1.
Opera house
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An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building. While some venues are constructed specifically for operas, other houses are part of larger performing arts centers. In contrast, there was no house in London when Henry Purcell was composing. Early United States opera houses served a variety of functions in towns and cities, hosting community dances, fairs, plays, with the rise of bourgeois and capitalist social forms in the 19th century, European culture moved away from its patronage system to a publicly supported system. In the 2000s, most opera and theatre companies raise funds from a combination of government and institutional grants, ticket sales, the Teatro San Carlo in Naples introduces the plant horseshoe, the oldest in the world, a model for the Italian theater. On this model were built following theaters of Italy and Europe, among others, the theater of the Palace of Caserta. Given the popularity of opera in 18th and 19th century Europe, opera houses are large, with generally more than 1,000 seats. Modern opera houses of the century such as New Yorks Metropolitan Opera. Many operas are better suited to being presented in smaller theatres, in a traditional opera house, the auditorium is U-shaped, with the length of the sides determining the audience capacity. Around this are tiers of balconies, and often, nearer to the stage, are boxes and this is especially true of Wagners Bayreuth Festspielhaus where the pit is almost completely covered. The size of an opera orchestra varies, but for some operas, oratorios and other works, it may be large, for some romantic period works. Similarly, an opera may have a large cast of characters, chorus, dancers, therefore, a major opera house will have extensive dressing room facilities. Opera houses often have on-premises set and costume building shops and facilities for storage of costumes, make-up, masks, and stage properties, major opera houses throughout the world often have highly mechanized stages, with large stage elevators permitting heavy sets to be changed rapidly. At the Metropolitan Opera, for instance, sets are changed during the action, as the audience watches. This occurs in the Mets productions of such as Aida. Much the same happened in the remodeling of Milans La Scala opera house between 2002 and 2004, since the 1990s, however, many opera houses have begun using a subtle form of sound reinforcement called acoustic enhancement. Often, operas are presented in their languages, which may be different from the first language of the audience. For example, a Wagnerian opera presented in London may be in German, therefore, since the 1980s modern opera houses have assisted the audience by providing translated supertitles, projections of the words above or near to the stage
Opera house
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Teatro di San Carlo in
Naples, the world’s oldest working theatre.
Opera house
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Opera-Theatre of
Metz, built by
benefactor Duke de Belle-Isle during the 18th century, it is the oldest opera house working in France
Opera house
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The
Grand Theatre, Warsaw, ca. 1890
Opera house
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The
Vienna Court Opera, ca. 1898
2.
Second Empire (architecture)
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Second Empire is an architectural style, most popular in the latter half of the 19th century and early years of the 20th century. It was so named for the elements in vogue during the era of the Second French Empire. The style quickly spread and evolved as Baroque Revival architecture throughout Europe and its suitability for super-scaling allowed it to be widely used in the design of municipal and corporate buildings. In the United States, where one of the architects working in the style was Alfred B. Mullett, buildings in the style were often closer to their 17th-century roots than examples of the found in Europe
Second Empire (architecture)
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Mairie de Tarbes (Hautes-Pyrénées, France, An example of French Second Empire architecture
Second Empire (architecture)
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Élysée Palace garden façade.
Second Empire (architecture)
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Alfred B. Mullett 's former
State, War and Navy Building, Washington, D.C., begun during the
Grant administration and built between 1871 and 1888.
Second Empire (architecture)
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Old City Hall, Boston, Massachusetts
3.
Beaux-Arts architecture
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Beaux-Arts architecture expresses the academic neoclassical architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The style of instruction that produced Beaux-Arts architecture continued without interruption until 1968. The Beaux-Arts style heavily influenced the architecture of the United States in the period from 1880 to 1920, in contrast, many European architects of the period 1860–1914 outside France gravitated away from Beaux-Arts and towards their own national academic centers. American architects of the Beaux-Arts generation often returned to Greek models, for the first time, repertories of photographs supplemented meticulous scale drawings and on-site renderings of details. Beaux-Arts training emphasized the production of quick conceptual sketches, highly finished perspective presentation drawings, close attention to the program, site considerations tended toward social and urbane contexts. In the façade shown to the right, Diana grasps the cornice she sits on in an action typical of Beaux-Arts integration of sculpture with architecture. A sense of appropriate idiom at the craftsman level supported the teams of the first truly modern architectural offices. The prestige of the École gave the style Beaux-Arts a second wind in combining the new manner with the traditional training and they were followed by an entire generation. Henry Hobson Richardson absorbed Beaux-Arts lessons in massing and spatial planning and his Beaux-Arts training taught him to transcend slavish copying and recreate in the essential fully digested and idiomatic manner of his models. Richardson evolved a personal style freed of historicism that was influential in early Modernism. The White City of the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago was a triumph of the movement, the Beaux-Arts curriculum was subsequently begun at Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. From 1916, the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City schooled architects, painters, bosworth, Carnegie Mellon University, designed by Henry Hornbostel, and the University of Texas, designed by Paul Philippe Cret. Beaux-Arts architecture also brought a civic face to the railroad, two of the best American examples of the Beaux-Arts tradition stand within a few blocks of each other, Grand Central Terminal and the New York Public Library. Another prominent U. S. example of the style is the largest academic dormitory in the world, in the late 1800s, during the years when Beaux-Arts architecture was at a peak in France, Americans were one of the largest groups of foreigners in Paris. Many of them were architects and students of architecture who brought this back to America. Beaux-Arts was very prominent in public buildings in Canada in the early 20th century, notably all three prairie provinces legislative buildings are in this style. Buenos Aires is a center of Beaux-Arts architecture which continued to be built as late as the 1950s, national Theatre, Melbourne General Post Office building, Forrest Place, Perth Argus Building. Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York, A Photographic Guide United States, sixteenth Street Architecture – profiles of Beaux-Arts architecture in Washington D. C
Beaux-Arts architecture
–
The
Palais Garnier (1861-75), an example of
Second Empire Beaux Arts style, typically employing
Neo-Baroque decorative elements
Beaux-Arts architecture
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Farmer Palace in
Kazan,
Russia
Beaux-Arts architecture
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The
San Francisco War Memorial Opera House of 1932, among the last major American buildings constructed in the Beaux-Arts style
Beaux-Arts architecture
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Beaux-Arts building decoration presenting images of the Roman
goddesses Pomona and
Diana. Note the naturalism of the postures and the
channeled rustication of the stonework.
4.
9th arrondissement of Paris
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The 9th arrondissement, located on the Right Bank, is one of the 20 arrondissements of Paris, France. Along with the 2nd and 8th arrondissements, it one of the business centers of Paris. The land area of this arrondissement is 2.179 km2, groupe Danone has its head office in the 17 Boulevard Haussmann building in the 9th arrondissement. BNP Paribas has its office in the arrondissement. Kroll Inc. also has an office in this arrondissement, until June 1995, the head office of Société Générale was in this arrondissement. On that month the head office moved to the Société Générale Towers, the former head office remains as the companys registered office. Google Paris has its offices in the arrondissement, the peak population of the 9th arrondissement occurred in 1901, when it had 124,011 inhabitants. Since then, the arrondissement has widely attracted business activity, as a result, the population was in 1999 only 55,838 inhabitants, while it held 111,939 jobs. Media related to Paris 9e arrondissement at Wikimedia Commons 9th arrondissement travel guide from Wikivoyage
9th arrondissement of Paris
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Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement.
9th arrondissement of Paris
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Opéra Garnier
9th arrondissement of Paris
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La mairie d'arrondissement, 6 rue Drouot
9th arrondissement of Paris
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Galeries Lafayette
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
Geographic coordinate system
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Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
6.
French franc
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The franc, also commonly distinguished as the French franc, was a currency of France. Between 1450 and 1999, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it was revalued in 1960, with each new franc being worth 100 old francs. The French franc was a commonly held reserve currency of reference in the 19th and 20th centuries. The first franc was a gold coin introduced in 1360 to pay the Ransom of King John II of France and this coin secured the kings freedom and showed him on a richly decorated horse earning it the name franc à cheval. The obverse legend, like other French coins, gives the title as Francorum Rex. Its value was set as one livre tournois, john’s son, Charles V, continued this type. It was copied exactly at Brabant and Cambrai and, with the arms on the horse cloth changed, conquests led by Joan of Arc allowed Charles VII to return to sound coinage and he revived the franc à cheval. John II, however, was not able to strike enough francs to pay his ransom, John II died as a prisoner in England and his son, Charles V was left to pick up the pieces. Charles V pursued a policy of reform, including stable coinage, an edict dated 20 April 1365 established the centerpiece of this policy, a gold coin officially called the denier d’or aux fleurs de lis which had a standing figure of the king on its obverse. Its value in money of account was one livre tournois, just like the franc à cheval, in accordance with the theories of the mathematician, economist and royal advisor Nicolas Oresme, Charles struck fewer coins of better gold than his predecessors. In the accompanying deflation both prices and wages fell, but wages fell faster and debtors had to settle up in better money than they had borrowed, the Mayor of Paris, Etienne Marcel, exploited their discontent to lead a revolt which forced Charles V out of the city. The States General which met at Blois in 1577 added to the pressure to stop currency manipulation. Henry III agreed to do this and he revived the franc and this coin and its fractions circulated until 1641 when Louis XIII of France replaced it with the silver Écu. Nevertheless, the franc continued in accounting as a synonym for the livre tournois. The decimal franc was established as the currency by the French Revolutionary Convention in 1795 as a decimal unit of 4.5 g of fine silver. This was slightly less than the livre of 4.505 g, silver coins now had their denomination clearly marked as “5 FRANCS” and it was made obligatory to quote prices in francs. e. Coinage with explicit denominations in decimal fractions of the franc also began in 1795, decimalization of the franc was mandated by an act of 7 April 1795, which also dealt with of weights and measures. France’s first decimal coinage used allegorical figures symbolizing revolutionary principles, like the designs the United States had adopted in 1793
French franc
–
Franc à cheval
French franc
–
Franc à pied
French franc
–
1795 five centimes, the first year of decimal fractions for the franc.
French franc
–
1799 two-decimes
essai coin
7.
Charles Garnier (architect)
–
Jean-Louis Charles Garnier was a French architect, perhaps best known as the architect of the Palais Garnier and the Opéra de Monte-Carlo. Charles Garnier was born Jean-Louis Charles Garnier on 6 November 1825 in Paris, on the Rue Mouffetard and his father was originally from Sarthe, and had worked as a blacksmith, wheelwright, and coachbuilder before settling down in Paris to work in a horse-drawn carriage rental business. He married Felicia Colle, daughter of a captain in the French Army, later in life, Garnier would all but ignore the fact that he was born of humble origins, preferring to claim Sarthe as his birthplace. Garnier became an apprentice of Louis-Hippolyte Lebas, and after that a student of the École royale des Beaux-Arts de Paris. He obtained the Premier Grand Prix de Rome in 1848, at age twenty-three, the subject of his final examination was entitled, Un conservatoire des arts et métiers, avec galerie dexpositions pour les produits de lindustrie. He became a pensioner of the Académie de France à Rome from 17 January to 31 December 1849 and he traveled through Greece which provided him the subject of his fourth year submission, presented at the Paris Salon in 1853. He visited Greece with Edmond About and Constantinople with Théophile Gautier and he worked on the Temple of Aphaea in Aegina where he insisted on polychromy. He was named, in 1874, member of the Institut de France, on 30 December 1860 the Second Empire of Emperor Napoleon III announced a competition for the design of a new, state-funded opera house. The old opera house, located on the rue Le Peletier, applicants were given a month to submit entries. There were two phases to the competition, and Garnier was one of about 170 entrants in the first phase and he was awarded the fifth-place prize and was one of seven finalists selected for the second phase. You have greatly improved your project since the first competition, whereas Ginain has ruined his, soon the thirty-five-year-old and relatively unknown Garnier began work on the building, which eventually would be named for him, the Palais Garnier. Many people had difficulty in deciding exactly what style he was trying to portray, when asked by Empress Eugénie in what style the building was to be done, he is said to have replied, Why Maam, in Napoleon Trois, and you complain. Construction began in the summer of 1861, though setbacks would delay it for fourteen years. During the first week of excavation, a stream was discovered. It required eight months for the water to be pumped out, Garniers double-walled and bitumen-sealed cement and concrete foundation proved strong enough to withstand any possible leakages, and construction continued. The defeat of the French army by the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan in 1870 resulted in the end of the Second Empire. During the Siege of Paris and the Paris Commune in 1871, the opera house was finally inaugurated on 5 January 1875. The people who entered the building, spanning nearly 119,000 square feet, were generally awed by its immense size
Charles Garnier (architect)
–
Charles Garnier by
Nadar, c. 1880
Charles Garnier (architect)
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The Palais Garnier in winter.
Charles Garnier (architect)
–
Seaside facade of the
Monte Carlo Casino Theatre, designed by Garnier
Charles Garnier (architect)
–
Monument to Garnier at the Palais Garnier
8.
