1.
Parma
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Parma listen is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its prosciutto, cheese, architecture, music and surrounding countryside. It is home to the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world, Parma is divided into two parts by the stream of the same name. The district on the far side of the river is Oltretorrente, Parmas Etruscan name was adapted by Romans to describe the round shield called Parma. The Italian poet Attilio Bertolucci wrote, As a capital city it had to have a river, as a little capital it received a stream, which is often dry. Parma was already an area in the Bronze Age. In the current position of the city rose a terramare, the terramare were ancient villages built of wood on piles according to a defined scheme and squared form, constructed on dry land and generally in proximity to the rivers. During this age the first necropolis were constructed, diodorus Siculus reported that the Romans had changed their rectangular shields for round ones, imitating the Etruscans. Whether the Etruscan encampment was so named because it was round, like a shield, the Roman colony was founded in 183 BC, together with Mutina,2,000 families were settled. Parma had an importance as a road hub over the Via Aemilia. It had a forum, in what is today the central Garibaldi Square, in 44 BC, the city was destroyed, and Augustus rebuilt it. During the Roman Empire, it gained the title of Julia for its loyalty to the imperial house, the city was subsequently sacked by Attila, and later given by the Germanic king Odoacer to his followers. During the Gothic War, however, Totila destroyed it and it was then part of the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna and, from 569, of the Lombard Kingdom of Italy. Under Frankish rule, Parma became the capital of a county, like most northern Italian cities, it was nominally a part of the Holy Roman Empire created by Charlemagne, but locally ruled by its bishops, the first being Guibodus. In the subsequent struggles between the Papacy and the Empire, Parma was usually a member of the Imperial party, two of its bishops became antipopes, Càdalo, founder of the cathedral, as Honorius II, and Guibert, as Clement III. An almost independent commune was created around 1140, a treaty between Parma and Piacenza of 1149 is the earliest document of a comune headed by consuls, the struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines was a feature of Parma too. In 1213, her podestà was the Guelph Rambertino Buvalelli, then, after a long stance alongside the emperors, the Papist families of the city gained control in 1248. The city was besieged in 1247–48 by Emperor Frederick II, who was crushed in the battle that ensued. Parma fell under the control of Milan in 1341, after a short-lived period of independence under the Terzi family, the Sforza imposed their rule through their associated families of Pallavicino, Rossi, Sanvitale and Da Correggio
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Rome
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Rome is a special comune and the capital of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region, with 2,873,598 residents in 1,285 km2, it is also the countrys largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the center of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4.3 million residents, the city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber. Romes history spans more than 2,500 years, while Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at only around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The citys early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans and it was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. Rome is also called the Caput Mundi, due to that, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, in 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city, Rome ranked in 2014 as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in Italy. Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, monuments and museums such as the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum are among the worlds most visited tourist destinations with both locations receiving millions of tourists a year. Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and is the seat of United Nations Food, however, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was actually derived from Rome itself. As early as the 4th century, there have been alternate theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. There is archaeological evidence of occupation of the Rome area from approximately 14,000 years ago. Evidence of stone tools, pottery and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence, several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the age and the beginning of the Iron age. However, none of them had yet an urban quality, nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city was gradually born through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine. All these happenings, which according to the excavations took place more or less around the mid of the 8th century BC. Despite recent excavations at the Palatine hill, the view that Rome has been indeed founded with an act of will as the legend suggests in the middle of the 8th century BC remains a fringe hypothesis. Traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves explain the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth
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Composer
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A composer is a person who creates or writes music, which can be vocal music, instrumental music or music which combines both instruments and voices. The core meaning of the term refers to individuals who have contributed to the tradition of Western classical music through creation of works expressed in written musical notation, many composers are also skilled performers, either as singers, instrumentalists, and/or conductors. Examples of composers who are well known for their ability as performers include J. S. Bach, Mozart. In many popular genres, such as rock and country. For a singer or instrumental performer, the process of deciding how to perform music that has previously composed and notated is termed interpretation. Different performers interpretations of the work of music can vary widely, in terms of the tempos that are chosen. Composers and songwriters who present their own music are interpreting, just as much as those who perform the music of others, although a musical composition often has a single author, this is not always the case. A piece of music can also be composed with words, images, or, in the 20th and 21st century, a culture eventually developed whereby faithfulness to the composers written intention came to be highly valued. This musical culture is almost certainly related to the esteem in which the leading classical composers are often held by performers. The movement might be considered a way of creating greater faithfulness to the original in works composed at a time that expected performers to improvise. In Classical music, the composer typically orchestrates her own compositions, in some cases, a pop songwriter may not use notation at all, and instead compose the song in her mind and then play or record it from memory. In jazz and popular music, notable recordings by influential performers are given the weight that written scores play in classical music. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of music. In the development of European classical music, the function of composing music initially did not have greater importance than that of performing it. The preservation of individual compositions did not receive attention and musicians generally had no qualms about modifying compositions for performance. In as much as the role of the composer in western art music has seen continued solidification, for instance, in certain contexts the line between composer and performer, sound designer, arranger, producer, and other roles, can be quite blurred. The term composer is often used to refer to composers of music, such as those found in classical, jazz or other forms of art. In popular and folk music, the composer is usually called a songwriter and this is distinct from a 19th-century conception of instrumental composition, where the work was represented solely by a musical score to be interpreted by performers
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Musicology
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Musicology is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology is part of the humanities, a scholar who participates in musical research is a musicologist. Traditionally, historical musicology has been the most prominent sub-discipline of musicology, in the 2010s, historical musicology is one of several large musicology sub-disciplines. Historical musicology, ethnomusicology, and systematic musicology are approximately equal in size, Ethnomusicology is the study of music in its cultural context. Cognitive musicology is the set of surrounding the computational modeling of music. Musical knowledge is applied in medicine, education, and music therapy—which, Music history or historical musicology is concerned with the composition, performance, reception, and criticism of music over time. Like the comparable field of art history, different branches and schools of historical musicology emphasize different types of musical works, there are also national differences in various definitions of historical musicology. In theory, music history could refer to the study of the history of any type or genre of music, in practice, these research topics are more often considered within ethnomusicology and historical musicology is typically assumed to imply Western Art music of the European tradition. The methods of historical musicology include source studies, paleography, philology, style criticism, historiography, musical analysis, Music historians may examine issues in a close focus, as in the case of scholars who examine the relationship between words and music for a given composers art songs. New musicology is a term applied since the late 1980s to a body of work emphasizing cultural study, analysis. Such work may be based on feminist, gender studies, queer theory, or postcolonial theory, or the work of Theodor Adorno. Charles Rosen, however, retorts that McClary, sets up, like so many of the new musicologists, a man to knock down, the dogma that music has no meaning. Ethnomusicology, formerly comparative musicology, is the study of music in its cultural context and it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music. Jeff Todd Titon has called it the study of making music. Some ethnomusicologists primarily conduct historical studies, but the majority are involved in long-term participant observation, or combine ethnographic, therefore, ethnomusiological scholarship can be characterized as featuring a substantial, intensive fieldwork component, often involving long-term residence within the community studied. Closely related to ethnomusiology is the branch of sociomusicology. For instance, Ko proposed the hypothesis of Biliterate and Trimusical in Hong Kong sociomusicology, the first journal focusing on popular music studies was Popular Music, which began publication in 1981. The same year an academic society devoted to the topic was formed
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Music criticism
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In this sense, it is a branch of musical aesthetics. The musicologist Winton Dean has suggested that music is probably the most difficult of the arts to criticize, like dramatic art, music is recreated at every performance, and criticism may therefore be directed both at the text and the performance. The absence of a clearly evolved or consensual musical aesthetics has also tended to make music criticism a highly subjective issue, there is no counter-check outside the critics own personality. Critical references to music can be found in literature, including, for example, in Platos Laws. According to Richard Taruskin, the concert life of late 18th-century London meant that the role. In France in the 1750s, the Querelle des Bouffons generated essays from Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others, the English composer Charles Avison published the first work on musical criticism in the English language - an Essay on Musical Expression published in 1752. In it, Avison claims that since the time of Palestrina and Raphael, typically until the late eighteenth century music criticism centred on vocal rather than instrumental music - vocal music. Was the apex of aesthetic hierarchy, one knew what music was expressing. The last years of the century reflected both a change of patronage of music from the aristocracy to the rising middle-classes and the rise of Romanticism in the arts. At the same time the proportion of new music to music in concert programming began to decline. This was particularly the case in respect of the rise of Beethovens reputation in his last year and this gave rise both to writings on the value of the canon and also to writings by composers and their supporters defending newer music. M. Schlesinger and edited by A. B, marx, and the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik founded in 1834 in Leipzig by Robert Schumann and Friedrich Wieck, and later edited by Franz Brendel. In 1835 James William Davison began his career as a music critic. Music journalism for reporting on classical and popular music in the media Category, Music critics Avison, bujic, Bojan Criticism of Music in The Oxford Companion to Music, Oxford Music Online, accessed 1 January 2013. Hoffmann as a Writer on Music, in Hoffmann, 1-22, jewry in Music, Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner. FromMendelssohnto Wagner, Memoirs of J. W. Davison, Criticism, in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol. London, Macmillan ISBN 0-333-23111-2 Hoffmann, E. T. A. ed. David Charlton. E, ISBN0521235200 Taruskin, Richard. Music in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Oxford, Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0-19-538482-6 Weber, from Miscellany to Homogeneity in Concert Programming, in Poetics 29, 127-34
6.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
7.
