Sněžka
Sněžka or Śnieżka is a mountain on the border between the Czech Republic and Poland, the most prominent point of the Silesian Ridge in the Krkonoše mountains. At 1,603 metres, its summit is the highest point in the Czech Republic, in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in the Krkonoše and in the entire Sudetes. Sněžka was one of the first European mountains visited by many tourists; this was due to the minor technical difficulties of the ascent and the fact that since the sixteenth century, many resort visitors flocked to the nearby Cieplice Śląskie-Zdrój and the visible Sněžka, visually dominant over all Krkonoše was for them an important attraction. The first historical account of an ascent to the peak is in 1456, by an unknown Venetian merchant searching for precious stones; the first settlements on the mountain soon appeared, being mining communities, tapping into its deposits of copper and arsenic. The mining shafts, totalling 1.5 kilometres in length, remain to this day. The first recorded German name was Riseberg, mentioned by Georg Agricola in 1546.
Fifteen years the name Riesenberg appears on Martin Helwig's map of Silesia. The German name changed to Riesenkoppe and to Schneekoppe. In Czech, the mountain was called Pahrbek Sněžný. Sněžka, with the eventual name Sněžovka, meaning "snowy" or "snow-covered", adopted in 1823. An older Polish name for the mountain was Góra Olbrzymia, meaning "giant mountain"; the first building on the mountaintop was the Chapel of Saint Lawrence, built ca. 1665–1681 by the Silesian Schaffgotsch family to mark their dominion, serving as an inn for a brief period of time. The territory including the mines were the property of the Schaffgotsch family until 1945; the so-called Prussian hut was built on the Silesian side in 1850, followed by the Bohemian hut on the Bohemian side in 1868, both built with the purpose of providing lodging. The Prussian hut was rebuilt twice after fires, the "Polish hut" was demolished in 1967; the Bohemian hut fell into disrepair after 1990 and was demolished in 2004. A wooden weather station was built on the mountaintop ca.
1900, being the only weather station in Central Europe remaining intact after World War II. It was demolished in the 1980s. One side of the mountain is in the Czech Republic; the area is popular in summer with tourists from the Czech Republic and Germany who enjoy hiking in the alpine environment unique to this area. On the Polish side a disc-shaped observatory with weather station and restaurant was built in 1974, the St. Lawrence Chapel. On the Czech side are a post office, a chairlift station, connecting the peak with the town of Pec pod Sněžkou at the base of the mountain. Although the mountain is the highest natural peak in the Czech Republic, the actual highest point is the top of the television transmitter on Praděd, reaching 1,652 metres. If the Polish observatory is taken into account, Sněžka peaks at 1,620 metres. In 2004 a new post office and observation platform replaced an old post office and the remains of the Bohemian hut, closed since the 1980s. In March 2009 the Polish observatory suffered serious damage to the upper disc as a result of extreme weather and structural failure.
The upper disc's floor broke, though a fast response from the Technical University of Wrocław saved the remaining disc from taking any further damage. The restaurant and meteo offices were reopened soon after the construction team had finished clearing the debris and securing what was left of the observatory. After detailed inspection it was determined that no further damage should occur and the building was restored to its previous state; the upper disc was restored to its 1974 design, skipping certain "improvements" made in 1980s and 1990s which were suspected to contribute to the structural failure of March 2009. The old chairlift to the top of Sněžka was replaced by a new cable car system. Since February 2014, the four-person cabins in two sections have carried 250 visitors per hour from the Czech city Pec pod Sněžkou. There are many marked tourist routes from the Polish side to the summit from the city of Karpacz, it is possible to take a chairlift from Karpacz to Kopa which shortens the way to the summit.
