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Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
2.
Romanization of Russian
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Romanization of the Russian alphabet is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic script into the Latin alphabet. Scientific transliteration, also known as the International Scholarly System, is a system that has used in linguistics since the 19th century. It is based on the Czech alphabet and formed the basis of the GOST, OST8483 was the first Soviet standard on romanization of Russian, introduced in 16 October 1935. This standard is an equivalent of GOST 16876-71 and was adopted as a standard of the COMECON. GOST7. 79-2000 System of Standards on Information, Librarianship and it is the official standard of both Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Machine readable passports is an adoption of an ICAO stadards for travel documents and it was used in Russian passports for a short period during 2010–2013. The standard was substituted in 2013 by GOST R ISO/IEC 7501-1-2013, which does not contain romanization, ISO/R9, established in 1954 and updated in 1968, was the adoption of the scientific transliteration by the International Organization for Standardization. It covers Russian and seven other Slavic languages, ISO9,1995 is the current transliteration standard from ISO. It is based on its predecessor ISO/R9,1968, which it deprecates, for Russian, the UNGEGN, a Working Group of the United Nations, in 1987 recommended a romanization system for geographical names, which was based on the 1983 version of GOST 16876-71. It may be found in some international cartographic products, American Library Association and Library of Congress romanization tables for Slavic alphabets are used in North American libraries and in the British Library since 1975. The formal, unambiguous version of the system requires some diacritics and two-letter tie characters, British Standard 2979,1958 is the main system of the Oxford University Press, and a variation was used by the British Library to catalogue publications acquired up to 1975. The BGN/PCGN system is relatively intuitive for Anglophones to read and pronounce, the portion of the system pertaining to the Russian language was adopted by BGN in 1944 and by PCGN in 1947. In Soviet international passports, transliteration was based on French rules, in 1997, with the introduction of new Russian passports, a diacritic-free English-oriented system was established by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but this system was also abandoned in 2010. In 2006, GOST52535. 1-2006 was adopted, which defines technical requirements and standards for Russian international passports, in 2010, the Federal Migratory Service of Russia approved Order No. 26, stating that all names in the passports issued after 2010 must be transliterated using GOST52535. 1-2006. The standard was abandoned in 2013, finally in 2013, Order No.320 of the Federal Migratory Service of Russia came into force. It states that all names in the passports must be transliterated using the ICAO system. This system differs from the GOST52535. 1-2006 system in two things, ц is transliterated into ts, ъ is transliterated into ie, Scholarly ¹ Some archaic letters are transcribed in different ways
3.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
4.
Piano
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The piano is an acoustic, stringed musical instrument invented around the year 1700, in which the strings are struck by hammers. It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. The word piano is a form of pianoforte, the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument. The first fortepianos in the 1700s had a sound and smaller dynamic range. An acoustic piano usually has a wooden case surrounding the soundboard and metal strings. Pressing one or more keys on the keyboard causes a padded hammer to strike the strings. The hammer rebounds from the strings, and the continue to vibrate at their resonant frequency. These vibrations are transmitted through a bridge to a soundboard that amplifies by more efficiently coupling the acoustic energy to the air, when the key is released, a damper stops the strings vibration, ending the sound. Notes can be sustained, even when the keys are released by the fingers and thumbs and this means that the piano can play 88 different pitches, going from the deepest bass range to the highest treble. The black keys are for the accidentals, which are needed to play in all twelve keys, more rarely, some pianos have additional keys. Most notes have three strings, except for the bass that graduates from one to two, the strings are sounded when keys are pressed or struck, and silenced by dampers when the hands are lifted from the keyboard. There are two types of piano, the grand piano and the upright piano. The grand piano is used for Classical solos, chamber music and art song and it is used in jazz. The upright piano, which is compact, is the most popular type, as they are a better size for use in private homes for domestic music-making. During the nineteenth century, music publishers produced many works in arrangements for piano, so that music lovers could play. The piano is widely employed in classical, jazz, traditional and popular music for solo and ensemble performances, accompaniment, with technological advances, amplified electric pianos, electronic pianos, and digital pianos have also been developed. The electric piano became an instrument in the 1960s and 1970s genres of jazz fusion, funk music. The piano was founded on earlier technological innovations in keyboard instruments, pipe organs have been used since Antiquity, and as such, the development of pipe organs enabled instrument builders to learn about creating keyboard mechanisms for sounding pitches
5.
Modest Mussorgsky
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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
6.
Virtuoso
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A virtuoso is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in a particular art or field such as fine arts, music, singing, playing a musical instrument, or composition. This word also refers to a person who has cultivated appreciation of artistic excellence, the plural form of virtuoso is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine forms are virtuosa and virtuose. According to Music in the Western civilization by Piero Weiss and Richard Taruskin, the defining element of virtuosity is the performance ability of the musician in question, who is capable of displaying feats of skill well above the average performer. Especially in music, both critics and musicians have mixed opinions on virtuosity, while the skill implied is clearly positive, musicians focused on virtuosity have been criticized for overlooking substance and emotion in favor of raw technical prowess. For instance, Ken Jennings initial success on Jeopardy was described as a virtuoso performance, the meaning of virtuoso has its roots in the Italian usage of the 16th and 17th centuries, signifying an honorific term reserved for a person distinguished in any intellectual or artistic field. The term evolved with time, simultaneously broadening and narrowing in scope as interpretations went in and out of fashion, originally a musician was honored the classification by being a composer, theorist or famous maestro, more importantly than being a skilled performer. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the word shifted in meaning, sébastien de Brossard in his Dictionnaire de Musique approached the word virtuoso by its Latin root virtu emphasizing exceptional training, especially in theory. This position was defended in Johann Gottfried Walthers Musicalisches Lexicon favoring the theorist over the performer. Johan Matthensons Der brauchbare Virtuoso maintained the respect for the traditional theoretische Virtuosen, in the late 18th century, people began to use the term to describe a instrumentalist or vocalist who pursued a career as a soloist. The tension about the merit of practical virtuosity started to grow at the time and intensified in the 19th century. Franz Liszt, considered one of the greatest of all virtuosos, declared that virtuosity is not an outgrowth, media related to Musicians at Wikimedia Commons
7.
Maurice Ravel
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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
8.
Viktor Hartmann
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Viktor Alexandrovich Hartmann was a Russian architect and painter. He was associated with the Abramtsevo Colony, purchased and preserved beginning in 1870 by Savva Mamontov, victor-Edouard Hartmann was born in Saint Petersburg into a family of German ancestry. He was orphaned at an age and grew up in the house of his mothers sister, L. Hemilian, and her husband Alexandre Hemilian. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg and he also worked as an architect and sketched, among other things, the monument to the thousandth anniversary of Russia in Novgorod, which was inaugurated in 1862. He made most of his colors and pencil drawings on journeys abroad in the years 1864 to 1868. Together with Ivan Ropet, Hartmann was one of the first artists to include traditional Russian motifs in his work, since Vladimir Stasov had introduced him to the circle of Mily Balakirev in 1870, he had been a close friend of the composer Modest Mussorgsky. This inspired Mussorgsky to compose his suite Pictures at an Exhibition, most of the works shown at the 1874 exhibition are now lost. List of Russian artists Reproductions of Viktor Hartmanns pictures More reproductions of Viktor Hartmanns pictures
9.