Classical music
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Classical music is art music produced or rooted in the traditions of Western music, including both liturgical and secular music. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common-practice period, Western staff notation is used by composers to indicate to the performer the pitches, tempo, meter and rhythms for a piece of music. This can leave less room for such as improvisation and ad libitum ornamentation. The term classical music did not appear until the early 19th century, the earliest reference to classical music recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1836. This score typically determines details of rhythm, pitch, and, the written quality of the music has enabled a high level of complexity within them, J. S. The use of written notation also preserves a record of the works, Musical notation enables 2000s-era performers to sing a choral work from the 1300s Renaissance era or a 1700s Baroque concerto with many of the features of the music being reproduced. That said, the score does not provide complete and exact instructions on how to perform a historical work, even if the tempo is written with an Italian instruction, we do not know exactly how fast the piece should be played. Bach was particularly noted for his complex improvisations, during the Classical era, the composer-performer Mozart was noted for his ability to improvise melodies in different styles. During the Classical era, some virtuoso soloists would improvise the cadenza sections of a concerto, during the Romantic era, Beethoven would improvise at the piano. The instruments currently used in most classical music were largely invented before the mid-19th century and they consist of the instruments found in an orchestra or in a concert band, together with several other solo instruments. The symphony orchestra is the most widely known medium for music and includes members of the string, woodwind, brass. The concert band consists of members of the woodwind, brass and it generally has a larger variety and number of woodwind and brass instruments than the orchestra but does not have a string section. However, many bands use a double bass. Many of the used to perform medieval music still exist. Medieval instruments included the flute, the recorder and plucked string instruments like the lute. As well, early versions of the organ, fiddle, Medieval instruments in Europe had most commonly been used singly, often self accompanied with a drone note, or occasionally in parts. From at least as early as the 13th century through the 15th century there was a division of instruments into haut, during the earlier medieval period, the vocal music from the liturgical genre, predominantly Gregorian chant, was monophonic, using a single, unaccompanied vocal melody line. Polyphonic vocal genres, which used multiple independent vocal melodies, began to develop during the medieval era, becoming prevalent by the later 13th
8.
Ottorino Respighi
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Ottorino Respighi was an Italian violinist, composer and musicologist, best known for his three orchestral tone poems Fountains of Rome, Pines of Rome, and Roman Festivals. His musicological interest in 16th-, 17th- and 18th-century music led him to pieces based on the music of these periods. He also wrote operas, the most famous being La fiamma. Respighi was born in Bologna, Italy into a musical family and his father, a local piano teacher, taught him to play the piano and violin at an early age. He went on to study the violin and viola with Federico Sarti at the Liceo Musicale in Bologna, composition with Giuseppe Martucci, and historical studies with Luigi Torchi, Respighi passed his exams and received a diploma in the violin in 1899. In 1900, Respighi accepted the role of principal violist in the orchestra of the Russian Imperial Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia, during his time there, he studied composition for five months with Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Respighi returned to Bologna to continue his studies in composition, which earned him a second diploma, until 1908, his principal activity was first violinist in the Mugellini Quintet, a touring quintet founded by composer Bruno Mugellini. Following his departure from the group, Respighi moved to Rome and he then spent some time performing in Germany before returning to Italy and turning his attention primarily to composition. In 1919, he married a pupil, singer Elsa Olivieri-Sangiacomo. Although many sources indicate some brief studies with Max Bruch during his time in Germany, during the early twentieth century, Respighi was active as a performer and composer. His compositions began to draw attention and, in 1913, he was appointed as professor of composition at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome, in 1917, his international fame rose following multiple performances of the first of his orchestral tone poems, Fountains of Rome. Subsequent tone poems include Pines of Rome, the Trittico Botticelliano, Vetrate di Chiesa, other notable orchestral works include the Sinfonia Drammatica, in three movements, and the Metamorphoseon Modi XII. From 1923 to 1926, Respighi was the director of the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia, in 1925, he collaborated with Sebastiano Arturo Luciani on an elementary textbook entitled Orpheus. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Italy in 1932, the Concerto Gregoriano and Concerto in Modo Misolidio have proven to be the most enduringly popular. Notable works for voice and piano include a series of art songs, Deità Silvane, the Lauda per la Natività del Signore and Il Tramonto are performed relatively frequently. Respighis operas after Marie Victoire were all set to libretti by his close collaborator, aside from pastiches and the re-imagined/arrangement, La Boutique Fantasque, Respighi completed only two ballets, the Ballata delle Gnomidi and Belkis, Regina di Saba. A visit to Brazil resulted in the composition Impressioni Brasiliane and he had intended to write a sequence of five pieces, but by 1928 he had completed only three, and decided to present what he had. Its first performance was in 1928 in Rio de Janeiro, the first piece, Tropical Night, is a nocturne with fragments of dance rhythms suggested by the sensuous textures
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Giuseppe Martucci
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Giuseppe Martucci was an Italian composer, conductor, pianist and teacher. As a composer and teacher he was influential in reviving Italian interest in non-operatic music, as a conductor he helped to introduce Wagners operas to Italy and also gave important early concerts of English music there. Martucci was born at Capua, in Campania and he learned the basics of music from his father, Gaetano, who played the trumpet. A child prodigy, he played in public on the piano when eight years old. From the age of 11, he was a student at the Naples Conservatory, on the recommendation of professor Beniamino Cesi, the latter being a former student of Sigismond Thalberg. From Paolo Serrao, Martucci acquired his training in composition, his own composition students later on. He died in Naples in 1909 and his son Paolo, born in Naples in 1883, also became a pianist of note, briefly teaching at the Cincinnati Conservatory. Martuccis career as an international pianist commenced with a tour through Germany, France and England in 1875 and it was in 1881 that Martucci made his first conducting appearance. One of the earliest Italian musicians to admire Wagner, Martucci introduced some of Wagners output to Italy and he led, for example, the first Italian performance of Tristan und Isolde in 1888 in Bologna. Nor did his enthusiasm for foreign composers end with Wagners work, what is more, he included music by Brahms, Lalo, Goldmark and others in his programs. Martucci began as a composer at the age of 16, with piano works. He wrote no operas, which was unusual among Italian composers of his generation, Martucci was championed by Arturo Toscanini during much of the latters career. All of these performances have given unofficial release in recent years. Some Toscanini biographers have questioned the merit of the compositions, speculating that Toscanini may have performed out of a sense of duty. Gian Francesco Malipiero said of Martuccis second symphony that it was the beginning of the rebirth of non-operatic Italian music, Martucci was an instrumentalist pur sang, taking absolute music as his highest goal. In 1989 Francesco DAvalos tried to start a revival of Martuccis music by recording four CDs with major works including the two concertos, two symphonies, and La canzone dei ricordi. These discs were distributed by ASV Records and later by Brilliant Classics, in 2009, to mark the centenary of Martuccis death, Naxos Records released a series of CDs devoted to his orchestral music, featuring the Symphony Orchestra of Rome conducted by Francesco La Vecchia. In 2011 Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra featured Martuccis Nocturne, Op.70,3, Op.12 Allegro appassionato, Op.13 Fuga, Op.14 Capriccio No
10.