Paris Opera
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The Paris Opera is the primary opera company of France. Classical ballet as we know it today arose within the Paris Opera as the Paris Opera Ballet and has remained an integral, small scale and contemporary works are also staged in the 500-seat Amphitheatre under the Opéra Bastille. The companys annual budget is in the order of 200 million euros, with this money, the company runs the two houses and supports a large permanent staff, which includes the orchestra of 170, a chorus of 110 and the corps de ballet of 150. Each year, the Opéra presents about 380 performances of opera, ballet and other concerts, to an audience of about 800,000 people. In the 2012/13 season, the Opéra presented 18 opera titles,13 ballets,5 symphonic concerts, the companys training bodies are also active, with 7 concerts from the Atelier Lyrique and 4 programmes from the École de Danse. The poet Pierre Perrin began thinking and writing about the possibility of French opera in 1655 and he believed that the prevailing opinion of the time that the French language was fundamentally unmusical was completely incorrect. Seventeenth-century France offered Perrin essentially two types of organization for realizing his vision, an academy or a public theater. On 28 June 1669, Louis XIV signed the Privilège accordé au Sieur Perrin pour létablissement dune Académie dOpéra en musique and he was free to select business partners of his choice and to set the price of tickets. No one was to have the right of free entry including members of the royal court, although it was to be a public theatre, it retained its status as royal academy in which the authority of the king as the primary stakeholder was decisive. The monopoly, originally intended to protect the enterprise from competition during its phase, was renewed for subsequent recipients of the privilege up to the early French Revolution. As Victoria Johnson points out, the Opera was an organization by nature so luxurious and expensive in its productions that its survival depended on financial protection. His first opera Pomone with music by Robert Cambert opened on 3 March 1671, a second work, Les peines et les plaisirs de lamour, with a libretto by Gabriel Gilbert and music by Cambert, was performed in 1672. The institution was renamed the Académie Royale de Musique and came to be known in France simply as the Opéra. Because of legal difficulties Lully could not use the Salle de la Bouteille, during Lullys tenure, the only works performed were his own. The first productions were the pastorale Les fêtes de lAmour et de Bacchus, Lully greatly desired a better theatre and persuaded the king to let him use the one at the Palais-Royal free of charge. The Théâtre du Palais-Royal had been altered in 1660 and 1671, the first production in the new theatre was Alceste on 19 January 1674. The opera was bitterly attacked by those enraged at the restrictions that Lully had caused to be placed on the French, to mitigate the damage, Louis XIV arranged for new works to be premiered at the court, usually at the Chateau Vieux of the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. This had the advantage of subsidizing the cost of rehearsals, as well as most of the machinery, sets, and costumes
Paris Opera
–
Front of the
Palais Garnier illuminated at night
Paris Opera
–
Le Grand Foyer, at the Palais Garnier
Paris Opera
–
View of the Salle du Bel-Air
Paris Opera
–
Vigarani's plan of the Salle du Palais-Royal
9.
Boulevard des Capucines
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The name comes from a beautiful convent of Capuchin nuns whose garden was on the south side of the boulevard prior to the French Revolution. The former name, Rue Basse-du-Rempart, suggests that, in the beginning, then, when the wall was destroyed, the street was widened and became a boulevard. Piet Mondrians little known story De groote boulevards, written in 1920 in Paris at the instance of Theo van Doesburg, was inspired by the Boulevard des Capucines. At No.1 stood the Neapolitan Café, famous for the writers, journalists, and actors who were its patrons, such as Catulle Mendès, Jean Moréas, Armand Silvestre, the main hall was the grand salon of the Hotel in the 18th century. The rotunda on the facade has been kept, No.5 was the location of the photographic studio of Pierre-Louis Pierson, who was the photographic collaborator of Virginia Oldoini, Countess di Castiglione. 7, the Georama was erected in 1825, it was possible to see the earth inside a sphere 14 meters in diameter. 8, Jacques Offenbach lived from 1876 and died in 1880,12, the Grand Hotel was built on a former swamp-garden. Here, too, X-ray light experiments were carried out by Dr. Wilhelm Röntgen, from No.16 to No.22 stood the buildings of the former newspaper LÉvènement, founded by Victor Hugo. 24, Mistinguett lived from 1905 to 1956, No.25 was the former location of the Musée Cognacq-Jay set up in 1931. At No.27 stood the former store, the Samaritaine de Luxe, built by Frantz Jourdain, No.28 was the location of a roller coaster called montagnes russes in 1889. It was replaced in 1893 by the Olympia theater, a music hall founded in 1888 by Joseph Oller. No.35 was a house where Nadar lived, in April 1874, a group of young painters, including Renoir, Édouard Manet, Pissarro, and Claude Monet, opened the first exhibition of their paintings. The painting by Claude Monet, Impressions, gave the exhibitors the name of Impressionists, another of Claude Monets paintings, entitled Boulevard des Capucines, is now visible in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow or the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. From No.37 to No.43 was the location of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1820 to 1853. On 23 February 1848, a battalion of the 14th regiment blocked the boulevard to protect François Guizot, in the evening, a crowd of demonstrators tried to break down the barricade. The soldiers fired, killing 35 people and wounding 50, the demonstrators put the corpses in a dumper and called the people of Paris to arms. It was the beginning of the revolution ended the reign of Louis-Philippe the next day
Boulevard des Capucines
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Boulevard des Capucines at the start of the 20th century
Boulevard des Capucines
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Boulevard des Capucines
Boulevard des Capucines
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Gaumont Opéra
Boulevard des Capucines
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Very first movies
10.
Paris Opera Ballet
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The Paris Opera Ballet is an integral part of the Paris Opera and the oldest national ballet company. Together with the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet and the London Royal Ballet it is regarded as one of the three most preeminent ballet companies in the world, since August 2016 the company has been under the direction of Aurélie Dupont, the Directrice de la Danse. The ballet company consists of 154 dancers, among them 17 Danseurs Étoiles, the principal dancer give 180 dance performances each year, primarily at the Palais Garnier. Just as prestigious as the Paris Opera Ballet is its dance school and its former pupils have won a record of 20 Benois de la Danse awards. The school celebrated its tercentennial in 2013, the competition for admission to both institutions is extremely fierce. To be admitted there, to pass the competitive examinations in May. As its Ballet School is excellent and graduates many young dancers who are or the most part French, the Paris Opera has had many different official names during its long history but since 1994 has been called the Opéra National de Paris. The Paris Opera Ballet had its origins in the earlier dance institutions, traditions, of particular importance were the series of comédies-ballets created by Molière with, among others, the choreographers and composers Pierre Beauchamps and Jean-Baptiste Lully. The first was Les Fâcheux in 1661 and the most important, many of these were also performed by Molières company at the public Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris, which was later to become the first permanent home of the opera company and the opera ballet. Also in 1661, Louis XIV had founded the Académie Royale de Danse in an effort to improve the quality of instruction for court entertainments. Members of the academy, as well as the teachers who were certified by it, and their students, participated in the creation of the ballets for the court, Molière. In 1680, Beauchamps became the chancellor of the Académie Royale de Danse, although the Académie Royale de Danse and the Opera were closely connected, the two institutions remained separate, and the former disappeared with the fall of the monarchy in 1789. On 28 June 1669, Louis XIV granted a privilege to the poet Pierre Perrin giving him a monopoly to form an academy for the performance of opera in French. In 1672, Lully purchased Perrins privilege and also obtained new letters patent limiting the use of musicians and this work consisted primarily of excerpts from Lullys prior court ballets connected with new entrées choreographed by des Brosses. A crucial difference, however, from the court ballets was that the members of the court no longer participated. Lullys next production, Cadmus et Hermione, the first tragédie lyrique, the ballets for these works were created by Beauchamps, des Brosses, and dOlivet. It was he, and not des Brosses or Beauchamps, whom Lully engaged for the ballets ordinaires and it was also dOlivet who composed the ballet of the old men in Thesée, of the baneful dreams in Atys, and of the tremblers in Isis. This last was composed solely of pantomimic gestures by men seized with cold, initially the dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet were all male
Paris Opera Ballet
–
Paris Opera Ballet
11.
Place de la Bastille
–
No vestige of the prison remains. The square straddles 3 arrondissements of Paris, namely the 4th, 11th and 12th, the square and its surrounding areas are normally called simply Bastille. The July Column which commemorates the events of the July Revolution stands at the center of the square, other notable features include the Bastille Opera, the Bastille subway station and a section of the Canal Saint Martin. Prior to 1984, the former Bastille railway station stood where the house now stands. The square is home to concerts and similar events, the north-eastern area of Bastille is busy at night with its many cafés, bars, night clubs, and concert halls. As a consequence of its significance, the square is often the site or point of departure of political demonstrations. At that time it housed political prisoners, but also religious prisoners, seditious writers. The prisoners were held within the 5-7 story towers, each having a room around 4.6 m across and containing various articles of furniture. The governor of the prison was given an allowance per prisoner. In terms of standards, there were many worse prisons in France, including the dreaded Bicêtre, however, in terms of popular literary accounts, the Bastille was a place of horror and oppression, a symbol of autocratic cruelty. The confrontation between the commoners and the Ancien Régime ultimately led to the people of Paris storming the Bastille on July 14,1789, following several days of disturbances. At this point, the prison was empty, with only seven inmates, four counterfeiters. The regular garrison consisted of about 80 invalides under Governor Bernard-René de Launay and they had however been reinforced by a detachment of 32 grenadiers from one of the Swiss mercenary regiments summoned to Paris by the Monarchy shortly before 14 July. A crowd of around 600 people gathered outside around mid-morning, calling for the surrender of the prison, the removal of the guns, two people chosen to represent those gathered were invited into the fortress and slow negotiations began. In the early afternoon, the broke into the undefended outer courtyard. A spasmodic exchange of gunfire began, in mid-afternoon the crowd was reinforced by mutinous Gardes Françaises of the Royal Army, de Launay ordered a ceasefire, despite his surrender demands being refused, he capitulated and the victors swept in to liberate the fortress at around 5,30. On 16 June 1792, the occupied by the Bastille was turned into a square celebrating liberty. The first stone was laid by Palloy, however, construction never took place, in 1808, as part of several urban improvement projects for Paris, Napoléon planned to have a monument in the shape of an elephant built here, the Elephant of the Bastille
Place de la Bastille
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Place de la Bastille with the July Column in the center
Place de la Bastille
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Place de la Bastille
Place de la Bastille
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July Column
Place de la Bastille
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"Prise de la Bastille" (1789), by
Jean-Pierre-Louis-Laurent Houel
12.
Notre Dame de Paris
–
Notre-Dame de Paris, also known as Notre-Dame Cathedral or simply Notre-Dame, is a medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. The cathedral is considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture. The naturalism of its sculptures and stained glass are in contrast with earlier Romanesque architecture, as the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Paris, Notre-Dame contains the cathedra of the Archbishop of Paris, currently Cardinal André Vingt-Trois. The cathedral treasury contains a reliquary, which some of Catholicisms most important relics, including the purported Crown of Thorns, a fragment of the True Cross. In the 1790s, Notre-Dame suffered desecration in the phase of the French Revolution when much of its religious imagery was damaged or destroyed. An extensive restoration supervised by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc began in 1845, a project of further restoration and maintenance began in 1991. The Notre-Dame de Paris was among the first buildings in the world to use the flying buttress, in response, the cathedrals architects built supports around the outside walls, and later additions continued the pattern. The total surface area is 5,500 m², many small individually crafted statues were placed around the outside to serve as column supports and water spouts. Among these are the famous gargoyles, designed for water run-off, the statues were originally colored as was most of the exterior. The cathedral was complete by 1345. It is possible therefore that the faults with the structure were exaggerated by the Bishop to help justify the rebuilding in a newer style. According to legend, Sully had a vision of a new cathedral for Paris. To begin the construction, the bishop had several houses demolished and had a new road built to transport materials for the rest of the cathedral. Construction began in 1163 during the reign of Louis VII, however, both were at the ceremony. Bishop de Sully went on to devote most of his life, construction of the choir took from 1163 until around 1177 and the new High Altar was consecrated in 1182. By this stage, the facade had also been laid out. Numerous architects worked on the site over the period of construction, between 1210 and 1220, the fourth architect oversaw the construction of the level with the rose window and the great halls beneath the towers. Shortly afterwards Pierre de Montreuil executed a similar scheme on the southern transept,1160 Maurice de Sully orders the original cathedral demolished
Notre Dame de Paris
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The southern facade of Notre-Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris
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The western facade illuminated at night
Notre Dame de Paris
–
The spire and east side of the cathedral
Notre Dame de Paris
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The Archaeological Crypt of Notre-Dame de Paris.
13.