Vladimir Stasov
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Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov, son of Russian architect Vasily Petrovich Stasov, was probably the most respected Russian critic during his lifetime. Stasov became a figure and, some critics argue, a tyrant—in mid-19th-century Russian culture. He discovered a number of its greatest talents, inspired many of their works and fought their battles in numerous articles. As such, he carried on a debate with Russian novelist and playwright Ivan Turgenev. He wanted Russian art to liberate itself from what he saw as Europes hold, by copying the west, he felt, Russian artists could be, at best, second-rate. However, by borrowing from their own traditions, they might create a truly national art that could match Europes with its high artistic standards. By national Stasov meant an art that would not only portray peoples lives but also be meaningful to them, in 1847, Stasov published a monograph on Mikhail Glinkas use of folk motifs in his music, from that time, Stasov advocated Russianness over European influence in music. In the years which followed he served as an adviser to the group of Russian composers known as The Five. He also warmed to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky after hearing the play the finale of his Little Russian Symphony at a Christmas 1872 gathering at Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakovs home. Shortly after this gathering, Stasov prompted Tchaikovsky to write a piece based on Shakespeares The Tempest and he also drafted a program, initially for Hector Berlioz, that Tchaikovsky eventually used for his Manfred Symphony. In between those two works, Stasov suggested an opera based on Alfred de Vignys historical romance Cinq-Mars, Tchaikovsky was then intent on writing Eugene Onegin, and Charles Gounod had already written an opera based on Cinq-Mars. Beginning in the 1870s, Stasov ardently supported the realistic painters known as Peredvizhniki as well as Ilya Repin, when artists did not follow his precepts, Stasov could become both intolerant and vocal. Stasov called the finale of Tchaikovskys Little Russian symphony one of the most important creations of the whole Russian school. Otherwise, his verdict on Tchaikovskys work was negative, The Conservatoire, academic training, eclecticism and overworking of musical materials laid its dread. Of his total output, a few works are first-rate and highly original, founder Mily Balakirev confided to Stasov that he thought Mussorgsky almost an idiot. Stasov replied, I think he is a total idiot and he was harsher still with the modernist art magazine Mir iskusstva and its founders, Alexandre Benois, Léon Bakst and Sergei Diaghilev when the magazine appeared in 1898. He called Diaghilev a decadent cheerleader in print and Mir iskusstva the courtyard of the lepers, stasovs correspondence with leading personalities of Russian art life is invaluable. He is known also for his opposition to music critic and erstwhile friend Alexander Serov concerning the merits of Glinkas two operas
10.
Boris Godunov (opera)
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Boris Godunov is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky. The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia and it is Mussorgskys only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece. Its subjects are the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar during the Time of Troubles, and his nemesis, the False Dmitriy. Among major operas, Boris Godunov shares with Giuseppe Verdis Don Carlos the distinction of having an extremely complex creative history, Boris Godunov comes closer to the status of a repertory piece than any other Russian opera, even Tchaikovskys Eugene Onegin, and is the most recorded Russian opera. Note, Dates provided in this article for events taking place in Russia before 1918 are Old Style, Mussorgskys next project would be a very original and successful synthesis of the opposing styles of these two experiments—the romantic-lyrical style of Salammbô, and the realistic style of Marriage. Production was permitted on condition that certain scenes were cut, although enthusiasm for the work was high, Mussorgsky faced a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to his plans in that an Imperial ukaz of 1837 forbade the portrayal in opera of Russian Tsars. Pushkins drama consists of 25 scenes, written predominantly in blank verse, Mussorgsky adapted the most theatrically effective scenes, mainly those featuring the title character, along with a few other key scenes, often preserving Pushkins verses. Mussorgsky worked rapidly, composing first the vocal score in nine months. In 1870, he submitted the libretto to the censor for examination. However, the opera was rejected by a vote of 6 to 1, how can there be an opera without the feminine element. Mussorgsky has great talent beyond doubt, let him add one more scene. The freshness and originality of the music nonplussed the honorable members of the committee, for a long time he stood up for his creation, the fruit of his inspiration and meditations. He yielded only after Boris had been rejected, the management finding that it contained too many choruses and ensembles and this rejection proved very beneficial to Boris. He added three scenes, cut one, and recomposed another, the modifications resulted in the addition of an important prima donna role, the expansion of existing female roles, and the expansion of the first tenor role. Mussorgsky augmented his adaptation of Pushkins drama with his own lyrics, assisted by a study of the monumental History of the Russian State by Karamzin, the Revised Version was finished in 1872, and submitted to the Imperial Theatres in the autumn. Most Mussorgsky biographers claim that the directorate of the Imperial Theatres also rejected the version of Boris Godunov, even providing a date,6 May 1872. César Cuis review noted the enthusiasm, The success was enormous and complete, never. The success of this performance led V. Bessel and Co. to announce the publication of the vocal score of Mussorgskys opera
11.
The Mighty Handful
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The Mighty Handful were five prominent, 19th-century Russian composers who worked together to create a distinctly Russian classical music. Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin all lived in Saint Petersburg and they are also known as The Five and The New Russian School. The four Russian composers whose works were played at the concert were Mikhail Glinka, Alexander Dargomyzhsky, Mily Balakirev, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The expression mighty handful, was mocked by enemies of Balakirev and Stasov, Aleksandr Serov, academic circles of the conservatory, the Russian Musical Society, the group ignored critics and continued operating under the moniker. Gerald Abraham stated flatly in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians that they never called themselves, nor were they called in Russia. In his memoirs, Rimsky-Korsakov routinely refers to the group as Balakirevs circle, the Russian word kuchka also spawned the terms kuchkism and kuchkist, which may be applied to artistic aims or works in tune with the sensibilities of the Mighty Handful. The name of Les Six, an even looser collection of French-speaking composers, the formation of the group began in 1856, with the first meeting of Balakirev and César Cui. Modest Mussorgsky joined them in 1857, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1861, all the composers in The Five were young men in 1862. Balakirev was 25, Cui 27, Mussorgsky 23, Borodin the eldest at 28, Borodin combined composing with a career in chemistry. In contrast to the status and court connections of Conservatory composers such as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The circle began to fall apart during the 1870s, no doubt due to the fact that Balakirev withdrew from musical life early in the decade for a period of time. All of The Five are buried in Tikhvin Cemetery in Saint Petersburg, the musical language The Five developed set them far apart from the Conservatoire. The Fives music became filled with sounds of Russian life. They also tried to reproduce the long-drawn, lyrical and melismatic peasant song, Balakirev made this possible by his study of songs from the Volga in the 1860s. This can produce a feeling of elusiveness, a lack of definition or of logical progression in the harmony, even when stylized by The Five, this quality can make Russian music sound very different from the tonal structures of the West. Heterophony A melody is simultaneously rendered by two or more performers in different variations and this is improvised by the singers until the end, when the song reverts to a single melodic line. Parallel fifths, fourths and thirds The effect lends Russian music a raw sonority missing entirely from the comparatively polished harmonies of Western music, the Five also adopted a series of harmonic devices to create a distinct Russian style and color different from Western music. This exotic styling of Russia was not just self-conscious but entirely invented and this scale in Russian works often suggests evil or ominous personages or situations
12.