Giovanni Tebaldini
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Giovanni Tebaldini was an Italian composer, organist and musicologist. He studied with Amilcare Ponchielli at the Conservatory of Milan and later with Franz Xaver Haberl in Regensburg and he was maestro di cappella in several Italian cities and later director of Consevaroty of Parma and director of Santa Casa di Loreto
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Florence
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Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the Metropolitan City of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants, Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time. It is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has called the Athens of the Middle Ages. A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family, from 1865 to 1871 the city was the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy. The Historic Centre of Florence attracts 13 million tourists each year and it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture, the city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florences artistic and architectural heritage, it has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in 2008, the city had the 17th highest average income in Italy. Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, it was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe, the language spoken in the city during the 14th century was, and still is, accepted as the Italian language. Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years War and they similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome. Florence was home to the Medici, one of European historys most important noble families, Lorenzo de Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century, Leo X, catherine de Medici married king Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future king Louis XIII, the Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de Medici in 1737. The Etruscans initially formed in 200 BC the small settlement of Fiesole and it was built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated along the Via Cassia, the route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century, Florence was conquered by Charlemagne in 774 and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital. The population began to again and commerce prospered
12.
Milan
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Milan is a city in Italy, capital of the Lombardy region, and the most populous metropolitan area and the second most populous comune in Italy. The population of the city proper is 1,351,000, Milan has a population of about 8,500,000 people. It is the industrial and financial centre of Italy and one of global significance. In terms of GDP, it has the largest economy among European non-capital cities, Milan is considered part of the Blue Banana and lies at the heart of one of the Four Motors for Europe. Milan is an Alpha leading global city, with strengths in the arts, commerce, design, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, services, research, and tourism. Its business district hosts Italys Stock Exchange and the headquarters of the largest national and international banks, the city is a major world fashion and design capital, well known for several international events and fairs, including Milan Fashion Week and the Milan Furniture Fair. The city hosts numerous cultural institutions, academies and universities, with 11% of the national total enrolled students, Milans museums, theatres and landmarks attract over 9 million visitors annually. Milan – after Naples – is the second Italian city with the highest number of accredited stars from the Michelin Guide, the city hosted the Universal Exposition in 1906 and 2015. Milan is home to two of Europes major football teams, A. C. Milan and F. C. Internazionale, the etymology of Milan is uncertain. One theory holds that the Latin name Mediolanum comes from the Latin words medio, however, some scholars believe lanum comes from the Celtic root lan, meaning an enclosure or demarcated territory in which Celtic communities used to build shrines. Hence, Mediolanum could signify the central town or sanctuary of a Celtic tribe, indeed, the name Mediolanum is borne by about sixty Gallo-Roman sites in France, e. g. Saintes and Évreux. Alciato credits Ambrose for his account, around 400 BC, the Celtic Insubres settled Milan and the surrounding region. In 222 BC, the Romans conquered the settlement, renaming it Mediolanum, Milan was eventually declared the capital of the Western Roman Empire by Emperor Diocletian in 286 AD. Diocletian chose to stay in the Eastern Roman Empire and his colleague Maximianus ruled the Western one, immediately Maximian built several monuments, such as a large circus 470 m ×85 m, the Thermae Herculeae, a large complex of imperial palaces and several other buildings. With the Edict of Milan of 313, Emperor Constantine I guaranteed freedom of religion for Christians, after the city was besieged by the Visigoths in 402, the imperial residence was moved to Ravenna. In 452, the Huns overran the city, in 539, the Ostrogoths conquered and destroyed Milan during the Gothic War against Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. In the summer of 569, a Teutonic tribe, the Lombards, conquered Milan, some Roman structures remained in use in Milan under Lombard rule. Milan surrendered to the Franks in 774 when Charlemagne took the title of King of the Lombards, the Iron Crown of Lombardy dates from this period
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Olga Rudge
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Olga Rudge was an American-born concert violinist, now mainly remembered as the long-time mistress of the poet Ezra Pound, by whom she had a daughter, Mary. A gifted concert violinist of international repute, her talents and reputation were eventually eclipsed by those of her lover. In return, Pound was more loyal, not to say faithful and she also defended Pound against the accusation that he was anti-Semitic. During the last 11 years of Pounds life, Rudge was his companion, secretary. Rudge survived Pound by twenty-four years, remaining in the house in Venice she had shared with him. Failing health eventually forced her to leave her beloved Venice and spend her days with her daughter. Rudge died a month before her 101st birthday and is buried next to Pound in Venices Isola di San Michele cemetery, Rudge was born to J. Edgar Rudge, a real estate investor, and Julia OConnell Rudge, a professional singer. Wanting to pursue a career, Julia moved to Europe with her three children when Olga was 10, living first in London then in Paris. Olga was educated at a convent school in Sherborne, Dorset, England, by 1916, Rudge was a renowned concert violinist, performing in many concerts to raise money for the British and French side of the First World War. Her brother Arthur was killed in action in 1918, at the end of the war in 1918, she began her career as an international concert violinist, under the auspices of Ildebrando Pizzetti and his patroness Katherine Dalliba-John. In 1918, Pizzetti and Rudge did a joint concert tour of Italy, one of her first meetings with Pound took place in 1923, in Paris at the salon of Natalie Barney. Pound later recalled her delicate and unemphatic reserve, at this time Pound was developing his own musical interests, composing an opera and advancing the work of the American composer George Antheil. Antheil and Rudge were to enjoy a professional collaboration dating from this period. Rudge was now an established and successful soloist living in an apartment on Pariss ultrarespectable right bank. She had nothing to gain by an association with a bohemian eccentric poet such as Pound and this willingness to flout convention and put her reputation at risk would typify her long affair with Pound. In December 1923, Rudge and Antheil gave a concert at the Salle du Conservatoire which included not only works by Mozart, Bach, and Antheil, for his work to be performed by a notable soloist was exactly the publicity Pound the aspiring composer desired. In 1924, Rudge and Antheil performed Musique Americaine at the Salle Pleyel and this concert also included work by Pound and Antheils Deuxieme Sonate, dedicated to Rudge. From 1923 onwards, Pounds letters to Rudge advise her on her career and he strongly recommended her to pay more attention to her patrons, and chided her for her lack of interest in the press comments concerning her concerts
14.
