Anton Deborak

 

Anton Deborak 

(Antonin or Anton Dvorak; (Nelahozeves, 1841 - Prague, 1904) Czech composer.

 

The son of an innkeeper, even as a child he showed a disposition for music.

He began his studies in Zlonice in 1853 and continued them in Prague during the period 1857-59. He then played the viola in an orchestra until 1871. At the same time he undertook his activity as a composer. His first success in this field was a Hymn with a text by Viteslav Hálek (1873); Thanks to this work he obtained the position of organist of the church of San Ethelbert, which he held until 1877

 

 

Antonin Dvorak

Antonin Dvorak

 

 

Dvořák received an honorary doctorate from Cambridge in 1891

 

 

 

 

 

The Stabat Mater and other symphonic and vocal compositions belong to these years, but especially for chamber ensembles. In 1875 he received a stipend from the State. Meanwhile, his works attracted the interest of Johannes Brahms and Eduard Hanslick, as well as the publisher Simrock. Dvorak's music then experienced greater prosperity, publishing the Slavic Dances (1878), the Quartet op. 51 (1879) and the first Symphonies. The musician repeatedly visited England, where he was appointed an "honoris causa" doctor of the University of Cambridge (1891). Those of Vienna and Prague also granted him this same distinction.

 

In 1892 he accepted the invitation to go to New York as director of the Municipal Conservatory; In America he would write some of his most famous works: the New World Symphony (1893), the Quartet in F major (1893), the Biblical Songs (1894) and the Concerto for cello and orchestra (1895).

The Dvořák family with their friends in New York in 1893. From left to right: his wife Anna, his son Antonín, Sadie Siebert, Josef Jan Kovařík (secretary), Sadie Siebert's mother, his daughter Otýlie and Antonín Dvořák.80

Nostalgia for his homeland led him to return to Prague, where he once again held the position of professor of composition at the Conservatory, achieved in 1891.

 

During the last years of his life he tried, without much success, to write for the national theater, following the example of Bedrich Smetana; In this aspect it is worth remembering above all Russalka (1900). Antonin Dvorak died four years after the composition of said work, appreciated and honored as one of the main musicians of his time and especially of his country, even though his music had, to a certain extent, been contaminated by national elements. and the German symphonic tradition.

 

Music  of Dvorak

Devorak and  wife  Ana

 Dvorak's work is very varied: from opera to chamber music to symphonic music, an area to which he devoted more attention. His musical work is not as simple and bucolic as that of his compatriot Smetana, since Antonin Dvorak has a more modern language, uses greater technical sophistication and a larger orchestra. In his orchestration he seeks spectacularity, achieved through dynamic contrasts and the experimentation of new timbral combinations. Some of the resources he uses are typical of Slavic composers, such as the frequent use of the low register of the violin and the use of brass instruments in pianissimo. His fluidity and great melodic spontaneity come to some extent from Schubert.

In his early works, Dvorak imitated Romantic models, especially those of Felix Mendelssohn. In the decade of the sixties, a certain tonal ambiguity and frequent modulations towards distant tonal areas can be seen in his music. Thus cameristic works such as his string quartets in F minor Op. 9 (1873) and A minor Op. 16 (1874); and orchestral works such as the Second Symphony in B flat major (1865).

But starting in 1874, Dvorak moved away from the influence of composers such as Liszt and Wagner and developed a somewhat more conventional and classical style. It was at that time when he began to study the folklore of his country, whose main elements he later used in his compositions. Thus, he included in his work syncopated rhythms of popular dances such as the mazurka, the dumka or the sparcirka and abandoned the practice of the anacrusa, since it does not exist in Czech folklore.

In this line of nationalist character, a multitude of titles emerged, such as the Three Slavic Rhapsodies (1878), the String Quartet in E major (1879), the opera Dimitri (1881-1882) and the Sixth Symphony in D major (1880), whose third movement is a Czech folk dance called furiant. His masterpieces Leyendas (1881) for orchestra, the cantata The Bride of the Specter (1884) and the oratorio Santa Ludmila (1885-1886) also correspond to these years, which together with the Requiem (1890) made Dvorak the creator of the oratorio. Czech.

A notable place in his production is occupied by his Stabat mater from 1877. It is his most important sacred work and was conceived to be performed in a concert version, and not in the religious liturgy. It is a work of meditative nature and transparent orchestration, with an abundance of chromaticism. Other religious works worth noting are the Mass in D major Op. 86, for soloists, choir and organ, and the Te Deum (1892) for soprano, bass soloists, choir and orchestra.