Imperial Academy of Arts
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The Russian Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, informally known as the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, was founded in 1757 by Ivan Shuvalov under the name Academy of the Three Noblest Arts. Catherine the Great renamed it the Imperial Academy of Arts and commissioned a new building, the academy promoted the neoclassical style and technique, and sent its promising students to European capitals for further study. Training at the academy was virtually required for artists to make successful careers, formally abolished in 1918 after the Russian Revolution, the academy was renamed several times. It established free tuition, students from across the country competed fiercely for its few places annually, in 1947 the national institution was moved to Moscow, and much of its art collection was moved to the Hermitage. The building in Leningrad was devoted to the Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, since 1991 it has been called the St. Petersburg Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. The academy was located in the Shuvalov Palace on Sadovaya Street, in 1764, Catherine the Great renamed it the Imperial Academy of Arts and commissioned its first rector, Alexander Kokorinov, to design a new building. It took 25 years to complete the Neoclassical edifice, which opened in 1789, konstantin Thon was responsible for the sumptuous decoration of the interiors. He also designed a quayside in front of the building, with stairs down to the Neva River, Ivan Betskoy reorganized the academy into a de facto government department, it supervised matters concerning art throughout the country, distributing orders and awarding ranks to artists. The academy vigorously promoted the principles of Neoclassicism by sending the most notable Russian painters abroad, in order to learn the ancient and Renaissance styles of Italy and it also had its own sizable collection of choice artworks intended for study and copying. The adherents of this movement became known as peredvizhniki, led by Ivan Kramskoi, they publicly broke with the Academy and organized their own exhibitions, which traveled from town to town across Russia. Ilya Repin, Mikhail Vrubel and some other painters still regarded the academys training as indispensable for the development of professional and technical skills. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Imperial Academy passed through a series of transformations, after the Academys move to Moscow that year, the building in what was then called Leningrad was renamed Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. The national academy has stayed in Moscow, in 1991 it was renamed the Russian Academy of Arts. The old academys art collection, which included works by Poussin, David. During the Soviet era, academies were free of tuition fees as they were financed by the government, many would-be students would apply to the Academy for as many as six or seven years in a row without success. With just twenty places available and thousands of applicants, the competition was brutal, well-known graduates of Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1930–1950s include, The Russian Academy of Arts has been headquartered in Moscow since 1947. Its current president is Zurab Tsereteli and its vice-president is Tair Salakhov and it is also called the St. Petersburg State Academic Institute of Fine Arts, Sculpture and Architecture. - Saint Petersburg, NP-Print Edition,2007, the Leningrad School Russian Academy of Arts The St. Petersburg State Academic Institute of Fine Arts Sergei V. Ivanov
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Saint Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
14.
Khovanshchina
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For the 1960 Soviet film based on this opera, see Khovanshchina. Khovanshchina is an opera in five acts by Modest Mussorgsky, the work was written between 1872 and 1880 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The composer wrote the libretto based on historical sources, the opera was unfinished and unperformed when the composer died in 1881. Like Mussorgskys earlier Boris Godunov, Khovanshchina deals with an episode in Russian history, Khovansky had helped to foment the Moscow Uprising of 1682, which resulted in Sofia becoming regent on behalf of her younger brother Ivan and half-brother Peter, who were crowned joint Tsars. In the fall of 1682 Prince Ivan Khovansky turned against Sofia, supported by the Old Believers and the Streltsy, Khovansky — who supposedly wanted to install himself as the new regent — demanded the reversal of Patriarch Nikons reforms. Sofia and her court were forced to flee Moscow, eventually, Sofia managed to suppress the so-called Khovanshchina with the help of the diplomat Fyodor Shaklovity, who succeeded Khovansky as leader of the Muscovite Streltsy. With the rebellion crushed, the Old Believers committed mass suicide, nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov completed, revised, and scored Khovanshchina in 1881–1882. Because of his cuts and recomposition, Dmitri Shostakovich revised the opera in 1959 based on Mussorgskys vocal score. In 1913 Igor Stravinsky and Maurice Ravel made their own arrangement at Sergei Diaghilevs request, when Feodor Chaliapin refused to sing the part of Dosifei in any other orchestration than Rimsky-Korsakovs, Diaghilevs company employed a mixture of orchestrations which did not prove successful. The Stravinsky-Ravel orchestration was forgotten, except for Stravinskys finale, which is sometimes used. It received its first performance in the Rimsky-Korsakov edition in 1886, the libretto was written out by 1879, and shows some inconsistencies with the actual text set to music. The St. Petersburg and world premiere took place on 21 February,1886 using the Rimsky-Korsakov edition, also in St. Petersburg on 27 October 1893 the opera was presented by artists of the Russian Opera Society. Only the finale, which was composed by Stravinsky, has survived and was published in 1914 and it occasionally replaces Dmitri Shostakovichs finale in some productions, such as Claudio Abbados 1989 production in Vienna. Also in 1913, it was presented in London at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and it was produced in New York for the first time in 1931. The Shostakovich version, in Pavel Lamms edition, was first presented on 25 November 1960 at the Kirov Theater, Khovanshchina was not staged by New Yorks Metropolitan Opera until 1950, although excerpts were performed by the Met as early as 1919. The 1950 production was sung in English and featured Risë Stevens as Marfa, the sets and costumes were designed by the Russo-Lithuanian artist Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. That production received four performances in 1950, and the Met did not stage Khovanshchina again until 1985. The new production was staged by August Everding, designed by Ming Cho Lee and it has since been revived several times at the Met, most recently in a 2012 run, during which Stravinskys final scene was employed there for the first time
15.
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
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Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five. He was a master of orchestration, Scheherazade is an example of his frequent use of fairy tale and folk subjects. Rimsky-Korsakov believed, as did fellow composer Mily Balakirev and critic Vladimir Stasov, however, Rimsky-Korsakov appreciated Western musical techniques after he became a professor of musical composition, harmony and orchestration at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1871. He undertook a rigorous program of self-education and became a master of Western methods, incorporating them alongside the influences of Mikhail Glinka. His techniques of composition and orchestration were further enriched by his exposure to the works of Richard Wagner and he wrote that he developed a passion for the ocean in childhood from reading books and hearing of his older brothers exploits in the navy. This love of the sea might have influenced him to two of his best-known orchestral works, the musical tableau Sadko and Scheherazade. Through his service as Inspector of Naval Bands, Rimsky-Korsakov expanded his knowledge of woodwind and brass playing and he passed this knowledge to his students, and also posthumously through a textbook on orchestration that was completed by his son-in-law, Maximilian Steinberg. Rimsky-Korsakov left a body of original Russian nationalist compositions. He prepared works by The Five for performance, which brought them into the classical repertoire. Rimsky-Korsakov is therefore considered the architect of what the classical music public considers the Russian style of composition. Rimsky-Korsakov was born in Tikhvin,200 kilometres east of Saint Petersburg, the father of the composer, Andrei Petrovich Rimsky-Korsakov, though born out of wedlock, went on to serve first as the vice-governor of Novgorod, and then in the Volhynian Governorate. The composers mother, Sofya Vasilevna, was the daughter of a peasant serf, the Rimsky-Korsakov family had a long line of military and naval service. Nikolais older brother Voin,22 years his senior, became a well-known navigator and he later recalled that his mother played the piano a little, and his father could play a few songs on the piano by ear. Beginning at six, he took lessons from local teachers and showed a talent for aural skills. Although he started composing by age 10, Rimsky-Korsakov preferred literature over music and he later wrote that from his reading, and tales of his brothers exploits, he developed a poetic love for the sea without ever having seen it. This love, and prompting from Voin, encouraged the 12-year-old to join the Imperial Russian Navy and he studied at the School for Mathematical and Navigational Sciences in Saint Petersburg and, at 18, took his final examination in April 1862. While at school, Rimsky-Korsakov took piano lessons from a man named Ulikh and these lessons were sanctioned by Voin, who now served as director of the school, because he hoped they would help the youth to develop social skills and overcome his shyness. Rimsky-Korsakov wrote that, while indifferent to lessons, he developed a love for music, fostered by visits to the opera and, later, Ulikh perceived that he had serious musical talent and recommended another teacher, Feodor A. Kanille
16.
