OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Paradies, Maria Theresa

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PARADIES, MARIA THERESA,
Born at Vienna, 1753, was as remarkable for her life as for her distinguished musical talent. At the early age of four years and eight months, she was, by a rheumatic apoplexy, totally deprived of her sight. When seven years old, she was taught to play on the piano and to sing; and three years after, she sang the Stabat Mater of Pergolesi, in the church of St. Augustin, in Vienna, accompanying herself on the organ. The empress, Maria Theresa, who was present at the performance, gave her immediately an annuity of two hundred florins. Soon the young musician advanced so far, as to play sixty concertas with the greatest accuracy. In the year 1784 she set out on a musical journey, and wherever she appeared, but especially in London, (1785,) she excited, by her tare endowments, as well as by her misfortune, admiration and interest. She often moved her audience to tears by a cantate, the words of which were written by the blind poet Pfeffel, in which her own fate was depicted. Her memory was astonishing; she dictated all her compositions note by note. She was also well versed in other sciences, as geography and arithmetic. In company, she was cheerful, entertaining, witty, and highly interesting. During the latter part of her life she presided over an excellent musical institution in Vienna.
# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Parthenay, Anne de

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PARTHENAY, ANNE DE,
A lady of great genius and learning, who lived in the sixteenth century. She married Anthony de Pons, Count of Marennes, and was one of the brightest ornaments of the court of Ferrara. She was a Calvinist.
Her mother was Michelli de Sorbonne, a lady of Bretagne, a woman of uncommon talents, lady of honour to Anne of Bretagne, wife to Louis the Twelfth, by whom she was appointed governess to her daughter, Renata, Duchess of Ferrara. Anne, under the superintendence of her mother, received a learned education, and made great progress in the knowledge of the languages, and in theology, and was also skilled in music. She had so great an influence over her husband, that while she lived he was distinguished as a lover of truth and virtue, and instructed himself, his officers and subjects at Pons, in the scriptures; but after her death, he ​married one of the pleasure-loving ladies of the court, and became, from that time, an enemy and persecutor of the truth.
# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Parthenay, Catharine de

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PARTHENAY, CATHARINE DE,
Niece to Anne de Parthenay, and daughter and heiress of John de Parthenay, Lord of Soubise, inherited her father's devotion to the cause of Calvinism. She published some poems in 1572, when she was only eighteen; and is thought to be the author of an "Apology for Henry the Fourth," a concealed but keen satire, which is considered an able production. She also wrote tragedies and comedies; her tragedy of "Holofernes" was acted in Rochelle, in 1574. In 1568, when only fourteen, she was married to Charles de Quellence, Baron de Pont, in Brittany, who, upon this marriage, took the name of Soubise. He fell a sacrifice to his religion, in the general massacre of the Protestants, at Paris, on St. Bartholomew's day, 1571.
In 1575, his widow married Renatus, Viscount Rohan; who dying in 1586, when she was only thirty-two, she resolved not to marry again, but to devote herself to her children. Her eldest son was the celebrated Duke de Rohan, who maintained the Protestant C4inse with so much vigour during the civil wars in the reign of Louis the Thirteenth. Her second son was the Duke de Soubise. She had also three daughters; Henriette, who died unmarried; and Catharine, who married a Duke de Deux-ponts, 1605. It was this lady who made the memorable reply to Henry the Fourth, when, attracted by her beauty, he declared a passion for her; "I am too poor, sire, to be your wife, and too nobly born to be your mistress." The third daughter was Anne, who never married, but lived with her mother, and bore with her all the calamities of the siege of Rochelle. The mother was then in her seventy-fifth year, and they were reduced, for three months, to living on horse-flesh and four ounces of bread a day; yet she wrote to her son, "not to let the consideration of their extremity prevail on him to do anything to the injury of his party, how great soever their sufferings might be." She and her daughter refused to be included in the articles of capitulation, and were conveyed prisoners to the castle of Niort, where she died in 1631, aged seventy-seven.
# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Pasta, Judith