Being an excellent viola player, he also felt strongly inclined towards chamber music. Among his scores in this genre, the string quartets and piano trios stand out, among which Op. 90, better known as Dumky, stands out. In it he does not use the classic four-movement structure, but instead uses six movements based on the dumka and divides them into two groups.

In the field of orchestral music he developed much of his talent, since in addition to his nine symphonies, he wrote symphonic poems, concert overtures, rhapsodies and concertos for solo instruments, among others. The Czech musician has been considered a Brahmsian symphonist in form, but with a Wagnerian sound. His Sixth Symphony in D major (1880), composed for the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, was the first to bring him international notoriety within the field of symphonic music.

But, without a doubt, his most famous symphony is the Ninth or the New World (1892). This last work is reminiscent of the black spiritual songs and the plantation melodies of the southern United States that Dvorak heard Harry T. Burleigh, a student of his, sing in New York. The composer carried out research on what would be the defining aspects of a truly American musical style and came to the conclusion that the use of the pentatonic scale in the melodic line, the plague cadences and the syncopated rhythms were the most typical characteristics of this music.

These aspects can be seen in other works by Dvorak composed in the United States, such as the String Quartet No. 12 in F major, the String Quintet in E flat major and the Biblické pisne (Biblical Songs). On the other hand, the Cello Concerto in B minor, composed in America in 1895, does not contain the aforementioned elements of North American music and was written for the Czech cellist Hanus Wihan.

In the later period of his work, Dvorak returned to the forms of his youth and paid special interest to operas and symphonic poems. Of all the operas of this time, during the author's lifetime he only had the success of La Ondina (1900). Regarding his symphonic poems, titles such as The Midday Fairy, The Golden Wheel, The Dove (all from 1896).

Funeral  Dvořák 5 may 1904.

Tumba de Debork cementery  Vyserh Praga

How to cite this article:

Fernández, Tomás and Tamaro, Elena. «Biography of Anton Dvorak». In Biographies and Lives. The online biographical encyclopedia [Internet]. Barcelona, ​​Spain, 2004. Available at https://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/d/dvorak.htm [access date: May 21, 2024].

With affection,

 Ruben

James Matthew Barrie

 James Matthew Barrie

 

James Matthew Barrie

 

Born into a family of artisans with limited resources, he had an unhappy childhood. The death of a brother, when he was barely six years old, profoundly altered family life and disrupted the mental health of his mother, who became an unbalanced, authoritarian and inflexible person, whose influence and memory weighed on James Barrie during the rest of his life. After becoming a famous writer, he himself would confess many times that his deepest wish would have been to recover the happy years of his early childhood, and that his most famous character, Peter Pan, was a personification of such longings. .

 

 

 

After studying at the University of Edinburgh and working for two years as a journalist, he moved to London, attracted by the brilliance of its cultural circles. In 1888 he successfully published The Idylls of Auld Licht, a series of evocations of peasant life in his hometown. Shortly afterwards, in 1889, A Window in Thrums nostalgically evoked that world again. In 1891 he had achieved fame thanks to his novels The Little Minister (1891), Margaret Ogilvy (1896), Sentimental Tommy (1896) and Tommy and Grizel (1900), delicate fusions of sentimentalism and ironic realism situated in the tradition of Dickens. but inspired by the texts of George Meredith, R. L. Stevenson and the great Russian authors.

 

 

 

To the theater, however, Barrie gave his most authentic works from 1900 (The Admirable Crichton, Street of the Great World). With him one of the most constant tones of the English spirit appeared manifested in delicate nuances: nostalgic melancholy in the form of "humour", perhaps the only original sentiment of J. M. Barrie's theater, otherwise quite eclectic (it came from both W. S. Gilbert and Oscar Wilde as George Bernard Shaw, Maurice Maeterlinck and the Russians).

 

 

 

In 1894, Barrie entered into an unhappy and early failed marriage to the actress Mary Ansell. Shortly after, in 1897, he began an intense love relationship with Sylvia Llewellyn Davies, a sentimental and affectionate woman with whose children he formed a true family. It was to those children that he began to tell various stories starring a character of his invention that symbolized the eternal childhood in which he himself would have liked to live: Peter Pan.

 

Some of those stories were published in 1902 in a volume titled The Little White Bird. Shortly after, in 1904, the comedy Peter Pan, the boy who never wanted to grow up, was released. Later, Barrie would publish Peter Pan in Kensington Park (1906) and Peter and Wendy (1911).