Manoah Leide-Tedesco
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Manoah Leide-Tedesco was an Italian-American composer, conductor and violinist. Tranquillo Manoah Leide-Tedesco was born in Sinigaglia, Italy, but grew up in Naples and his father, Lazzaro Laide-Tedesco, originally from Reggio Emilia, became Rabbi of the Jewish Community of Greater Naples and the Chief Rabbi of Naples. Manoah Leide-Tedesco grew up in a family of composers, singers. His brother, Enrico Leide was a concert cellist and orchestra conductor, educated at the University of Naples, Leide-Tedesco did his post graduate studies in Czechoslovakia, receiving his Doctorate in Philology and Sociology. He attended the Prague Conservatory where he continued his studies under Ildebrando Pizzetti, Josef Suk. From 1922-1935 Leide-Tedesco conducted many of the symphony orchestras of Central Europe including the Philharmonics of Prague, Vienna. Leide-Tedesco conducted the New Chamber Symphony of New York City from 1932-1935, the first performances of his own compositions were broadcast during this time over the NBC chain from Rockefeller Center. He conducted orchestras for, NBC, CBS, Chicago Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Orquesta Sinfonica, Czech Philharmonic, BBC, RAI Rome, Leide-Tedesco first visited the United States in 1912 and became a U. S. citizen in 1932. Between 1935 and 1945, he served with the United States Government where he was Chairman of Cultural Programs for the Office of Education and he also held positions with the United States Department of State and the Institute of International Understanding. He lectured widely in the United States and Latin America and campaigned for fairer immigration laws, throughout his life, Leide-Tedesco traveled the world collecting books, paintings, music and friends. Sabin, developer of the polio vaccine. In 1952 Rafael Kubelik conducted the first Chicago Symphony Orchestra performance of Leide-Tedescos For Harvest Time, poulencs Concerto and Leide-Tedesco Dances New in Orchestra Hall. Chicago Daily Tribune, p. B8 Milwaukee Journal, Leide-Tedesco is Speaker at Closing Event. P.4, Section VII No, Kum-Sok and Osterholm, a MIG-15 to Freedom, Memoir of the Wartime North Korean Defector. Stuckenschmidt, H. H. Maurice Ravel, Variations on His Life and Work
15.
Franco Donatoni
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Franco Donatoni was an Italian composer. Born in Verona, Donatoni started studying violin at the age of seven, later he studied at the Milan Conservatory and, from 1948, at the Bologna Conservatory. At least three generations of composers studied with Donatoni, see, List of music students by teacher, C to F#Franco Donatoni. Donatoni died in Milan in 2000, wishing to work in his book of his monumental Arte della Fuga”, for large orchestra. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie, shedding Some Light on Donatonis Lumen. Perspectives of New Music 54, no, biography by David Wright Obituary in the Musical Times Recording of Arpège, for ensemble. A reminiscence of Donatoni by Jeffrey Levine Excerpts from sound archives of Donatonis works
16.
Gabriele D'Annunzio
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General Gabriele DAnnunzio, Prince of Montenevoso, Duke of Gallese OMS CMG MVM, sometimes spelled dAnnunzio, was an Italian writer, poet, journalist, playwright and soldier during World War I. He occupied a prominent place in Italian literature from 1889 to 1910 and he was often referred to under the epithets Il Vate or Il Profeta. DAnnunzio was associated with the Decadent movement in his literary works, such works represented a turn against the naturalism of the preceding romantics and was both sensuous and mystical. He came under the influence of Friedrich Nietzsche which would find outlets in his literary and his affairs with several women, including Eleonora Duse and Luisa Casati, received public attention. During the First World War, perception of DAnnunzio in Italy transformed from literary figure into a war hero. He was associated with the elite Arditi storm troops of the Italian Army, as part of an Italian nationalist reaction against the Paris Peace Conference, he set up the short-lived Italian Regency of Carnaro in Fiume with himself as Duce. The constitution made music the fundamental principle of the state and was corporatist in nature, some of the ideas and aesthetics influenced Italian fascism and the style of Benito Mussolini. He was born in Pescara, Abruzzo, the son of a wealthy landowner and his father had originally been born plain Rapagnetta, but at the age of 13 had been adopted by a childless rich uncle Antonio dAnnunzio. Legend has it that he was initially baptized Gaetano and given the name of Gabriele later in childhood, however, there is wide documentation to disprove this story. His precocious talent was recognised early in life, and he was sent to school at the Liceo Cicognini in Prato, Tuscany. In 1881 DAnnunzio entered the University of Rome La Sapienza, where he became a member of literary groups, including Cronaca Bizantina and wrote articles. In those university years he started to promote Italian irredentism and he published Canto novo, Terra vergine, Lintermezzo di rime, Il libro delle vergini and the greater part of the short stories that were afterwards collected under the general title of San Pantaleone. Intermezzo di rime is the beginning of DAnnunzios second and characteristic manner and his conception of style was new, and he chose to express all the most subtle vibrations of voluptuous life. Meanwhile, the review of Angelo Sommaruga perished in the midst of scandal, some entered the teaching career and were lost to literature, others threw themselves into journalism. Gabriele DAnnunzio took this course, and joined the staff of the Tribuna. For this paper, under the pseudonym of Duca Minimo, he did some of his most brilliant work, DAnnunzios first novel Il piacere was followed in 1891 by Giovanni Episcopo, and in 1892 by Linnocente. These three novels made a profound impression, Linnocente, admirably translated into French by Georges Herelle, brought its author the notice and applause of foreign critics. DAnnunzios poetic work of period, in most respects his finest, is represented by Il Poema Paradisiaco, the Odi navali, a superb attempt at civic poetry
17.
Gioconda de Vito
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Gioconda de Vito was an Italian-British classical violinist. She was born, one of five children, in the town of Martina Franca in southern Italy, initially she played the violin untaught, having received only music theory lessons from the local bandmaster. Her uncle, a professional violinist based in Germany, heard her attempting a concerto by Charles Auguste de Bériot when she was aged only eight, at age 11, she entered the Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro to study with Remy Principe. She graduated at age 13, commenced a career as a soloist, in 1932, aged 25, she won the first International Violin Competition in Vienna. After she played the Bach Chaconne in D minor, Jan Kubelík came up to the stage and she then taught at Palermo and Rome, at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. She had earlier been presented to Benito Mussolini, who admired her playing. World War II interrupted what would otherwise have been the most productive period of her burgeoning career, in 1944 she was given the unique honour of a lifetime professorship at the Academy. In 1944 she premiered the Violin Concerto of Ildebrando Pizzetti and she made the first of her relatively few recordings after the war. In 1948 she made her London debut under Victor de Sabata and this was very successful, and led to performances at the Edinburgh Festival and with fellow artists such as Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. By 1953, she was considered Europes No.1 woman violinist and she played under Wilhelm Furtwängler a number of times, and had a great affinity for his approach. In 1957 they also played a Brahms sonata at Castel Gandolfo for Pope Pius XII, the following year she played the Mendelssohn concerto for the pontiff. A member of the audience later sent her a letter saying that he was no longer an atheist, during that concert, she realised she had reached the pinnacle of her career, and decided to retire in only another three years. She told the pope of her decision, Pius XII tried for an hour to dissuade her, saying she was far too young to retire so early, but to no avail. But she still had three years, during that time, Gioconda de Vito collaborated with Edwin Fischer, who was near the end of his career. During their recording sessions for the Brahms sonatas Nos.1 and 3, sonata No.2 was taken over by Tito Aprea in 1956, after they successfully recorded Beethovens Kreutzer and Franks A major sonata. She retired in 1961, aged only 54, not just from concert appearances and she preferred not even to teach. On one occasion, on holiday in Greece, she encountered Yehudi Menuhin on a beach, when they got back there, he realised he did not have a spare violin, so that sole opportunity to play once more came to nothing. Both recordings are to be found on Disc 41 of Menuhin – the Great EMI Recordings and she never played in the United States, although Arturo Toscanini and Charles Munch repeatedly asked her to
18.
