France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lille, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established.
The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity.
In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
Choir
A choir is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical repertoire, which spans from the Medieval era to the present. Most choirs are led by a conductor, who leads the performances with arm, a body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus. The former term is often applied to groups affiliated with a church and the second to groups that perform in theatres or concert halls. Choirs may sing without instrumental accompaniment, with the accompaniment of a piano or pipe organ, with a small ensemble, choirs are often led by a conductor or choirmaster. Other than four, the most common number of parts are three, five and eight, choirs can sing with or without instrumental accompaniment. Singing without accompaniment is called a cappella singing, many choirs perform in one or many locations such as a church, opera house, or school hall. In some cases choirs join up to become one mass choir that performs for a special concert, in this case they provide a series of songs or musical works to celebrate and provide entertainment to others.
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance, such as a concert, by way of visible gestures with the hands, face. The primary duties of the conductor or choirmaster are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble. The conductor or choral director typically stands on a raised platform, many choral conductors use their hands to conduct. In the 2010s, most conductors do not play an instrument when conducting, although in earlier periods of music history. In Baroque music from the 1600s to the 1750s, conductors performing in the 2010s may lead an ensemble while playing a harpsichord or the violin, conducting while playing a piano may be done with musical theatre pit orchestras. Communication is typically non-verbal during a performance, however, in rehearsals, frequent interruptions allow the conductor to give verbal directions as to how the music should be sung. Conductors act as guides to the choirs they conduct and they choose the works to be performed and study their scores, to which they may make certain adjustments, work out their interpretation, and relay their vision to the singers.
Choral conductors may have to conduct instrumental ensembles such as if the choir is singing a piece for choir. They may attend to matters, such as scheduling rehearsals, planning a concert season, hearing auditions
Paris
Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, fashion and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is a rail and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly.
Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has been known as Panam in French slang.
Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
Nicola Porpora
Nicola Porpora was a Neapolitan composer of Baroque operas and teacher of singing, whose most famous singing student was the castrato Farinelli. Other students included composers Matteo Capranica and Joseph Haydn and he graduated from the music conservatory Poveri di Gesù Cristo of his native city, where the civic opera scene was dominated by Alessandro Scarlatti. Porporas first opera, was performed at the Neapolitan court in 1708. His second, was performed at Rome, his enduring fame rests chiefly upon his unequalled power of teaching singing. At the Neapolitan Conservatorio di SantOnofrio and with the Poveri di Gesù Cristo he trained Farinelli, Salimbeni, in 1720 and 1721 he wrote two serenades to libretti by a gifted young poet, the beginning of a long, though interrupted, collaboration. In 1722 his operatic successes encouraged him to lay down his conservatory commitments, after a rebuff from the court of Charles VI at Vienna in 1725, Porpora settled mostly in Venice and teaching regularly in the schools of La Pietà and the Incurabili.
From Dresden he went to Vienna, where among other pupils he trained the young Marianne von Martinez, as his accompanist and valet he hired the youthful Joseph Haydn, who was making his way in Vienna as a struggling freelancer. He said that he had learned from the maestro the true fundamentals of composition, in 1753 Porpora spent three summer months, with Haydn in tow, at the spa town Mannersdorf am Leithagebirge. His function there was to continue the lessons of the mistress of the ambassador of Venice to the Austrian Empire. Porpora returned in 1759 to Naples, yet at the moment of his death and Caffarelli were living in splendid retirement on fortunes largely based on the excellence of the old maestros teaching. A good linguist, who was admired for the fluency of his recitatives. He was well-read in Latin and Italian literature, wrote poetry and spoke French, besides some four dozen operas, there are oratorios, solo cantatas with keyboard accompaniment and vocal serenades. Among his larger works, his 1720 opera Orlando, one mass, his Venetian Vespers, see List of operas by Porpora.
Davide e Bersabea Gedeone Il Verbo in carne 12 cantatas for solo voice and continuo dedicated to Frederic, queste che miri O Nice V. Scrivo in te lamato nome VI. Veggo la selva e il monte VIII, or che una nube ingrata IX. Oh se fosse il mio core XI, oh Dio che non è vero XII. English translation by Vernon Gotwals, in Haydn, Two Contemporary Portraits, University of Wisconsin Press
Spain
By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem.
This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula.
The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
Republic of Venice
It was based in the lagoon communities of the historically prosperous city of Venice. It was a leading European economic and trading power during the Middle Ages, the Venetian city state was founded as a safe haven for people escaping persecution in mainland Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. In its early years, it prospered on the salt trade, in subsequent centuries, the city state established a thalassocracy. It dominated trade on the Mediterranean Sea, including commerce between Asia and North Africa, the Venetian navy was used in the Crusades. Venice achieved territorial conquests along the Adriatic Sea, the city became home to an extremely wealthy merchant class, who patronized renowned art and architecture along the citys lagoons. Venetian merchants were influential financiers in Europe, the city was the birthplace of great European explorers, including Marco Polo, as well as the classical music composer Vivaldi. The republic was ruled by the Doge, who was elected by members of the Great Council of Venice, the ruling class was an oligarchy of merchants and aristocrats.