 

 

 

The success of his character and his adventures was instantaneous. Peter Pan and his adventure companions (little Wendy, John, Michael, the dog Nana, the fairy Tinker Bell, and the terrible Captain Hook) were adopted as heroes by many generations of children. everyone, familiar with his adventures through all kinds of translations and adaptations, some of them as celebrated as Herbert Brenon's film versions or Walt Disney's, in cartoons.

 

 

 

The character of Peter Pan provided Barrie with extraordinary celebrity; but his personal life was very often accompanied by misfortunes and misfortunes. In 1910 his marriage ended in divorce, and just four months later his partner Sylvia Davies, who had meanwhile been widowed, died; In addition, two of his lover's children, whom Barrie watched over as if he were a father, also died.

 

 

 

After the divorce, the vague legend was formed around the writer that presented him as an aged and sweetly disillusioned Peter Pan, with something of the wise man and the gnome, always with the taciturn pipe, carried by reality to a modest and gray peace. J. M. Barrie enjoyed a peaceful old age abundant in friendships and honors; but his dream world was transformed, until Dear Brutus (1917) and Mary Rose (1920), into another spectral and sad one, populated by impotent and painful ghosts, inhabitants of an arid, soulless and cruel reality..

 

How to cite this article:

 

Fernández, Tomás and Tamaro, Elena. «Biography of James Matthew Barrie». In Biographies and Lives. The online biographical encyclopedia [Internet]. Barcelona, Spain, 2004. Available at https://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/b/barrie.htm [access date: March 23, 2024].

With affection,

Ruben

Ayrton Senna

 

Ayrton Senna’s dazzling legacy endures, 30 years on from F1 star’s tragic death

Wednesday 1 May marked 30 years since the Brazilian Formula 1 star died at the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, sending shockwaves around the world

For a career as distinguished as three-time Formula One world champion Ayrton Senna’s, his record at his home race in Brazil was peculiarly underwhelming. Having made his debut in 1984 and tasted disqualification while leading in 1988, Sao Paulo’s favourite son only claimed his first victory at Interlagos in 1991. And, like much in Senna’s enthralling time in F1, it was no easy ride.

 

Starting on pole, Senna’s path to victory seemed nailed on until a late gearbox issue forced him to complete the final laps solely in sixth gear. With the heavens having opened too, a stall or a spin seemed excruciatingly inevitable but somehow, in a manner which would have been described as miraculous if it wasn’t Ayrton Senna’s doing, he inched home by two seconds. Physically and mentally exhausted, the hometown hero needed assistance exiting his McLaren cockpit. Broken, but not beaten.

 

His devastating death three years later, at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, robbed the sport of more glorious years of Senna’s influence, on and off the racetrack. You need only look at the immediate aftermath of his fatal crash at Imola to witness the emotional hold he had on his country and the world. Three days of national mourning; 3 million people lined the streets of Sao Paulo on the day of his funeral; Brazil’s triumphant 1994 World Cup team dedicated their win to Senna.

 

More significantly, safety provisions implemented in F1 since mean Senna remains the last driver to have died on the day of an incident on track. The Ayrton Senna Institute formed shortly after his death also aids young Brazilians in poverty. It’s some legacy.

 

A legacy that, 30 years on, still reverberates. Wednesday marks the passing of three decades since Senna’s deadly accident at Tamburello corner at Imola. A day earlier, Roland Ratzenberger had died in qualifying. Quickly, the two days were labelled F1’s darkest weekend.

 

To the present-day in Imola, where both Senna and Ratzenberger will be honoured with a day of remembrance at the circuit. A moment of silence will be held at 2:17pm today, the exact time of Senna’s crash, at Tamburello before the congregation - set to include F1 chief executive Stefano Domenicali - moves on to the Villeneuve section of racetrack to commemorate where Ratzenberger died instantly.

 

It is a free event for the public, who can visit exhibits of memorabilia of both drivers at the Checco Costa Museum. The day will conclude with an “Ayrton and I” event on the starting straight at 9pm, described as a “theatrical monologue accompanied by music and images on the relationship between the driver and his fans.”

 

Imola’s mayor Marco Paniere has said of the day’s events: “The remembrance of Senna and Ratzenberger will also be an opportunity for dialogue.

There is an Ayrton Senna memorial in the Parco delle Acque Minerali, adjacent to the Imola circuit

Other monument of Airton Senna

Senna died on 1 May 1994 after a deadly crash at Tamburello corner at Imola (Getty Images)

For relations and listening between peoples, between cultures, and will unite different continents, along these months and in particular on the day of May 1.”