Expurgation
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Expurgation, also known as bowdlerization, is a form of censorship which involves purging anything deemed noxious or offensive from an artistic work, or other type of writing of media. The term bowdlerization is a term for the practice, particularly the expurgation of lewd material from books. The term derives from Thomas Bowdlers 1818 edition of William Shakespeares plays and he similarly edited Edward Gibbons Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. A fig-leaf edition is such a text, deriving from the practice of covering the genitals of nudes in classical and Renaissance statues. In 1264, Clement IV ordered the Jews of Aragon to submit their books to Dominican censors for expurgation, for instance, Children, children, bring the looking glass / Come and see the crayfish that bit your mothers a-face. The 1925 Harvard Press edition of Montaignes essays was published without the essays pertaining to sex, a Boston-area ban on Upton Sinclairs novel Oil. – owing to a short motel sex scene – prompted the author to assemble a 150-copy fig-leaf edition with the nine offending pages blacked out as a publicity stunt. Recent editions of many works—including Mark Twains Huckleberry Finn and Joseph Conrads Nigger of the Narcissus—have found various replacements for the word nigger. An example of Bowdlerization can be seen in Huck Finn, in which Twain used racial slurs in natural speech to highlight what he saw as racism. This often catches innocent words also, see Scunthorpe problem, chinese internet filters – the Great Firewall – also work to block politically-sensitive terms and characters from being published on most public sites or loaded by domestic ISPs. Ad usum Delphini Censorship Minced oath Tobacco bowdlerization
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Yid
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The word Yid is a slang Jewish ethnonym of Yiddish origin. Its usage may be controversial in modern English language and it is not usually considered offensive when pronounced /ˈjiːd/, the way Yiddish speakers say it, though some may deem the word offensive nonetheless. When pronounced /ˈjɪd/, some have perceived it as pejorative — and has used as a derogatory epithet by antisemites along with, and as an alternative to. Yid is used as a badge of pride by the supporters of Tottenham Hotspur F. C. both those who are Jewish and non-Jewish. Such usage is controversial, and in 2013 has been addressed by the UK Society for Black Lawyers, the term Yid has its origins in the Middle High German word Jüde. Leo Rosten provides the etymology, From the German, Jude. And Jude is a form of Yehuda, which was the name given to the Jewish Commonwealth in the period of the Second Temple. The earliest mention of the word Yid in print was in The Slang Dictionary published by John Camden Hotten in 1874, Hotten noted that The Jews use these terms very frequently. After World War II, most examples of the word Yid are found in the writing of Jewish authors and these occurrences are usually either attempts to accurately portray antisemitic speech, or self-deprecating Jewish humor. In his 1968 bestseller The Joys of Yiddish, Leo Rosten offers a number of anecdotes from the Borscht Belt to illustrate such usage, in Yiddish, a polite way to address a fellow Jew whose name one does not know is Reb Yid, meaning Sir. The Yiddish words yidish or yiddisher is a derived from the noun Yid. Some Jewish and non-Jewish fans of Tottenham Hotspur F. C. adopted Yid as a nickname and Yiddo, Yiddo. as a battle cry, while such usage remains controversial, for the overwhelming majority of Tottenham supporters, it is used with pride. Some Jewish Tottenham supporters use it with a consciousness of the club as a bastion against racism and antisemitism. Others use it simply because many of the fans and owners of the club are Jews, however, the name was first given to the supporters as an insult, due to the large Jewish following at the club. East-end Jews have mostly moved to the north and east London suburbs and Herts and Essex, nevertheless, it is not necessary to be Haredi to be Jewish, and Spurs still has a strong Jewish fanbase
18.
Apotheosis
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Apotheosis is the glorification of a subject to divine level. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, in theology, apotheosis refers to the idea that an individual has been raised to godlike stature. In art, the term refers to the treatment of any subject in a grand or exalted manner. Before the Hellenistic period, imperial cults were known in Ancient Egypt, from the New Kingdom, all deceased pharaohs were deified as Osiris. From at least the Geometric period of the ninth century BC, in the Greek world, the first leader who accorded himself divine honours was Philip II of Macedon. Such Hellenistic state leaders might be raised to an equal to the gods before death or afterwards. A heroic cult status similar to apotheosis was also a given to a few revered artists of the distant past. For this reason hero cults were chthonic in nature, and their rituals more closely resembled those for Hecate and Persephone than those for Zeus and Apollo. Two exceptions were Heracles and Asclepius, who might be honoured as either gods or heroes, sometimes by chthonic night-time rites and sacrifice on the following day. Apotheosis in ancient Rome was a process whereby a deceased ruler was recognized as having been divine by his successor, usually also by a decree of the Senate and popular consent. In addition to showing respect, often the present ruler deified a popular predecessor to legitimize himself, at the height of the imperial cult during the Roman Empire, sometimes the emperors deceased loved ones—heirs, empresses, or lovers, as Hadrians Antinous—were deified as well. Deified people were awarded posthumously the title Divus to their names to signify their divinity, traditional Roman religion distinguished between a deus and a divus, though not consistently. Temples and columns were erected to provide a space for worship. The Ming dynasty epic Investiture of the Gods deals heavily with deification legends, numerous mortals have been deified into the Daoist pantheon, such as Guan Yu, Iron-crutch Li and Fan Kuai. Song Dynasty General Yue Fei was deified during the Ming Dynasty and is considered by practitioners to be one of the three highest ranking heavenly generals. Various Hindu and Buddhist rulers in the past have been represented as deities, especially after death, even several Sultans of Yogyakarta were semi-deified, posthumously. Instead of the apotheosis, Christian theology uses in English the words deification or divinization or the Greek word theosis. Traditional mainstream theology, both East and West, views Jesus Christ as the preexisting God who undertook mortal existence, for He was made man that we might be made God
19.
Musopen
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Musopen Inc. is a 501 non-profit organization located in Tarzana, California, launched by Aaron Dunn in 2005. It aims to set free by providing music to the public free of charge. Some content is free of charge with limitations and registration is required. Musopen provides a library of public domain music recordings and sheet music. It also raises money to finance classical music recordings which are released into the public domain, in 2008, Musopen released newly commissioned recordings of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas into the public domain. In 2010, the organized a fundraiser via Kickstarter to commission recordings of a larger repertoire, raising a total of $68,359. In July 2012, Musopen announced that the editing of the recordings was finished, after which the files were uploaded to its website. The final list of music was announced in August 2012, in September 2013, a new Kickstarter fundraiser was launched by Musopen to record the complete works of Frédéric Chopin. The fundraiser was successful, exceeding the goal of $75,000 by over $15,000. All recording for this project has been finished and editing was completed in April 2015, Musopen operates under a freemium model, in that some content is available free of charge, but premium downloads require a subscription. Sheet music is available for download to all for free, and recordings can be played using an HTML5 or Flash player
20.
B-flat major
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In music theory, B♭ major is a major scale based on B♭. The pitches B♭, C, D, E♭, F, G and its key signature has two flats. B♭ majors relative minor is G minor, and its parallel minor is B♭ minor, many transposing instruments are pitched in B-flat major, including the clarinet, trumpet, tenor saxophone, and soprano saxophone. As a result, B-flat major is a key for concert band compositions. In Nordic, Baltic, Western and Southern Slavic languages, Hungarian, German and most Central and Northern European languages, joseph Haydns Symphony No.98 is credited as the first symphony he wrote in that key in which he included trumpet and timpani parts. Actually, his brother Michael Haydn had written one such symphony earlier, many editions of the work, however, use no key signature and specify the instrument as Timpani in B-flat–F. Five of Mozarts piano concertos are in B-flat major
21.
Latin language
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
22.
