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Samson (opera)
''Samson'' was an opera by the French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau with a libretto by Voltaire. The work was never staged due to censorship, although Voltaire later printed his text. Rameau intended the opera on the theme of Samson and Delilah as the successor to his debut ''Hippolyte et Aricie'', which premiered in October 1733. Like ''Hippolyte'', ''Samson'' was a ''tragédie en musique'' in five acts and a prologue. Voltaire had become a great admirer of Rameau's music after seeing ''Hippolyte'' and suggested a collaboration with the composer in November 1733. The opera was complete by late summer 1734 and went into rehearsal. However, a work on a religious subject with a libretto by such a notorious critic of the Church was bound to run into controversy and ''Samson'' was banned. An attempt to revive the project in a new version in 1736 also failed. The score is lost, although Rameau recycled some of the music from ''Samson'' in his later operas. Background Rameau and Voltai ...
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Portrait Of Jean-Philippe Rameau - Joseph Aved
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer. History Prehistorical portraiture Plastered human skulls were reconstructed human skulls that were made in the ancient Levant between 9000 and 6000 BC in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period. They represent some of the oldest forms of art in the Middle East and demonstrate that the prehistoric population took great care in burying their ancestors below their homes. The skulls denote some of the earliest sculptural examples of portraiture in the history of art. Historical portraitu ...
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Lettres Philosophiques
''Letters on the English'' (or ''Letters Concerning the English Nation''; French: ''Lettres philosophiques'') is a series of essays written by Voltaire based on his experiences living in Great Britain between 1726 and 1729. It was published first in English in 1733 and then in French the following year, where it was seen as an attack on the French system of government and was rapidly suppressed. A revised edition appeared in English in 1778 as ''Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais'' (''Philosophical Letters on the English''). Most modern English editions are based on the one from 1734 and typically use the title ''Philosophical Letters'', a direct translation of that version's title. In some ways, the book can be compared with '' Democracy in America'' by Alexis de Tocqueville, in how it flatteringly explains a nation to itself from the perspective of an outsider, as Voltaire's depictions of aspects of English culture, society and government are often given favourable treat ...
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Les Fêtes De Polymnie
''Les fêtes de Polymnie'' (''The Festivals of Polyhymnia'') is an ''opéra-ballet'' in three ''entrées'' and a prologue by Jean-Philippe Rameau. The work was first performed on 12 October 1745 at the Opéra, Paris, and is set to a libretto by Louis de Cahusac. The piece was written to celebrate the French victory at the Battle of Fontenoy in the War of the Austrian Succession. It was revived at the same venue on 21 August 1753. Neither Cuthbert Girdlestone nor Graham Sadler (in the ''New Penguin Guide'') consider this among Rameau's finest works, though both remark on the originality of its overture, which breaks the traditional Lullian mould common to French overtures up to that time. Roles Information taken from the site Rameau2014.fr. Synopsis The prologue, ''Le temple de Mémoire'' ("The Temple of Memory"), describes the victory of Fontenoy in allegorical fashion. The first ''entrée'' is entitled ''La fable'' (''Legend'') and depicts the marriage of Hercules and Hebe, ...
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Journal De Paris
The ''Journal de Paris'' (1777–1840) was the first daily French newspaper.(7 October 2014)The first French daily: Journal de Paris History of JournalismAndrews, ElizabethBetween Auteurs and Abonnés: Reading the Journal de Paris, 1787–1789 ''Journal of the Western Society for French History'', Vol. 37 (2009) The paper was founded by Antoine-Alexis Cadet de Vaux, Jean Romilly, Olivier de Corancez, and Louis d'Ussieux, in 1777, following the model of the ''London Evening Post''. The four-page daily paper eschewed politics in favor of popular culture, the weather, and other light-hearted culture, which made it the subject of jesting in its day. Nevertheless, the model proved popular. In 1784, the paper famously published an anonymous satirical letter by Benjamin Franklin encouraging Parisians to rise earlier in the day, which has been credited (though an overreach) with promoting the concept of daylight saving time.
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Cuthbert Girdlestone
Cuthbert Morton Girdlestone (17 September 1895 – 10 December 1975) was a British musicology, musicologist and literary scholar. Born in Bovey Tracey, Devon, he was educated at University of Cambridge, Cambridge and the University of Paris, Sorbonne, and thereafter took up the chair in French in Armstrong College, Newcastle, Armstrong College, later to be King's College in Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle in 1926, a position he held until 1960. His most famous publications are his much-reprinted study of the Mozart Piano Concertos (1939, published originally in French) and his biography of Jean-Philippe Rameau (1957). Books *Girdlestone, Cuthbert. ''Mozart et ses concertos pour piano.'' Paris, Fischbacher. 1939. **Girdlestone, Cuthbert. ''Mozart and His Piano Concertos''. New York: Dover Publications, 1964. "An unabridged and corrected republication of the second (1958) edition of the work first published in 1948 by Cassell & Company, Ltd., London, under the title Mozart’s Piano ...