Śnieżka belongs Crown of Polish Mountains and Crown of Sudetes. Due to high altitude the climate is maritime polar not far from a continental subpolar climate; the difference should be at least 6 °C lower on anual average compared to the weather station in the plains. Polish–Czech Friendship Trail List of mountains in Poland Sněžka chairlift information – including current status and webcam Sněžka Sněžka Sněžka weatherforecast WEBCAM on Sněžka Photo gallery of Śnieżka Piotr Krzaczkowski's Photo.net slideshow of Sněžka Historical photos of Schneekoppe Historical travel report by John Quincy Adams Historical map of Bohemia with Schneekoppe Historical map of Silesia with Schneekoppe Virtual show Śnieżka – Webcam from Karpacz
University of Hradec Králové
University of Hradec Králové was founded on June 21, 2000 by renaming the University College of Education, which itself traces its roots back to 1959. It is attended by around 8,500 students, it belongs to one of the most important research institutions in the Eastern Bohemia. The current rector of the university is prof. Ing. Kamil Kuča, Ph. D. Training of future teachers in Hradec Králové has a long tradition and dates back to 1775. In 1959 Institute of Education was established which prepared students to a teaching at both levels of elementary school. In August 1964 a separate Faculty of Education originated by merging the Institute of Education in Hradec Králové and in Pardubice. Students' training for all education level was enabled only after 1976 by a higher-education reform. After the Velvet revolution some former staff from 1960's returned to the faculty and an international cooperation with other universities has been established. On February 15, 1993 a new faculty was added to the Faculty of Education – the Faculty of Management and Information Technologies, in 2000 renamed to the Faculty of Informatics and Management.
In the same year the name of the university was changed to the University of Hradec Králové. The modern building of the Building of Common Education – in 1998 awarded by Czech architects as "The Building of Year" – was accompanied by long expected and high-technology building of the Faculty of Informatics and Management which required an investment of 360 millions CZK, it is situated next to the Building of Common Education. On September 1, 2005 the Faculty of Arts commenced as the third faculty of the university. Five years on September 1, 2010, the Faculty of Science was established following a transformation of the Faculty of Education. Last expansion took place on January 2011 when the Institute of Social Work was founded, it offers specializations in social sciences that were provided by the Faculty of Education. Since September 1 2017, Institute of Social Work became a part of Philosophical Faculty; the university consists of the following 5 units: Faculty of Education, around 5,300 students Faculty of Informatics and Management, around 2,400 students Faculty of Arts, around 1,000 students Faculty of Science, establıshed in 2010The long-term strategic mission of the university is not only to enhance its internal structure, but to focus on investment projects which are efficiently carried out by a gradual construction of the university campus in the Na Soutoku area.
The upcoming plans include a construction of a building for natural and social science specialization with laboratories that will complete and close up the center of a newly emerging campus. In 2010 a brand new unified professional visual style has been introduced that presents the university as a modern, dynamic institution. All parts of the university are located in capital of the Hradec Králové Region. Two student dormitories, Palach Halls of Residence and Vít Nejedlý Halls of Residence have capacity over 900 beds. Rector: prof. Ing. Kamil Kuča, Ph. D. Vice-Rector for Strategy and Development: doc. RNDr. Jan Kříž, Ph. D. Vice-Rector for Creative Activities: Mgr. Leona Stašová, Ph. D. Vice-Rector for Internal Affairs: doc. Ing. Václav Janeček, CSc. Vice-Rector for International Affairs: PhDr. Zdeněk Beran, Ph. D. Rector's Sceptre is shaped as a linden leaf, in the centre of which a shiny golden ball is situated. There is a silver lion standing at the top of it; the sceptre has been given to the university by the city of Hradec Králové.
Statutory emblem is made up by a central crowned Czech lion looking heraldically left and holding in its forepaws large "G" letter. The figure represents a part of the city of Hradec Králové emblem. In the circular inscription the full title of the university in Latin is written; the University Library of UHK The Gaudeamus Publishing House Halls of Residence Administration Institute of Further Education UHK Consulting Centre UHK Augustin - a support centre for students with specific needs Klídek Centre Academic Film Club Student Historic Club Student Clus Salaš - academic religious services ESN Buddy System HK - an organization taking care of incoming exchange students, a part of the Erasmus Student Network University website UHK forum Photos of all buildings and location map ESN Buddy System HK
Food processing
Food processing is the transformation of agricultural products into food, or of one form of food into other forms. Food processing includes many forms of processing foods, from grinding grain to make raw flour to home cooking to complex industrial methods used to make convenience foods. Primary food processing is necessary to make most foods edible, secondary food processing turns the ingredients into familiar foods, such as bread. Tertiary food processing has been criticized for promoting overnutrition and obesity, containing too much sugar and salt, too little fiber, otherwise being unhealthful. Primary food processing turns agricultural products, such as raw wheat kernels or livestock, into something that can be eaten; this category includes ingredients that are produced by ancient processes such as drying, threshing and milling grain, shelling nuts, butchering animals for meat. It includes deboning and cutting meat and smoking fish and meat and filtering oils, canning food, preserving food through food irradiation, candling eggs, as well as homogenizing and pasteurizing milk.