E-flat minor
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E-flat minor is a minor scale consisting of the pitches E♭, F, G♭, A♭, B♭, C♭, and D♭. In the harmonic minor, the D♭ is raised to D♮ and its key signature consists of six flats. Its relative major is G♭ major and its parallel major is E♭ major and its enharmonic equivalent is D♯ minor. Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in with accidentals as necessary and this key is often popular with jazz or blues influenced keyboard players as, using all the black keys along with A natural, it allows for an easily playable blues scale. Despite the key rarely being used in music other than to modulate, it is encountered in a small fraction of keyboard music. In Book 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier by Johann Sebastian Bach, in Book 2, both movements are in D-sharp minor. Beethoven applied E-flat minor to the introduction in the sixth movement of his Septet Op.20. Schubert ended his Impromptus in E-flat major, D.899 No.2 in E-flat minor, parallel key to E-flat major, one of the few symphonies written in this key is Prokofievs Symphony No. 6, where none of three movements ends in E-flat minor. A few other less well-known composers also wrote symphonies in this key, such as Andrei Eshpai, Jānis Ivanovs, Ovchinnikov, aram Khachaturian wrote his Toccata in E-flat minor while studying under Myaskovsky. It is also the key in which Dmitri Shostakovich composed his final string quartet, alexander Scriabins Prelude No.14 from his 24 Preludes, Op.11, is in E-flat minor, as well as Johannes Brahmss only independent Scherzo, Op.4. Sergei Rachmaninoffs Elegie, Op.3, No,1, is in E-flat minor, as is his Étude-Tableau, Op.39, No.5. These pieces are noted for being dark and mysterious, oskar Böhmes Trumpet Sextet, Op.30 is written in E-flat minor. Alexseevich Shatrovs waltz, On the Hills of Manchuria, about the loss of Russia in the Russo-Japanese war, is written in E-flat minor, as mentioned, E-flat minor is common in Russian pieces. On the Hills of Manchuria is perhaps the most notable example, the extended orchestral introduction to part 2 of Gustav Mahlers Eighth Symphony is in E-flat minor, as is the dark orchestral introduction to Beethovens only oratorio, Christ on the Mount of Olives. Guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen has composed a number of pieces in E-flat minor, including the Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar, jazz compositions Round Midnight and Take Five are also in this key. A. Morris, Symphonies, Numbers And Keys in Bobs Poetry Magazine, media related to E-flat minor at Wikimedia Commons
23.
A-flat major
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The A-flat major scale consists of the pitches A♭, B♭, C, D♭, E♭, F, and G. Its key signature has four flats and its relative minor is F minor. Its parallel minor, A♭ minor, is replaced by G♯ minor, since A♭ minor. G♯ major, with eight sharps, including the F, has a similar problem, the same enharmonic situation occurs with the keys of D♭ major and C♯ minor, with C♯ major having seven sharps and D♭ minor having eight flats, including the B. It was used often by Franz Schubert, twenty-four of Frédéric Chopins piano pieces are in A-flat major. Since A-flat major was not often chosen as the key for orchestral works of the 18th century. For example, Beethovens Symphony No.5 in C minor has the set to C and G for the first movement. In Bruckners Symphony No.1 in C minor, however, charles-Marie Widor considered A-flat major to be the second best key for flute music. 127 and K.130, Haydns Hob XVI43 and 46 and it was also the flattest major key to be used for the preludes and fugues in Johann Sebastian Bachs Well-Tempered Klavier, as flatter major keys were notated as their enharmonic equivalents. Felix Mendelssohn, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, John Field, and Friedrich Kalkbrenner each wrote one piano concerto in A-flat, they had the horns and trumpet tuned to E-flat. Max Bruchs Concerto for Two Pianos in A-flat minor has its last movement in A-flat major, which is the parallel major, works for stringed instruments in this key include Antonín Dvořáks String Quartet No.14 and Benjamin Godards Violin Sonata No.4
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Italian language
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By most measures, Italian, together with Sardinian, is the closest to Latin of the Romance languages. Italian is a language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City. Italian is spoken by minorities in places such as France, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Crimea and Tunisia and by large expatriate communities in the Americas. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardized Italian and other regional languages, Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world. Italian is a major European language, being one of the languages of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is the third most widely spoken first language in the European Union with 65 million native speakers, including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries and on other continents, the total number of speakers is around 85 million. Italian is the working language of the Holy See, serving as the lingua franca in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Italian is known as the language of music because of its use in musical terminology and its influence is also widespread in the arts and in the luxury goods market. Italian has been reported as the fourth or fifth most frequently taught foreign language in the world, Italian was adopted by the state after the Unification of Italy, having previously been a literary language based on Tuscan as spoken mostly by the upper class of Florentine society. Its development was influenced by other Italian languages and to some minor extent. Its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian, unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latins contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive, however, Italian as a language used in Italy and some surrounding regions has a longer history. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri, written in his native Florentine. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language, and thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the language of Italy. Italian was also one of the recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy has always had a dialect for each city, because the cities. Those dialects now have considerable variety, as Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. Even in the case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages
25.
G-sharp minor
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G-sharp minor is a minor scale based on G♯, consisting of the pitches G♯, A♯, B, C♯, D♯, E, and F♯. For the harmonic minor, the F♯ is raised to F and its key signature has five sharps. Its relative major is B major, A♭ minor, with seven flats, has a similar problem, thus G♯ minor is often used as the parallel minor for A♭ major. The same enharmonic situation occurs with the keys of D♭ major and C♯ minor, with C♯ major having seven sharps and D♭ minor having eight flats, including the B. Despite the key rarely being used in music other than to modulate, it is not entirely uncommon in keyboard music. It can also found in the movement in Shostakovitchs 8th String quartet. If G-sharp minor is used, composers generally write B-flat wind instruments in the enharmonic B-flat minor, in a few scores, the sharp A in the bass clef is written on the top line. Few symphonies are written in G ♯ minor, among them are Nikolai Myaskovskys 17th Symphony, Christopher Schlegels 5th Symphony, johann Sebastian Bachs The Well-Tempered Clavier No. 18, Prelude and Fugue in G-sharp minor, Books 1 and 2, are among the works in this key, chopin composed a Polonaise in G-Sharp Minor, opus posthumous in 1822. His Étude No.6 is in G-sharp minor as well, lizsts La campanella from his Grandes études de Paganini is in G-Sharp minor. Notes Sources A. Morris, Symphonies, Numbers and Keys in Bobs Poetry Magazine, III.3,2006
26.
B major
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In music theory, B major is a major scale based on B. The pitches B, C♯, D♯, E, F♯, G♯ and its key signature has five sharps. B majors relative minor is G♯ minor, its parallel minor is B minor, the key signature for B major is the least sharp key signature with three lines of sharps. In the treble clef, putting the sharp for A on its position relative to the sharp for G would require a ledger line. However, it is found, resulting in the A-sharp in the bass-clef key signature appearing on the top line. In the tenor clef, which occurs in music, the B major key signature is usually written in just two lines of sharps. Joseph Haydns Symphony No.46 is in B major, see also, List of symphonies in B major. The aria La donna è mobile from Verdis opera Rigoletto is in B major,1, Op.8 is in B major, though the piece ends in B minor. He also wrote the slow movement to his Second Symphony in B Major, as well as the fourth and last piece of the Ballades, note that in German and most Central and Northern European languages, the pitch B is called H while B♭ is called B. This includes Nordic, Baltic, Western and Southern Slavic languages as well as Hungarian, key Major and minor Chord Chord names and symbols Media related to B major at Wikimedia Commons
27.
