Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was a Russian composer of the romantic period, whose works are among the most popular music in the classical repertoire. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally, bolstered by his appearances as a guest conductor in Europe and the United States, he was honored in 1884 by Emperor Alexander III, awarded a lifetime pension. Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant. There was scant opportunity for a musical career in Russia at that time and no system of public music education; when an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching he received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the Russian composers of The Five, with whom his professional relationship was mixed. Tchaikovsky's training set him on a path to reconcile what he had learned with the native musical practices to which he had been exposed from childhood.
From this reconciliation he forged a personal but unmistakably Russian style—a task that did not prove easy. The principles that governed melody and other fundamentals of Russian music ran counter to those that governed Western European music. Russian culture exhibited a split personality, with its native and adopted elements having drifted apart since the time of Peter the Great; this resulted in uncertainty among the intelligentsia about the country's national identity—an ambiguity mirrored in Tchaikovsky's career. Despite his many popular successes, Tchaikovsky's life was punctuated by personal crises and depression. Contributory factors included his early separation from his mother for boarding school followed by his mother's early death, the death of his close friend and colleague Nikolai Rubinstein, the collapse of the one enduring relationship of his adult life, his 13-year association with the wealthy widow Nadezhda von Meck, his patron though they never met each other, his homosexuality, which he kept private, has traditionally been considered a major factor, though some musicologists now downplay its importance.
Tchaikovsky's sudden death at the age of 53 is ascribed to cholera. While his music has remained popular among audiences, critical opinions were mixed; some Russians did not feel it was sufficiently representative of native musical values and expressed suspicion that Europeans accepted the music for its Western elements. In an apparent reinforcement of the latter claim, some Europeans lauded Tchaikovsky for offering music more substantive than base exoticism and said he transcended stereotypes of Russian classical music. Others dismissed Tchaikovsky's music as "lacking in elevated thought," according to longtime New York Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg, derided its formal workings as deficient because they did not stringently follow Western principles. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, a small town in Vyatka Governorate in the Russian Empire, into a family with a long line of military service, his father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, had served as a lieutenant colonel and engineer in the Department of Mines, would manage the Kamsko-Votkinsk Ironworks.
His grandfather, Pyotr Fedorovich Tchaikovsky, was born in the village of Mikolayivka, Poltava Gubernia, Russian Empire, served first as a physician's assistant in the army and as city governor of Glazov in Vyatka. His great-grandfather, a Ukrainian Cossack named Fyodor Chaika, distinguished himself under Peter the Great at the Battle of Poltava in 1709. Tchaikovsky's mother, Alexandra Andreyevna, was the second of Ilya's three wives, 18 years her husband's junior and French on her father's side. Both Ilya and Alexandra were trained in the arts, including music—a necessity as a posting to a remote area of Russia meant a need for entertainment, whether in private or at social gatherings. Of his six siblings, Tchaikovsky was close to his sister Alexandra and twin brothers Anatoly and Modest. Alexandra's marriage to Lev Davydov would produce seven children and lend Tchaikovsky the only real family life he would know as an adult during his years of wandering. One of those children, Vladimir Davydov, whom the composer would nickname'Bob', would become close to him.
In 1844, the family hired a 22-year-old French governess. Four-and-a-half-year-old Tchaikovsky was thought too young to study alongside his older brother Nikolai and a niece of the family, his insistence convinced Dürbach otherwise. By the age of six, he had become fluent in German. Tchaikovsky became attached to the young woman. Dürbach saved much of Tchaikovsky's work from this period, including his earliest known compositions, became a source of several childhood anecdotes. Tchaikovsky began piano lessons at age five. Precocious, within three years he had become as adept at reading sheet music as his te
The Knickerbocker
The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, was a literary magazine of New York City, founded by Charles Fenno Hoffman in 1833, published until 1865. Its long-term editor and publisher was Lewis Gaylord Clark, whose "Editor's Table" column was a staple of the magazine; the circle of writers who contributed to the magazine and populated its cultural milieu are known as the "Knickerbocker writers" or the "Knickerbocker Group". The group included such authors as William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell and many others; the Knickerbocker was devoted to the fine arts in particular with occasional news, editorials and a few full-length biographical sketches. The magazine was one of the earliest literary vehicles for communication about the United States' "vanishing wilderness." As such, The Knickerbocker may be considered one of the earliest proto-environmental magazines in the United States. Charles Fenno Hoffman was the founding editor of The Knickerbocker in 1833, though he helmed only three issues.