Contamination and spoilage problems in primary food processing can lead to significant public health threats, as the resulting foods are used so widely. However, many forms of processing contribute to improved food safety and longer shelf life before the food spoils. Commercial food processing uses control systems such as hazard analysis and critical control points and failure mode and effects analysis to reduce the risk of harm. Secondary food processing is the everyday process of creating food from ingredients that are ready to use. Baking bread, regardless of whether it is made at home, in a small bakery, or in a large factory, is an example of secondary food processing. Fermenting fish and making wine and other alcoholic products are traditional forms of secondary food processing. Sausages are a common form of secondary processed meat, formed by comminution of meat that has undergone primary processing. Tertiary food processing is the commercial production of what is called processed food.
These are heat-and-serve foods, such as TV dinners and re-heated airline meals. Food processing dates back to the prehistoric ages when crude processing incorporated fermenting, sun drying, preserving with salt, various types of cooking, Such basic food processing involved chemical enzymatic changes to the basic structure of food in its natural form, as well served to build a barrier against surface microbial activity that caused rapid decay. Salt-preservation was common for foods that constituted warrior and sailors' diets until the introduction of canning methods. Evidence for the existence of these methods can be found in the writings of the ancient Greek, Chaldean and Roman civilizations as well as archaeological evidence from Europe and South America and Asia; these tried and tested processing techniques remained the same until the advent of the industrial revolution. Examples of ready-meals date back to before the preindustrial revolution, include dishes such as Cornish pasty and Haggis.
Both during ancient times and today in modern society these are considered processed foods. Modern food processing technology developed in the 19th and 20th centuries was developed in a large part to serve military needs. In 1809 Nicolas Appert invented a hermetic bottling technique that would preserve food for French troops which contributed to the development of tinning, subsequently canning by Peter Durand in 1810. Although expensive and somewhat hazardous due to the lead used in cans, canned goods would become a staple around the world. Pasteurization, discovered by Louis Pasteur in 1864, improved the quality and safety of preserved foods and introduced the wine and milk preservation. In the 20th century, World War II, the space race and the rising consumer society in developed countries contributed to the growth of food processing with such advances as spray drying, juice concentrates, freeze drying and the introduction of artificial sweeteners, colouring agents, such preservatives as sodium benzoate.
In the late 20th century, products such as dried instant soups, reconstituted fruits and juices, self cooking meals such as MRE food ration were developed. By the 20th century, automatic appliances like microwave oven and rotimatic paved way for convenience cooking. In western Europe and North America, the second half of the 20th century witnessed a rise in the pursuit of convenience. Food processing companies marketed their products towards middle-class working wives and mothers. Frozen foods found their success in sales of juice concentrates and "TV dinners". Processors utilised the perceived value of time to appeal to the postwar population, this same appeal contributes to the success of convenience foods today. Benefits of food processing include toxin removal, easing marketing and distribution tasks, increasing food consistency. In addition, it increases yearly availability of many foods, enables transportation of delicate perishable foods across long distances and makes many kinds of foods safe to eat by de-activating spoilage and pathogenic micro-organisms.
Modern supermarkets would not exist without modern food processing techniques, long voyages would not be possible. Processed foods are less susceptible to early spoilage than fresh foods and are better suited for long-distance transportation from the source to the consumer; when they were first introduced, some processed foods helped to alleviate food shortages and improved th
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
Joseph II was Holy Roman Emperor from August 1765 and sole ruler of the Habsburg lands from November 1780 until his death. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Emperor Francis I, the brother of Marie Antoinette, he was thus the first ruler in the Austrian dominions of the House of Lorraine, styled Habsburg-Lorraine. Joseph was a proponent of enlightened absolutism, he has been ranked, with Catherine the Great of Russia and Frederick the Great of Prussia, as one of the three great Enlightenment monarchs. His policies are now known as Josephinism, he died with no sons and was succeeded by his younger brother, Leopold II. Joseph was born in the midst of the early upheavals of the War of the Austrian Succession, his formal education was provided through the writings of Voltaire and the Encyclopédistes, by the example of his contemporary King Frederick II of Prussia. His practical training was conferred by government officials, who were directed to instruct him in the mechanical details of the administration of the numerous states composing the Austrian dominions and the Holy Roman Empire.