Violin concerto
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A violin concerto is a concerto for solo violin and instrumental ensemble, customarily orchestra. Such works have been written since the Baroque period, when the solo concerto form was first developed, traditionally a three-movement work, the violin concerto has been structured in four movements by a number of modern composers, including Dmitri Shostakovich, Igor Stravinsky, and Alban Berg. The following concertos are presently found near the center of the mainstream Western repertoire, for a more comprehensive list of violin concertos, see List of compositions for violin and orchestra. Violin sonata Piano trio Tobias Broeker, Free e-book about the compositions for violin concertante of the 20th century
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Viola concerto
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A viola concerto is a concerto contrasting a viola with another body of musical instruments such as an orchestra or chamber music ensemble. Early examples of viola concertos include Telemanns concerto in G major and several concertos by Carl Stamitz, the first concertante work to use the viola without caution was Mozarts violin and viola Sinfonia Concertante. The viola, as with the cello, suffers problems of projection against an orchestral ensemble. Viola players were often originally violinists and so until recently there were few viola soloists, william Walton, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Paul Hindemith were among the first composers to write solo viola works for new, more capable players. These players in turn arranged works originally composed for other instruments, Viola sonata String instrument repertoire Viola website, hosting information about the viola. Michael Haydn page with Many Classical and Early-Romantic Worklists Viola Fan Club, information, description of works, videos, free sheet music, MIDI files, RSS update
20.
Cabiria
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This article is about Giovanni Pastrones 1914 silent film, for the Federico Fellini film, see The Nights of Cabiria. Cabiria is a 1914 Italian epic silent film, directed by Giovanni Pastrone, the film is set in ancient Sicily, Carthage, and Cirta during the period of the Second Punic War. Apart from being a classic on its own terms, the film is notable for being the first film in which the long-running film character Maciste makes his debut. According to Martin Scorsese, in this work Pastrone invented the movie and deserves credit for many of the innovations often attributed to D. W. Griffith. Among those was the use of a moving camera, thus freeing the feature-length narrative film from static gaze. The historical background and characters in the story are taken from Livys Ab Urbe Condita, in addition, the script of Cabiria was partially based on Gustave Flauberts 1862 novel Salammbo and Emilio Salgaris 1908 novel Cartagine in fiamme. Source, FIRST EPISODE, Batto and his young daughter Cabiria live in an estate in the shadow of Mount Etna at Catana on the island of Sicily. Cabiria plays with dolls with her nurse Croessa, when the volcanic Etna erupts violently, Batto prays to the god Pluto for deliverance but receives only a brief respite before his home and gardens are destroyed. While attempting to escape, servants discover a stairway leading underground. Taking advantage of the chaos and plundering Batto’s hidden underground treasure, Batto and his wife mourn the loss of Cabiria, as they believe her to be buried beneath the rubble. He intends to sacrifice her to the great god Moloch, also in Carthage are two Roman spies, Fulvius Axilla, a Roman patrician and Maciste, his huge, muscular slave. The innkeeper Bodastoret welcomes Fulvius and Maciste to his Inn of the Striped Monkey, Croessa tries to prevent the sacrifice of Cabiria by pretending that the child is ill, but Croessa is whipped for her deception. Later, she chances upon Fulvius and Maciste, recognizing them as fellow countrymen, she implores them to assist her. The entrance to the huge Temple of Moloch is a gigantic three-eyed head, one hundred young children are to perish as offerings. Inside of the temple are frenzied devotees, and the seated statue of the wingbed god Moloch is a hollow bronze furnace. The great chest opens for each victim, and when a youngster is slid into the inferno, the door closes, Croessa, Fulvius, and Maciste sneak into the temple and the slave boldly snatches Cabiria away from the priest. Pursued by a mob, they make their way up to the roof, down the gargantuan façade. All except Croessa, who pays a price for the rescue. THIRD EPISODE, Meanwhile, Hannibal
21.
Nicola Rossi-Lemeni
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Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, was a basso opera singer of mixed Italian-Russian parentage. Rossi-Lemeni was born in Istanbul, Turkey, the son of an Italian colonel, in his prime he was one of the most respected bassos in Italy. The composer Ildebrando Pizzetti wrote the opera Assassinio nella cattedrale specifically for Rossi-Lemeni and he was also a prize-winning poet and a painter. The basso made his debut as Varlaam in Boris Godunov at La Fenice, Venice and he sang at the Teatro alla Scala from 1947 to 1960, the Teatro Colón and Covent Garden. He appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, opening the 1953/54 season, in Faust, followed by the roles of Don Giovanni. He sang Don Giovanni to open the newly established Lyric Theatre of Chicago in February 1954, and returned that fall for Norma with Callas in her American Debut, and Basilio in The Barber of Seville. The following season he appeared in Puritani with Callas, Boheme with Tebaldi, Faust with Bjoerling, Elisir with Carteri and he created the roles of Thomas Beckett in Assassinio nella cattedrale by Ildebrando Pizzetti, and Eddie Carbone in Uno sguardo dal ponte by Renzo Rossellini. Rossi-Lemeni was married to Romanian soprano Virginia Zeani, among his recordings are Don Carlos, The Barber of Seville, and—opposite Maria Callas—I puritani, Norma, Il turco in Italia and La forza del destino. He was then featured in two recordings of La serva padrona, the first conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, the second alongside Zeani. In 1952, he recorded excerpts from Boris Godunov with Leopold Stokowski and the San Francisco Symphony for RCA Victor, Rossi-Lemeni was a pontifical knight in the Order of St. Sylvester. Notes Sources The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera, by John Warrack and Ewan West, ISBN 0-19-280028-0 Rodolfo Celletti and Alan Blyth. Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, biographical website Virginia Zeanis biographical website Nicola Rossi-Lemeni in an excerpt from Don Carlos on YouTube Interview with Nicola Rossi-Lemeni by Bruce Duffie, January 19,1985
22.
Leyla Gencer
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Ayşe Leyla Gencer née Çeyrekgil was a Turkish operatic soprano. Gencer was a notable bel canto soprano who spent most of her career in Italy, from the early 1950s through the mid-1980s and she made very few commercial recordings, however, numerous bootleg recordings of her performances exist. She was particularly associated with the heroines of Donizetti, Leyla Gencer was born in Polonezköy to a Turkish father and a Polish mother. Her father, Hasanzade İbrahim Bey, was a wealthy businessman and her mother, Lexanda Angela Minakovska, was from a Roman Catholic family of the Lithuanian aristocracy Her father died when she was very young. She grew up in the neighbourhood of Istanbul, on the Anatolian side of the Bosphorus strait. At 16, she married İbrahim Gencer, a related to the influential İpekçi family. She began to study singing at the Istanbul Conservatory but dropped out to study privately in Ankara with her teacher the Italian soprano Giannina Arangi-Lombardi, after Arangi-Lombardis death, Gencer continued her studies with the Italian baritone Apollo Granforte. She sang in the chorus of the Turkish State Theater until 1950, during the next few years, she became well known in Turkey and sang frequently at functions for the Turkish government. In 1953, Gencer made her Italian debut at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples as Santuzza and she returned to Naples the following year for performances of Madama Butterfly and Eugene Onegin. In 1957, she made her debut at La Scala in Milan as Mme, lidoine in the world premiere of Poulencs Dialogues of the Carmelites. At La Scala, she appeared as the First Woman of Canterbury in the world premiere of Pizzettis Lassassinio nella cattedrale in 1958. In 1960, she toured the USSR, singing concerts in Moscow, in 1962, she debuted at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as Elisabetta di Valois in Don Carlos and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni. Her United States debut had been at the San Francisco Opera in 1956 and she sang in other American opera houses as well, but never at the Metropolitan Opera, despite discussions about her being engaged to sing Tosca there, also in 1956. Her last appearance on the stage was in 1985, with La Prova di unopera seria at La Fenice. She continued to appear in concerts until 1992 and she was still active as of 2007, and had recently been appointed by La Scalas music director Riccardo Muti to run its school for young artists. Throughout her career, Gencer was particularly known for her Donizetti, including Belisario, Poliuto, Anna Bolena, Lucrezia Borgia, Maria Stuarda. Her most acclaimed and best-known performance, though, was the Roberto Devereux she sang in Naples in 1964, aside from bel canto roles, her repertory included works by such composers as Prokofiev, Mozart and Puccini. She appeared in many rarely performed operas, including Smareglias La Falena, Rossinis Elisabetta, regina dInghilterra, Spontinis Agnese di Hohenstaufen, Pacinis Saffo and Glucks Alceste
23.