Hoffman turned the magazine over to Timothy Flint, who changed the original name The Knickerbacker to The Knickerbocker. Flint sold the magazine to Lewis Gaylord Clark, who bought it in April 1834 and served as editor until 1861. By 1840, The Knickerbocker was the most influential literary publication of its time; the year before, Washington Irving had reluctantly joined the staff at a salary of $2,000 a year and would stay on staff until 1841. Irving disliked magazine work because of its monthly deadlines and space constraints. However, in his "Geoffrey Crayon" persona, he justified his choice in his debut issue: "I am tired... of writing volumes... There is too much preparation and parade... I have thought, therefore, of securing to myself a snug corner in some periodical work, where I might, as it were, loll at my ease in my elbow chair."The circle of writers who contributed to the magazine and populated its cultural milieu are known as the "Knickerbocker writers" or the "Knickerbocker Group".
The group included such authors as Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant, James Kirke Paulding, Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, Fitz-Greene Halleck, Joseph Rodman Drake, Robert Charles Sands, Lydia M. Child, Nathaniel Parker Willis, Epes Sargent. Other writers associated with the group include Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor, George William Curtis, Richard Henry Stoddard, Elizabeth Clementine Stedman, John Greenleaf Whittier, Horace Greeley, James Fenimore Cooper, Fitz Hugh Ludlow and Frederick Swartwout Cozzens; the Knickerbocker was one of the earliest publications of its type to pay its contributing writers. Morris Phillips, for a short period beginning in 1862, edited the magazine, he had been associated with the poet, Nathaniel Parker Willis, as associate editor of the New York Home Journal from September 1854, until Willis' death became chief editor and sole proprietor. In American, Phillips became known as "the father of society news."
The magazine was published under various titles, including: The Knickerbacker: or, New-York monthly magazine, from January through June 1833 The Knickerbocker: or, New-York monthly magazine, from 1833 through 1862 The Knickerbocker monthly: a national magazine, from 1863 through February 1864 The American monthly knickerbocker, from March through December 1864 The American monthly, from January through June 1865 The Fœderal American monthly, from July through October 1865 At the time, "Knickerbocker" was a term for Manhattan's aristocracy. Knickerbocker was an imaginary personage created by Washington Irving to promote his new book at the time, A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty; the work was the politics of the time. Irving published the work in 1809 under the pseudonym "Diedrich Knickerbocker." Prior to the release of his book though, Irving placed a series of missing person adverts in New York newspapers concerning Diedrich Knickerbocker, convincing the public that he was a legitimate historian.
However, though people soon realized it was a hoax, Diedrich Knickerbocker became a much-loved character and legend for those of the city of New York. He is the namesake of the New York basketball team, The Knicks. Knickerbacker Magazine was started in January 1833 with its first issue containing a supposed conversation with Diedrich Knickerbocker. In the interview he “readily forgave the liberty taken with his name in consideration of our having restored it to its ancient spelling.” This refers to the change from Knickerbocker to Knickerbacker. However, the second issue was published with the title changed to Knickerbocker including another conversation with Diedrich Knickerbocker in which he says "I wish thee to restore my name to its original spelling as it stands in my celebrated History; the Knickerbocker was devoted to the fine arts in particular with occasional news and editorials. Full-length biographical sketches were printed on such artists as Gilbert Stuart, Hiram Powers, Horatio Greenough, Frederick Styles Agate.