Tuileries Garden
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The Tuileries Garden is a public garden located between the Louvre Museum and the Place de la Concorde in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. Created by Catherine de Medici as the garden of the Tuileries Palace in 1564, it was opened to the public in 1667. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it was the place where Parisians celebrated, met, strolled and she decided that she would build a new palace there for herself, separate from the Louvre, with a garden modeled after the gardens of her native Florence. At the time there was an empty area bordered by the Seine on the south, the rue Saint-Honoré on the north, the Louvre on the east, since the 13th century this area was occupied by workshops, called tuileries, making tiles for the roofs of buildings. Some of land had been acquired early in the 16th century by King Francois I, Catherine acquired more land and began to build a new palace and garden on the site. The garden of Catherine de Medicis was a space five hundred metres long. The Tuileries was the largest and most beautiful garden in Paris at the time, Catherine used it for lavish royal festivities honoring ambassadors from Queen Elizabeth I of England and the marriage of her daughter, Marguerite de Valois, to the future Henry IV. King Henry III was forced to flee Paris in 1588, and he also built a rectangular basin 65 metres by 45 metres with a fountain supplied with water by the new pump called La Samaritaine, which had been built in 1608 on the Pont Neuf. The area between the palace and the moat of Charles V was turned into the New Garden with a large fountain in the center. Though Henry IV never lived in the Tuilieries Palace, which was continually under reconstruction, he did use the gardens for relaxation, in 1610, at the death of his father, Louis XIII, age nine became the new owner of the Tuileries Gardens. It became his enormous playground - he used it for hunting, on the north side of the gardens, Marie de Medicis established a school of riding, stables, and a covered manege for exercising horses. When the King and court were absent from Paris, the gardens were turned into a spot for the nobility. In 1630 a former rabbit warren and kennel at the west rampart of the garden were made into a flower-lined promenade, in 1652 La Grande Mademoiselle was expelled from the chateau and garden for having supported an uprising, the Fronde, against her cousin, the young Louis XIV. The new king quickly imposed his own sense of order on the Tuileries Gardens and his architects, Louis Le Vau and Francois dOrbay, finally finished the Tuileries Palace, making a proper royal residence. Thereafter the square was known as the Place du Carrousel, in 1664, Colbert, the superintendent of buildings of the King, commissioned the landscape architect André Le Nôtre, to redesign the entire garden. Le Nôtre was the grandson of Pierre Le Nôtre, one of the gardeners of Catherine De Medici, Le Nôtres were designed to be seen from above, from a building or terrace. He eliminated the street which separated the palace and the garden, in the centre of the parterres he placed three basins with fountains. In front of the center first fountain he laid out the grand allée and he built two other alleys, lined with chestnut trees, on either side
28.
Louvre
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The Louvre or the Louvre Museum is the worlds largest museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the citys 1st arrondissement, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres. The Louvre is the second most visited museum after the Palace Museum in China. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Philip II, remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to the expansion of the city, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function and. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace, in 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nations masterpieces. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum renamed Musée Napoléon, the collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic, whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with wolf hunting den, in the 7th century, St. Fare, an abbess in Meaux, left part of her Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris to a monastery. This territory probably did not correspond exactly to the modern site, the Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvres holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed, however, on 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. Under Louis XVI, the museum idea became policy. The comte dAngiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the French Museum, many proposals were offered for the Louvres renovation into a museum, however, none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution, during the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences, on 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property
29.
Ternary form
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Ternary form, sometimes called song form, is a three-part musical form where the first section is repeated after the second section ends. It is usually schematized as A–B–A, examples include the da capo aria The trumpet shall sound from Handels Messiah, Chopins Prelude in D-Flat Major and the opening chorus of Bachs St John Passion. In ternary form each section is self-contained both thematically as well as tonally (that is, each section contains distinct and complete themes and it usually also has a contrasting character, for example section A might be stiff and formal while the contrasting B section would be melodious and flowing. Da capo arias are usually in simple ternary form, commonly, the third section will feature more ornamentation than the first section. In these cases the last section is sometimes labeled A’ or A1 to indicate that it is different from the first A section. In a trio form each section is a movement in binary form. An example is the minuet and trio from the Haydns Surprise Symphony, the minuet consists of one section which is repeated and a second section which is also repeated. The trio section follows the same format, the complete minuet is then played again at the end of the trio represented as. By convention in the rendition of the minuet, the sections are not repeated with the scheme. The scherzo and trio, which is identical in structure to other trio forms, examples include the scherzo and trio from Beethovens Symphony No.9 and the scherzo and trio in Schuberts String Quintet. Another name for the latter is composite ternary form, trio form movements written from the early romantic era sometimes include a short coda and possibly a short introduction. The second movement of Beethovens Symphony No.9 is written in style which can be diagrammed as Polkas are also often in compound-ternary form. In a complex ternary form each section is itself in ternary form in the scheme of By convention each part is repeated, an example are the Impromptus by Jan Voříšek. Thirty-two-bar form Small Ternary Form by Jon Brantingham,17 October 2011, artofcomposing. com
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Polish language
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Polish is a West Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland and is the native language of the Poles. It belongs to the Lechitic subgroup of the West Slavic languages, Polish is the official language of Poland, but it is also used throughout the world by Polish minorities in other countries. It is one of the languages of the European Union. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet, which has 9 additions to the letters of the basic Latin script, Polish is closely related to Kashubian, Silesian, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak. It is also the second most widely spoken Slavic language, after Russian, in history, Polish is known to be an important language, both diplomatically and academically in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, Polish is spoken by over 38.5 million people as their first language in Poland. It is also spoken as a language in western parts of Belarus and Ukraine, west and central Lithuania, as well as the northern parts of the Czech Republic. There are 55 million Polish language speakers around the world, Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. With Christianity, Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet, which made it possible to write down Polish, the precursor to modern Polish is the Old Polish language. Ultimately, Polish is thought to descend from the unattested Proto-Slavic language, Poland is the most linguistically homogeneous European country, nearly 97% of Polands citizens declare Polish as their first language. Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, Polish is the most widely used minority language in Lithuanias Vilnius County and is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries, in the United States, Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census were found in three states, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey. Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services offer services available in Polish at all of their machines in addition to English and Spanish. According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England, in Canada, there is a significant Polish Canadian population, There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to the 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto and Montreal. The geographical distribution of the Polish language was affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II. Poles settled in the Recovered Territories in the west and north and this tendency toward a homogeneity also stems from the vertically integrated nature of the authoritarian Polish Peoples Republic. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak standard Polish somewhat differently, first-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty distinguishing regional variations
31.