Joseph married Princess Isabella of Parma in October 1760, a union fashioned to bolster the 1756 defensive pact between France and Austria. Joseph loved his bride, finding her both stimulating and charming, she sought with special care to cultivate his favor and affection. Isabella found a best friend and confidant in her husband's sister, Maria Christina, Duchess of Teschen; the marriage of Joseph and Isabella resulted in the birth of Maria Theresa. Isabella was fearful of pregnancy and early death a result of the early loss of her mother, her own pregnancy proved difficult as she suffered symptoms of pain and melancholy both during and afterward, though Joseph attended to her and tried to comfort her. She remained bedridden for six weeks after their daughter's birth. On the back of their newfound parenthood, the couple endured two consecutive miscarriages—an ordeal hard on Isabella—followed by another pregnancy. Pregnancy was again provoking melancholy and dread in Isabella. In November 1763, while six months pregnant, Isabella fell ill with smallpox and went into premature labor, resulting in the birth of their second child, Archduchess Maria Christina, who died shortly after being born.
Progressively ill with smallpox and strained by sudden childbirth and tragedy, Isabella died the following week. The loss of his beloved wife and their newborn child was devastating for Joseph, after which he felt keenly reluctant to remarry, though he dearly loved his daughter and remained a devoted father to Maria Theresa. For political reasons, under constant pressure, in 1765, he relented and married his second cousin, Princess Maria Josepha of Bavaria, the daughter of Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor, Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria; this marriage proved unhappy, albeit brief, as it lasted only two years. Though Maria Josepha loved her husband, she felt inferior in his company. Lacking common interests or pleasures, the relationship offered little for Joseph, who confessed he felt no love for her in return, he adapted by distancing himself from his wife to the point of near total avoidance, seeing her only at meals and upon retiring to bed. Maria Josepha, in turn, suffered considerable misery in finding herself locked in a cold, loveless union.
Four months after the second anniversary of their wedding, Maria Josepha grew ill and died from smallpox. Joseph neither visited her during her illness nor attended her funeral, though he expressed regret for not having shown her more kindness, respect, or warmth. One thing the union did provide him was the improved possibility of laying claim to a portion of Bavaria, though this would lead to the War of the Bavarian Succession. Joseph never remarried. In 1770, Joseph's only surviving child, the seven-year-old Maria Theresa, became ill with pleurisy and died; the loss of his daughter was traumatic for him and left him grief-stricken and scarred. Lacking children, Joseph II was succeeded by his younger brother, who became Leopold II. Joseph was made a member of the constituted council of state and began to draw up minutes for his mother to read; these papers contain the germs of his policy, of all the disasters that overtook him. He was a friend to religious toleration, anxious to reduce the power of the church, to relieve the peasantry of feudal burdens, to remove restrictions on trade and knowledge.
In these, he did not differ from Frederick, or his own brother and successor Leopold II, all enlightened rulers of the 18th century. He tried to liberate serfs. Where Joseph differed from great contemporary rulers, where he was akin to the Jacobins, was in the intensity of his belief in the power of the state when directed by reason; as an absolutist ruler, however, he was convinced of his right to speak for the state uncontrolled by laws, of the sensibility of his own rule. He had inherited from his mother the belief of the house of Austria in its "august" quality and its claim to acquire whatever it found desirable for its power or profit, he was unable to understand that his philosophical plans for the molding of humani
Rock music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the early 1950s, developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and particularly in the United Kingdom and in the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, a style which drew on the genres of blues and blues, from country music. Rock music drew on a number of other genres such as electric blues and folk, incorporated influences from jazz and other musical styles. Musically, rock has centered on the electric guitar as part of a rock group with electric bass and one or more singers. Rock is song-based music with a 4/4 time signature using a verse–chorus form, but the genre has become diverse. Like pop music, lyrics stress romantic love but address a wide variety of other themes that are social or political. By the late 1960s "classic rock" period, a number of distinct rock music subgenres had emerged, including hybrids like blues rock, folk rock, country rock, southern rock, raga rock, jazz-rock, many of which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock, influenced by the countercultural psychedelic and hippie scene.