According to environmental historian, Roderick Nash, The Knickerbocker was one of the earliest literary vehicles for communication about the United States' "vanishing wilderness", including serialized articles by Thomas Cole and Francis Parkman, Jr. As such, The Knickerbocker may be considered one of the earliest proto-environmental magazines in the United States; the Knickerbocker printed the earliest-known reference to the joke "Why did the chicken cross the road?"In the early 1800
Little Red Riding Hood
"Little Red Riding Hood" is a European fairy tale about a young girl and a Big Bad Wolf. Its origins can be traced back to the 10th century by several European folk tales, including one from Italy called The False Grandmother written among others by Italo Calvino in the Italian Folktales collection; the story has been changed in various retellings and subjected to numerous modern adaptations and readings. Other names for the story are: "Little Red Ridinghood", "Little Red Cap" or "Red Riding Hood", it is number 333 in the Aarne–Thompson classification system for folktales. The story revolves around a girl called Little Red Riding Hood. In Grimms' and Perrault's versions of the tale, she is named after her red hooded cape/cloak that she wears; the girl walks through the woods to deliver food to her sickly grandmother. In the Grimms' version, her mother had ordered her to stay on the path. A Big Bad Wolf wants to eat the food in the basket, he secretly stalks her behind trees, bushes and patches of little and tall grass.
He approaches Little Red Riding Hood. He suggests. In the meantime, he goes to the grandmother's house and gains entry by pretending to be the girl, he waits for the girl, disguised as the grandma. When the girl arrives, she notices that her grandmother looks strange. Little Red says, "What a deep voice you have!", "Goodness, what big eyes you have!", "And what big hands you have!", lastly, "What a big mouth you have", at which point the wolf jumps out of bed and eats her up too. He falls asleep. In Charles Perrault's version of the story, the tale ends here. However, in versions, the story continues as follows: A woodcutter in the French version, but a hunter in the Brothers Grimm and traditional German versions, comes to the rescue with an axe, cuts open the sleeping wolf. Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother emerge unharmed, they fill the wolf's body with heavy stones. The wolf awakens and attempts to flee. Sanitized versions of the story have the grandmother locked in the closet instead of being eaten and some have Little Red Riding Hood saved by the lumberjack as the wolf advances on her rather than after she gets eaten, where the woodcutter kills the wolf with his axe.
The tale makes the clearest contrast between the safe world of the village and the dangers of the forest, conventional antitheses that are medieval, though no written versions are as old as that. It warns about the dangers of not obeying one's mother; the most iconic scene from the story is included in the fairytale forest in the Dutch theme park'Efteling'. The big bad wolf, dressed as a grandmother, is lying in bed, he has dressed up so. Red Riding Hood, in Dutch'Roodkapje' is a famous figure in the Dutch/Flemish cartoon'Sprookjesboom'. An old Dutch children's song is dedicated to Little Red Riding Hood, called'Little Red Riding Hood where are you going?' The story displays many similarities to stories from classical Rome. Scholar Graham Anderson has compared the story to a local legend recounted by Pausanias in which, each year, a virgin girl was offered to a malevolent spirit dressed in the skin of a wolf, who raped the girl. One year, the boxer Euthymos came along, slew the spirit, married the girl, offered up as a sacrifice.
There are a number of different stories recounted by Greek authors involving a woman named Pyrrha and a man with some name meaning "wolf". The Roman poet Horace alludes to a tale in which a male child is rescued alive from the belly of Lamia, a female ogress in classical mythology; the dialogue between the Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood has its analogies to the Norse Þrymskviða from the Elder Edda. Instead, the gods sent him; when the giants note Thor's unladylike eyes and drinking, Loki explains them as Freyja's not having slept, or eaten, or drunk, out of longing for the wedding. A parallel to another Norse myth, the chase and eventual murder of the sun goddess by the wolf Sköll, has been drawn. A similar story belongs to the North African tradition, namely in Kabylia, where a number of versions are attested; the theme of the little girl who visits her dad in his cabin and is recognized by the sound of her bracelets constitutes the refrain of a well-known song by the modern singer Idir, A Vava Inouva: The theme of the ravening wolf and of the creature released unharmed from its belly is reflected in the Russian tale Peter and the Wolf and another Grimm tale The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids, but its general theme of restoration is at least as old as the biblical story and the Whale.