Venice and other Italian maritime republics played a key role in fostering capitalism, Venetian citizens generally supported the system of governance. The city-state enforced strict laws and employed ruthless tactics in its prisons, the opening of new trade routes to the Americas and the East Indies via the Atlantic Ocean marked the beginning of Venices decline as a maritime republic. The city state suffered defeats from the navy of the Ottoman Empire, in 1797, the country was colonized by Austria and France, following an invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte. Venice became a part of a unified Italy in the 19th century and it was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in reference to its title as one of the Most Serene Republics. He was the first historical Doge of Venice, whichever the case, the first doges had their power base in Heraclea. Ursuss successor, moved his seat from Heraclea to Malamocco in the 740s and he was the son of Ursus and represented the attempt of his father to establish a dynasty.
Such attempts were more commonplace among the doges of the first few centuries of Venetian history. They desired to remain well-connected to the Empire, another faction, republican in nature, believed in continuing along a course towards practical independence. The other main faction was pro-Frankish, supported mostly by clergy, they looked towards the new Carolingian king of the Franks, Pepin the Short, as the best provider of defence against the Lombards. A minor, pro-Lombard faction was opposed to close ties with any of these further-off powers, the successors of Obelerio inherited a united Venice. By the Pax Nicephori, the two emperors had recognised that Venice belonged to the Byzantine sphere of influence, many centuries later, the Venetians claimed that the treaty had recognised Venetian de facto independence, but the truth of this claim is doubted by modern scholars
Sturm und Drang
The period is named for Friedrich Maximilian Klingers play Sturm und Drang, which was first performed by Abel Seylers famed theatrical company in 1777. The philosopher Johann Georg Hamann is considered to be the ideologue of Sturm und Drang, with Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, H. L. Wagner and Friedrich Maximilian Klinger significant figures. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a proponent of the movement, though he. French neoclassicism, a movement beginning in the early Baroque, with its emphasis on the rational, was the target of rebellion for adherents of the Sturm und Drang movement. The term Sturm und Drang first appeared as the title of a play by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, written for Abel Seylers Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft and this seemingly spontaneous movement became associated with a wide array of German authors and composers of the mid-to-late Classical period. Sturm und Drang came to be associated with literature or music aimed at shocking the audience or imbuing them with extremes of emotion, there is much debate regarding whose work should or should not be included in the canon of Sturm und Drang.
Nevertheless, the originators of the movement came to view it as a time of premature exuberance that was abandoned in favor of often conflicting artistic pursuits. The literary topos of the Kraftmensch existed as a precursor to Sturm und Drang among dramatists beginning with F. M, the expression of which is seen in the radical degree to which individuality need appeal to no outside authority save the self nor be tempered by rationalism. The most important contemporary document was the 1773 volume Von deutscher Art und Kunst, einige fliegende Blätter, a collection of essays that included commentaries by Herder on Ossian and Shakespeare, along with contributions by Goethe, Paolo Frisi, and Justus Möser. The protagonist in a typical Sturm und Drang stage work, poem, or novel is driven to action—often violent action—not by pursuit of noble means nor by true motives, goethes unfinished Prometheus exemplifies this along with the common ambiguity provided by juxtaposing humanistic platitudes with outbursts of irrationality.
The literature of Sturm und Drang features an anti-aristocratic slant while seeking to elevate all things humble, Friedrich Schillers drama, Die Räuber, provided the groundwork for melodrama to become a recognized dramatic form. The plot portrays a conflict between two brothers and Karl Moor. Franz is cast as a villain attempting to cheat Karl out of his inheritance, though the motives for his action are complex and initiate an investigation of good. Both of these works are examples of Sturm und Drang in German literature. The principal themes tend to be angular, with large leaps and dynamics change rapidly and unpredictably in order to reflect strong changes of emotion. Pulsing rhythms and syncopation are common, as are racing lines in the soprano or alto registers, writing for string instruments features tremolo and sudden, dramatic dynamic changes and accents. Musical theater became the place of the literary and musical strands of Sturm und Drang. The obligato recitative is a prime example, orchestral accompaniment provides an intense underlay of vivid tone-painting to the solo recitative
Orchestra
The term orchestra derives from the Greek ὀρχήστρα, the name for the area in front of a stage in ancient Greek theatre reserved for the Greek chorus. A full-size orchestra may sometimes be called an orchestra or philharmonic orchestra. The actual number of employed in a given performance may vary from seventy to over one hundred musicians, depending on the work being played. The term chamber orchestra usually refers to smaller-sized ensembles of about fifty musicians or fewer, the typical orchestra grew in size throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, reaching a peak with the large orchestras called for in the works of Richard Wagner, and later, Gustav Mahler. Orchestras are usually led by a conductor who directs the performance with movements of the hands and arms, the conductor unifies the orchestra, sets the tempo and shapes the sound of the ensemble. The first violin, commonly called the concertmaster, plays an important role in leading the musicians, the typical symphony orchestra consists of four groups of related musical instruments called the woodwinds, brass and strings.