Louvre Palace
–
The Louvre Palace is a former royal palace located on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, between the Tuileries Gardens and the church of Saint-Germain lAuxerrois. Its present structure has evolved in stages since the 16th century, in 1793 part of the Louvre became a public museum, now the Musée du Louvre, which has expanded to occupy most of the building. The Palace is situated in the right-bank of the River Seine between Rue de Rivoli to the north and the Quai François Mitterrand to the south. To the west is the Jardin des Tuileries and, to the east, the Rue de lAmiral de Coligny, where its most architecturally famous façade, the Louvre Colonnade, the Cour Napoléon and Cour du Carrousel are separated by the street known as the Place du Carrousel. Some 51,615 sq m in the complex are devoted to public exhibition floor space. The Old Louvre occupies the site of the 12th-century fortress of King Philip Augustus and its foundations are viewable in the basement level as the Medieval Louvre department. This structure was razed in 1546 by King Francis I in favour of a royal residence which was added to by almost every subsequent French monarch. King Louis XIV, who resided at the Louvre until his departure for Versailles in 1678, completed the Cour Carrée, the Old Louvre is a quadrilateral approximately 160 m on a side consisting of 8 ailes which are articulated by 8 pavillons. With it, the last external vestiges of the medieval Louvre were demolished, the New Louvre is the name often given to the wings and pavilions extending the Palace for about 500 m westwards on the north and on the south sides of the Cour Napoléon and Cour du Carrousel. This consummation only lasted a few years, however, as the Tuileries was burned in 1871, the northern limb of the new Louvre consists of three great pavilions along the Rue de Rivoli, the Pavillon de la Bibliothèque, Pavillon de Rohan and Pavillon de Marsan. As on the side, three inside pavilions and their wings define three more subsidiary Courts, Cour du Sphinx, Cour Viconti and Cour Lefuel. The Chinese American architect I. M. Pei was selected in 1983 to design François Mitterrands Grand Louvre Project. The ground-level entrance to this complex was situated in the centre of the Cour Napoléon and is crowned by the prominent steel-and-glass pyramid, in a proposal by Kenneth Carbone, the nomenclature of the wings of the Louvre was simplified in 1987 to reflect the Grand Louvres organization. This allows the visitor to avoid becoming totally mystified at the bewildering array of named wings. The origin of the name Louvre is unclear, the French historian Henri Sauval, probably writing in the 1660s, stated that he had seen in an old Latin-Saxon glossary, Leouar is translated castle and thus took Leouar to be the origin of Louvre. According to Keith Briggs, Sauvals theory is often repeated, even in recent books, but this glossary has never seen again. Briggs suggests that H. J. Wolfs proposal in 1969 that Louvre derives instead from Latin Rubras, david Hanser, on the other hand, reports that the word may come from French louveterie, a place where dogs were trained to chase wolves. In 1190 King Philip II Augustus, who was about to leave on the Third Crusade, completed in 1202, the new fortress was situated in what is now the southwest quadrant of the Cour Carrée
Louvre Palace
–
Night view of the
Louvre Pyramid in the centre of the Napoleon Courtyard of the Palais du Louvre
Louvre Palace
–
Map of the Louvre Palace complex
Louvre Palace
–
Aerial view of the Louvre Palace
Louvre Palace
–
The Cour Carrée of the "Old Louvre" looking west (Left to right: Aile Lescot, Pavillon Sully (de l'Horloge), Aile Lemercier)
14.
Gaston Leroux
–
Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was a French journalist and author of detective fiction. His novel The Mystery of the Yellow Room is also one of the most famous locked-room mysteries ever, Leroux was born in Paris in 1868 and died in 1927 in France. He went to school in Normandy and studied law in Paris and he inherited millions of francs and lived wildly until he nearly reached bankruptcy. In 1890, he working as a court reporter and theater critic for LÉcho de Paris. His most important journalism came when he began working as a correspondent for the Paris newspaper Le Matin. He was present at, and covered, the 1905 Russian Revolution, another case at which he was present involved the investigation and in-depth coverage of the former Paris Opera. The basement contained a cell that held prisoners of the Paris Commune and he suddenly left journalism in 1907 and began writing fiction. In 1919, he and Arthur Bernède formed their own company, Société des Cinéromans, to publish novels. He first wrote a novel titled Le mystère de la chambre jaune. Lerouxs contribution to French detective fiction is considered a parallel to Sir Arthur Conan Doyles in the United Kingdom, Leroux published his most famous work, The Phantom of the Opera, as a serial in 1909 and 1910, and as a book in 1910
Gaston Leroux
–
Leroux in 1907
Gaston Leroux
–
Still of
Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Gaston Leroux
–
Gaston Leroux's "Not'olympe" was translated into English as "The Mystery of the Four Husbands" and published in the December 1929 issue of
Weird Tales.
15.
The Phantom of the Opera
–
The Phantom of the Opera is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serialisation in Le Gaulois from September 23,1909 and it was published in volume form in late March 1910 by Pierre Lafitte. It has been adapted into various stage and film adaptations, most notable of which are the 1925 film depiction featuring Lon Chaney. In 1890s Paris, the Palais Garnier is believed to be haunted by an entity known as The Phantom or The Opera Ghost. One day, the hand, Joseph Bouquet, is found hanged, presumably by The Phantom. At the same time, Christine Daaé, a young Swedish soprano, has been tutored by what she believes to be the Angel of Music, sent by her deceased father. On the night of the old managers retirement, she understudies at the performance for the Operas leading soprano, Carlotta. The Vicomte, Raoul de Changy, who was present at the performance, recognises her as his childhood playmate and he attempts to visit her backstage, when he hears a man speaking to her from inside her dressing room. He investigates the room once Christine leaves, only to find that no one else in the room. At Perros-Guirec, Christine meets with Raoul, who confronts her about the voice he heard in her room, Christine tells him about The Angel that has been tutoring her, but he is skeptical and suggests that she might be the victim of a prank. Hurt and angry, she storms off, Christine visits her fathers grave one night, where a mysterious figure appears and plays the violin for her. Raoul attempts to catch it but is attacked and knocked out in the process, the managers ignore his demands, resulting in disastrous consequences, Carlotta ends up croaking like a toad, and the chandelier suddenly drops into the audience, killing the new concierge. The Phantom, having abducted Christine from her room, reveals himself as Erik. Fearing that she leave him, he decides to keep her with him forever. On the roof of the house, Christine tells Raoul about her abduction and makes Raoul promise to take her away to a place where Erik can never find her. Raoul tells Christine he shall act on his promise the next day, however, Christine sympathises with Erik and decides to sing for him one last time as a means of saying good-bye. Unbeknownst to them, Erik has been watching them and overheard their whole conversation, the following night, the enraged and jealous Erik abducts Christine during a production of Faust and tries to force her to marry him. To save them and the people above in the Opera, Christine agrees to marry Erik, Erik initially tries to drown Raoul and the Persian, using the water which would have been used to douse the explosives
The Phantom of the Opera
–
1920 edition [France]
16.
Andrew Lloyd Webber
–
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway and he has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of variations, two film scores, and a Latin Requiem Mass. In 2001 the New York Times referred to him as the most commercially successful composer in history, ranked the fifth most powerful person in British culture by The Telegraph in 2008, the lyricist Don Black stated Andrew more or less single-handedly reinvented the musical. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is an inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and his company, the Really Useful Group, is one of the largest theatre operators in London. Producers in several parts of the UK have staged productions, including national tours, Lloyd Webber is also the president of the Arts Educational Schools London, a performing arts school located in Chiswick, West London. He is involved in a number of activities, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, Nordoff Robbins, Prostate Cancer UK. His younger brother, Julian Lloyd Webber, is a solo cellist. Lloyd Webber started writing his own music at a young age and he also put on productions with Julian and his Aunt Viola in his toy theatre. Later, he would be the owner of a number of West End theatres and his aunt Viola, an actress, took him to see many of her shows and through the stage door into the world of the theatre. He also had set music to Old Possums Book of Practical Cats at the age of 15. Lloyd Webbers first collaboration with lyricist Tim Rice was The Likes of Us, although composed in 1965, it was not publicly performed until 2005, when a production was staged at Lloyd Webbers Sydmonton Festival. In 2008, amateur rights were released by the National Operatic and Dramatic Association in association with the Really Useful Group, the first amateur performance was by a childrens theatre group in Cornwall called Kidz R Us. In this respect, it is different from the composers later work, which tends to be either predominantly or wholly through-composed. Joseph began life as a cantata that gained some recognition on its second staging with a favourable review in The Times. For its subsequent performances, Rice and Lloyd Webber revised the show and this culminated in a two-hour-long production being staged in the West End on the back of the success of Jesus Christ Superstar. In 1969 Rice and Lloyd Webber wrote a song for the Eurovision Song Contest called Try It and See, with rewritten lyrics it became King Herods Song in their third musical, Jesus Christ Superstar. The planned follow-up to Jesus Christ Superstar was a comedy based on the Jeeves. Tim Rice was uncertain about this venture, partly because of his concern that he not be able to do justice to the novels that he
Andrew Lloyd Webber
–
Westminster School
Andrew Lloyd Webber
–
Lloyd Webber in 2007
Andrew Lloyd Webber
–
U.S. President
George W. Bush and First Lady
Laura Bush stand with the
Kennedy Center honourees in the
Blue Room of the
White House during a reception Sunday, 3 December 2006. From left, they are: singer and songwriter
William "Smokey" Robinson; Andrew Lloyd Webber; country singer
Dolly Parton; film director
Steven Spielberg; and conductor
Zubin Mehta.
Andrew Lloyd Webber
–
Lloyd Webber and the UK's Eurovision entrant
Jade Ewen
17.
The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
–
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Charles Hart with additions from Richard Stilgoe. Lloyd Webber and Stilgoe also wrote the book together. The musical opened in Londons West End in 1986, and on Broadway in 1988 and it won the 1986 Olivier Award and the 1988 Tony Award for Best Musical, and Michael Crawford won the Olivier and Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Musical. It is the longest running show in Broadway history by a margin, and celebrated its 10, 000th Broadway performance on 11 February 2012. It is the second longest-running West End musical, after Les Misérables, by 2011, it had been seen by over 130 million people in 145 cities across 27 countries, and continues to play in London and New York. In 1986, Lloyd Webber contacted Cameron Mackintosh, the co-producer of Cats and Song and Dance and he was aiming for a romantic piece, and suggested Gaston Lerouxs book The Phantom of the Opera as a basis. They screened both the 1925 Lon Chaney and the 1943 Claude Rains motion picture versions, but neither saw a way to make the leap from film to stage. Then with the Phantom, it was there, Lloyd Webber first approached Jim Steinman to write the lyrics because of his dark obsessive side, but he declined in order to fulfill his commitments on a Bonnie Tyler album. Alan Jay Lerner was then recruited, but he became ill after joining the project and was forced to withdraw. Richard Stilgoe, the lyricist for Starlight Express, wrote most of the lyrics for the production. Charles Hart, a young and then-relatively unknown lyricist, later many of the lyrics. Some of Stilgoes original contributions are still present in the final version, inspired in part by an earlier musical version of the same story by Ken Hill, Lloyd Webbers score is sometimes operatic in style but maintains the form and structure of a musical throughout. The full-fledged operatic passages are reserved principally for subsidiary characters such as Andre and Firmin, Carlotta, and Piangi. They are also used to provide the content of the operas that are taking place within the show itself, viz. Hannibal, Il Muto. Here, Lloyd Webber pastiched various styles from the operas of Meyerbeer through to Mozart and even Gilbert. These pieces are presented as musical fragments, interrupted by dialogue or action sequences in order to clearly define the musicals show within a show format. Maria Björnson designed the sets and over 200 costumes, including the elaborate gowns in the Masquerade sequence and her set designs, including the chandelier, subterranean gondola, and sweeping staircase, earned her multiple awards. A preview of the first act was staged at Sydmonton in 1985, starring Colm Wilkinson as the Phantom, Sarah Brightman as Kristin, and Clive Carter as Raoul
The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
–
Logo
18.
Second French Empire
–
The Second French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France. The structure of the French government during the Second Empire was little changed from the First, but Emperor Napoleon III stressed his own imperial role as the foundation of the government. He had so often, while in prison or in exile and his answer was to organize a system of government based on the principles of the Napoleonic Idea. This meant that the emperor, the elect of the people as the representative of the democracy, ruled supreme. He himself drew power and legitimacy from his role as representative of the great Napoleon I of France, the anti-parliamentary French Constitution of 1852 instituted by Napoleon III on 14 January 1852, was largely a repetition of that of 1848. All executive power was entrusted to the emperor, who, as head of state, was responsible to the people. The people of the Empire, lacking democratic rights, were to rely on the benevolence of the rather than on the benevolence of politicians. He was to nominate the members of the council of state, whose duty it was to prepare the laws, and of the senate, a body permanently established as a constituent part of the empire. One innovation was made, namely, that the Legislative Body was elected by universal suffrage and this new political change was rapidly followed by the same consequence as had attended that of Brumaire. The press was subjected to a system of cautionnements and avertissements, in order to counteract the opposition of individuals, a surveillance of suspects was instituted. In the same way public instruction was strictly supervised, the teaching of philosophy was suppressed in the lycées, for seven years France had no democratic life. The Empire governed by a series of plebiscites, up to 1857 the Opposition did not exist, from then till 1860 it was reduced to five members, Darimon, Émile Ollivier, Hénon, Jules Favre and Ernest Picard. On 2 December 1851 Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who had been elected President of the Republic and he thus became sole ruler of France, and re-established universal suffrage, previously abolished by the Assembly. His decisions and the extension of his mandate for 10 years were popularly endorsed by a referendum later that month that attracted an implausible 92 percent support. A new constitution was enacted in January 1852 which made Louis-Napoléon president for 10 years, however, he was not content with merely being an authoritarian president. Almost as soon as he signed the new document into law, in response to officially-inspired requests for the return of the empire, the Senate scheduled a second referendum in November, which passed with 97 percent support. As with the December 1851 referendum, most of the yes votes were manufactured out of thin air, the empire was formally re-established on 2 December 1852, and the Prince-President became Napoléon III, Emperor of the French. The constitution concentrated so much power in his hands that the only changes were to replace the word president with the word emperor
Second French Empire
–
Napoléon III
Second French Empire
–
Flag
Second French Empire
–
The official declaration of the Second Empire, at the
Hôtel de Ville de Paris, on December 2, 1852.
19.