According to FirstSportz, Ayrton’s accident occurred during Lap 7 of the race at the Tamburello corner. He was passing through the high-speed corner when the Brazilian racer exited the racing line at 307 kmph (191 mph) due to an issue. He hit a concrete wall at the speed of 233 kmph (145 mph). Moreover, the telemetry revealed that the highly regarded racer applied the brakes for 2 seconds before hitting the wall. Senna was still alive at the scene with a faint heartbeat. He had suffered from significant blood loss due to a ruptured temporal artery. He died later that evening. 

In two weeks, Imola will be readying itself to host this year’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, one year after its cancellation due to severe flooding in the region. Among those present in the current era of star drivers is none other than Lewis Hamilton. That’s Lewis Hamilton, honorary Brazilian citizen.

 

The Brit, on his way to Ferrari next year, a team Senna was set to join in 1995, has labelled Senna as his childhood hero and has paid tribute to him during his trips to Brazil, last year wearing a full-length yellow suit with Senna’s face on the back.

RAZILIAN DRIVERS IN FORMULA ONE SINCE AYRTON SENNA

–        Rubens Barrichello (1993-2011)

–        Pedro Paulo Diniz (1995-2000)

–        Ricardo Rosset (1996-1998)

–        Tarso Marques (1996-1997, 2001)

–        Ricardo Zonta (1999-2001, 2004-2005)

–        Luciano Burti (2000-2001)

–        Enrique Bernoldi (2001-2002)

–        Felipe Massa (2002, 2004-2017)

–        Cristiano da Matta (2003-2004)

–        Antonio Pizzonia (2003-2005)

–        Nelson Piquet (2008-2009)

–        Bruna Senna* (2010-2012)

–        Lucas di Grassi (2010)

–        Felipe Nasr (2015-2016)

*Ayrton’s nephew

Previous to this, there had been a Brazilian driver on the grid every year since 1969.

 

That’s seven years since Massa’s retirement, with 2022 Formula Two champion and Aston Martin reserve Felipe Drugovich - the No 1 Brazilian contender for a seat - unable to find a route onto the 20-person grid. Drugovich was linked with Logan Sargeant’s seat at Williams, but that route to the grid now looks a non-starter.

 

For Drugovich himself, his position on the ladder right now reflects a spot neither here nor there, whereby he can’t land a spot at the top table but also cannot compete in F2 having won the championship previously. It is a rule that is particularly harsh and self-defeating; Drugovich’s impressive 2022 win quickly feels sour when he fails to go racing for a second straight year. The previous occupier of such a spot, Oscar Piastri, burnt some bridges in ditching Alpine to replace Daniel Ricciardo at McLaren and has been fully justified in his boldness with a string of impressive displays.

With affection,

Ruben

 

 

“Ayrton’s life was cut short and had he had the opportunity to continue and race in safe conditions, he would have won more championships,” Hamilton has said previously about Senna.

 

For those of a younger generation, Asif Kapadia’s brilliant 2010 documentary film Senna gave a unique insight into the man and the driver so beloved in his sport and his country. Brazil have not had a Formula One world champion since, though of course Felipe Massa came close in 2008 with that last-lap denial from Hamilton, amid a controversial season he is actually in the process of formally protesting in the courts.

 

Rubens Barrichello came close the following year too, finishing runner-up to Jenson Button in Brawn’s standout sole season.

 

Formula One is still huge in Brazil. Interlagos has hosted the only race in South America for 25 years now. So it makes it slightly strange – for a country where sport plays a role almost biblical in significance – that since Massa’s retirement in 2017, there has not been a Brazilian driver with a full-time race seat in Formula One.

With affection,

Ruben

 

 

Decimas ofNicodemes Santacruz

 

Decimas of Nicodemes Santacruz

1. To the Lord of Miracles

 

Passage to Our Master and Lord

 

 

 

walkers, canvas and candlesticks.

 

Step to Our Saviour

 

The Lord of Miracles.

 

 

 

The street is a human river

 

through which channel, the people

 

Very rhythmically

 

walk early.

 

Advance, advance brothers,

 

do not hinder the charger...

 

shouts the Senior Foreman

 

that the gang commands.

 

Step, the litters are coming,

 

passing to Our Master and Lord...

 

 

 

It overflows through the streets

 

that purple torrent;

 

battered feet groan,

 

Faith remains deaf.

 

The crowd that approaches him

 

gives frame to the king of paintings:

 

Falls and setbacks

 

in that mulatto sea,

 

and what a silver sailboat

 

walkers, canvas and candlesticks.

 

 

 

a brunette lady

 

 

 

Offers him all her children;

 

a blind woman with fixed eyes

 

ask Luz Nazarena;

 

She whips a cupcake

 

the vile body of her sinner of her.