The orchestra, depending on the size, contains almost all of the instruments in each group. Chamber orchestra usually refers to smaller-sized ensembles, a chamber orchestra might employ as many as fifty musicians. The term concert orchestra may be used, as in the BBC Concert Orchestra, the so-called standard complement of doubled winds and brass in the orchestra from the first half of the 19th century is generally attributed to the forces called for by Beethoven. The composers instrumentation almost always included paired flutes, clarinets, horns, the exceptions to this are his Symphony No. 4, Violin Concerto, and Piano Concerto No,4, which each specify a single flute. Beethoven carefully calculated the expansion of this particular timbral palette in Symphonies 3,5,6, the third horn in the Eroica Symphony arrives to provide not only some harmonic flexibility, but the effect of choral brass in the Trio movement. Piccolo and trombones add to the finale of his Symphony No.5. A piccolo and a pair of trombones help deliver the effect of storm and sunshine in the Sixth, for several decades after his death, symphonic instrumentation was faithful to Beethovens well-established model, with few exceptions.
Apart from the core orchestral complement, various instruments are called for occasionally. These include the guitar, flugelhorn, harpsichord. Saxophones, for example, appear in some 19th- through 21st-century scores.6 and 9 and William Waltons Belshazzars Feast, and many other works as a member of the orchestral ensemble. The euphonium is featured in a few late Romantic and 20th-century works, usually playing parts marked tenor tuba, including Gustav Holsts The Planets, cornets appear in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovskys ballet Swan Lake, Claude Debussys La Mer, and several orchestral works by Hector Berlioz
Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Austria, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France and Austria.
Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned by Aristotle and Thucydides.
The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli
Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli was a French-born Russian architect of Italian descent. He developed an easily recognizable style of Late Baroque, both sumptuous and majestic and his major works, including the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg and the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, are famed for extravagant luxury and opulence of decoration. In 1716, Bartolomeo moved to Saint Petersburg, accompanying his father and his ambition was to combine the latest Italian architectural fashion with traditions of the Muscovite baroque style. The first important commission came in 1721 when he was asked to build a palace for Prince Demetre Cantemir and he was appointed to the post of senior court architect in 1730. His works found favour with female monarchs of his time, so he retained this post throughout the reigns of Empresses Anna, Rastrellis last and most ambitious project was the Smolny Convent in St. Petersburg where Empress Elizabeth was to spend the rest of her life. The projected bell-tower was to become the tallest building in St Petersburg, elizabeths death in 1762 prevented Rastrelli from completing this grand design.
His last years were spent in obscure commerce with Italian art-dealers and he was elected to the Imperial Academy of Arts several months before his death. A square in front of the Smolny Convent has borne Rastrellis name since 1923 and he is the subject of a composition, Rastrelli in Saint Petersburg, written in 2000 by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero. Boris Vipper has speculated that Rastrellis last design was for the Neoclassical Zaļenieki Manor near Mitava, media related to Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli at Wikimedia Commons
Euripides
Euripides was a tragedian of classical Athens. He is one of the few plays have survived, with the others being Aeschylus, Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed 95 plays to him but according to the Suda it was 92 at most, of these,18 or 19 have survived more or less complete and there are fragments, some substantial, of most of the other plays. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that writers adapted to comedy, yet he became the most tragic of poets, focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was unique among the writers of ancient Athens for the sympathy he demonstrated towards all victims of society and his contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism, both of them being frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Whereas Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as an influence, Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age. Recent scholarship casts doubt on ancient biographies of Euripides, for example, it is possible that he never visited Macedonia at all, or, if he did, he might have been drawn there by King Archelaus with incentives that were offered to other artists.
Upon the receipt of a saying that his son was fated to win crowns of victory. In fact the boy was destined for a career on the stage and he served for a short time as both dancer and torch-bearer at the rites of Apollo Zosterius. His education was not confined to athletics, he studied painting and philosophy under the masters Prodicus. He had two marriages and both his wives—Melite and Choerine —were unfaithful. He became a recluse, making a home for himself in a cave on Salamis, there he built an impressive library and pursued daily communion with the sea and sky. Eventually he retired to the court of King Archelaus in Macedonia. However, as mentioned in the introduction, biographical details such as these should be regarded with scepticism and this biography is divided into three sections corresponding to the three kinds of sources. The apocryphal account that he composed his works in a cave on Salamis island was a late tradition, much of his life and his whole career coincided with the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece but he didnt live to see the final defeat of his city.
In an account by Plutarch, the failure of the Sicilian expedition led Athenians to trade renditions of Euripides lyrics to their enemies in return for food. Tragic poets were often mocked by comic poets during the dramatic festivals Dionysia and Lenaia, Aristophanes scripted him as a character in at least three plays, The Acharnians, Thesmophoriazusae and The Frogs. Yet Aristophanes borrowed rather than just satirized some of the methods, he was once ridiculed by a colleague, Cratinus, as a hair-splitting master of niceties