The theme appears in the story of the life of Saint Margaret, wherein the saint emerges unharmed from the belly of a dragon, in the epic "The Red Path" by Jim C. Hines. A Taiwanese story from the 16th Century, known as Grandaunt Tiger bears several striking similarities; when the girl's mother goes out, t
Royal Library of the Netherlands
The Royal Library of the Netherlands is based in The Hague and was founded in 1798. The mission of the Royal Library of the Netherlands, as presented on the library's web site, is to provide "access to the knowledge and culture of the past and the present by providing high-quality services for research and cultural experience"; the initiative to found a national library was proposed by representative Albert Jan Verbeek on August 17 1798. The collection would be based on the confiscated book collection of William V; the library was founded as the Nationale Bibliotheek on November 8 of the same year, after a committee of representatives had advised the creation of a national library on the same day. The National Library was only open to members of the Representative Body. King Louis Bonaparte gave the national library its name of the Royal Library in 1806. Napoleon Bonaparte transferred the Royal Library to The Hague as property, while allowing the Imperial Library in Paris to expropriate publications from the Royal Library.
In 1815 King William I of the Netherlands confirmed the name of'Royal Library' by royal resolution. It has been known as the National Library of the Netherlands since 1982, when it opened new quarters; the institution became independent of the state in 1996, although it is financed by the Department of Education and Science. In 2004, the National Library of the Netherlands contained 3,300,000 items, equivalent to 67 kilometers of bookshelves. Most items in the collection are books. There are pieces of "grey literature", where the author, publisher, or date may not be apparent but the document has cultural or intellectual significance; the collection contains the entire literature of the Netherlands, from medieval manuscripts to modern scientific publications. For a publication to be accepted, it must be from a registered Dutch publisher; the collection is accessible for members. Any person aged 16 years or older can become a member. One day passes are available. Requests for material take 30 minutes.
The KB hosts several open access websites, including the "Memory of the Netherlands". List of libraries in the Netherlands European Library Nederlandse Centrale Catalogus Books in the Netherlands Media related to Koninklijke Bibliotheek at Wikimedia Commons Official website
Integrated Authority File
The Integrated Authority File or GND is an international authority file for the organisation of personal names, subject headings and corporate bodies from catalogues. It is used for documentation in libraries and also by archives and museums; the GND is managed by the German National Library in cooperation with various regional library networks in German-speaking Europe and other partners. The GND falls under the Creative Commons Zero licence; the GND specification provides a hierarchy of high-level entities and sub-classes, useful in library classification, an approach to unambiguous identification of single elements. It comprises an ontology intended for knowledge representation in the semantic web, available in the RDF format; the Integrated Authority File became operational in April 2012 and integrates the content of the following authority files, which have since been discontinued: Name Authority File Corporate Bodies Authority File Subject Headings Authority File Uniform Title File of the Deutsches Musikarchiv At the time of its introduction on 5 April 2012, the GND held 9,493,860 files, including 2,650,000 personalised names.
There are seven main types of GND entities: LIBRIS Virtual International Authority File Information pages about the GND from the German National Library Search via OGND Bereitstellung des ersten GND-Grundbestandes DNB, 19 April 2012 From Authority Control to Linked Authority Data Presentation given by Reinhold Heuvelmann to the ALA MARC Formats Interest Group, June 2012
Biblioteca Nacional de España
The Biblioteca Nacional de España is a major public library, the largest in Spain, one of the largest in the world. It is located on the Paseo de Recoletos; the library was founded by King Philip V in 1712 as the Palace Public Library. The Royal Letters Patent that he granted, the predecessor of the current legal deposit requirement, made it mandatory for printers to submit a copy of every book printed in Spain to the library. In 1836, the library's status as Crown property was revoked and ownership was transferred to the Ministry of Governance. At the same time, it was renamed the Biblioteca Nacional. During the 19th century, confiscations and donations enabled the Biblioteca Nacional to acquire the majority of the antique and valuable books that it holds. In 1892 the building was used to host the Historical American Exposition. On March 16, 1896, the Biblioteca Nacional opened to the public in the same building in which it is housed and included a vast Reading Room on the main floor designed to hold 320 readers.