New genres that emerged included progressive rock. In the second half of the 1970s, punk rock reacted by producing stripped-down, energetic social and political critiques. Punk was an influence in the 1980s on new wave, post-punk and alternative rock. From the 1990s alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break into the mainstream in the form of grunge and indie rock. Further fusion subgenres have since emerged, including pop punk, electronic rock, rap rock, rap metal, as well as conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including the garage rock/post-punk and techno-pop revivals at the beginning of the 2000s. Rock music has embodied and served as the vehicle for cultural and social movements, leading to major subcultures including mods and rockers in the UK and the hippie counterculture that spread out from San Francisco in the US in the 1960s. 1970s punk culture spawned the goth and emo subcultures. Inheriting the folk tradition of the protest song, rock music has been associated with political activism as well as changes in social attitudes to race and drug use, is seen as an expression of youth revolt against adult consumerism and conformity.
The sound of rock is traditionally centered on the amplified electric guitar, which emerged in its modern form in the 1950s with the popularity of rock and roll. It was influenced by the sounds of electric blues guitarists; the sound of an electric guitar in rock music is supported by an electric bass guitar, which pioneered in jazz music in the same era, percussion produced from a drum kit that combines drums and cymbals. This trio of instruments has been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments keyboards such as the piano, the Hammond organ, the synthesizer; the basic rock instrumentation was derived from the basic blues band instrumentation. A group of musicians performing rock music is termed as a rock group. Furthermore, it consists of between three and five members. Classically, a rock band takes the form of a quartet whose members cover one or more roles, including vocalist, lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bass guitarist and keyboard player or other instrumentalist. Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple unsyncopated rhythms in a 4/4 meter, with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four.
Melodies originate from older musical modes such as the Dorian and Mixolydian, as well as major and minor modes. Harmonies range from the common triad to parallel perfect fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Since the late 1950s and from the mid 1960s onwards, rock music used the verse-chorus structure derived from blues and folk music, but there has been considerable variation from this model. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock; because of its complex history and its tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that "it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated musical definition." Unlike many earlier styles of popular music, rock lyrics have dealt with a wide range of themes, including romantic love, rebellion against "The Establishment", social concerns, life styles. These themes were inherited from a variety of sources such as the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music, rhythm and blues.
Music journalist Robert Christgau characterizes rock lyrics as a "cool medium" with simple diction and repeated refrains, asserts that rock's primary "function" "pertains to music, or, more noise." The predominance of white and middle class musicians in rock music has been noted, rock has been seen as an appropriation of black musical forms for a young and male audience. As a result, it has been seen to articulate the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, "rock and roll implies an identification of male sexuality and aggression". Since the term "rock" started being used in preference to "rock and roll" from the late-1960s, it has been contrasted with pop music, with which it has shared many characteristics, but from wh
Wenceslaus II of Bohemia
Wenceslaus II Přemyslid was King of Bohemia, Duke of Cracow, King of Poland. He was the only son of Ottokar's second wife Kunigunda, he was born in ten years after the marriage of his parents. Kunigunda was the daughter of Rostislav Mikhailovich, lord of Slavonia, son of a Grand Prince of Kiev, Anna of Hungary, daughter of Béla IV of Hungary, his great-grandfather was the German king Philip of Swabia. Wenceslaus II was the grandfather of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV, he was a member of the Přemyslid dynasty. In 1276 Rudolf I, King of the Romans, placed Ottokar under the ban of the empire and besieged Vienna; this compelled Ottokar in November 1276 to sign a new treaty by which he gave up all claims to Austria and the neighbouring duchies, retaining for himself only Bohemia and Moravia. Ottokar's son Wenceslaus was betrothed to Rudolph's daughter Judith, it was an uneasy peace. Wenceslaus's father died on 26 August 1278 in the Battle on the Marchfeld shortly before Wenceslaus' seventh birthday.