Dynamics (music)
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In music, dynamics are instructions in musical notation to the performer about the loudness at which to play a note or phrase. More generally, dynamics may also include aspects of the execution of a given piece. The two basic dynamic indications in music are, p or piano, meaning soft, more subtle degrees of loudness or softness are indicated by, mp, standing for mezzo-piano, meaning half soft. Mf, standing for mezzo-forte, meaning half loud, più p, standing for più piano and meaning softer. Più f, standing for più forte and meaning louder, use of up to three consecutive fs or ps is also common, pp, standing for pianissimo and meaning very soft. Ff, standing for fortissimo and meaning very loud, ppp, standing for pianississimo and meaning very very soft. Fff, standing for fortississimo and meaning very loud. Some pieces contain dynamic designations with more than three consecutive fs or ps, in Holsts The Planets, ffff occurs twice in Mars and once in Uranus often punctuated by organ and fff occurs several times throughout the work. It also appears in Heitor Villa-Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras No,4, and in Liszts Fantasy and Fugue on the chorale Ad nos, ad salutarem undam. Igor Stravinsky used ffff at the end of the finale of the Firebird Suite, ffff is also found in a prelude by Rachmaninoff, op. 3-2. Shostakovich even went as loud as fffff in his fourth symphony, gustav Mahler, in the third movement of his Seventh Symphony, gives the celli and basses a marking of fffff, along with a footnote directing pluck so hard that the strings hit the wood. On another extreme, Carl Nielsen, in the movement of his Symphony No. 5, marked a passage for woodwinds a diminuendo to ppppp, another more extreme dynamic is in György Ligetis Études No. 13, which has at one point a ffffff and progresses to a ffffffff, in the baritone passage Era la notte from his opera Otello, Verdi uses pppp. Steane and others suggest that such markings are in reality a strong reminder to less than subtle singers to at least sing softly rather than an instruction to the singer actually to attempt a pppp, dynamic indications of this kind are relative, not absolute. Mp does not indicate a level of volume, it merely indicates that music in a passage so marked should be a little louder than p. Interpretations of dynamic levels are mostly to the performer, in the Barber Piano Nocturne. Another instance of performers discretion in this piece occurs when the hand is shown to crescendo to a f
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Crescendo
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In music, dynamics are instructions in musical notation to the performer about the loudness at which to play a note or phrase. More generally, dynamics may also include aspects of the execution of a given piece. The two basic dynamic indications in music are, p or piano, meaning soft, more subtle degrees of loudness or softness are indicated by, mp, standing for mezzo-piano, meaning half soft. Mf, standing for mezzo-forte, meaning half loud, più p, standing for più piano and meaning softer. Più f, standing for più forte and meaning louder, use of up to three consecutive fs or ps is also common, pp, standing for pianissimo and meaning very soft. Ff, standing for fortissimo and meaning very loud, ppp, standing for pianississimo and meaning very very soft. Fff, standing for fortississimo and meaning very loud. Some pieces contain dynamic designations with more than three consecutive fs or ps, in Holsts The Planets, ffff occurs twice in Mars and once in Uranus often punctuated by organ and fff occurs several times throughout the work. It also appears in Heitor Villa-Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras No,4, and in Liszts Fantasy and Fugue on the chorale Ad nos, ad salutarem undam. Igor Stravinsky used ffff at the end of the finale of the Firebird Suite, ffff is also found in a prelude by Rachmaninoff, op. 3-2. Shostakovich even went as loud as fffff in his fourth symphony, gustav Mahler, in the third movement of his Seventh Symphony, gives the celli and basses a marking of fffff, along with a footnote directing pluck so hard that the strings hit the wood. On another extreme, Carl Nielsen, in the movement of his Symphony No. 5, marked a passage for woodwinds a diminuendo to ppppp, another more extreme dynamic is in György Ligetis Études No. 13, which has at one point a ffffff and progresses to a ffffffff, in the baritone passage Era la notte from his opera Otello, Verdi uses pppp. Steane and others suggest that such markings are in reality a strong reminder to less than subtle singers to at least sing softly rather than an instruction to the singer actually to attempt a pppp, dynamic indications of this kind are relative, not absolute. Mp does not indicate a level of volume, it merely indicates that music in a passage so marked should be a little louder than p. Interpretations of dynamic levels are mostly to the performer, in the Barber Piano Nocturne. Another instance of performers discretion in this piece occurs when the hand is shown to crescendo to a f
33.
D minor
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D minor is a minor scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B♭, and C. In the harmonic minor, the C is raised to C♯ and its key signature has one flat. Its relative major is F major, and its parallel major is D major, D minor is one of the two flat-signature keys whose melodic and harmonic scale variations require the addition of a written sharp, the other is G minor. Of Domenico Scarlattis 555 keyboard sonatas,151 are in minor keys, nigel Tufnel, one of the members of the musical spoof megagroup Spinal Tap, speaks of a musical trilogy Im working on in D minor which is the saddest of all keys, I find. People weep instantly when they hear it, and I dont know why, J. S. Bachs entire Art of Fugue is in D minor. According to Alfred Einstein, the history of tuning has led D minor to be associated with counterpoint and chromaticism, Mozarts Requiem is also written primarily in D minor, as is the aria Der Hölle Rache. Of the two concertos that Mozart wrote in a minor key, one of them is in D minor. Sibeliuss Violin Concerto is in D minor, as is Schumanns, the tonality of D minor held special significance for Helene and Alban Berg. Michael Haydn wrote only one symphony in a key, in D minor, Perger 20. The only chamber music compositions in D minor by Ludwig van Beethoven were his stormy Piano Sonata No.17, since D minor is the key of Beethovens Symphony No. 9, Bruckner felt apprehensive about writing his own Ninth Symphony in the same key, as well as Bruckners First Mass, some other post-Beethoven symphonies are in D minor, including the only Symphony written by César Franck and Symphony No.3 by Gustav Mahler. A fair deal of Gabriel Faurés chamber music is written in the key of D minor, including the Piano Trio Op.120, the First Piano Quintet Op.89 and the First Cello Sonata Op.109. Two symphonies that begin in D minor and end in E major are Havergal Brians Gothic Symphony, Bruckners Ninth Symphony, which is often performed without the finale, is another example of a symphony beginning in D minor and ending in E major. Liszts Dante Symphony opens in D minor and ends in B major, similar to a D minor symphony ending in D major, like in Beethovens Symphony No. 9, a D major symphony can have for its allegro first movement a slow introduction in D minor, film composer Hans Zimmer is one of the most prominent users of the key of D minor in modern times. Many of his scores were written in the key, notable examples including Gladiator, The Dark Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean. His frequent use of the key has been noticed by such as Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks. Charlie Clouser used D Minor for the theme Hello Zepp in the Saw and it was later used in the other movies as the ending theme
34.
F major
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F major is a major scale based on F, with the pitches F, G, A, B♭, C, D, and E. Its key signature has one flat, B♭, F majors relative minor is D minor, and its parallel minor is F minor. F major is the key of the English horn, the basset horn, the horn in F, the trumpet in F. Thus, music in F major for these instruments is written in C major. Most of these sound a perfect fifth lower than written, with the exception of the trumpet in F which sounds a fourth higher
35.
Marius Petipa
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Marius Ivanovich Petipa, born Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa was a French and Russian ballet dancer, pedagogue and choreographer. Petipa is considered to be the most influential ballet master and choreographer in ballet history, Petipa created over fifty ballets, some of which have survived in versions either faithful to, inspired by, or reconstructed from the original. Petipa revived a number of works created by other choreographers. Many of these revivals would go on to become the definitive editions on which all subsequent productions would be based, the most famous of these revivals were Le Corsaire, Giselle, La Esmeralda, Coppélia, La Fille Mal Gardée, The Little Humpbacked Horse and Swan Lake. All of the works and individual pieces which have survived in active performance are considered to be cornerstones of the ballet repertory. Marius Petipa was born Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa in Marseilles, France on 11 March 1818 and his mother, Victorine Grasseau, was a tragic actress and teacher of drama, while his father, Jean Antoine Petipa, was among the most renowned Ballet Masters and pedagogues in Europe. At the time of Mariuss birth, Jean Petipa was engaged as Premier danseur to the Salle Bauveau, Marius Petipa spent his early childhood traveling throughout Europe with his family, as his parents professional engagements took them from city to city. The young Marius received his education at the Grand College in Brussels, while also attending the Brussels Conservatory where he studied music. Just as he had done with his children, Jean Petipa began giving the young Marius lessons in ballet at the age of seven. At first the young boy resisted, caring little for dance. Nevertheless, he came to love this art form that was so much the life and identity of his family. At the age of nine Marius performed for the first time in a production as a Savoyard in his fathers staging of Pierre Gardels 1800 ballet La Dansomani in 1827. The violent street fighting that followed caused all theatres to be shut down for a time, the Petipa family was left in dire straits for some years. The Petipa family relocated to Bordeaux, France, in 1834 where Marius father had secured the position of Premier maître de ballet to the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, while in Bordeaux, Marius completed his ballet training under the great Auguste Vestris. By 1838 he was appointed Premier danseur to the Ballet de Nantes in Nantes, during his time in Nantes the young Petipa began to try his hand at choreography by creating a number of one-act ballets and divertissements. The 21-year-old Marius Petipa accompanied his father on a tour of the United States with a group of French dancers in July of 1839. Among the many engagements was a performance of Jean Corallis La tarentule at the National Theatre on Broadway, the tour proved to be a disaster, as many in the uncultured American audiences of that time had never before seen ballet. To add to the fiasco, the American impresario who arranged the engagements stole a portion of the troupes receipts
36.