In 1931 the Reading Room was reorganised, providing it with a major collection of reference works, the General Reading Room was created to cater for students and general readers. During the Spanish Civil War close to 500,000 volumes were collected by the Confiscation Committee and stored in the Biblioteca Nacional to safeguard works of art and books held until in religious establishments and private houses. During the 20th century numerous modifications were made to the building to adapt its rooms and repositories to its expanding collections, to the growing volume of material received following the modification to the Legal Deposit requirement in 1958, to the numerous works purchased by the library. Among this building work, some of the most noteworthy changes were the alterations made in 1955 to triple the capacity of the library's repositories, those started in 1986 and completed in 2000, which led to the creation of the new building in Alcalá de Henares and complete remodelling of the building on Paseo de Recoletos, Madrid.
In 1986, when Spain's main bibliographic institutions - the National Newspaper Library, the Spanish Bibliographic Institute and the Centre for Documentary and Bibliographic Treasures - were incorporated into the Biblioteca Nacional, the library was established as the State Repository of Spain's Cultural Memory, making all of Spain's bibliographic output on any media available to the Spanish Library System and national and international researchers and cultural and educational institutions. In 1990 it was made an Autonomous Entity attached to the Ministry of Culture; the Madrid premises are shared with the National Archaeological Museum. The Biblioteca Nacional is Spain's highest library institution and is head of the Spanish Library System; as the country's national library, it is the centre responsible for identifying, preserving and disseminating information about Spain's documentary heritage, it aspires to be an essential point of reference for research into Spanish culture. In accordance with its Articles of Association, passed by Royal Decree 1581/1991 of October 31, 1991, its principal functions are to: Compile and conserve bibliographic archives produced in any language of the Spanish state, or any other language, for the purposes of research and information.
Promote research through the study and reproduction of its bibliographic archive. Disseminate information on Spain's bibliographic output based on the entries received through the legal deposit requirement; the library's collection consists of more than 26,000,000 items, including 15,000,000 books and other printed materials, 4,500,000 graphic materials, 600,000 sound recordings, 510,000 music scores, more than 500,000 microforms, 500,000 maps, 143,000 newspapers and serials, 90,000 audiovisuals, 90,000 electronic documents, 30,000 manuscripts. The current director of the Biblioteca Nacional is Ana Santos Aramburo, appointed in 2013. Former directors include her predecessors Glòria Pérez-Salmerón and Milagros del Corral as well as historian Juan Pablo Fusi and author Rosa Regàs. Given its role as the legal deposit for the whole of Spain, since 1991 it has kept most of the overflowing collection at a secondary site in Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid; the Biblioteca Nacional provides access to its collections through the following library services: Guidance and general information on the institution and other libraries.
Bibliographic information about its collection and those held by other libraries or library systems. Access to its automated catalogue, which contains close to 3,000,000 bibliographic records encompassing all of its collections. Archive consultation in the library's reading rooms. Interlibrary loans. Archive reproduction. Biblioteca Digital Hispánica, digital library launched in 2008 by the Biblioteca Nacional de España List of libraries in Spain Media related to Biblioteca Nacional de España at Wikimedia Commons Official site Official web catalog
Hingham, Massachusetts
Hingham is a town in metropolitan Greater Boston on the South Shore of the U. S. state of Massachusetts in northern Plymouth County. At the 2010 census, the population was 22,157. Hingham is known for its colonial location on Boston Harbor; the town was named after Hingham, Norfolk and was first settled by English colonists in 1633. The town of Hingham was dubbed "Bare Cove" by the first colonizing English in 1633, but two years was incorporated as a town under the name "Hingham." The land on which Hingham was settled was deeded to the English by the Wampanoag sachem Wompatuck in 1655. The town was within Suffolk County from its founding in 1643 until 1803, Plymouth County from 1803 to the present; the eastern part of the town split off to become Cohasset in 1770. The town was named for Hingham, a village in the English county of Norfolk, East Anglia, whence most of the first colonists came, including Abraham Lincoln's ancestor Samuel Lincoln, his first American ancestor, who came to Massachusetts in 1637.