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PASTA, JUDITH.
Was born in 1798, at Como, near Milan, of a Jewish family. At the age of fifteen, she was admitted as a pupil to the Conservatorio of Milan, then under the direction of Asioé. Her voice was naturally hard and unequal, and she had great difficulty in satisfying the master of vocalisation. She made her debut in 1815, upon the second rate theatres, such as those of Brescia, Parma, and Leghorn; from that period till 1822, she struggled through the apprenticeship of her profession without any presage of her future celebrity. At that period, during the congress, she obtained a brilliant success at Verona. ​She then went to Paris, where she excited vast enthusiasm, and laid the foundation of a reputation never surpassed by any dramatic singer. Not that she ever attained very great perfection in her vocalisation, or her method of throwing out her voice; but she had the most wonderful gift of assimilating herself to every character; there was in her accents something so penetrating, so indescribably touching, that she possessed unlimited command over the feelings of her audience. She gave the deepest study to her art, and every representation seemed to mark a progress. She first appeared in the character of Desdemona, in London, in March, 1824. This was always one of her finest parts; and some years afterwards furnished a subject for comparison with Madame Malibran, with whom it was also a favourite rôle. If the latter, in her vocal execution and the pure feeling of music, had an incontestable advantage, nobody could deny to Madame Pasta a higher conception, more unity, and, in a word, a truer expression of the unfortunate Venetian.
In 1829, Madame Pasta purchased a beautiful country-seat near lake Como; and after passing her summers there for some years, she at length appeared to give up the stage, having lived quietly for three years in this agreeable retreat. When in 1840 she accepted proposals from the Russian court, to go to St. Petersburg, the emoluments given her for that season were fixed at forty thousand dollars.
Madame Pasta has received more praise, and awakened more enthusiasm, than any actress of the age. Bellini wrote Norma and the Sonnambula expressly for her; in the latter, it was surprising to see her admirable in a simplicity so very different from the stately parts in which She generally excelled. Her Anna Bolena exhibits an energy and dignity which have served as a model to all subsequent actresses.
# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Paulina, wife of Saturninus

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PAULINA,
A Roman lady of exquisite beauty, and great wealth and virtue, lived in the reign of Tiberius, about the year 30. She was married to Saturninus, a husband worthy of her. Decius Mundus, a Roman knight, fell desperately in love with her, and tried every means, in vain, to obtain her affections. He even offered her two hundred thousand drachmæ. At length Ide, a female domestic of his father's, offered to enable him to accomplish his object for fifty thousand drachmæ, which he gave her. This woman, knowing Paulina's great veneration for Isis, bribed several of the priests of this goddess, who went to Paulina, and told her that the god Anubis was passionately enamoured of her, and that she must visit him. Elated with this honour, Paulina communicated the desire to her husband, who, confiding in her virtue, cheerfully granted the request. She went to the temple, and, being shut up in the dark, ​Mundas was introduced to her as Anubis. Upon the third day after this, Mundos met Paulina, and, in a keen and sarcastic speech, ridiculed her for her credulity, and informed her of her mistake. Paulina, in the greatest distress, hastened to her husband, and urged him vehemently not to suffer such an indignity to pass unpunished. Saturninus appealed to Tiberius, who caused Ide and the priests of Isis to be crucified for sacrilege, the temple of Isis to be thrown down, and her statue cast into the Tiber. Mundus was simply banished.
# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Paolini, Massimi Petronella

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PAOLINI, MASSIMI PETRONELLA,
Of Tagliacozzo, a province of Aquila, was born in 1663. She passed her life principally at Rome, and dedicated it to the cultivation of letters. She wrote in prose and in verse with facility and elegance. She has been eulogized by Crescembini, by Muratori, and by Salvinl, and was a member of the Arcadia, under the name ​of Fidelma Partenide. She died 1726. Her remaining works are two dramas, "Tomici," and "La Donna Illustre." She produced beside many canzonetts and sonnets, and poems in various collections.
# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Parysatis

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PARYSATIS,
Wife of Darius Nothus, who ascended the throne of Persia in the year 423 B. C, was the mother of Artaxerxes Mnemon and Cyrus. Her partiality for Cyrus led her to commit the greatest injustice and barbarities; and she poisoned Statira the wife of Artaxerxes.
# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Paulina, wife of Seneca

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PAULINA
Wife of Seneca, the celebrated Roman philosopher, insisted upon sharing her husband's fate, who was condemned to die by the order of the Emperor Nero. Her veins were accordingly opened at the same time; but fainting from loss of blood, Nero sent and commanded her wounds to be bound up, and conjured her to live. She, however, survived her husband but a short time, looking wan and miserable, and oppressed with the deepest melancholy. She was much younger than her husband. These events occurred about the year 68.
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Cotumacci, Carlo