Margarete Wallmann
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Margarete Wallmann or Wallman was a ballerina, choreographer, stage designer, and opera director. Born probably in Berlin, Wallmann received classical dancing education from Eugenia Eduardowa in Berlin, from 1923, she attended Mary Wigmans ballet school in Dresden and for a time belonged to Wigmans touring company, whose members included such future dance stars as Hanya Holm and Gret Palucca. In 1928 she traveled to New York and held there on Wigmans Ausdruckstanz. In 1929 she became head of the Wigman School in Berlin, in 1930 she founded her own company Tänzer-Kollektiv which in 1931 had already grown to 37 members. Their first production was the movement drama Orpheus Dionysos by Felix Emmel with Wallmann as Euridike, Shawn invited Wallmann to teach at his Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts in Los Angeles. In 1931 the company staged Emmels Das jüngste Gericht for the Salzburg Festival, due to an accident, however, Wallmann had to quit dancing. In 1933 she moved to Vienna, and in 1934 became ballet master at the Vienna State Opera, in 1938, after Austrias Anschluss to Nazi Germany, due to her non-aryan descent, she was let go, as was her soon to be divorced husband, Hugo Burghauser. In 1949 she returned to Europe and became director of La Scala in Milan. One of the new ballets she created there was Vita delluomo by Alberto Savinio, since 1952, she devoted herself mainly to directing operas. Wallmann became the choice to direct premiere performances, from Darius Milhauds David to La Scalas 1958 rendition of Turandot, also at the Scala, she directed Maria Callas in Médée, Alceste, Norma, and Un ballo in maschera. In the 1950s Wallmann worked closely with Poulenc during the process and in evolving the structure for Dialogues des Carmélites. After directing the premiere she worked closely with him again when she re-staged the production in other theatres and her husband at this time was the president of Ricordi music publishers. For the Deutsche Oper Berlin she directed Turandot, and La forza del destino, Directed by Clarence Brown, with Greta Garbo, Fredric March, Basil Rathbone. IMDB Choreographer, La donna piu bella del mondo, Directed by Robert Z. Leonard, with Gina Lollobrigida, Vittorio Gassman, Robert Alda, Anne Vernon. IMDB Choreographer, Aida Directed by Clemente Fracassi, with Sophia Loren/ Renata Tebaldi,1953, IMDB Director, Turandot with Birgit Nilsson, Conductor Georges Prêtre,1967. Re-edition under the title, Sous le ciel de lopéra, berkeley, University of California Press,1997, p.290 Kriechbaumer, Robert, Der Geschmack der Vergänglichkeit. Wien 2002, p.352 Wallmann at austria-lexikon. at Wallfrau – a new work from Renato Zanella, Oct.10,2008, uncoy. com 3sat Kulturzeit Oct.9,2008 3sat. de/mediathek 4,42 min
24.
La Scala
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La Scala is an opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was known as the Nuovo Regio Ducale Teatro alla Scala. The premiere performance was Antonio Salieris Europa riconosciuta, most of Italys greatest operatic artists, and many of the finest singers from around the world, have appeared at La Scala during the past 200 years. The theatre is regarded as one of the opera and ballet theatres in the world and is home to the La Scala Theatre Chorus, La Scala Theatre Ballet. The theatre also has a school, known as the La Scala Theatre Academy. La Scalas season traditionally opens on 7 December, Saint Ambroses Day, all performances must end before midnight, and long operas start earlier in the evening when necessary. La Scala also hosts the Accademia dArti e Mestieri dello Spettacolo and its goal is to train a new generation of young musicians, technical staff, and dancers. A fire destroyed the theatre, the Teatro Regio Ducale, on 25 February 1776. The neoclassical architect Giuseppe Piermarini produced a design but it was rejected by Count Firmian. A second plan was accepted in 1776 by Empress Maria Theresa, the new theatre was built on the former location of the church of Santa Maria alla Scala, from which the theatre gets its name. The church was deconsecrated and demolished, and over a period of two years the theatre was completed by Pietro Marliani, Pietro Nosetti and Antonio and Giuseppe Fe. The theatre had a total of 3,000 or so seats organized into 678 pit-stalls and its stage is one of the largest in Italy. Building expenses were covered by the sale of palchi, which were decorated by their owners. La Scala soon became the preeminent meeting place for noble and wealthy Milanese people, in the tradition of the times, the platea had no chairs and spectators watched the shows standing up. The orchestra was in sight, as the golfo mistico had not yet been built. Above the boxes, La Scala has a gallery—called the loggione—where the less wealthy can watch the performances, the gallery is typically crowded with the most critical opera aficionados, known as the loggionisti, who can be ecstatic or merciless towards singers perceived successes or failures. As with most of the theatres at that time, La Scala was also a casino, conditions in the auditorium, too, could be frustrating for the opera lover, as Mary Shelley discovered in September 1840, At the Opera they were giving Otto Nicolais Templario. La Scala was originally illuminated with 84 oil lamps mounted on the palcoscenico, to prevent the risks of fire, several rooms were filled with hundreds of water buckets
25.
Yehudi Menuhin
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Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM KBE was an American-born violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in Britain. He is widely considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century, Yehudi Menuhin was born in New York City to a family of Belorussian Jews. Through his father Moshe, a rabbinical student and anti-Zionist. In late 1919 Moshe and his wife Marutha became American citizens, yehudis sisters were concert pianist and human rights activist Hephzibah, and pianist, painter and poet Yaltah. Menuhins first violin instruction was at age four by Sigmund Anker, his parents had wanted Louis Persinger to teach him, Menuhin displayed exceptional talent at an early age. His first public appearance, when only seven, was as solo violinist with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1923, Persinger then agreed to teach him, and accompanied him on the piano for his first few solo recordings in 1928–29. When the Menuhins went to Paris, Persinger suggested Yehudi go to his old teacher, Belgian virtuoso and he did have one lesson with Ysaÿe, but disliked his teaching method and his advanced age. Instead, he went to the Romanian composer and violinist George Enescu, under whose tutelage he made recordings with several piano accompanists and he was also a student of Adolf Busch. In 1929 he played in Berlin, under Bruno Walters baton, according to Henry A. Murray, Menuhin wrote, Actually, I was gazing in my usual state of being half absent in my own world and half in the present. I have usually been able to retire in this way, I was also thinking that my life was tied up with the instrument and would I do it justice. His first concerto recording was made in 1931, Bruchs G minor, under Sir Landon Ronald in London, between 1934 and 1936, he made the first integral recording of Johann Sebastian Bachs sonatas and partitas for solo violin, although his Sonata No. 2, in A minor, was not released until all six were transferred to CD and he and Louis Kentner gave the first performance of William Waltons Violin Sonata, in Zürich on 30 September 1949. He continued performing, and conducting, to an advanced age, Menuhin credited German philosopher Constantin Brunner with providing him with a theoretical framework within which I could fit the events and experiences of life. Menuhin made Lysy his only student, and the two toured extensively throughout the concert halls of Europe. The young protégé later established the International Menuhin Music Academy in Gstaad, Menuhin made several recordings with the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, who had been criticized for conducting in Germany during the Nazi era. Menuhin defended Furtwängler, noting that the conductor had helped a number of Jewish musicians to flee Nazi Germany, in 1957, he founded the Menuhin Festival Gstaad in Gstaad, Switzerland. In 1962, he established the Yehudi Menuhin School in Stoke dAbernon and he also established the music program at The Nueva School in Hillsborough, California, sometime around then. In 1965 he received a knighthood from the British monarchy
26.