A statue of President Lincoln adorns the area adjacent to downtown Hingham Square. Hingham was born of religious dissent. Many of the original founders were forced to flee their native village in Norfolk with both their vicars, Rev. Peter Hobart and Rev. Robert Peck, when they fell foul of the strict doctrines of Anglican England. Peck was known for what the eminent Norfolk historian Rev. Francis Blomefield called his "violent schismatical spirit." Peck lowered the chancel railing of the church, in accord with Puritan sentiment that the Anglican church of the day was too removed from its parishioners. He antagonized ecclesiastical authorities with other forbidden practices. Hobart, born in Hingham, Norfolk, in 1604 and, like Peck, a graduate of Magdalene College, sought shelter from the prevailing discipline of the high church among his fellow Puritans; the cost to those who emigrated was steep. They "sold their possessions for half their value," noted a contemporary account, "and named the place of their settlement after their natal town."
While most of the early Hingham settlers came from Hingham and other nearby villages in East Anglia, a few Hingham settlers like Anthony Eames came from the West Country of England. The early settlers of Dorchester, for instance, had come under the guidance of Rev. John White of Dorchester in Dorset, some of them moved to Hingham. Accounts from Hingham's earliest years indicate some friction between the disparate groups, culminating in a 1645 episode involving the town's "trainband", when some Hingham settlers supported Eames, others supported Bozoan Allen, a prominent early Hingham settler and Hobart ally who came from King's Lynn in Norfolk, East Anglia. Prominent East Anglian Puritans like the Hobarts and the Cushings, for instance, were used to holding sway in matters of governance; the controversy became so heated that John Winthrop and Thomas Dudley were drawn into the fray. The bitter trainband controversy dragged on for several years. A weary Eames, in his mid-fifties when the controversy began and who had served Hingham as first militia captain, a selectman, Deputy in the General Court, threw in the towel and moved to nearby Marshfield where he again served as Deputy and emerged as a leading citizen, despite his brush with the Hingham powers-that-be.
Although the town was incorporated in 1635, the colonists didn't get around to negotiating purchase from the Wampanoag, the Native American tribe in the region, until three decades later. On July 4, 1665, the tribe's chief sachem, Josiah Wompatuck, sold the township to Capt. Joshua Hobart and Ensign John Thaxter, representatives of Hingham's colonial residents. Having occupied the land for 30 years, the Englishmen felt entitled to a steep discount; the sum promised Josiah Wompatuck for the land encompassing Hingham was to be paid by two Hingham landowners: Lieut. John Smith and Deacon John Leavitt, granted 12 acres on Hingham's Turkey Hill earlier that year. Now the two men were instructed to deliver payment for their 12-acre grant to Josiah the chief Sachem; the grant to Smith and Leavitt—who together bought other large tracts from the Native Americans for themselves and their partners—was "on condition that they satisfy all the charge about the purchase of the town's land of Josiah—Indian sagamore, both the principal purchase and all the other charge that hath been about it".
With that payment the matter was considered settled. The third town clerk of Hingham was Daniel Cushing, who emigrated to Hingham from Hingham, with his father Matthew in 1638. Cushing's meticulous records of early Hingham enabled subsequent town historians to reconstruct much of early Hingham history as well as that of the early families. Cushing was rather unusual in that he included the town's gossip along with the more conventional formal record-keeping. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 26.3 square miles, of which 22.2 square miles is land and 4.1 square miles, or 15.58%, is water. Hingham is bordered on the east by Cohasset, Scituate, on the south by Norwell and Rockland, on the west by Weymouth, on the north by Hingham Bay and Hull. Cohasset and Weymouth are in Norfolk County. Hingham is 14 miles southeast of downtown Boston. Hingham lies along the sou
Browne, Junius Henri (1900). . In Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J. (eds.). Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
