Minuscule 551, ε 251, is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 12th century. Scrivener labeled it by number 538; the codex contains a complete text of the four Gospels on 233 parchment leaves. The writing is in one column per 22-23 lines per page; the text is divided according to the κεφαλαια, whose numerals are given at the margin, the τιτλοι at the top of the pages. There is a division according to the Ammonian Sections, some references to the Eusebian Canons; the number of Ammonian Sections and κεφαλαια are varies from. It contains the Epistula ad Carpianum, tables of the κεφαλαια are placed before every Gospel. There are barbarous headpieces to the Gospels, it contains lectionary markings at the margin, subscriptions at the end of each Gospel, with numbers of στιχοι, pictures of the four Evangelist. The Greek text of the codex is a representative of the Byzantine text-type. Aland placed it in Category V. According to the Claremont Profile Method it represents the textual family Kx in Luke 1, Luke 10, Luke 20.

The manuscript was held in the Karakalou monastery at Athos peninsula. In 1837 Robert Curzon, Lord Zouche, brought this manuscript to England; the entire collection of Curzon was bequeathed by his daughter in 1917 to the British Museum, where it had been deposited, by his son, since 1876. The manuscripts was added to the list of the New Testament minuscule manuscripts by F. H. A. Scrivener and C. R. Gregory. Gregory saw it in 1883; the manuscript was examined by Scrivener, Dean Burgon, Gregory. It is housed at the British Library in London. List of New Testament minuscules Biblical manuscript Textual criticism S. Emmel, Catalogue of Materials for Writing, Early Writings on Tablets and Stones and other Manuscripts and Oriental Manuscript Books, in the Library of the Honourable Robert Curzon

John Abram is an Anglo-Canadian composer best known for his work with electroacoustic music. Born in England, Abram became interested in music, he took composition lessons with Roger Marsh and Peter Dickinson at Keele University studying the recorder with Alan Davis. Abram graduated in 1980 with a bachelor of science degree, earning his master's in composition in 1982. Upon leaving school, he moved to London, where he helped found the new music ensemble George W. Welch. In 1984 Abram was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship; this allowed him to travel to the University of Victoria in Canada, where he studied composition with Rudolf Komorous and electroacoustic music with Doug Collinge. For his Ph. D. he composed an anti-opera based on The Aeneid. In addition, he directed the music school's Collegium Musicum for two years and taught composition for one, he was granted awards from the college in 1985 and 1987. From 1986 to 1988 he served as the associate director and conductor of the Open Space Gallery's Open Space New Music Series in Victoria.

He lived and worked in Toronto from 1989 to 1994, performing with numerous new music ensembles, co-founding The Drystone Orchestra, becoming a member of ARCANA. Abram created INFINITE MUSIC, a software program for composing and performing in real time, from 1993 to 1996, he wrote numerous pieces using the software, which generates material from analysis of MIDI input, either live or pre-recorded. Abram moved to Calgary, Alberta in 1994, has since been active in the recording industry and as a teacher. In 1997 he was nominated for an AMPIA award for the soundtrack to the short film The Skating Party. In addition, he has received commission grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Laidlaw Foundation, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, he now lives in Nova Scotia. Abram's work is recorded on the ARTIFACT labels. John Abram official website John Abram at Apple John Abram biography at the Canadian Music Centre

The Avar Treasure is an ensemble in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The various vessel making up the ensemble were found in Vrap and have been attributed to the Avar people; the Avars were a nomadic people from the steppes of Eurasia who arrived in the Balkans in the 6th century AD. Being a warlike people, the Avars warred with and subjugated much of the local population, clashed with the Byzantine Empire. Through these conquests, the Avars were able to amass considerable amounts of treasure, some of, buried en-mass near Avar settlements; the origin of the treasures found is disputed. The ensemble housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was recovered from the Albanian village of Vrap in the early 20th century and given to the museum by J. P. Morgan Jr. in 1917. The ensemble consists of a silver bucket, several drinking dishes and a jug. Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós Holcomb, Melanie. "Avar Treasure". In Nicholson, Oliver; the Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8

Chieftain's Salute is a concerto in one movement for Great Highland Bagpipe and orchestra by Graham Waterhouse. The work is one of few to use the bagpipe with a classical orchestra. A version for bagpipe and string orchestra, Op. 34a, was composed in 2001. It is based on an earlier work for string quartet. Jacobean Salute was derived from the early work, with a wind quintet replacing the bagpipe, published in 2003. A version for bagpipe and orchestra was composed and first performed in 2015. At Scottish Highland gatherings, a "Salute" is played to honour a person, here the "Chieftain". Waterhouse composed the first version of Chieftain's Salute in 1994 for bagpipe and string quartet, for a fund-raising event, he wrote a version for bagpipe and string orchestra, Op. 34a, in 2001. It was first recorded with soloist Graham Waller. In 2015 Waterhouse wrote a version for symphony orchestra, it was first performed on 8 November 2015 at the Capitol Theater in Offenbach am Main, again with Graham Waller as the soloist and the Neue Philharmonie Frankfurt conducted by Steven Lloyd González.