The Betrothed (1941 film)
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The Betrothed is a 1941 Italian historical drama film directed by Mario Camerini and starring Gino Cervi, Dina Sassoli and Ruggero Ruggeri. It is an adaptation of the 1827 novel The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni, the films producers organised a competition to select the lead actress which was modelled on the hunt for Scarlett OHara by the American producer David O. Selznick for Gone With the Wind. The novel was turned into a film again in 1964 and a miniseries in 1989. In a small town on Lake Como, the peasants Renzo and Lucia love each other, but are hampered by the squire Don Rodrigo, by intimidation, he prevents the parish priest Don Abbondio from celebrating the wedding. The good Friar Cristoforo visits Don Rodrigo, but is unable to dissuade him, since Don Rodrigos in love with Lucia, he subsequently tries to kidnap her, but Friar Cristoforo helps Renzo and Lucia to escape across a lake. Lucia goes to Monza, to a convent, while Renzo heads to Milan and he narrowly escapes the authorities by giving a false name, after unwittingly revealing it. Lucia is kidnapped by a man, a friend of Don Rodrigo. Lucia is brought to the castle of the Innominato, a friend of Don Rodrigo, in fact, the next day the Innominato visits Cardinal Federigo Borromeo and repents in his presence. He decides to set Lucia free, accompanied by the parish priest Don Abbondio, meanwhile, a plague breaks out in Lombardy, and both Renzo and Lucia are involved in the scourge. Renzo finds Friar Cristoforo in a hospital at Milan, who preaches forgiveness, the young man also sees Don Rodrigo, who was also hit by the plague, dying, and decides to forgive him. When Renzo finally finds and embraces Lucia, the two can at last get married, because they are no longer oppressed, Friar Cristoforo is on hand to resolve the theological issues relating to the vow. As he prays, rain begins to fall, mass Culture and Italian Society from Fascism to the Cold War. The Betrothed at the Internet Movie Database
27.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
28.
OCLC
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The Online Computer Library Center is a US-based nonprofit cooperative organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the worlds information and reducing information costs. It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center, OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the largest online public access catalog in the world. OCLC is funded mainly by the fees that libraries have to pay for its services, the group first met on July 5,1967 on the campus of the Ohio State University to sign the articles of incorporation for the nonprofit organization. The group hired Frederick G. Kilgour, a former Yale University medical school librarian, Kilgour wished to merge the latest information storage and retrieval system of the time, the computer, with the oldest, the library. The goal of network and database was to bring libraries together to cooperatively keep track of the worlds information in order to best serve researchers and scholars. The first library to do online cataloging through OCLC was the Alden Library at Ohio University on August 26,1971 and this was the first occurrence of online cataloging by any library worldwide. Membership in OCLC is based on use of services and contribution of data, between 1967 and 1977, OCLC membership was limited to institutions in Ohio, but in 1978, a new governance structure was established that allowed institutions from other states to join. In 2002, the structure was again modified to accommodate participation from outside the United States. As OCLC expanded services in the United States outside of Ohio, it relied on establishing strategic partnerships with networks, organizations that provided training, support, by 2008, there were 15 independent United States regional service providers. OCLC networks played a key role in OCLC governance, with networks electing delegates to serve on OCLC Members Council, in early 2009, OCLC negotiated new contracts with the former networks and opened a centralized support center. OCLC provides bibliographic, abstract and full-text information to anyone, OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat—the OCLC Online Union Catalog, the largest online public access catalog in the world. WorldCat has holding records from public and private libraries worldwide. org, in October 2005, the OCLC technical staff began a wiki project, WikiD, allowing readers to add commentary and structured-field information associated with any WorldCat record. The Online Computer Library Center acquired the trademark and copyrights associated with the Dewey Decimal Classification System when it bought Forest Press in 1988, a browser for books with their Dewey Decimal Classifications was available until July 2013, it was replaced by the Classify Service. S. The reference management service QuestionPoint provides libraries with tools to communicate with users and this around-the-clock reference service is provided by a cooperative of participating global libraries. OCLC has produced cards for members since 1971 with its shared online catalog. OCLC commercially sells software, e. g. CONTENTdm for managing digital collections, OCLC has been conducting research for the library community for more than 30 years. In accordance with its mission, OCLC makes its research outcomes known through various publications and these publications, including journal articles, reports, newsletters, and presentations, are available through the organizations website. The most recent publications are displayed first, and all archived resources, membership Reports – A number of significant reports on topics ranging from virtual reference in libraries to perceptions about library funding
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Internet Archive
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The Internet Archive is a San Francisco–based nonprofit digital library with the stated mission of universal access to all knowledge. As of October 2016, its collection topped 15 petabytes, in addition to its archiving function, the Archive is an activist organization, advocating for a free and open Internet. Its web archive, the Wayback Machine, contains over 150 billion web captures, the Archive also oversees one of the worlds largest book digitization projects. Founded by Brewster Kahle in May 1996, the Archive is a 501 nonprofit operating in the United States. It has a budget of $10 million, derived from a variety of sources, revenue from its Web crawling services, various partnerships, grants, donations. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California, where about 30 of its 200 employees work, Most of its staff work in its book-scanning centers. The Archive has data centers in three Californian cities, San Francisco, Redwood City, and Richmond, the Archive is a member of the International Internet Preservation Consortium and was officially designated as a library by the State of California in 2007. Brewster Kahle founded the Archive in 1996 at around the time that he began the for-profit web crawling company Alexa Internet. In October 1996, the Internet Archive had begun to archive and preserve the World Wide Web in large quantities, the archived content wasnt available to the general public until 2001, when it developed the Wayback Machine. In late 1999, the Archive expanded its collections beyond the Web archive, Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software. It hosts a number of projects, the NASA Images Archive, the contract crawling service Archive-It. According to its web site, Most societies place importance on preserving artifacts of their culture, without such artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures. Our culture now produces more and more artifacts in digital form, the Archives mission is to help preserve those artifacts and create an Internet library for researchers, historians, and scholars. In August 2012, the Archive announced that it has added BitTorrent to its file download options for over 1.3 million existing files, on November 6,2013, the Internet Archives headquarters in San Franciscos Richmond District caught fire, destroying equipment and damaging some nearby apartments. The nonprofit Archive sought donations to cover the estimated $600,000 in damage, in November 2016, Kahle announced that the Internet Archive was building the Internet Archive of Canada, a copy of the archive to be based somewhere in the country of Canada. The announcement received widespread coverage due to the implication that the decision to build an archive in a foreign country was because of the upcoming presidency of Donald Trump. Kahle was quoted as saying that on November 9th in America and it was a firm reminder that institutions like ours, built for the long-term, need to design for change. For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and it means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions
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IMDb