Le Corbusier
–
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930 and his career spanned five decades, he constructed buildings in Europe, Japan, India, and North and South America. Le Corbusier prepared the plan for the city of Chandigarh in India. On July 17,2016, seventeen projects by Le Corbusier in seven countries were inscribed in the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites as an Outstanding Contribution to the Modern Movement and it was an industrial town, devoted to the manufacture of watches. His father was an artisan who enameled boxes and watches, while his mother gave piano lessons and his elder brother Albert was an amateur violinist. He attended a kindergarten that used Fröbelian methods, like his contemporaries Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier did not have formal academic training as an architect. He was attracted to the arts and at the age of fifteen he entered the municipal art school in La-Chaux-de-Fonds which taught the applied arts connected with watchmaking. Three years later he attended the course of decoration, founded by the painter Charles LEplattenier. Le Corbusier wrote later that LEplattenier had made him a man of the woods and his father took him frequently into the mountains around the town. He wrote later, we were constantly on mountaintops, we grew accustomed to a vast horizon and his architecture teacher in the Art School was the architect René Chapallaz, who had a large influence on Le Corbusiers earliest house designs. However, he reported later that it was the art teacher LEplattenier who made him choose architecture, I had a horror of architecture and architects, he wrote. I was sixteen, I accepted the verdict and I obeyed. Le Corbusier began teaching himself by going to the library to read about architecture and philosophy, by visiting museums, by sketching buildings, located on the forested hillside near Chaux-de-fonds. It was a chalet with a steep roof in the local alpine style. The success of this led to his construction of two similar houses, the Villas Jacquemet and Stotzer, in the same area. In Florence, he visited the Florence Charterhouse in Galluzzo, which made an impression on him. I would have liked to live in one of what they called their cells and it was the solution for a unique kind of workers housing, or rather for a terrestrial paradise. In 1911, he traveled again for five months, this time he journeyed to the Balkans and visited Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, as well as Pompeii and Rome. Filling nearly 80 sketchbooks with renderings of what he saw—including many sketches of the Parthenon and he spoke of what he saw during this trip in many of his books, and it was the subject of his last book, Le Voyage dOrient
Le Corbusier
–
Le Corbusier in 1933
Le Corbusier
–
Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret), 1920, Nature morte (Still Life), oil on canvas, 80.9 x 99.7 cm,
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Le Corbusier
–
Le Corbusier (Charles Edouard Jeanneret), 1922, Nature morte verticale (Vertical Still Life), oil on canvas, 146.3 x 89.3 cm,
Kunstmuseum Basel
Le Corbusier
–
Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret), 1920, Guitare verticale (2ème version), oil on canvas, 100 x 81 cm, Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris
20.
Second Empire architecture
–
Second Empire is an architectural style, most popular in the latter half of the 19th century and early years of the 20th century. It was so named for the elements in vogue during the era of the Second French Empire. The style quickly spread and evolved as Baroque Revival architecture throughout Europe and its suitability for super-scaling allowed it to be widely used in the design of municipal and corporate buildings. In the United States, where one of the architects working in the style was Alfred B. Mullett, buildings in the style were often closer to their 17th-century roots than examples of the found in Europe
Second Empire architecture
–
Mairie de Tarbes (Hautes-Pyrénées, France, An example of French Second Empire architecture
Second Empire architecture
–
Élysée Palace garden façade.
Second Empire architecture
–
Alfred B. Mullett 's former
State, War and Navy Building, Washington, D.C., begun during the
Grant administration and built between 1871 and 1888.
Second Empire architecture
–
Old City Hall, Boston, Massachusetts
21.
Eclecticism
–
However, this is often without conventions or rules dictating how or which theories were combined. It can sometimes seem inelegant or lacking in simplicity, and eclectics are sometimes criticized for lack of consistency in their thinking and it is, however, common in many fields of study. For example, most psychologists accept certain aspects of behaviorism, out of this collected material they constructed their new system of philosophy. The term comes from the Greek ἐκλεκτικός, literally choosing the best, well known eclectics in Greek philosophy were the Stoics Panaetius and Posidonius, and the New Academics Carneades and Philo of Larissa. Among the Romans, Cicero was thoroughly eclectic, as he united the Peripatetic, Stoic, other eclectics included Varro and Seneca. The term eclecticism is used to describe the combination, in a work, of elements from different historical styles, chiefly in architecture and, by implication, in the fine. The simplest definition of the term—that every work of art represents the combination of a variety of influences—is so basic as to be of little use, some martial arts can be described as eclectic in the sense that they borrow techniques from a wide variety of other martial arts. In textual criticism, eclecticism is the practice of examining a number of text witnesses. The result of the process is a text with readings drawn from many witnesses, in a purely eclectic approach, no single witness is theoretically favored. Instead, the critic forms opinions about individual witnesses, relying on external and internal evidence. Since the mid-19th century, eclecticism, in there is no a priori bias to a single manuscript, has been the dominant method of editing the Greek text of the New Testament. Even so, the oldest manuscripts, being of the Alexandrian text-type, are the most favored, in ancient philosophy, Eclectics use elements from multiple philosophies, texts, life experiences and their own philosophical ideas. These ideas include life as connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, Antiochus of Ascalon, was the pupil of Philo of Larissa, and the teacher of Cicero. Through his influence, Platonism made the transition from New Academy skepticism to Eclecticism, whereas Philo had still adhered to the doctrine that there is nothing absolutely certain, Antiochus returned to a pronounced dogmatism. Among other objections to skepticism, was the consideration that without firm convictions no rational content of life is possible and he expounded the Academic, Peripatetic, and Stoic systems in such a way as to show that these three schools deviate from one another only in minor points. He himself was interested in ethics, in which he tried to find a middle way between Zeno, Aristotle and Plato. For instance, he said that virtue suffices for happiness, but for the highest grade of happiness bodily and this eclectic tendency was favoured by the lack of dogmatic works by Plato. Middle Platonism was promoted by the necessity of considering the main theories of the schools of philosophy, such as the Aristotelian logic
Eclecticism
–
Eclecticism in architecture at the intersection of
Rákóczi Avenue and the
Grand Boulevard in
Budapest. The
Hungarian capital "is a uniquely unified image of the world".
Eclecticism
–
New York Palace,
Budapest,
Hungary
Eclecticism
–
Madrid City Council (former Post Head Office)
Madrid,
Spain
22.
Baroque Revival architecture
–
The Baroque Revival, also known as Neo-Baroque, was an architectural style of the late 19th century. The term is used to describe architecture which displays important aspects of Baroque style, barbaras Church, Brooklyn, New York, United States St. John Cantius Church, Chicago, United States Church of St. A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Oxford University Press
Baroque Revival architecture
–
Belfast City Hall, an example of
Edwardian Baroque architecture or "Wrenaissance"
Baroque Revival architecture
–
Alferaki Palace in
Taganrog,
Russia (1848)
Baroque Revival architecture
–
Sofia University rectorate in
Sofia (1924-1934)
Baroque Revival architecture
–
The Church of Salta,
Argentina
23.
Greek mythology
–
It was a part of the religion in ancient Greece. Greek mythology is explicitly embodied in a collection of narratives. Greek myth attempts to explain the origins of the world, and details the lives and adventures of a variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines. These accounts initially were disseminated in a tradition, today the Greek myths are known primarily from ancient Greek literature. The oldest known Greek literary sources, Homers epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on the Trojan War, archaeological findings provide a principal source of detail about Greek mythology, with gods and heroes featured prominently in the decoration of many artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles, in the succeeding Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has had an influence on the culture, arts. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes, Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric period from c. Mythical narration plays an important role in every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus and this work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Apollodorus of Athens lived from c, 180–125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed the basis for the collection, however the Library discusses events that occurred long after his death, among the earliest literary sources are Homers two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the cycle, but these later and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no connection with Homer. They are choral hymns from the part of the so-called Lyric age. Hesiods Works and Days, a poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides and Simonides, and bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion, additionally, myth was central to classical Athenian drama
Greek mythology
–
Bust of
Zeus,
Otricoli (Sala Rotonda,
Museo Pio-Clementino,
Vatican).
Greek mythology
–
Greek Mythology
Greek mythology
–
Prometheus (1868 by
Gustave Moreau). The myth of Prometheus first was attested by
Hesiod and then constituted the basis for a tragic trilogy of plays, possibly by Aeschylus, consisting of
Prometheus Bound,
Prometheus Unbound, and
Prometheus Pyrphoros.
Greek mythology
–
The Roman poet
Virgil, here depicted in the fifth-century manuscript, the
Vergilius Romanus, preserved details of Greek mythology in many of his writings.
24.
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
–
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux was a French sculptor and painter during the Second Empire under Napoleon III. Born in Valenciennes, Nord, son of a mason, his studies were under François Rude. Carpeaux entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1844 and won the Prix de Rome in 1854, staying in Rome from 1854 to 1861, he obtained a taste for movement and spontaneity, which he joined with the great principles of baroque art. Carpeaux sought real life subjects in the streets and broke with the classical tradition, Carpeaux debuted at the Salon in 1853 exhibiting La Soumission dAbd-el-Kader alEmperuer, a bas-relief in plaster that did not attract much attention. Carpeaux was an admirer of Napoléon III and followed him from city to city during Napoléons official trip through the north of France, Carpeaux soon grew tired of academicism and became a wanderer on the streets of Rome. He spent free time admiring the frescoes of Michelangelo at the Sistine Chapel, Carpeaux said, When an artist feels pale and cold, he runs to Michelangelo in order to warm himself, as with the rays of the sun. While a student in Rome, Carpeaux submitted a version of Pêcheur napolitain à la coquille. He carved the marble version several years later, showing it in the Salon exhibition of 1863 and it was purchased for Napoleon IIIs empress, Eugénie. The statue of the smiling boy was very popular, and Carpeaux created a number of reproductions and variations in marble. There is a copy, for instance, in the Samuel H. Kress Collection in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, some years later, he carved the Girl with a Shell, a very similar study. In 1861, he made a bust of Princess Mathilde, then in 1866, he established his own atelier in order to reproduce and make work on a grander scale. In 1866, he was awarded the chevalier of the Legion of Honour and he employed his brother as the sales manager and made a calculated effort to produce work that would appeal to a larger audience. On 12 October 1875, he died at the Chateau de Bécon, among his students were Jules Dalou, Jean-Louis Forain and the American sculptor Olin Levi Warner. Carpeaux died at age 48 in Courbevoie, ugolin et ses fils with versions in other museums including the Musée dOrsay, Paris. Partly complete at his death, Carpeaux finished the terrestrial globe with the points represented by the four figures of Asia, Europe. LAmour à la folie, part of a group La danse for the facade of the Opera Garnier A page from insecula
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
–
The Seasons turning the celestial Sphere for the Fountain of the Observatory,
Jardin du Luxembourg
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
–
Illustration of Carpeaux by Étienne Bocourt in the
Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, after his death. His Flore is below him, and other work above
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
–
Patinated plaster model for Valenciennes defending the arts of peace with the arts of war
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
–
La Danse (The Dance), for the
Opera Garnier, heavily criticized as being indecent
25.
Galvanoplastic
–
Electrotyping is a chemical method for forming metal parts that exactly reproduce a model. The method was invented by Moritz von Jacobi in Russia in 1838, in art, several important bronze sculptures created in the 19th century are actually electrotyped copper, and not bronze at all, sculptures were executed using electrotyping at least into the 1930s. In printing, electrotyping had become a method for producing plates for letterpress printing by the late 1800s. It complemented the older technology of stereotyping, which involved metal casting, by 1901, stereotypers and electrotypers in several countries had formed labor unions around these crafts. As with metal casting and stereotyping, a mold is first formed from the model, since electrotyping involves wet chemical processes and is done near room temperature, the molding material can be soft. Materials such as wax, gutta-percha, and ultimately ozokerite were used, the molds surface is made electrically conducting by coating it very thinly with fine graphite powder or paint. A wire is attached to the surface, and the mold is suspended in an electrolyte solution. Electrotyping is activated by electric currents flow between anode wires that are also immersed in the solution and the wire connected to the coated mold. For copper electrotyping, an aqueous electrolyte contains copper sulfate and sulfuric acid, and the anode is also copper. The electric current causes copper atoms to dissolve from the anodes surface, copper ions are taken up by the molds conducting surface at the same rate at which copper dissolves from the anode, thus completing the electrical circuit. When the copper layer on the mold grows to the desired thickness, the mold and its attached electrotype are removed from the solution, and the electrotype and the mold are separated. An animation of the process was produced in 2011 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Other metals besides copper can be electrotyped, similar procedures apply, there is a second type of electrotyping that has been used in which the copper film is deposited onto the outside of a form, and is not separated from it. In this use the form is typically waterproofed plaster, which remains as a core after electrotyping, in German this method is known as Kerngalvanoplastik, the more usual technique described in the previous paragraph is known as Hohlgalvanoplastik. Electrotyping is related to electroplating, which adds a thin metallic overlayer to a metallic object instead of creating a freestanding metal part. Electrotyping and electroforming both produce metal parts, but differ in technical details, electroforming involves the production of a metallic part around a metallic mandrel, although the term is sometimes used more broadly to encompass all electrodeposition processes. As noted above, electrotyping forms the part using a mold or form whose surface has been made conducting by applying a thin coating of graphite or metal powder. At present, most sources credit Moritz Hermann Jacobi with the invention of galvanoplasty or electrotyping in 1838, Jacobi was a Prussian scientist who was working in St. Petersburg, 19th-century accounts often credited Thomas Spencer or C. J
Galvanoplastic
–
Lithographic portrait of Moritz von Jacobi (1801-1874), who invented electrotyping in 1838. Although electrotyping was used for more than a century to make the plates for letterpress printing, it was not used to print his portrait.