Waterhouse derived from the first work in 1994 Jacobean Salute, a version without bagpipe, but scored for wind quintet, string quintet, with the winds playing the role of the bagpipe. Glissandi of the strings imitate the blowing of the pipes, it was published in 2003 by Lienau in Frankfurt. The opening theme is based on a lament from the 17th century; the strings play alone for a while, the bagpipe enters first playing first both interact, with the strings at times imitating the drones of the bagpipe. Passages are reminiscent of the old Scottish dances jig and reel. Jacobean Salute was first performed in 1995, notably played in a composer portrait concert at the Gasteig in Munich on 5 October 2003, along with the Piccolo Quintet, the premiere of the Bassoon Quintet, the Nonet and other chamber music, played by Burkhard Jäckle, Lisa Outred, Albert Osterhammer, Ulrich Haider, Lyndon Watts, Odette Couch, Kirsty Hilton, Isabel Charisius, the composer and Matthias Weber, conducted by Yaron Traub.

The version for bagpipe and string orchestra was recorded in 2002 by Graham Waller and the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Traub. A reviewer noted that it is "a serious work", with the Highland Bagpipe "a real partner in this virile, rousing piece of music". Official website

Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85, his last notable work, is a cornerstone of the solo cello repertoire. Elgar composed it in the aftermath of the First World War, when his music had gone out of fashion with the concert-going public. In contrast with Elgar's earlier Violin Concerto, lyrical and passionate, the Cello Concerto is for the most part contemplative and elegiac; the first performance was a debacle because Elgar and the performers had been deprived of adequate rehearsal time. The work did not achieve wide popularity until the 1960s, when a recording by Jacqueline du Pré caught the public imagination and became a classical best-seller. Elgar made two recordings of the work with Beatrice Harrison as soloist. Since leading cellists from Pablo Casals onward have performed the work in concert and in the studio. Elgar is not known to have done any work on the concerto until 1919. However, as far back as 1900 the cellist of the Brodsky Quartet, Carl Fuchs, had extracted from Elgar an agreement to write a cello concerto.

Fuchs wrote to Elgar reminding him of this agreement. In 1903, Fuchs' friend the cellist Paul Grümmer reiterated the request orally, in 1906 by letter. So the idea of such a piece was not new; the concerto was composed during the summer of 1919 at Elgar's secluded cottage "Brinkwells" near Fittleworth, where during previous years he had heard the sound of the artillery of World War I rumbling across the Channel at night from France. In 1918, Elgar underwent an operation in London to have an infected tonsil removed, a dangerous operation for a 61-year-old man. After regaining consciousness after sedation, he asked for pencil and paper, wrote down the melody that would become the first theme in the concerto, he and his wife soon retired to the cottage in an attempt to recover from their health problems. In 1918, Elgar composed three chamber works, which his wife noted were noticeably different from his previous compositions, after their premieres in the spring of 1919, he began realising his idea of a cello concerto.

The concerto had a disastrous premiere, at the opening concert of the London Symphony Orchestra's 1919–20 season on 27 October 1919. Apart from the concerto, which the composer conducted, the rest of the programme was conducted by Albert Coates, who overran his rehearsal time at the expense of Elgar's. Lady Elgar wrote, "that brutal selfish ill-mannered bounder... that brute Coates went on rehearsing." The critic of The Observer, Ernest Newman, wrote, "There have been rumours about during the week of inadequate rehearsal. Whatever the explanation, the sad fact remains that never, in all probability, has so great an orchestra made so lamentable an exhibition of itself.... The work itself is lovely stuff simple – that pregnant simplicity that has come upon Elgar's music in the last couple of years – but with a profound wisdom and beauty underlying its simplicity." Elgar attached no blame to Felix Salmond, who played for him again later. Elgar said that if it had not been for Salmond's diligent work in preparing the piece, he would have withdrawn it from the concert entirely.

In contrast with the First Symphony, which received a hundred performances worldwide in just over a year from its premiere, the Cello Concerto did not have a second performance in London for more than a year. This work is scored for solo cello, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in A, 2 bassoons, 4 horns in F, 2 trumpets in C, 3 trombones, tuba and strings; the work has four movements: Adagio – Moderato Lento – Allegro molto Adagio Allegro – Moderato – Allegro, ma non-troppo – Poco più lento – Adagio The first movement is in ternary form with an introduction. It opens with a recitative for the solo cello followed by a short answer from the clarinets and horn. An ad lib modified scale played by the solo cello follows; the viola section presents a rendition of the main theme in Moderato, passes it to the solo cello who repeats it. Elgar considered it to be his tune: "if you hear someone whistling this melody around the Malvern Hills, that will be me"; the string section plays the theme a third time and the solo cello modifies it into a fortissimo restatement.

The orchestra reiterates, the cello presents the theme a final time before moving directly into a lyrical E major middle section. This transitions into a similar repetition of the first section; this section omits the fortissimo modified theme in the solo cello. The slower first movement moves directly into the second movement; the second movement opens with a fast crescendo with pizzicato chords in the cello. The solo cello plays what will be the main motive of the Allegro molto section. Pizzicato chords follow. A brief cadenza is played, sixteenth-note motive and chords follow. A ritardando leads directly to a scherzo-like section; the slow third movement starts and ends with a lyrical melody, one theme runs through the entire movement. The end flows directly into the finale; the fourth movement ends at fortissimo. The solo cello follows with another cadenza; the movement's main theme is stately, but with undertones and with many key-changes. Near the end of the piece, the tempo slows into a più lento section, in which a new set of themes appears.

The tempo slows further, to the tempo of the third movement, the theme from that movement is restated. This tempo continues to slow until it becomes stagnant, the orchestra holds a chord. At the end of the piece, the recitative of the first movement is played again; this flows into a reiteration of the main theme of the fourth movement, with