Before Wenceslaus became of age, the government was handled by Otto V, Margrave of Brandenburg, said to have held Wenceslaus captive in several locations. He returned to Bohemia at the age of twelve, his mother's second husband, Záviš of Falkenštejn, ruled instead of him for a few years. On 24 January 1285, Wenceslaus married Judith of Habsburg, daughter of Rudolf I, to whom he had been betrothed since 1276. In 1290, Wenceslaus began ruling independently. In 1291, Przemysł II, High Duke of Poland, ceded the sovereign Duchy of Kraków to Wenceslaus. Kraków was associated with the overlordship of Poland, but Przemysł held the other duchies and in 1295 was crowned King of Poland. After Przemysł's death in 1296, Wenceslaus became overlord of Poland and in 1300, had himself crowned King of Poland. In 1298, silver was discovered at Kutná Hora in Central Bohemia. Wenceslaus took control of the mine by making silver production a royal monopoly and issued the Prague groschen, which became the most popular of the early Groschen-type coins.
Kutná Hora was one of the richest European silver strikes ever: between 1300 and 1340 the mine may have produced as much as 20 tons of silver a year. In 1300, Wenceslaus issued; this was a legal document that specified all administrative as well as technical terms and conditions necessary for the operation of mines. Queen Judith died in 1297. Wenceslaus' second wife was Elisabeth Richeza, daughter of Przemysł II, King of Poland, she remarried to Rudolph of Habsburg, duke of Austria, who became king of Bohemia for a brief period in those unruly years. In 1301, Wenceslaus' kinsman Andrew III of Hungary died and the Árpád dynasty became extinct in the male line. Wenceslaus was one of the relatives who claimed the throne, he accepted it from a party of Hungarians on behalf of his young son, betrothed to Andrew's only child, Elizabeth. On 27 August 1301, his son was crowned in Székesfehérvár as King of Hungary under the name Ladislaus V. At that time the Kingdom of Hungary was split into several de facto principalities, young Wenceslaus was only accepted as the King of Hungary by the rulers in Upper Hungary, in modern day Burgenland and on territory around the capital, Buda.
But the Abas and Matthew Csák switched sides in 1303 and started to support Wenceslaus' rival Charles Robert of Anjou. The young Wenceslaus, in Ofen, became afraid and wrote to his father in Prague for help, his father took a large army and invaded Buda, but having considered the situation, he took his son and the Hungarian crown and returned to Bohemia. Ivan Kőszegi was named to represent Wenceslaus III in Hungary. Wenceslaus II died on 21 June 1305, at the age of 33 of tuberculosis, he was succeeded by Wenceslaus III, the last of the Přemyslid kings in the male line. Wenceslaus II is considered as one of the most important Czech Kings, he built a great empire stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Danube river and established numerous cities, such as Plzeň in 1295. He won for his family three royal crowns; the Kingdom of Bohemia was the largest producer of silver in Europe in his time. He created the penny of Prague, an important European currency for centuries. During his reign, there was great urban development.
He planned to build the first university in Central Europe. The power and wealth of the Kingdom of Bohemia gave rise to great respect, but to the hostility of European royal families, his son King Wenceslaus III was unable to maintain a mighty empire, soon after the untimely death of Wenceslaus II, his empire began to crumble. In 1285 in Eger, he married Judith of Habsburg, daughter of Rudolph I of Germany and his wife Gertrude of Hohenburg, she died shortly after their 10th child was born: Přemysl Otakar. Wenceslaus III. Agnes, twin of Wenceslaus. Anne, married in 1306 to Henry of Carinthia. Elisabeth, married in 1310 to John of Luxembourg. Guta. John. John. Margaret, married in 1308 to Bolesław III the Generous, D
Polyphony
In music, polyphony is one type of musical texture, where a texture is speaking, the way that melodic and harmonic aspects of a musical composition are combined to shape the overall sound and quality of the work. In particular, polyphony consists of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, called homophony. Within the context of the Western musical tradition, the term polyphony is used to refer to music of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Baroque forms such as fugue, which might be called polyphonic, are described instead as contrapuntal; as opposed to the species terminology of counterpoint, polyphony was either "pitch-against-pitch" / "point-against-point" or "sustained-pitch" in one part with melismas of varying lengths in another. In all cases the conception was what Margaret Bent calls "dyadic counterpoint", with each part being written against one other part, with all parts modified if needed in the end.