Galvanoplastic
–
1841 magazine illustration by Joseph Alexander Adams. The illustration compares direct letterpress printing from a wood carving and from a copper electrotype copy of the carving; it is among the earliest uses of electrotypes in printing.
Galvanoplastic
–
The electrotyping department of the New York Herald in 1902.
Galvanoplastic
–
Copper electrotype (1911) of
Ernst Rietschel 's 1857 sculpture for the
Goethe–Schiller Monument in Weimar. This sculpture is about 3.5 metres (11 ft) tall, and was produced by the
WMF Company in Germany.
26.
Gioachino Rossini
–
Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote operas, as well as some sacred music, songs, chamber music and piano pieces. A precocious composer of operas, he made his debut at the age of eighteen. His best-known operas include the Italian comedies Il barbiere di Siviglia, Litaliana in Algeri and he also wrote a string of serious operas in Italian, including works such as Tancredi, Otello and Semiramide. The semi-serious opera La Gazza Ladra has one of Rossinis most celebrated overtures, after moving to Paris in 1824, he eventually started to write in French. His last opera, the epic Guillaume Tell, replete with its iconic overture, after composing thirty-nine significant operas in nineteen years Rossini retired from the theatre in 1829. Later, he was affected by physical and mental illnesses and for decades wrote relatively little apart from a setting of the Stabat Mater. A return to Paris from Italy in 1855 was followed by better health, during these, he presented salon music in the form of songs, piano pieces and small chamber ensembles that he called Sins of Old Age. He considered the last of these Sins to be the unusually scored Petite messe solennelle that he wrote in 1863, Rossini had been the most popular opera composer in history, and he was one of the most renowned public figures of his time. A rapid and prolific composer, he was quoted as joking, Give me the laundress bill, a tendency for inspired, song-like melodies is evident throughout his scores, earning him the nickname The Italian Mozart. Use of a build up of orchestral sound over a repeated phrase—commonly known as a Rossini crescendo—also prompted the nickname Signor Crescendo. Gioachino Antonio Rossini was born into a family of musicians in Pesaro and his father, Giuseppe, was a horn player and inspector of slaughterhouses. His mother, Anna, was a singer and a bakers daughter, Rossinis father was sympathetic to the French Revolution and welcomed Napoleons troops when they arrived in northern Italy. When Austria restored the old regime, Rossinis father was sent to prison in 1799, Rossinis mother took him to Bologna, making a living as leading singer at various theatres of the Romagna region. Her husband would ultimately join her in Bologna, during this time, Rossini was frequently left in the care of his aging grandmother, who had difficulty supervising the boy. He remained at Bologna in the care of a pork butcher while his father played the horn in the orchestras of the theatres at which his wife sang and these qualities made him a subject for ridicule in the eyes of the young Rossini. He was eventually taken from Prinetti and apprenticed to a blacksmith, in Angelo Tesei, he found a congenial music master, and learned to sight-read, play accompaniments on the piano and sing well enough to take solo parts in the church when he was ten years of age. Important products of this period are six sonate a quattro, or string sonatas, the original scores, dating from 1804 when the composer was twelve, were found in the Library of Congress in Washington D. C. In 1805, he appeared at the theatre of the Commune in Ferdinando Paers Camilla and he was also a capable horn player, treading in the footsteps of his father
Gioachino Rossini
–
Gioachino Rossini c. 1850 (Lithography: F. Perrin)
Gioachino Rossini
–
Portrait of Rossini as a young man
Gioachino Rossini
–
Gioachino Rossini, c. 1815 (by
Vincenzo Camuccini)
Gioachino Rossini
–
Isabella Colbran
27.
Daniel Auber
–
Daniel François Esprit Auber was a French composer. The son of a Paris print-seller, Auber was born in Caen in Normandy, though his father expected him to continue in the print-selling business, he also allowed his son to learn how to play several musical instruments. His first teacher was the Tirolean composer, Josef Alois Ladurner, at the age of 20 Auber was sent to London for business training, but he was obliged to leave England in 1804 when the Treaty of Amiens was breached. Auber had already attempted musical composition, and at this period produced several concertos pour basse, modelled after the violoncellist Lamare, in whose name they were published. The praise given to his concerto for the violin, which was played at the Paris Conservatoire by Mazas, encouraged him to undertake a resetting of an old comic opera and he also began to study with the renowned Luigi Cherubini. In 1813 the unfavourable reception of his one-act debut opera Le Séjour militaire put an end for some years to his attempts as composer, but his failure in business, and the death of his father in 1819, compelled him once more to turn to music. He produced another opera, Le Testament et les billets-doux, which was no better received than the former, but he persevered, and the next year was rewarded by the complete success of La Bergère châtelaine, an opera in three acts. This was the first in a series of brilliant successes. In 1822 began his association with librettist Eugène Scribe. Their first opera, Leicester, shows evidence of the influence of Gioachino Rossini in its musical style, Auber soon developed his own voice, however, light, vivacious, graceful, and melodious—characteristically French. Le maçon was his first major triumph, staying in the repertory until the 20th century, an ensemble from the latter found its way into Herolds ballet La Somnambule as an air parlante. Auber achieved another triumph in La muette de Portici, also known as Masaniello after its hero. Produced in Paris in 1828, it became a European favourite, and the foundation work of a new genre, grand opera. La Muette broke ground also in its use of a ballerina in a leading role, official and other dignities testified to the public appreciation of Aubers works. In 1829 he was elected a member of the Institut de France, Fra Diavolo, which premiered on 28 January 1830, was his most successful opera. That same year,1830, he was named director of the court concerts, next year, on 20 June 1831, he had another big success, with Le Philtre, starring Adolphe Nourrit. The libretto was translated into Italian and set by Donizetti as Lelisir damore, two years later, on 27 February 1833, Gustave III, his second grand opera, also triumphed and stayed in the repertory for years. The libretto was to be used more, first by Saverio Mercadante for Il reggente, with the action transferred to Scotland
Daniel Auber
–
Daniel François Esprit Auber
Daniel Auber
–
Daniel François Esprit Auber, circa 1860s, by
Nadar
Daniel Auber
–
Portrait of D.F.E. Auber from sheet music for Lestocq (Boston:
William H. Oakes, 19th century)
Daniel Auber
–
Daniel François Esprit Auber (1869)
28.
Ludwig van Beethoven
–
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he one of the most famous. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies,5 piano concertos,1 violin concerto,32 piano sonatas,16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis, and one opera, Fidelio. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn and he lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost completely deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose, many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life. Beethoven was the grandson of Ludwig van Beethoven, a musician from the town of Mechelen in the Duchy of Brabant in the Flemish region of what is now Belgium, who at the age of twenty moved to Bonn. Ludwig was employed as a singer at the court of the Elector of Cologne, eventually rising to become, in 1761. The portrait he commissioned of himself towards the end of his life remained proudly displayed in his grandsons rooms as a talisman of his musical heritage. Ludwig had one son, Johann, who worked as a tenor in the musical establishment and gave keyboard. Johann married Maria Magdalena Keverich in 1767, she was the daughter of Johann Heinrich Keverich, Beethoven was born of this marriage in Bonn. There is no record of the date of his birth, however. Of the seven children born to Johann van Beethoven, only Ludwig, the second-born, caspar Anton Carl was born on 8 April 1774, and Nikolaus Johann, the youngest, was born on 2 October 1776. Beethovens first music teacher was his father and he later had other local teachers, the court organist Gilles van den Eeden, Tobias Friedrich Pfeiffer, and Franz Rovantini. Beethovens musical talent was obvious at a young age, some time after 1779, Beethoven began his studies with his most important teacher in Bonn, Christian Gottlob Neefe, who was appointed the Courts Organist in that year. Neefe taught Beethoven composition, and by March 1783 had helped him write his first published composition, Beethoven soon began working with Neefe as assistant organist, at first unpaid, and then as a paid employee of the court chapel conducted by the Kapellmeister Andrea Luchesi. His first three piano sonatas, named Kurfürst for their dedication to the Elector Maximilian Friedrich, were published in 1783, Maximilian Frederick noticed Beethovens talent early, and subsidised and encouraged the young mans musical studies. Maximilian Fredericks successor as the Elector of Bonn was Maximilian Francis, the youngest son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, echoing changes made in Vienna by his brother Joseph, he introduced reforms based on Enlightenment philosophy, with increased support for education and the arts
Ludwig van Beethoven
–
Portrait by
Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820
Ludwig van Beethoven
–
Beethoven's birthplace at Bonngasse 20, now the
Beethoven House museum
Ludwig van Beethoven
–
Prince-Elector's Palace (Kurfürstliches Schloss) in Bonn, where the Beethoven family had been active since the 1730s
Ludwig van Beethoven
–
A portrait of the 13-year-old Beethoven by an unknown Bonn master (c. 1783)
29.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
–
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, he showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood, already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, while visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame, during his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons and he composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, Ludwig van Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote, posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27 January 1756 to Leopold Mozart and Anna Maria, née Pertl and this was the capital of the Archbishopric of Salzburg, an ecclesiastic principality in what is now Austria, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. He was the youngest of seven children, five of whom died in infancy and his elder sister was Maria Anna Mozart, nicknamed Nannerl. Mozart was baptized the day after his birth, at St. Ruperts Cathedral in Salzburg, the baptismal record gives his name in Latinized form, as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. He generally called himself Wolfgang Amadè Mozart as an adult, Leopold Mozart, a native of Augsburg, Germany, was a minor composer and an experienced teacher. In 1743, he was appointed as fourth violinist in the establishment of Count Leopold Anton von Firmian. Four years later, he married Anna Maria in Salzburg, Leopold became the orchestras deputy Kapellmeister in 1763. During the year of his sons birth, Leopold published a textbook, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule. When Nannerl was 7, she began lessons with her father. Years later, after her brothers death, she reminisced, He often spent much time at the clavier, picking out thirds, which he was ever striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good. In the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and he could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time. At the age of five, he was composing little pieces
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
–
Mozart c. 1780, detail from portrait by
Johann Nepomuk della Croce
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
–
Anonymous portrait of the child Mozart, possibly by
Pietro Antonio Lorenzoni; painted in 1763 on commission from Leopold Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
–
Mozart's birthplace at Getreidegasse 9, Salzburg
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
–
The Mozart family on tour: Leopold, Wolfgang, and Nannerl. Watercolor by
Carmontelle, ca. 1763
30.
Gaspare Spontini
–
Gaspare Luigi Pacifico Spontini was an Italian opera composer and conductor. Born in Maiolati, Papal State, he spent most of his career in Paris and Berlin, during the first two decades of the 19th century, Spontini was an important figure in French opera. As a youth, Spontini studied at the Conservatorio della Pietà de Turchini, working his way from Italian city to city, he got his first break in Rome, with his successful comedy Li puntigli delle donne. In 1803, he went to Paris, where, on February 11,1804, debuted his comic opera La finta filosofa and its premiere at the Opéra in Paris established Spontini as one of the greatest Italian composers of his age. His contemporaries Cherubini and Meyerbeer considered it a masterpiece, and later such as Berlioz. During the Peninsular War, Napoleon promoted works such as Gasparo Spontinis Fernand Cortez, in 1811 he married Celeste Erard, the niece of the Parisian maker of pianos and harps Sebastien Erard, it was a happy marriage, though childless. He was made a chevalier of Napoleons Legion of Honor, its Maltese cross hangs round his neck in the portrait by Nicolas-Eustache Maurin, there he became Kapellmeister and chief conductor at the Berlin Hofoper, and in this period he composed the Prussian National Anthem Borussia. There he also met the young Mendelssohn, and deprecated the 17 -year olds opera Die Hochzeit des Camacho, in 1842 the disillusioned Spontini, chagrined at the success of Giacomo Meyerbeer and others in Germany, returned to Italy, where he died in 1851. Perhaps the most famous production was the revival of La vestale with Maria Callas at La Scala at the opening of the 1954 season. The stage director was famed cinema director Luchino Visconti and that production was also the La Scala debut of tenor Franco Corelli. Callas recorded the arias Tu che invoco and O Nume tutelar from La vestale in 1955, in 1969, conductor Fernando Previtali revived the opera, with soprano Leyla Gencer and baritone Renato Bruson. In 1993, conductor Riccardo Muti recorded it in the original French language with Karen Huffstodt, Denyce Graves, Anthony Michaels-Moore, Fernand Cortez was revived in 1951, with a young Renata Tebaldi, at the San Carlo in Naples, conducted by Gabriele Santini. The premiere of the version of the work took place at the Erfurt opera house. Li puntigli delle donne was performed at the Putbus Festival 1998, Spontini, Gaspare, in Grove Music Online, accessed 13 September 2014. Silke Leopold, The Idea of National Opera, c.1800 in Unity and Diversity in European Culture c,1800, Tim Blanning and Hagen Schulze New York, Oxford University Press. Todd, R. Larry, Mendelssohn, A Life in Music, fondazione Pergolesi Spontini of Jesi Herbermann, Charles, ed. Gasparo Luigi Pacifico Spontini. Free scores by Gaspare Spontini at the International Music Score Library Project
Gaspare Spontini
–
Spontini, after Nicolas-Eustache Maurin
Gaspare Spontini
–
Spontini's signature
31.