 

In the footsteps of the Redeemer

 

the bells ring sadly

 

Advance, advance sisters,

 

step to Our Savior...

 

 

 

On the canvas of Jesus

 

The afternoon paints a shadow.

 

On the foreheads it is named

 

sign of the Holy Cross...

 

Under a candle - holy light -

 

To You, Lord, I consecrate myself,

 

and of your lean profiles

 

your Redemption comes to us

 

who never denied forgiveness

 

the Lord of Miracles.

 

2.Latin America

 

My buddy

My partner

My brother

 

Sharecropper

Comrade

Buddy

 

my paw

My son

Countryman...

 

Here are my neighbors.

Here are my brothers.

 

The same Latin American faces

from anywhere in Latin America:

 

Indo-white and black

black and white

And black and white

 

Babe blondes

bearded indians

And straight black

 

Everyone complains:

-Ah, yes in my country

there wouldn't be so much politics...!

-Ah, yes in my country

there would be no paleolithic people...!

-Ah, yes in my country

there would be no militarism,

no oligarchy

nor chauvinism

no bureaucracy

no hypocrisy

nor clergy

nor anthropophagy...

-Ah, yes in my country...

 

Someone asks where I'm from

(I do not answer the following):

 

I was born near Cuzco

I admire Puebla

I am inspired by the rum of the Antilles

I sing with an Argentine voice

I believe in Santa Rosa de Lima

and in the orishas of Bahia.

 

I did not color my Continent

I didn't even paint Brazil green

yellow Peru

Bolivia red.

 

I did not draw territorial lines

separating brother from brother.

 

I rest my forehead on the Rio Grande

I stand stony above Cape Horn

I sink my left arm in the Pacific

and I immerse my right hand in the Atlantic.

 

Along the eastern and western coasts

two hundred miles I enter each ocean

I submerge hand and hand

and so I cling to our Continent

in a Latin American hug.

 

 

 

3. To Compass Of The Socabon

 

 

 

 

 

To the beat of the socabón

with tenths of Peru,

preserve the tradition

Nicomedes Santa Cruz.

 

 

During the last century

And beginnings of the present

It was a very common thing

An improvised song:

Forced Tenths of a Foot

The fans called him,

And only in our nation

The Tenth or Spinel

She accompanied herself with the vihuela

to the beat of the joke.

 

II

 

They interpret a gloss

four tenths or feet,

verse number ten

He is one of the quatrain;

and without being a great poet

nor be born with such virtue

with pleasure and request

on those winter nights

can fill a notebook

with Decimas of Peru.

 

III

 

If it rhymes with great care

consonance will do the rest:

Tenth, Seventh and Sixth;

Fifth and Fourth with First;

verses of the same ending;

for greater perfection

rhymes Eighth with Ninth

and with every good verse

preserves the tradition.

 

IV

 

Octosyllabic, Hispanic,

It was the genuine tenth,

Unsurpassed, divine

She is the tenth Peruvian.

If one day someone beats me

Or if Jesus took me,

Don't let the light go out

In that song that is so ours.

He asks for it... yours truly:

Nicomedes Santa Cruz.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.Del Marquez de Santacruz

 

Not in bronzes, which expire, mortal hand,

Oh Catholic Sol de los Bazanes

(That already among glorious captains

You are an armed deity, human Mars),

 

He will carve your deeds, but in vain,

When you want to discover your desires

And the well-reported taffetas

From Turkish, from English, from Lusitanian.

 

The sea of your sails crowned,

From your oars the other gray one,

Tables will be of such strange things.

 

Of immortality the not tired

Brush I achieved them, and be your exploits

Soul of time, sword of oblivion.

 

5. There is Mama

 

Ow mom,

if you saw me...

I'm lost in Brazil

Among swaying palm trees!

 

Long-waisted palm trees,

Mulatto palms

They sweeten my bitter step

And they brighten my walks.

 

Ow mom,

if you saw me...!

 

I die when I see them coming,

It kills me to see them pass.

I don't know if I should laugh

Or cry.

 

Ow mom...!

 

In the shadow of a palm

I wanted to get rid of the sun,

I wanted to get rid of the sun

And my soul is burning...

 

I'm lost in Brazil

Among swaying palm trees.

Ow mom,

if you saw me,

if you saw me,

if you saw me...!

Ow mom!

 

6. Neguito Meme

Old black people died

but among the dry reed

his zamacueca is heard

and pan-relief very far away.

And the celebrations are heard

that he sang in his youth.

From Cañete to Timbuktu,

From Chancay to Mozambique

they carry their clear ringing

black rhythms of Peru.

 

With affection,

 

Ruben