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Michel Paul Guy De Chabanon
Michel-Paul Guy de Chabanon (1730, Saint-Domingue – 10 June 1792, Paris) was a violinist, composer, music theorist, and connoisseur of French literature. He was elected to the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (1760) and the Académie française (1779). Biography As fiction writer Michel Paul Guy de Chabanon wrote poetry, elegies (notably that of Rameau), plays (including the tragedy of ''Éponine'') and translations (adjudged by the 19th century ''Dictionnaire Bouillet'' as having "little fidelity o the original text but not lacking in elegance and facility"). As musician and music theorist Michel Paul Guy de Chabanon was also a successful musician, playing the violin in the Concert des Amateurs under the direction of Joseph Bologne, chevalier de Saint-Georges. He was the author of an opera, ''Sémélé, tragédie lyrique'', and of several works on music theory, of which the most valued are his commentaries on music in the work of Aristotle . His double ide ...
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Zoroastre
''Zoroastre'' (''Zoroaster'') is an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau, first performed on 5 December 1749 by the Opéra in the first Salle du Palais-Royal in Paris. The libretto is by Louis de Cahusac. ''Zoroastre'' was the fourth of Rameau's '' tragédies en musique'' to be staged and the last to appear during the composer's own lifetime. Audiences gave the original version a lukewarm reception, so Rameau and his librettist thoroughly reworked the opera for a revival which took place at the Opéra on 19 January 1756. This time the work was a great success and this is the version generally heard today. Performance history ''Zoroastres premiere in 1749 was not a success; despite the magnificence of the staging, it failed to compete with Mondonville's new ''opéra-ballet'' ''Le carnaval du Parnasse''. Rameau and Cahusac decided to rework the opera completely before offering it to the public again in 1756. Acts 2,3 and 5 were heavily rewritten and there were several modifications to the ...
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Les Indes Galantes
(French: "The Amorous Indies") is an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau with a libretto by Louis Fuzelier. It takes the form of an ''opéra-ballet'' with a prologue and (in its final form) four ''entrées'' (acts). Following an allegorical prologue, the four ''entrées'' have distinct and separate plots, but are unified by the theme of love in exotic places (The Ottoman Empire, Peru, Persia, and North America). The most famous pieces from the work, ''Danse des Sauvages'' and the final ''Chaconne'', come from the final ''entrée'' (''Les sauvages''). The premiere, including only the prologue and the first two of its four ''entrées'' (acts), was staged by the Académie Royale de Musique at its theatre in the Palais-Royal in Paris on 23 August 1735,Sadler starring the leading singers of the Opéra: Marie Antier, Marie Pélissier, Mlle Errémans, Mlle Petitpas, Denis-François Tribou, Pierre Jélyotte, and Claude-Louis-Dominique Chassé de Chinais, and the dancers Marie Sallé and Louis ...
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Chaconne
A chaconne (; ; es, chacona, links=no; it, ciaccona, links=no, ; earlier English: ''chacony'') is a type of musical composition often used as a vehicle for variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short repetitive bass-line (ground bass) which offers a compositional outline for variation, decoration, figuration and melodic invention. In this it closely resembles the passacaglia. It originates and was particularly popular in the Baroque era; a large number of Chaconnes exist from the 17th- and 18th- centuries. The ground bass, if there is one, may typically descend stepwise from the tonic to the dominant pitch of the scale; the harmonies given to the upper parts may emphasize the circle of fifths or a derivative pattern thereof. History Though it originally emerged during the late sixteenth century in Spanish culture, having reputedly been introduced from the New World, as a quick dance-song characterized by suggestive movements and mo ...
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Philistine
The Philistines ( he, פְּלִשְׁתִּים, Pəlīštīm; Koine Greek (LXX): Φυλιστιείμ, romanized: ''Phulistieím'') were an ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan from the 12th century BC until 604 BC, when their polity, after having already been subjugated for centuries by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, was finally destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. After becoming part of his empire and its successor, the Persian Empire, they lost their distinct ethnic identity and disappeared from the historical and archaeological record by the late 5th century BC.. The Philistines are known for their biblical conflict with the Israelites. Though the primary source of information about the Philistines is the Hebrew Bible, they are first attested to in reliefs at the Temple of Ramses III at Medinet Habu, in which they are called (accepted as cognate with Hebrew ); the parallel Assyrian term is , , or . Etymology The English term ' ...
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Moses
Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu (Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important prophet in Judaism and one of the most important prophets in Christianity In Christianity, the figures widely recognised as prophets are those mentioned as such in the Old Testament and the New Testament. It is believed that prophets are chosen and called by God. This article lists such prophets. The first list bel ..., Prophets and messengers in Islam, Islam, the Druze faith, the Baháʼí Faith and Table of prophets of Abrahamic religions, other Abrahamic religions. According to both the Bible and the Quran, Moses was the leader of the Israelites and Law of Moses, lawgiver to whom the Mosaic authorship, authorship, or "acquisition from heaven", of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) is attributed. According to the Book of E ...
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