This point-against-point conception is opposed to "successive composition", where voices were written in an order with each new voice fitting into the whole so far constructed, assumed. The term polyphony is sometimes used more broadly, to describe any musical texture, not monophonic; such a perspective considers homophony as a sub-type of polyphony. Traditional polyphony has a wide, if uneven, distribution among the peoples of the world. Most polyphonic regions of the world are in sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania, it is believed that the origins of polyphony in traditional music vastly predate the emergence of polyphony in European professional music. There are two contradictory approaches to the problem of the origins of vocal polyphony: the Cultural Model, the Evolutionary Model. According to the Cultural Model, the origins of polyphony are connected to the development of human musical culture. According to the Evolutionary Model, the origins of polyphonic singing are much deeper, are connected to the earlier stages of human evolution.
Although the exact origins of polyphony in the Western church traditions are unknown, the treatises Musica enchiriadis and Scolica enchiriadis, both dating from c. 900, are considered the oldest extant written examples of polyphony. These treatises provided examples of two-voice note-against-note embellishments of chants using parallel octaves and fourths. Rather than being fixed works, they indicated ways of improvising polyphony during performance; the Winchester Troper, from c. 1000, is the oldest extant example of notated polyphony for chant performance, although the notation does not indicate precise pitch levels or durations. European polyphony rose out of melismatic organum, the earliest harmonization of the chant. Twelfth-century composers, such as Léonin and Pérotin developed the organum, introduced centuries earlier, added a third and fourth voice to the now homophonic chant. In the thirteenth century, the chant-based tenor was becoming altered and hidden beneath secular tunes, obscuring the sacred texts as composers continued to play with this new invention called polyphony.
The lyrics of love poems might be sung above sacred texts in the form of a trope, or the sacred text might be placed within a familiar secular melody. The oldest surviving piece of six-part music is the English rota; these musical innovations appeared in a greater context of societal change. After the first millennium, European monks decided to start translating the works of Greek philosophers into the vernacular. Western Europeans were aware of Plato and Hippocrates during the Middle Ages; however they had lost touch with the content of their surviving works because the use of Greek as a living language was restricted to the lands of the Eastern Roman Empire. Once these ancient works started being translated thus becoming accessible, the philosophies had a great impact on the mind of Western Europe; this sparked a number of innovations in medicine, science and music. European polyphony rose prior to, during the period of the Western Schism. Avignon, the seat of the antipopes, was a vigorous center of secular music-making, much of which influenced sacred polyphony.
It was not polyphony that offended the medieval ears, but the notion of secular music merging with the sacred and making its way into the papal court. It gave church music more of a jocular performance quality removing the solemn worship they were accustomed to; the use of and attitude toward polyphony varied in the Avignon court from the beginning to the end of its religious importance in the fourteenth century. Harmony was not only considered frivolous and lascivious, but an obstruction to the audibility of the words. Instruments, as well as certain modes, were forbidden in the church because of their association with secular music and pagan rites. Dissonant clashes of notes give a creepy feeling, labeled as evil, fueling their argument against polyphony as being the devil’s music. After banishing polyphony from the Liturgy in 1322, Pope John XXII spoke in his 1324 bull Docta Sanctorum Patrum warning against the unbecoming elements of this musical innovation. Pope Clement VI, indulged in it.
The oldest extant polyphonic setting o
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Czech Republic
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listen); German: Königgrätz) is a city of the Czech Republic, in the Hradec Králové Region of Bohemia. The city's economy is based on food-processing technology, photochemical, electronics manufacturing services (EMS) and IT. Traditional industries include musical instrument manufacturing – the best known being Petrof pianos; the University of Hradec Králové is located in the city, the University of Defense has its only medical faculty in Hradec Králové and Charles University in Prague also has its Faculty of Medicine[2] and Faculty of Pharmacy [3] there.
Alessandria, Italy
Arnhem, Netherlands
Banská Bystrica, Slovakia
Chernihiv, Ukraine
Gießen, Germany
Kaštela, Croatia
Metz, France
Wałbrzych, Poland