From volume 1 of the work.
[ M. C. C. ]
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Cottage Piano

From volume 1 of the work.
[ A. J. H. ]
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Couac

From volume 1 of the work.
​COUAC (French for 'quack'), a sudden horrible noise to which any clarinet is liable when the reed is out of order and the wind not quite under control. Called also 'the goose.' (See a good story in Spohr, Selbstbiographie, i. 167.)
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Countertenor

From volume 1 of the work.
​COUNTERTENOR. See Alto.
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Country-Dance

From volume 1 of the work.
​COUNTRY-DANCE. See Contredanse.
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Cotton, John

[ W. B. S. ]
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Couched Harp

​COUCHED HARP. An obsolete name for Spinet, which see.
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Countersubject

From volume 1 of the work.
​COUNTERSUBJECT. When the subject of a fugue has been proposed by one voice it is usual for the answer, which is taken up by another voice, to be accompanied by the former with a counterpoint sufficiently recognisable as a definite subject to take its part in the development of the fugue, and this is called the countersubject; as in the chorus 'And with his stripes,' in Handel's 'Messiah'—
It should be capable of being treated with the original subject in double counterpoint—that is, either above or below it, as in the chorus just named, where it first appears in an upper part, but further on in the tenor, with the original subject in the treble; thus—
But it is allowable to alter it slightly when thus treated, so long as its character is distinctly marked. The principal subject of the above was a favourite with the composers of the last century; instances of it with different counter-subjects will be found in Handel's 'Joseph,' in Mozart's Requiem, and in a quartet of Haydn's in F minor; also in Corelli's Solos, op. 1, No. 3.
When a second subject appears simultaneously with the first proposition of the principal subject it is common to speak of it as the countersubject, as in the following, by Handel (6 organ fugues no. 3)—
but many theorists think that this tends to confusion, and wish it to be called a second subject. Cherubini held that a fugue could not have more than one principal subject, and that therefore the terms first, second, or third countersubject should be used to designate any subjects which follow after the first; but the question does not seem to be of any very great importance.
[ C. H. H. P. ]
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Coupart, Antoine

From volume 1 of the work.
[ M. C. C. ]
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wolf, Joseph

See also Joseph Wolf on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​WOLF, JOSEPH (1820–1899), Anglo-German artist, the son of a German farmer, was born in 1820 at Munstermaifeld, on the river Moselle, in the Rhine Province. In his boyhood he was an assiduous student of bird and animal life, and showed a remarkable capacity as a draughtsman of natural history subjects. His powers were first recognized by Professor Schlegel of the Leiden museum, who gave him employment as an illustrator. In 1848 he settled in London, where he remained till his death on the 20th of April 1899. He made many drawings for the Zoological Society, and a very large number of illustrations for books on natural history and on travel in various countries; but he also won a considerable success as a painter.
See A. H. Palmer, The Life of Joseph Wolf (London, 1895).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wolfe, Charles

See also Charles Wolfe on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​WOLFE, CHARLES (1791–1823), Irish poet, son of Theobald Wolfe of Blackball, Co. Kildare, was born on the 14th of December 1791. He was educated at English schools and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he matriculated in 1809 and graduated in 1814. He was ordained priest in 1817, and obtained the curacy of Ballyclog, Co. Tyrone, which he shortly exchanged for that of Donoughmore in the same county. He died at Cork on the 21st of February 1823 in his thirty-second year. Wolfe was well known as a poet in Trinity College circles. He is remembered, however, solely by his stirring stanzas on the “Burial of Sir John Moore,” written in 1816 in the rooms of Samuel O’Sullivan, a college friend, and printed in the Newry Telegraph.
See John Russell, Remains of the Rev. Charles Wolfe (2 vols., 1825; 4th ed., 1829), and a correspondence in Notes and Queries, 8th series, vol. viii. pp. 145, 178, 235, 253, 331 and 418.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wolff, Caspar Friedrich