Giacomo Meyerbeer
–
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a German opera composer of Jewish birth who has been described as perhaps the most successful stage composer of the nineteenth century. With his 1831 opera Robert le diable and its successors, he gave the genre of grand opera decisive character, Meyerbeers grand opera style was achieved by his merging of German orchestra style with Italian vocal tradition. These were employed in the context of sensational and melodramatic libretti created by Eugène Scribe and were enhanced by the up-to-date theatre technology of the Paris Opéra and they set a standard which helped to maintain Paris as the opera capital of the nineteenth century. Born to a very wealthy Berlin family, Meyerbeer began his career as a pianist but soon decided to devote himself to opera. His 1824 opera Il crociato in Egitto was the first to bring him Europe-wide reputation and he was at his peak with his operas Les Huguenots and Le prophète, his last opera was performed posthumously. His operas made him the most frequently performed composer at the leading opera houses in the nineteenth century. He was a supporter of Richard Wagner, enabling the first production of the latters opera. He was commissioned to write the patriotic opera Ein Feldlager in Schlesien to celebrate the reopening of the Berlin Royal Opera House in 1844, apart from around 50 songs, Meyerbeer wrote little except for the stage. Meyerbeers works are infrequently performed today. Meyerbeers birthname was Jacob Liebmann Beer, he was born in Tasdorf, near Berlin, then the capital of Prussia, to a Jewish family. His father was the wealthy financier Judah Herz Beer and his mother, Amalia Wulff, to whom he was particularly devoted. Their other children included the astronomer Wilhelm Beer and the poet Michael Beer and he was to adopt the surname Meyerbeer on the death of his grandfather Liebmann Meyer Wulff and the first name Giacomo during his period of study in Italy, around 1817. Judah Beer was a leader of the Berlin Jewish community and maintained a synagogue in his house which leaned towards reformist views. Jacob Beer wrote a cantata for performance at this synagogue. The brothers Alexander von Humboldt, the renowned naturalist, geographer and explorer, beers first keyboard instructor was Franz Lauska, a pupil of Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and a favoured teacher at the Berlin court. Beer also became one of Muzio Clementis pupils while Clementi was in Berlin, the boy made his public debut in 1801 playing Mozarts D minor Piano Concerto in Berlin. Beer, as he named himself, studied with Antonio Salieri. Louis Spohr organised a concert for Beer at Berlin in 1804 and continued his acquaintance with the lad later in Vienna, beers first stage work, the ballet Der Fischer und das Milchmädchen was produced in March 1810 at the Court Opera in Berlin
Giacomo Meyerbeer
–
Giacomo Meyerbeer, engraving from a photograph by
Pierre Petit
Giacomo Meyerbeer
–
The young Jacob Beer, portrait by
Friedrich Georg Weitsch (1803)
Giacomo Meyerbeer
–
Amalia Beer (de), Meyerbeer's mother, painting by Carl Kretschmar (de), c. 1803
Giacomo Meyerbeer
–
Gioachino Rossini in 1820
32.
Philippe Quinault
–
Philippe Quinault, French dramatist and librettist, was born in Paris. Quinault was educated by the liberality of François Tristan lHermite, the author of Marianne, quinaults first play was produced at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in 1653, when he was only eighteen. The piece succeeded, and Quinault followed it up, but he read for the bar, and in 1660. Then he tried tragedies with more success and he received one of the literary pensions then recently established, and was elected to the Académie française in 1670. Up to this time he had written some sixteen or seventeen comedies, tragedies, and tragi-comedies, of which the tragedies were mostly of small value. But his comedies—especially his first piece Les Rivales, LAmant indiscret, which has some likeness to Molières Étourdi, Le Fantôme amoureux, and La Mère coquette, perhaps the best—are much better. But in 1671 he contributed to the singular miscellany of Psyché, in which Pierre Corneille and Molière also had a hand, and which was set to the music of Jean-Baptiste Lully. Here he showed a remarkable faculty for lyrical drama, and from this time till just before his death he confined himself to composing libretti for Lullys work and his libretti are among the very few which are readable without the music, and which are yet carefully adapted to it. They certainly do not contain very exalted poetry or very perfect drama, but they are quite free from the ludicrous doggerel which has made the name libretto a byword, and they have quite enough dramatic merit to carry the reader, much more the spectator, along with them. It is not an exaggeration to say that Quinault, coming at the time when opera became fashionable out of Italy, had very much to do with establishing it as a permanent European genre. His first piece after Psyché was a kind of classical masque, then came Cadmus et Hermione, Alceste, Thesée, Atys, one of his best pieces, and Isis. All these were classical in subject, and so was Proserpine, the Triumph of Love is a mere ballet, but in Persée and Phaëton Quinault returned to the classical opera. Then he finally deserted it for romantic subjects, in which he was more successful. Amadis de Gaule and Roland are his masterpieces, the very artificiality of the French lyric of the later 17th century, and its resemblance to alexandrines cut into lengths, were aids to Quinault in arranging lyrical dialogue. Lully died in 1687, and Quinault, his occupation gone, became devout and he died on 26 November 1688, in Paris. Works by or about Philippe Quinault at Internet Archive
Philippe Quinault
–
Philippe Quinault
33.
Pegasus
–
Pegasus is one of the best known creatures in Greek mythology. He is a winged divine stallion usually depicted as white in color. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god and he was the brother of Chrysaor, born at a single birthing when his mother was decapitated by Perseus. Greco-Roman poets write about his ascent to heaven after his birth and his obeisance to Zeus, king of the gods, friend of the Muses, Pegasus is the creator of Hippocrene, the fountain on Mt. Helicon. He was captured by the Greek hero Bellerophon near the fountain Peirene with the help of Athena, Pegasus allows the hero to ride him to defeat a monster, the Chimera, before realizing many other exploits. His rider, however, falls off his back trying to reach Mount Olympus, Zeus transformed him into the constellation Pegasus and placed him up in the sky. Hypotheses have been proposed regarding its relationship with the Muses, the gods Athena, Poseidon, Zeus, Apollo, the symbolism of Pegasus varies with time. Pegasus is the subject of a rich iconography, especially through the ancient Greek pottery and paintings. The poet Hesiod presents an etymology of the name Pegasus as derived from πηγή pēgē spring, well, the pegai of Okeanos. A proposed etymology of the name is Luwian pihassas, meaning lightning, and Pihassassi, the proponents of this etymology adduce Pegasus role, reported as early as Hesiod, as bringer of thunderbolts to Zeus. It was first suggested in 1952 and remains widely accepted, according to legend, everywhere the winged horse struck his hoof to the earth, an inspiring spring burst forth. Hesiod relates how Pegasus was peacefully drinking from a spring when the hero Bellerophon captured him, Hesiod also says Pegasus carried thunderbolts for Zeus. In another version, when Perseus beheaded Medusa, they were born of the Earth, a variation of this story holds that they were formed from the mingling of Medusas blood, pain and sea foam, implying that Poseidon had involvement in their making. The last version bears resemblance to Hesiods account of the birth of Aphrodite from the foam created when Uranuss severed genitals were cast into the sea by Cronus, Pegasus aided the hero Bellerophon in his fight against both the Chimera. The next morning, still clutching the bridle, he found Pegasus drinking at the Pierian spring and caught Pegasus, michauds Biographie universelle relates that when Pegasus was born, he flew to where thunder and lightning are released. Then, according to versions of the myth, Athena tamed him and gave him to Perseus. In fact Pegasus is an addition to the story of Perseus. Pegasus and Athena left Bellerophon and continued to Olympus where he was stabled with Zeus other steeds, because of his faithful service to Zeus, he was honoured with transformation into a constellation
Pegasus
–
Bellerophon riding Pegasus (1914)
Pegasus
–
Pegasus, as the horse of Muses, was put on the roof of
Poznań Opera House (
Max Littmann, 1910)
Pegasus
–
Bronze figurine (Greece, 6th century BC)
Pegasus
–
Parthian era bronze plate depicting Pegasus (Pegaz in Persian), excavated in
Masjed Soleyman,
Khūzestān,
Iran.
34.
Victor Louis
–
Victor Louis was a French architect, disqualified on a technicality from winning the Prix de Rome in architecture in 1755. Louis masterpiece is the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux of 1780 and he also designed other theatres, including the theatre of the Comédie-Française on the rue de Richelieu and the Théâtre National de la rue de la Loi. Other buildings include the Intendance in Besançon, the galleries of the Palais-Royal in Paris. A full biography by Charles Marionneau was published in Bordeaux in 1881, in 1770 he married the pianist and composer Marie-Emmanuelle Bayon. The Architecture of the French Enlightenment, Louis, Victor in Turner 1998, vol. Le Grand-Théâtre de Bordeaux, ou L’Opéra des Vendanges, photographs by Dominique Thillard, Paris, Caisse nationale des monuments historiques et des sites. Victor Louis, Architecte du Théâtre de Bordeaux, Sa vie, Bordeaux, G. Gounouilhou View at Google Books. Les salles de spectacle construites par Victor Louis à Bordeaux, au Palais-Royal et à la place Louvois, Paris, Librairie de la construction moderne. The Dictionary of Art, reprinted with corrections,34 volumes
Victor Louis
–
Victor Louis
Victor Louis
–
Grand Théâtre de
Bordeaux
Victor Louis
–
Central staircase of the Théâtre de Bordeaux
Victor Louis
–
Comédie-Française (as designed by Louis)
35.
Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse
–
Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse was a French sculptor. He was one of the members of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Carrier-Belleuse was born on 12 June 1824 at Anizy-le-Château, Aisne and he began his training as a goldsmiths apprentice. Carrier-Belleuse was a student of David dAngers and briefly studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and his career is distinguished by his versatility and his work outside France, in England between 1850 and 1855, and in Brussels around 1871. His name is perhaps best known because Auguste Rodin worked as his assistant between 1864 and 1870, the two travelled to Brussels in 1871, and by some accounts Rodin assisted Carrier-Belleuses architectural sculpture for the Brussels Stock Exchange. He was also artistic director at the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres in 1876. In 1862 Carrier-Belleuse was one of the members of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. The bronzes he executed prior to 1868 were always signed Carrier or A. Carrier and his work encompassed all manner of sculptural subjects and materials, and his naturalism incorporated a breadth of styles, unembellished Realism, neo-Baroque exuberance, and Rococo elegance. He also taught his sons, the painters Louis-Robert Carrier-Belleuse and Pierre Carrier-Belleuse, Carrier-Belleuse died on 4 June 1887 at Sèvres, France. W. Norton Art Gallery, Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuses Biography Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse in American public collections, on the French Sculpture Census website
Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse
–
Carrier-Belleuse, c. 1870
Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse
–
Monument to
André Masséna Nice, 1869
Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse
–
Hebe asleep, 1869 Paris,
Musée d'Orsay
Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse
–
Bust of Carrier-Belleuse by
Auguste Rodin
36.
Paul Baudry
–
Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry was a French painter. Baudry was born in 1828 in La Roche-sur-Yon in the Vendée and he studied art under Michel Martin Drolling and won the Prix de Rome in 1850 for his picture of Zenobia found on the banks of the Araxes. His talent from the first revealed itself as strictly academical, full of elegance and grace and his Leda, St John the Baptist, and a Portrait of Beul, exhibited at the same time, took a first prize that year. Throughout this early period Baudry commonly selected mythological or fanciful subjects, one of the most noteworthy being The Pearl, the works that crowned Baudrys reputation were his mural decorations, which show much imagination and a high artistic gift for color, as may be seen. In the frescoes in the Paris Court of Cassation, at the château of Chantilly, and some private residences the Hôtel Fould and Hôtel Paivabut, above all, in the decorations of the foyer of the Opera Garnier. These, more than thirty paintings in all, and among them compositions figurative of dancing and music, Baudry was a member of the Académie des beaux-arts, succeeding Jean-Victor Schnetz. Baudry died in Paris in 1886, two of his colleagues, Paul Dubois and Marius Jean Mercié, co-operating with his brother, Baudry the architect, erected his funeral monument in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. The statue of Baudry at La Roche-sur-Yon is by Jean-Léon Gérôme, H. Delaborde, Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de Baudry, Ch. Ephrussi, Baudry, sa vie et son oevre
Paul Baudry
–
Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry, L'Artiste, 1862
Paul Baudry
–
Charlotte Corday (1860). Under the
Second Empire,
Marat was seen as a revolutionary monster and Corday as a heroine of France, as indicated by her location in front of the map.
Paul Baudry
–
Paul Baudry’s grave at the
Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, 2005
Paul Baudry
–
Euterpe (détail) at the Grand foyer of the Opera Palais.
37.