Charles Nodier
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Jean Charles Emmanuel Nodier was an influential French author and librarian who introduced a younger generation of Romanticists to the conte fantastique, gothic literature, and vampire tales. His dream related writings influenced the works of Gérard de Nerval. He was born at Besançon in France, near the border with Switzerland, but his son was for a time an ardent citizen, and is said to have been a Jacobin Club member at the age of twelve. In 1793 Charles saved the life of a lady guilty of sending money to an émigré and he was sent to Strasbourg, where he lived in the house of Eulogius Schneider, the notorious Jacobin governor of Alsace, but a good Greek scholar. During the Reign of Terror his father put him under the care of Justin Girod-Chantrans, with whom he studied English and his love of books began very early, and he combined with it a strong interest in nature, which Girod-Chantrans was able to foster. He became librarian in his town, but his exertions in the cause of suspected persons brought him under suspicion. An inspection of his papers by the police, however, revealed nothing more dangerous than a dissertation on the antennae of insects, entomology continued to be a favourite study with him, but he varied it with philology and pure literature and even political writing. For a skit on Napoleon, in 1803, he was imprisoned for some months. He then left Paris, where he had gone after losing his position at Besançon, and for years lived a very unsettled life at Besançon, Dole. During these wanderings he wrote his novel, Le peintre de Salzbourg, journal des émotions dun coeur souffrant, the hero, Charles, who is a variation of the Werther type, desires the restoration of the monasteries, to afford a refuge from the woes of the world. At Dole in 1808, on August 31, he married Désirée Charve, Nodier was working as a secretary to the elderly Sir Herbert Croft, 5th Baronet and his platonic friend Lady Mary Hamilton. During this time he translated Hamiltons book Munster Village and helped her write La famille du duc de Popoli or The Duc de Popoli which was published in 1810 and it was there that Nodier composed, in 1812, the first draft of his novel Jean Sbogar. The story about a love between a brigand and a daughter of a merchant was finally published in 1818. After the evacuation of French forces from the Illyrian provinces in 1813 he returned to Paris, in 1824 he was appointed librarian of the Bibliothèque de lArsenal, a position that he kept for the rest of his life. He was elected a member of the Académie française in 1833, also of the Société Entomologique de France when this was formed in 1832 and he died, aged,63, in Paris. The twenty years at the Arsenal were the most important and fruitful of Nodiers career, the group included Alphonse de Lamartine and Gérard de Nerval. Nodier was an admirer of Goethe, Laurence Sterne and Shakespeare. The best examples of the latter are to be found in the volume entitled Mélanges tirés dune petite bibliothèque, published in 1829, Nodier found an indulgent biographer in Prosper Mérimée on the occasion of the younger mans admission to the academy
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Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre
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The Saint Petersburg Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre was a theatre in Saint Petersburg. It was built in 1783 to Antonio Rinaldis Neoclassical design as the Kamenny Theatre and it was rebuilt in 1802 according to the designs of the architect Thomas de Thomon and renamed the Bolshoi, but burned down in 1811. The building was restored in 1818, and modified between 1826 and 1836 by Alberto Cavos to accommodate more modern machinery, until 1886, the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre was principal theatre for both the Imperial Ballet and the Imperial Russian Opera. It was there that the first Russian operas — Glinkas A Life for the Tsar and Ruslan, many of the great 19th century ballets of Marius Petipa and Arthur Saint-Léon were given for the first time on the stage of the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre. The Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre was then torn down to place for the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. The only surviving sections of the theatre are the grand staircase and landing. Operas A Life for the Tsar — Mikhail Glinka Ruslan and Lyudmila — Mikhail Glinka La forza del destino — Giuseppe Verdi Ballets The Pharaohs Daughter — chor, cesare Pugni The Beauty of Lebanon or The Mountain Spirit chor. by Marius Petipa mus. The Little Humpbacked Horse — chor, cesare Pugni La Bayadère — chor
38.
Yiddish language
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Yiddish is the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews. Yiddish is written with a fully vocalized alphabet based on the Hebrew script, the earliest surviving references date from the 12th century and call the language לשון־אַשכּנז or טײַטש, a variant of tiutsch, the contemporary name for Middle High German. Colloquially, the language is sometimes called מאַמע־לשון, distinguishing it from לשון־קדש, the term Yiddish, short for Yiddish-Teitsch, did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature until the 18th century. In the late 19th and into the 20th century the language was commonly called Jewish, especially in non-Jewish contexts. Modern Yiddish has two major forms, Eastern Yiddish is far more common today. It includes Southeastern, Mideastern, and Northeastern dialects, Eastern Yiddish differs from Western both by its far greater size and by the extensive inclusion of words of Slavic origin. Western Yiddish is divided into Southwestern, Midwestern, and Northwestern dialects, the term Yiddish is also used in the adjectival sense, synonymously with Jewish, to designate attributes of Ashkenazi culture. Prior to the Holocaust, there were over 10 million speakers of Yiddish, 85% of the Jews who died in the Holocaust were Yiddish speakers, assimilation following World War II further decreased the use of Yiddish both among survivors and Yiddish-speakers from other countries. However, the number of speakers is increasing in global Hasidic communities, the established view is that, as with other Jewish languages, Jews speaking distinct languages learned new co-territorial vernaculars, which they then Judaized. Exactly what German base lies behind the earliest form of Yiddish is disputed, both Weinreich and Solomon Birnbaum developed this model further in the mid-1950s. In Weinreichs view, this Old Yiddish substrate later bifurcated into two versions of the language, Western and Eastern Yiddish. They retained the Semitic vocabulary needed for religious purposes and created a Judeo-German form of speech, recent linguistic research has finessed, contested, or challenged the Weinreich model, providing alternative approaches to the origins of Yiddish. Some theorists argue that the fusion occurred with a Bavarian dialect base, the two main candidates for the germinal matrix of Yiddish, the Rhineland and Bavaria, are not necessarily incompatible. There may have been developments in the two regions, seeding the Western and Eastern dialects of Modern Yiddish. Dovid Katz proposes that Yiddish emerged from contact between speakers of High German and Aramaic-speaking Jews from the Middle East, wexlers model has met with little academic support, and strong critical challenges, especially among historical linguists. Alternative theories recognize the extent of Yiddishs Germanic vocabulary. Ashkenaz was centered on the Rhineland and the Palatinate, in what is now the westernmost part of Germany and its geographic extent did not coincide with the German principalities of the time, and it included northern France. Ashkenaz bordered on the inhabited by another distinctive Jewish cultural group, the Sephardim or Spanish Jews
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