See also Caspar Friedrich Wolff on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​WOLFF, CASPAR FRIEDRICH (1733–1794), German anatomist and physiologist, justly reckoned the founder of modern embryology, was born in 1733 at Berlin, where he studied anatomy and physiology under the elder J. F. Meckel. He ​graduated in medicine at Halle in 1759 his thesis being his famous Theoria generationis. After serving as a surgeon in the Seven Years' War, he wished to lecture on anatomy and physiology in Berlin, but being refused permission he accepted a call from the empress Catharine to become professor of those subjects at the academy of St Petersburg, and acted in this capacity until his death there in 1704.
While the theory of “evolution” in the crude sense—i.e. a simple growth in size and unfolding of organs all previously existent in the germ—was in possession of the field, his researches on the development of the alimentary canal in the chick first clearly established the converse view, that of epigenesis, i.e. of progressive formation and differentiation of organs from a germ primitively homogeneous. He also largely anticipated the modern conception of embryonic layers, and is said even to have foreshadowed the cell theory.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wolfenbüttel

See also Wolfenbüttel on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​WOLFENBÜTTEL, a town of Germany, in the duchy of Brunswick, situated on both banks of the Oker, 7 m. S. of Brunswick on the railway to Harzburg. Pop. (1905) 19,083. Lessing was ducal librarian here, and the old library building, designed in 1723 in imitation of the Pantheon at Rome, contains a marble statue of him. The library, including 300,000 printed books and 10,000 MSS., was, however, transferred to a large and new Renaissance edifice in 1887. It is especially rich in Bibles, incunabula and books of the early Reformation period, and contains some fragments of the Gothic bible of Ulfilas. Opposite the old library is the palace, now occupied by a seminary. The ducal burial-vault is in the church of St Mary.
A castle is said to have been founded on the site of Wolfenbüttel by a margrave of Meissen about 1046. When this began in 1267 to be the residence of the early Brunswick or Wolfenbüttel line of counts, a town gradually grew up around it. In 1542 it was taken by the Saxons and Hessians, who, however, evacuated it five years later after the battle of Mühlberg. In the Thirty Years’ War, in June 1641, the Swedes, under Wrangel and Königsmark, defeated the Austrians under the archduke Leopold at Wolfcnbüttel. The town passed wholly into the possession of the Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel family in 1671, and for nearly one hundred years enjoyed the distinction of being the ducal capital. In 1754, however, Duke Charles transferred the ducal residence to Brunswick.
See Voges, Erzählungen aus der Geschichte der Stadt Wolfenbüttel (Wolfenbüttel, 1882); von Heinemann, Die herzogliche Bibliothek zu Wolfenbüttel (2nd ed., Wolfenbüttel, 1894). For the “Wolfenbüttel fragments” see Lessing and Reimarus.
# A Confession (Tolstoy)

A Confession, or My Confession, is a work on the subject of melancholia, philosophy and religion by the acclaimed Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. It was written in 1879 to 1880, when Tolstoy was of late-middle age.
English-language translations of Исповедь include:
* A Confession, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
* My Confession, translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood (HathiTrust)
* My Confession, published 1887 (external scan)
* My Confession, translated by Leo Wiener (transcription project)
* My Confession, translated by Aylmer Maude (transcription project)
# A Daughter of the Snows

Author of The Valley of the Moon, The Star Rover, The Sea Wolf, etc.
* Chapter I
* Chapter II
* Chapter III
* Chapter IV
* Chapter V
* Chapter VI
* Chapter VII
* Chapter VIII
* Chapter IX
* Chapter X
* Chapter XI
* Chapter XII
* Chapter XIII
* Chapter XIV
* Chapter XV
* Chapter XVI
* Chapter XVII
* Chapter XVIII
* Chapter XIX
* Chapter XX
* Chapter XXI
* Chapter XXII
* Chapter XXIII
* Chapter XXIV
* Chapter XXV
* Chapter XXVI
* Chapter XXVII
* Chapter XXVIII
* Chapter XXIX
* Chapter XXX
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Briegel, Wolfgang