Marc Chagall
–
Marc Zakharovich Chagall was a Russian-French artist. Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century, according to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists. For decades, he had also respected as the worlds preeminent Jewish artist. Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the UN, and he also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Paris Opéra. Before World War I, he travelled between Saint Petersburg, Paris and Berlin, during this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his idea of Eastern European Jewish folk culture. He had two basic reputations, writes Lewis, as a pioneer of modernism and as a major Jewish artist. He experienced modernisms golden age in Paris, where he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism, and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism. Yet throughout these phases of his style he remained most emphatically a Jewish artist, when Matisse dies, Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is. Marc Chagall was born Moishe Segal in a Lithuanian Jewish family in Liozna, at the time of his birth, Vitebsks population was about 66,000, with half the population being Jewish. A picturesque city of churches and synagogues, it was called Russian Toledo, as the city was built mostly of wood, little of it survived years of occupation and destruction during World War II. Chagall was the eldest of nine children, the family name, Shagal, is a variant of the name Segal, which in a Jewish community was usually borne by a Levitic family. His father, Khatskl Shagal, was employed by a herring merchant and his father worked hard, carrying heavy barrels but earning only 20 roubles each month. Chagall would later include fish motifs out of respect for his father, writes Chagall biographer, Chagall wrote of these early years, Day after day, winter and summer, at six oclock in the morning, my father got up and went off to the synagogue. There he said his prayer for some dead man or other. On his return he made ready the samovar, drank some tea, hellish work, the work of a galley-slave. No word will ever ease my fathers lot, There was always plenty of butter and cheese on our table. Buttered bread, like a symbol, was never out of my childish hands. One of the sources of income of the Jewish population of the town was from the manufacture of clothing that was sold throughout Russia
Marc Chagall
–
Chagall, c.1920 (by Pierre Choumoff)
Marc Chagall
–
Chagall's Parents
Marc Chagall
–
Portrait of Chagall by
Yehuda (Yuri) Pen, his first art teacher in Vitebsk
Marc Chagall
–
Marc Chagall, 1912, Calvary (Golgotha), oil on canvas, 174.6 x 192.4 cm,
Museum of Modern Art, New York. Alternative titles: Kreuzigung Bild 2 Christus gewidmet [Golgotha. Crucifixion. Dedicated to Christ]. Sold through Galerie
Der Sturm (Herwarth Walden), Berlin to Bernhard Koehler (1849–1927), Berlin, 1913. Exhibited: Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon, Berlin, 1913
38.
Modest Mussorgsky
–
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as The Five. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period and he strove to achieve a uniquely Russian musical identity, often in deliberate defiance of the established conventions of Western music. Many of his works were inspired by Russian history, Russian folklore, such works include the opera Boris Godunov, the orchestral tone poem Night on Bald Mountain and the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition. For many years Mussorgskys works were known in versions revised or completed by other composers. Many of his most important compositions have posthumously come into their own in their original forms, the spelling and pronunciation of the composers name has occasioned some confusion. The family name derives from a 15th- or 16th-century ancestor, Roman Vasilyevich Monastyryov, who appears in the Velvet Book, Roman Vasilyevich bore the nickname Musorga, and was the grandfather of the first Mussorgsky. The composer could trace his lineage to Rurik, the legendary 9th-century founder of the Russian state, in Mussorgsky family documents the spelling of the name varies, Musarskiy, Muserskiy, Muserskoy, Musirskoy, Musorskiy, and Musurskiy. The baptismal record gives the name as Muserskiy. In early letters to Mily Balakirev, the composer signed his name Musorskiy, the g made its first appearance in a letter to Balakirev in 1863. Mussorgsky used this new spelling to the end of his life, the addition of the g to the name was likely initiated by the composers elder brother Filaret to obscure the resemblance of the names root to an unsavory Russian word, мусoр — n. m. The first syllable of the originally received the stress, and does so to this day in Russia. The mutability of the vowel in the versions of the name mentioned above gives evidence that this syllable did not receive the stress. Doubling the consonant thus reinforces its voiceless sibilant /s/ sound, Mussorgsky was born in Karevo, Toropets Uyezd, Pskov Governorate, Russian Empire,400 km south of Saint Petersburg. His wealthy and land-owning family, the family of Mussorgsky, is reputedly descended from the first Ruthenian ruler, Rurik. At age six Mussorgsky began receiving lessons from his mother. His progress was sufficiently rapid that three years later he was able to perform a John Field concerto and works by Franz Liszt for family, at 10, he and his brother were taken to Saint Petersburg to study at the elite German language Petrischule. While there, Modest studied the piano with the noted Anton Gerke, in 1852, the 12-year-old Mussorgsky published a piano piece titled Porte-enseigne Polka at his fathers expense. Mussorgskys parents planned the move to Saint Petersburg so that both their sons would renew the tradition of military service
Modest Mussorgsky
–
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, 1870
Modest Mussorgsky
–
The aristocratic Mussorgsky brothers—Filaret (also known as "Yevgeniy", left), and Modest (right), 1858.
Modest Mussorgsky
–
Young Mussorgsky as a cadet in the
Preobrazhensky Regiment of the Imperial Guard.
Modest Mussorgsky
–
Alexander Dargomyzhsky
39.
Richard Wagner
–
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is primarily known for his operas. Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works and he described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and his advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, greatly influenced the development of classical music. His Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music, Wagner had his own opera house built, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which embodied many novel design features. The Ring and Parsifal were premiered here and his most important stage works continue to be performed at the annual Bayreuth Festival, until his final years, Wagners life was characterised by political exile, turbulent love affairs, poverty and repeated flight from his creditors. His controversial writings on music, drama and politics have attracted extensive comment, notably, since the late 20th century, where they express antisemitic sentiments. The effect of his ideas can be traced in many of the arts throughout the 20th century, his influence spread beyond composition into conducting, philosophy, literature, Richard Wagner was born to an ethnic German family in Leipzig, where his family lived at No. 3, the Brühl in the Jewish quarter and he was baptized at St. Thomas Church. He was the child of Carl Friedrich Wagner, who was a clerk in the Leipzig police service, and his wife, Johanna Rosine. Wagners father Carl died of typhus six months after Richards birth, afterwards his mother Johanna lived with Carls friend, the actor and playwright Ludwig Geyer. In August 1814 Johanna and Geyer probably married—although no documentation of this has found in the Leipzig church registers. She and her family moved to Geyers residence in Dresden, until he was fourteen, Wagner was known as Wilhelm Richard Geyer. He almost certainly thought that Geyer was his biological father, Geyers love of the theatre came to be shared by his stepson, and Wagner took part in his performances. In his autobiography Mein Leben Wagner recalled once playing the part of an angel, in late 1820, Wagner was enrolled at Pastor Wetzels school at Possendorf, near Dresden, where he received some piano instruction from his Latin teacher. He struggled to play a scale at the keyboard and preferred playing theatre overtures by ear. Following Geyers death in 1821, Richard was sent to the Kreuzschule, at the age of nine he was hugely impressed by the Gothic elements of Carl Maria von Webers opera Der Freischütz, which he saw Weber conduct. At this period Wagner entertained ambitions as a playwright and his first creative effort, listed in the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis as WWV1, was a tragedy called Leubald. Begun when he was in school in 1826, the play was influenced by Shakespeare
Richard Wagner
–
Richard Wagner in 1871
Richard Wagner
–
Wagner's birthplace, at 3,
the Brühl, Leipzig
Richard Wagner
–
Wilhelmine "Minna" Planer (1835), by Alexander von Otterstedt
Richard Wagner
–
Wagner c. 1840, by Ernest Benedikt Kietz
40.
Hector Berlioz
–
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts. Berlioz made significant contributions to the orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works, and he also composed around 50 songs. His influence was critical for the development of Romanticism, especially in composers like Richard Wagner, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Franz Liszt, Richard Strauss. Hector Berlioz was born in France at La Côte-Saint-André in the département of Isère, Louis was an agnostic, with a liberal outlook, his mother, Marie-Antoinette, was a devout Roman Catholic. He had five siblings in all, three of whom did not survive to adulthood, the other two, Nanci and Adèle, remained close to Berlioz throughout his life. Berlioz was not a prodigy, unlike some other famous composers of the time, he began studying music at age 12, writing small compositions. As a result of his fathers discouragement, he never learned to play the piano and he became proficient at guitar, flageolet and flute. He learned harmony from textbooks alone—he was not formally trained, the majority of his early compositions were romances and chamber pieces. While yet at age twelve, as recalled in his Mémoires, he experienced his first passion for a woman and he also began to visit the Paris Conservatoire library, seeking out scores of Glucks operas and making personal copies of parts of them. He recalled in his Mémoires his first encounter with Luigi Cherubini, Cherubini attempted to throw the impetuous Berlioz out of the library since he was not a formal music student at that time. Berlioz also heard two operas by Gaspare Spontini, a composer who influenced him through their friendship, and whom he later championed when working as a critic, from then on, he devoted himself to composition. He was encouraged in his endeavors by Jean-François Le Sueur, director of the Royal Chapel, in 1823, he wrote his first article—a letter to the journal Le corsaire defending Spontinis La vestale. Despite his parents disapproval, in 1824 he formally abandoned his studies to pursue a career in music. This work was rehearsed and revised after the rehearsal but not performed until the following year, Berlioz later claimed to have burnt the score, but it was re-discovered in 1991. Later that year or in 1825, he began to compose the opera Les francs-juges, the work survives only in fragments, the overture has been much recorded and is sometimes played in concert. In 1826 he began attending the Conservatoire to study composition under Jean-François Le Sueur and he also submitted a fugue to the Prix de Rome, but was eliminated in the primary round. Winning the prize would become an obsession until he won it in 1830
Hector Berlioz
–
Crop of a
carte de visite photo of Hector Berlioz by Franck, Paris, c. 1855
Hector Berlioz
–
Drawing of
Harriet Smithson as
Ophelia in Shakespeare's
Hamlet
Hector Berlioz
–
Lithograph of Berlioz by
August Prinzhofer, Vienna, 1845. Berlioz considered this to be a good likeness.
Hector Berlioz
–
Painting of a young Berlioz by
Émile Signol, 1832.
41.
Jean-Philippe Rameau
–
Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time. He was almost 50 before he embarked on the career on which his reputation chiefly rests today. His debut, Hippolyte et Aricie, caused a stir and was fiercely attacked by the supporters of Lullys style of music for its revolutionary use of harmony. Rameaus music had gone out of fashion by the end of the 18th century, today, he enjoys renewed appreciation with performances and recordings of his music ever more frequent. The details of Rameaus life are obscure, especially concerning his first forty years. He was a man, and even his wife knew nothing of his early life. Rameaus early years are particularly obscure and he was born on 25 September 1683 in Dijon, and baptised the same day. His father, Jean, worked as an organist in churches around Dijon. The couple had children, of whom Jean-Philippe was the seventh. Rameau was taught music before he could read or write and he was educated at the Jesuit college at Godrans, but he was not a good pupil and disrupted classes with his singing, later claiming that his passion for opera had begun at the age of twelve. Initially intended for the law, Rameau decided he wanted to be a musician, and his father sent him to Italy, on his return, he worked as a violinist in travelling companies and then as an organist in provincial cathedrals before moving to Paris for the first time. Here, in 1706, he published his earliest known compositions, the works that make up his first book of Pièces de clavecin. In 1709, he moved back to Dijon to take over his fathers job as organist in the main church, the contract was for six years, but Rameau left before then and took up similar posts in Lyon and Clermont. During this period, he composed motets for church performance as well as secular cantatas, in 1722, he returned to Paris for good, and here he published his most important work of music theory, Traité de lharmonie. This soon won him a reputation, and it was followed in 1726 by his Nouveau système de musique théorique. In 1724 and 1729, he published two more collections of harpsichord pieces. Rameau took his first tentative steps into composing music when the writer Alexis Piron asked him to provide songs for his popular comic plays written for the Paris Fairs
Jean-Philippe Rameau
–
Jean-Philippe Rameau, by
Jacques Aved, 1728
Jean-Philippe Rameau
–
The Cathedral of Saint-Bénigne, Dijon
Jean-Philippe Rameau
–
Bust of Rameau by Caffieri, 1760
Jean-Philippe Rameau
–
Portrait of Rameau by
Carmontelle, 1760
42.
Claude Debussy
–
Achille-Claude Debussy, known since the 1890s as Claude-Achille Debussy or Claude Debussy, was a French composer. He and Maurice Ravel were the most prominent figures associated with Impressionist music and he was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1903. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Debussys music is noted for its sensory content and frequent usage of nontraditional tonalities. The prominent French literary style of his period was known as Symbolism, Debussy, the oldest of five children, was born Achille-Claude Debussy on 22 August 1862 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France. His father, Manuel-Achille Debussy, owned a shop there, his mother. The family moved to Paris in 1867, but in 1870 Debussys pregnant mother fled with Claude to his aunts home in Cannes to escape the Franco-Prussian War. At the age of seven, he began lessons with an Italian violinist in his early 40s named Jean Cerutti. In 1871 he drew the attention of Marie Mauté de Fleurville, Debussy always believed her, although there is no independent evidence to support her claim. His talents soon became evident, and in 1872, at age ten, Debussy entered the Paris Conservatoire and he also became a lifelong friend of fellow student and distinguished pianist Isidor Philipp. After Debussys death, many pianists sought Philipps advice on playing his works, Debussy was experimental from the outset, favouring dissonances and intervals that were not taught at the Academy. Like Georges Bizet, he was a brilliant pianist and a sight reader. However, Debussy never once won a competition, and his personal opinion on competitions are that it is rather. The rules are taught in places called Conservatories, Art Schools, the contests, preceded by strict training, take place once a year and the umpires of the game are members of the institute —Monsieur Croche. The pieces he played in public at this time included sonata movements by Beethoven, Schumann and Weber,2, a movement from the Piano Concerto No. 1, and the Allegro de concert, during the summers of 1880,1881, and 1882, he accompanied Nadezhda von Meck, the wealthy patroness of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, as she travelled with her family in Europe. Despite von Mecks closeness to Tchaikovsky, the Russian master appears to have had effect on Debussy. In September 1880 she sent his Danse bohémienne for Tchaikovskys perusal, a month later Tchaikovsky wrote back to her, It is a pretty piece. Not a single idea is expressed fully, the form is terribly shriveled, Debussy did not publish the piece, and the manuscript remained in the von Meck family, it was eventually sold to B
Claude Debussy
–
Claude Debussy in 1908
Claude Debussy
–
Debussy at the
Villa Medici in Rome, 1885, at centre in the white jacket
Claude Debussy
–
Debussy, by
Marcel Baschet, 1884
Claude Debussy
–
Debussy's last home, now 23 Square Avenue Foch, Paris
43.