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In 1998 it became a subsidiary of Amazon Inc, who were then able to use it as an advertising resource for selling DVDs and videotapes. As of January 2017, IMDb has approximately 4.1 million titles and 7.7 million personalities in its database, the site enables registered users to submit new material and edits to existing entries. Although all data is checked before going live, the system has open to abuse. The site also featured message boards which stimulate regular debates and dialogue among authenticated users, IMDb shutdown the message boards permanently on February 20,2017. Anyone with a connection can read the movie and talent pages of IMDb. A registration process is however, to contribute info to the site. A registered user chooses a name for themselves, and is given a profile page. These badges range from total contributions made, to independent categories such as photos, trivia, bios, if a registered user or visitor happens to be in the entertainment industry, and has an IMDb page, that user/visitor can add photos to that page by enrolling in IMDbPRO. Actors, crew, and industry executives can post their own resume and this fee enrolls them in a membership called IMDbPro. PRO can be accessed by anyone willing to pay the fee, which is $19.99 USD per month, or if paid annually, $149.99, which comes to approximately $12.50 per month USD. Membership enables a user to access the rank order of each industry personality, as well as agent contact information for any actor, producer, director etc. that has an IMDb page. Enrolling in PRO for industry personnel, enables those members the ability to upload a head shot to open their page, as well as the ability to upload hundreds of photos to accompany their page. Anyone can register as a user, and contribute to the site as well as enjoy its content, however those users enrolled in PRO have greater access and privileges. IMDb originated with a Usenet posting by British film fan and computer programmer Col Needham entitled Those Eyes, others with similar interests soon responded with additions or different lists of their own. Needham subsequently started an Actors List, while Dave Knight began a Directors List, and Andy Krieg took over THE LIST from Hank Driskill, which would later be renamed the Actress List. Both lists had been restricted to people who were alive and working, the goal of the participants now was to make the lists as inclusive as possible. By late 1990, the lists included almost 10,000 movies and television series correlated with actors and actresses appearing therein. On October 17,1990, Needham developed and posted a collection of Unix shell scripts which could be used to search the four lists, at the time, it was known as the rec. arts. movies movie database
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Bibsys
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BIBSYS is an administrative agency set up and organized by the Ministry of Education and Research in Norway. They are a provider, focusing on the exchange, storage and retrieval of data pertaining to research. BIBSYS are collaborating with all Norwegian universities and university colleges as well as research institutions, Bibsys is formally organized as a unit at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, located in Trondheim, Norway. The board of directors is appointed by Norwegian Ministry of Education, BIBSYS offer researchers, students and others an easy access to library resources by providing the unified search service Oria. no and other library services. They also deliver integrated products for the operation for research. As a DataCite member BIBSYS act as a national DataCite representative in Norway and thereby allow all of Norways higher education, all their products and services are developed in cooperation with their member institutions. The purpose of the project was to automate internal library routines, since 1972 Bibsys has evolved from a library system supplier for two libraries in Trondheim, to developing and operating a national library system for Norwegian research and special libraries. The target group has expanded to include the customers of research and special libraries. BIBSYS is an administrative agency answerable to the Ministry of Education and Research. In addition to BIBSYS Library System, the product consists of BISBYS Ask, BIBSYS Brage, BIBSYS Galleri. All operation of applications and databases is performed centrally by BIBSYS, BIBSYS also offer a range of services, both in connection with their products and separate services independent of the products they supply
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Integrated Authority File
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The Integrated Authority File or GND is an international authority file for the organisation of personal names, subject headings and corporate bodies from catalogues. It is used mainly for documentation in libraries and increasingly also by archives, the GND is managed by the German National Library in cooperation with various regional library networks in German-speaking Europe and other partners. The GND falls under the Creative Commons Zero license, the GND specification provides a hierarchy of high-level entities and sub-classes, useful in library classification, and an approach to unambiguous identification of single elements. It also comprises an ontology intended for knowledge representation in the semantic web, available in the RDF format
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MusicBrainz
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MusicBrainz is a project that aims to create an open data music database that is similar to the freedb project. MusicBrainz was founded in response to the placed on the Compact Disc Database. MusicBrainz has expanded its goals to reach beyond a compact disc metadata storehouse to become an open online database for music. MusicBrainz captures information about artists, their works, and the relationships between them. Recorded works entries capture at a minimum the album title, track titles, and these entries are maintained by volunteer editors who follow community written style guidelines. Recorded works can also store information about the date and country. As of 26 July 2016, MusicBrainz contained information about roughly 1.1 million artists,1.6 million releases, end-users can use software that communicates with MusicBrainz to add metadata tags to their digital media files, such as MP3, Ogg Vorbis or AAC. As with other contributions, the MusicBrainz community is in charge for maintaining and reviewing the data, besides collecting metadata about music, MusicBrainz also allows looking up recordings by their acoustic fingerprint. A separate application, such as MusicBrainz Picard, must be used for this, in 2000, MusicBrainz started using Relatables patented TRM for acoustic fingerprint matching. This feature attracted many users and allowed the database to grow quickly, however, by 2005 TRM was showing scalability issues as the number of tracks in the database had reached into the millions. This issue was resolved in May 2006 when MusicBrainz partnered with MusicIP, tRMs were phased out and replaced by MusicDNS in November 2008. In October 2009 MusicIP was acquired by AmpliFIND, some time after the acquisition, the MusicDNS service began having intermittent problems. Since the future of the free service was uncertain, a replacement for it was sought. The Chromaprint acoustic fingerprinting algorithm, the basis for AcoustID identification service, was started in February 2010 by a long-time MusicBrainz contributor Lukáš Lalinský, while AcoustID and Chromaprint are not officially MusicBrainz projects, they are closely tied with each other and both are open source. Chromaprint works by analyzing the first two minutes of a track, detecting the strength in each of 12 pitch classes, storing these 8 times per second, additional post-processing is then applied to compress this fingerprint while retaining patterns. The AcoustID search server then searches from the database of fingerprints by similarity, since 2003, MusicBrainzs core data are in the public domain, and additional content, including moderation data, is placed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0 license. The relational database management system is PostgreSQL, the server software is covered by the GNU General Public License. The MusicBrainz client software library, libmusicbrainz, is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License, in December 2004, the MusicBrainz project was turned over to the MetaBrainz Foundation, a non-profit group, by its creator Robert Kaye
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National Diet Library
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The National Diet Library is the only national library in Japan. It was established in 1948 for the purpose of assisting members of the National Diet of Japan in researching matters of public policy, the library is similar in purpose and scope to the United States Library of Congress. The National Diet Library consists of two facilities in Tokyo and Kyoto, and several other branch libraries throughout Japan. The Diets power in prewar Japan was limited, and its need for information was correspondingly small, the original Diet libraries never developed either the collections or the services which might have made them vital adjuncts of genuinely responsible legislative activity. Until Japans defeat, moreover, the executive had controlled all political documents, depriving the people and the Diet of access to vital information. The U. S. occupation forces under General Douglas MacArthur deemed reform of the Diet library system to be an important part of the democratization of Japan after its defeat in World War II. In 1946, each house of the Diet formed its own National Diet Library Standing Committee, hani Gorō, a Marxist historian who had been imprisoned during the war for thought crimes and had been elected to the House of Councillors after the war, spearheaded the reform efforts. Hani envisioned the new body as both a citadel of popular sovereignty, and the means of realizing a peaceful revolution, the National Diet Library opened in June 1948 in the present-day State Guest-House with an initial collection of 100,000 volumes. The first Librarian of the Diet Library was the politician Tokujirō Kanamori, the philosopher Masakazu Nakai served as the first Vice Librarian. In 1949, the NDL merged with the National Library and became the national library in Japan. At this time the collection gained a million volumes previously housed in the former National Library in Ueno. In 1961, the NDL opened at its present location in Nagatachō, in 1986, the NDLs Annex was completed to accommodate a combined total of 12 million books and periodicals. The Kansai-kan, which opened in October 2002 in the Kansai Science City, has a collection of 6 million items, in May 2002, the NDL opened a new branch, the International Library of Childrens Literature, in the former building of the Imperial Library in Ueno. This branch contains some 400,000 items of literature from around the world. Though the NDLs original mandate was to be a library for the National Diet. In the fiscal year ending March 2004, for example, the library reported more than 250,000 reference inquiries, in contrast, as Japans national library, the NDL collects copies of all publications published in Japan. The NDL has an extensive collection of some 30 million pages of documents relating to the Occupation of Japan after World War II. This collection include the documents prepared by General Headquarters and the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, the Far Eastern Commission, the NDL maintains a collection of some 530,000 books and booklets and 2 million microform titles relating to the sciences