From volume 1 of the work.
​BRIEGEL, Wolfgang Karl, church composer, born 1626, originally organist at Stettin, and afterwards (see the title-page of his then published works) Music-Director to Prince Friedenstein in Gotha, and in 1660 Kapellmeister to the Duke of Saxe Gotha. In 1670 he was called to Darmstadt as Kapellmeister to the Landgrave of Darmstadt, where he remained till his death in 1710. Among the remains of Emanuel Bach was a portrait of Briegel, engraved by Nessenthaler; it represents a man of about sixty-five, of healthy and jovial aspect, and with no trace of the labour involved in so many serious compositions. Schneider (das Musik. Lied, iii. 155) says, that 'perceiving the fashion of solo songs like those of Ad. Krieger and the two Ahles to be on the wane, he returned to the composition of songs for several voices; he wrote, in fact, incessantly in all sorts of styles with much fluency but no originality, and with no adequate return for his labours.' His principal compositions consisted of sacred songs for several voices, mostly to his own words. One of his works alone, for 3 and 4 instruments (Erfurt, 1652), contains 10 Paduaner, 10 Gagliarden, 10 Ballette, and 10 Couranten. His one secular work, 'Musikalisches Tafel-Confect' (Frankfort, 1672), consists, according to its quaint title, of 'pleasant Conversations and Concertos.' His Hymn-book for Darmstadt appeared in 1687. His published works, twenty-five in number, begin with 'Geistliche Arien und Concerte' (Erfurt, 1672), and end with 'Letzter Schwanen-Gesang,' consisting of twenty Trauergesänge for four or five voices (Giessen, 1709).
[ C. F. P. ]
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Bridge, Joseph

[ W. B. S. ]
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Brighenti, Marta

From volume 1 of the work.
[ M. C. C. ]
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Bridge, Richard

[ V. de P. ]
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Bridgetower, George

From volume 1 of the work.
​BRIDGETOWER, George Augustus Polgreen, a mulatto, son of an African father and an European mother, appears to have been born at Bisla [[App. p.565 "Biala"] in Poland 1779 or 1780, and to have made his first appearance in [App. p.565 "on the 19th of"] February 1790 at Drury Lane, where he played a violin solo between the parts of the 'Messiah.' This probably attracted the notice of the Prince of Wales, since on the 2nd June following he and Clement, a lad of about the same age, gave a concert under the patronage of H. R. H. In the same year he also played at the 'Professional Concerts.' Bridgetower became a pupil of Giornovichi and of Attwood, and was attached to the Prince's establishment at Brighton as a first violin-player. His name is found among the performers at the Haydn-Salomon Concerts of 1791, and at concerts of Barthelemon's in 92 and 94, where he played a concerto of Viotti's. At the Handel Commemoration of 1791, Bridgetower and Hummel sat on each side of Joah Bates at the organ, clad in scarlet coats, and pulled out the stops for him. He [App. p.565 "His father"] was known in London by the sobriquet of 'the Abyssinian Prince.' In 1802 he obtained permission to visit his mother at Dresden, where she was living with another son, a cello player. In Dresden he gave concerts on July 24, 1802, and March 18, 1803; and from thence went to Vienna, where his reputation preceded him, and where he played the sonata Op. 47—known as the 'Kreutzer Sonata'—with Beethoven, on the 17th or 24th May. After this he is heard of no more [App. p.565 "returned to England, and in June 1811 took the degree of Mus. Bac. at Cambridge, his exercise, an anthem, being performed at Great St. Mary's, on June 30. (Dict. of Nat. Biog.)"], but is believed to have died in England between 1840 and 1850, leaving a daughter who still lives in Italy.
Bridgetower has left a memorandum of the performance of the Sonata which, if it can be ​believed, is interesting. He introduced an alteration of one passage which so pleased Beethoven that he jumped up from his seat, threw his arms round Bridgetower, and cried ‘Noch einmal, mein lieber Bursch’—'Once more, my dear fellow.'
Czerny has left on record that Bridgetower's gestures in playing were so extravagant and absurd that no one could help laughing.
[ G. ]
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Brind, Richard

From volume 1 of the work.
[ W. H. H. ]
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Brindisi

From volume 1 of the work.
[ W. H. C. ]
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Brides of Venice

From volume 1 of the work.
[ G. ]
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Bridge

From volume 1 of the work.
​BRIDGE. The strings on the instruments of the violin tribe are stretched over a small piece of wood called the bridge, which transmits their vibrations to the body of the instrument. The shape and details of the bridge, as finally fixed upon by Stradivari, cannot be altered in any single respect without injury to the tone of the instrument.
[ P. D. ]
# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Bridge, John

[ W. B. S. ]