Maurice Ravel
–
Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, in the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as Frances greatest living composer. After leaving the conservatoire Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity, incorporating elements of baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. He liked to experiment with form, as in his best-known work, Boléro. He made some arrangements of other composers music, of which his 1922 version of Mussorgskys Pictures at an Exhibition is the best known. As a slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, many of his works exist in two versions, a first, piano score and a later orchestration. Some of his music, such as Gaspard de la nuit, is exceptionally difficult to play. Ravel was among the first composers to recognise the potential of recording to bring their music to a wider public, from the 1920s, despite limited technique as a pianist or conductor, he took part in recordings of several of his works, others were made under his supervision. Ravel was born in the Basque town of Ciboure, France and his father, Pierre-Joseph Ravel, was an educated and successful engineer, inventor and manufacturer, born in Versoix near the Franco-Swiss border. His mother, Marie, née Delouart, was Basque but had grown up in Madrid, in 19th-century terms, Joseph had married beneath his status – Marie was illegitimate and barely literate – but the marriage was a happy one. Both Ravels parents were Roman Catholics, Marie was also something of a free-thinker, a trait inherited by her elder son and he was baptised in the Ciboure parish church six days after he was born. The family moved to Paris three months later, and there a younger son, Édouard, was born and he was close to his father, whom he eventually followed into the engineering profession. Maurice was particularly devoted to their mother, her Basque-Spanish heritage was an influence on his life. Among his earliest memories were folk songs she sang to him, the household was not rich, but the family was comfortable, and the two boys had happy childhoods. Ravel senior delighted in taking his sons to factories to see the latest mechanical devices, in later life, Ravel recalled, Throughout my childhood I was sensitive to music. My father, much better educated in art than most amateurs are, knew how to develop my taste. There is no record that Ravel received any formal schooling in his early years
Maurice Ravel
–
Ravel in 1925
Maurice Ravel
–
Joseph Ravel (1875), Marie Ravel (1870) and Maurice Ravel aged four (1879)
Maurice Ravel
–
Piano class of
Charles de Bériot in 1895, with Ravel on the left
Maurice Ravel
–
Gabriel Fauré, Ravel's teacher and supporter
44.
Igor Stravinsky
–
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian-born composer, pianist, and conductor. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century, Stravinskys compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. His Russian phase which continued with such as Renard, The Soldiers Tale. The works from this tended to make use of traditional musical forms, drawing on earlier styles. In the 1950s, Stravinsky adopted serial procedures, Stravinsky was born on 17 June 1882 in Oranienbaum, a suburb of Saint Petersburg, the Russian imperial capital, and was brought up in Saint Petersburg. It is believed that Stravinsky’s ancestry is traceable back to the 17th and 18th centuries, to the bearers of the Soulima, ivan Sulima, was a famous Ukrainian hetman 1628–1635. Stravinskys family branch most likely came from Stravinskas, polonized Lithuanian land owners and it is still unclear to when exactly the Soulima part of the surname was dropped. Stravinsky recalled his schooldays as being lonely, later saying that I never came across anyone who had any attraction for me. Stravinsky began piano lessons as a boy, studying music theory. In 1890, he saw a performance of Tchaikovskys ballet The Sleeping Beauty at the Mariinsky Theatre, despite his enthusiasm for music, his parents expected him to study law. Stravinsky enrolled at the University of Saint Petersburg in 1901, Stravinskys father died of cancer that year, by which time his son had already begun spending more time on his musical studies than on law. Thereafter, he concentrated on studying music, in 1905, he began to take twice-weekly private lessons from Rimsky-Korsakov, whom he came to regard as a second father. These lessons continued until Rimsky-Korsakovs death in 1908, in 1905 Stravinsky was betrothed to his cousin Katherine Gavrylivna Nosenko, whom he had known since early childhood. Diaghilev was sufficiently impressed by Fireworks to commission Stravinsky to carry out some orchestrations and then to compose a ballet score. The early period of Igor Stravinsky’s work would be incomplete without a research of his life while in Ukraine. From approximately 1890 till 1914 the composer was frequently visiting Ustyluh, town in Volyn Oblast and he spent most of his summers there and that’s where he met his cousin, Katherine Nosenko who he married in 1906. In 1907 Stravinsky designed and built his own house in Ustyluh where his own family stayed often during summer times until 1914 and his new Ukrainian home he called “My heavenly place”. In this house Igor Stravinsky worked on his seventeen early compositions, among which were orchestral fantasy Fireworks, ballets Firebird, Petrushka, currently, after its renovation this house is the only composers house-museum opened to the public
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
–
Igor Stravinsky, 1903
Igor Stravinsky
–
A costume sketch by
Léon Bakst for
The Firebird
Igor Stravinsky
–
Vaslav Nijinsky as Petrushka in 1910–11
45.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
–
He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally, bolstered by his appearances as a guest conductor in Europe and the United States. Tchaikovsky was honored in 1884, by Emperor Alexander III, although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant. There was scant opportunity for a career in Russia at that time. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Tchaikovskys training set him on a path to reconcile what he had learned with the native musical practices to which he had been exposed from childhood. From this reconciliation, he forged a personal but unmistakably Russian style—a task that did not prove easy, Russian culture exhibited a split personality, with its native and adopted elements having drifted apart increasingly since the time of Peter the Great. This resulted in uncertainty among the intelligentsia about the countrys national identity—an ambiguity mirrored in Tchaikovskys career, despite his many popular successes, Tchaikovskys life was punctuated by personal crises and depression. His homosexuality, which he kept private, has also been considered a major factor. Tchaikovskys sudden death at the age of 53 is generally ascribed to cholera, there is a debate as to whether cholera was indeed the cause of death. While his music has remained popular among audiences, critical opinions were initially mixed, some Russians did not feel it was sufficiently representative of native musical values and expressed suspicion that Europeans accepted the music for its Western elements. Others dismissed Tchaikovskys music as lacking in elevated thought, according to longtime New York Times music critic Harold C, schonberg, and derided its formal workings as deficient because they did not stringently follow Western principles. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, a town in Vyatka Governorate in the Russian Empire. His father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, had served as a lieutenant colonel and engineer in the Department of Mines and his grandfather, Pyotr Fedorovich Tchaikovsky, served first as a physicians assistant in the army and later as city governor of Glazov in Viatka. His great-grandfather, a Ukrainian Cossack named Fyodor Chaika, distinguished himself under Peter the Great at the Battle of Poltava in 1709, Tchaikovskys mother, Alexandra Andreyevna, was the second of Ilyas three wives,18 years her husbands junior and French on her fathers side. Both Ilya and Alexandra were trained in the arts, including music—a necessity as a posting to an area of Russia also meant a need for entertainment. Of Tchaikovskys six siblings, he was close to his sister Alexandra and twin brothers Anatoly, alexandras marriage to Lev Davydov would produce seven children and lend Tchaikovsky the only real family life he would know as an adult, especially during his years of wandering. One of those children, Vladimir Davydov, whom the composer would nickname Bob, in 1844, the family hired Fanny Dürbach, a 22-year-old French governess. Four-and-a-half-year-old Tchaikovsky was initially too young to study alongside his older brother Nikolai. By the age of six, he had become fluent in French, Dürbach saved much of Tchaikovskys work from this period, which includes his earliest known compositions, and became a source of several childhood anecdotes
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
–
Portrait of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky by
Nikolai Kuznetsov
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
–
The Tchaikovsky family in 1848. Left to right: Pyotr, Alexandra Andreyevna (mother), Alexandra (sister), Zinaida, Nikolai, Ippolit, Ilya Petrovich (father)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
–
Modern view of the Imperial School of Jurisprudence
46.
Adolphe Adam
–
Adolphe Charles Adam was a French composer and music critic. Later set to different English lyrics and widely sung as O Holy Night, Adam was a noted teacher, who taught Delibes and other influential composers. Adolphe Adam was born in Paris, to Jean-Louis Adam, who was a prominent Alsatian composer and his mother was the daughter of a physician. As a child, Adolphe Adam preferred to improvise music on his own rather than study music seriously and occasionally truanted with writer Eugène Sue who was something of a dunce in early years. Jean-Louis Adam was a pianist and teacher but was set against the idea of his son following in his footsteps. Adam was determined, however, and studied and composed secretly under the tutelage of his older friend Ferdinand Hérold, a popular composer of the day. When Adam was 17, his father relented, and he was permitted to study at the Paris Conservatoire—but only after he promised that he would learn music only as an amusement, not as a career. He entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1821, where he studied organ and harmonium under the celebrated opera composer François-Adrien Boieldieu. Adam also played the timpani in the orchestra of the Conservatoire, however, he did not win the Prix de Rome and his father did not encourage him to pursue a music career, as he won second prize. By age 20, he was writing songs for Paris vaudeville houses and playing in the orchestra at the Gymnasie Dramatique, like many other French composers, he made a living largely by playing the organ. In 1825, he helped Boieldieu prepare parts for his opera La dame blanche, Adam was able to travel through Europe with the money he made, and he met Eugène Scribe, with whom he later collaborated, in Geneva. By 1830, he had completed twenty-eight works for the theatre, Adam is probably best remembered for the ballet Giselle. He wrote several ballets and 39 operas, including Le postillon de Lonjumeau. After quarreling with the director of the Opéra, Adam invested his money and borrowed heavily to open a fourth house in Paris. It opened in 1847, but closed because of the Revolution of 1848 and his efforts to extricate himself from these debts include a brief turn to journalism. From 1849 to his death in Paris, he taught composition at the Paris Conservatoire. His Christmas carol Cantique de Noël, translated to English as O Holy Night, is an international favorite, Cantique de Noel is based on a poem written by M. Cappeau de Roquemaure. Adam is buried in Montmartre Cemetery in Paris, List of operas by Adam List of ballets by Adolphe Adam
Adolphe Adam
–
Adolphe Adam,
Lithograph, 1850
Adolphe Adam
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"Maestro Adolphe Adam". Photograph. Paris, circa 1855
Adolphe Adam
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Detail of Adolphe Adam engraving from the library of the
Royal College of Music, London
47.
Georges Bizet
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Georges Bizet, registered at birth as Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer of the romantic era. During a brilliant student career at the Conservatoire de Paris, Bizet won many prizes and he was recognised as an outstanding pianist, though he chose not to capitalise on this skill and rarely performed in public. Returning to Paris after almost three years in Italy, he found that the main Parisian opera theatres preferred the established classical repertoire to the works of newcomers. His keyboard and orchestral compositions were largely ignored, as a result, his career stalled. Restless for success, he began many theatrical projects during the 1860s, neither of his two operas that reached the stage in this time—Les pêcheurs de perles and La jolie fille de Perth—were immediately successful. The production of Bizets final opera, Carmen, was delayed because of fears that its themes of betrayal and murder would offend audiences. After its premiere on 3 March 1875, Bizet was convinced that the work was a failure, Bizets marriage to Geneviève Halévy was intermittently happy and produced one son. After his death, his work, apart from Carmen, was generally neglected, manuscripts were given away or lost, and published versions of his works were frequently revised and adapted by other hands. He founded no school and had no obvious disciples or successors, after years of neglect, his works began to be performed more frequently in the 20th century. Later commentators have acclaimed him as a composer of brilliance and originality whose premature death was a significant loss to French musical theatre, Georges Bizet was born in Paris on 25 October 1838. He was registered as Alexandre César Léopold, but baptised as Georges on 16 March 1840 and his father, Adolphe Bizet, had been a hairdresser and wigmaker before becoming a singing teacher despite his lack of formal training. He also composed a few works, including at least one published song, in 1837 Adolphe married Aimée Delsarte, against the wishes of her family who considered him a poor prospect, the Delsartes, though impoverished, were a cultured and highly musical family. Aimée was an accomplished pianist, while her brother François Delsarte was a singer and teacher who performed at the courts of both Louis Philippe and Napoleon III. François Delsartes wife Rosine, a prodigy, had been an assistant professor of solfège at the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of 13. Georges, a child, showed early aptitude for music and quickly picked up the basics of musical notation from his mother. This precocity convinced his ambitious parents that he was ready to begin studying at the Conservatoire even though he was only nine years old. Georges was interviewed by Joseph Meifred, the horn virtuoso who was a member of the Conservatoires Committee of Studies, Meifred was so struck by the boys demonstration of his skills that he waived the age rule and offered to take him as soon as a place became available. Bizet was admitted to the Conservatoire on 9 October 1848, two weeks before his 10th birthday and he made an early impression, within six months he had won first prize in solfège, a feat that impressed Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann, the Conservatoires former professor of piano
Georges Bizet
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Georges Bizet in 1875
Georges Bizet
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Part of the
Paris Conservatoire, where Bizet studied from 1848 to 1857 (photographed in 2009)
Georges Bizet
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Charles Gounod, depicted here in later life, was a mentor and inspiration to Bizet in the latter's Conservatoire years.
Georges Bizet
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The Villa Medici, the official home of the French Académie in Rome since 1803
(help·info)) is a 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was called the Salle des Capucines, because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier, in recognition of its opulence and its architect, Charles Garnier. The theatre is also often referred to as the Opéra Garnier (French 
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Garnier's Paris Opéra, Smarthistory at Khan Academy
