher Jarvis Haley Hogwood CBE was an English conductor, harpsichordist, writer, and musicologist. Founder of the music ensemble the Academy of Ancient Music, he was an authority on historically informed performance. Born in Nottingham, Hogwood studied music and classical literature at Pembroke College, Cambridge and he went on to study performance and conducting under Raymond Leppard, Mary Potts and Thurston Dart, and later with Rafael Puyana and Gustav Leonhardt. He also studied in Prague with Zuzana Ruzickova for a year, in 1967, Hogwood co-founded the Early Music Consort with David Munrow. In 1973 he founded the Academy of Ancient Music, which specializes in performances of Baroque, the Early Music Consort was disbanded following Munrows death in 1976, but Hogwood continued to perform and record with the Academy of Ancient Music. From 1981, Hogwood conducted regularly in the United States and he was Artistic Director of Bostons Handel and Haydn Society from 1986 to 2001, and for the remainder of his life held the title of Conductor Laureate. From 1983 to 1985 he was director of the Mostly Mozart Festival in the Barbican Centre in London. From 1988 to 1992, he was director of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in Minnesota. In 1994 he conducted the Handel and Haydn Society in a recreation of the concert that premiered Beethovens Sixth and Fifth symphonies for the Historic Keyboard Society of Milwaukee, Hogwood conducted a considerable amount of opera. He made his debut in 1983, conducting Don Giovanni in St. Louis. He worked with Berlin State Opera, La Scala, Milan, Royal Opera Stockholm, with Opera Australia, he performed Idomeneo in 1994 and La Clemenza di Tito in 1997. In 2009, he returned to the Royal Opera House to conduct the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Purcells Dido and Aeneas,2009 also saw him conducting Stravinskys The Rakes Progress at the Teatro Real in Madrid, in a production directed by Robert Lepage. In late 2010 and early 2011, he conducted a series of performances of Mozarts The Marriage of Figaro at Zurich Opera House, on 1 September 2006, harpsichordist Richard Egarr succeeded Hogwood as Music Director of the Academy of Ancient Music and Hogwood assumed the title of Emeritus Director. Hogwood said he expected to conduct at least one project with the Academy each year. He conducted the Academy in a series of performances of Handel operas which began in 2007 with Amadigi. 2008 saw performances of Flavio, and the series concluded in May 2009, in 2013 he conducted the Academy in Imeneo. He owned a collection of keyboard instruments. In July 2010, he was appointed Professor of Music at Gresham College, London, in this role he delivered four series of free public lectures on Aspects of Authenticity, The Making of a Masterpiece, European Capitals of Music and Music in Context
