Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin (1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849; pronounced SHOH-pen) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the greatest Romantic piano composers. Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola, a village in the Duchy of Warsaw. A famous child prodigy, he grew up in Warsaw where he completed his music education and composed many of his mature works before leaving Poland in 1830 at age 20, shortly before the November 1830 Uprising.
After the Uprising, he lived in Paris as part of Poland's Great Emigration. During the last 19 years of his life, Chopin performed only about 30 times, usually in a salon. He supported himself by selling his compositions and teaching piano. After a romantic relationship with Polish women, including an abortive engagement, from 1837 to 1847 he carried on a relationship with the French writer Amandine Dupin, better known as George Sand.
Since he composed many piano pieces, he was called the poet of the piano. Most of Chopin's works are for solo piano, though he also wrote two piano concertos, a few chamber pieces and some songs to Polish lyrics. His piano works are often technically difficult, especially because deep expression is involved along with the importance of considering each detail in his music. Chopin also created the instrumental ballade, along with the addition of new ideas to the piano sonata, mazurka, waltz, nocturne, polonaise, étude, impromptu, scherzo and prélude. All of Chopin's works involve the piano.
Chopin suffered from poor health most of his life and died of tuberculosis in Paris in 1849 at age 39.
Mikhail Glinka
Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1804–1857) was a Russian composer, regarded as the first to become very famous.
Russia is a very large country. In the 18th century there was a lot of music in Europe, but Russian people had not yet heard it. A lot of them were very poor and modern transport did not exist. By the time Glinka was born Russian people in the large towns like Saint Petersburg were becoming very interested in European music.
Mikhail Glinka was born in a little village called Novospasskoye. His father was a rich landowner. Glinka was brought up by his grandmother who looked after him very carefully. She was always afraid he would be cold, so she wrapped him up in a fur coat in a room which was kept at 77 °F. He was not often allowed to play in the fresh air. Later in his life Glinka was always worrying about his health.
It was a long way to the big cities from where the child lived. There was no radio in those days, and no CDs. The only music he heard was the church bells, and the singing of the peasants (the simple people who worked on the land). They sang folksongs and made up harmony underneath the tunes.
After his grandmother died he was allowed to travel 6 miles to his uncle’s home. His uncle had a group of musicians who played music by European composers like Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. He had never heard such music before.
When he was 13 he went to school in St Petersburg. Now he could hear lots of music and meet some good musicians. He had piano lessons and spent a lot of time at parties. He started to compose some songs.
In 1830 he went to Italy. Italy was famous for its music, especially for opera. Glinka met famous composers like Mendelssohn and Berlioz as well as Italian composers like Donizetti and Bellini. He like their music, and decided he wanted to write opera as well, but he wanted to make his music sound very Russian.
Glinka went back to Russia. He wrote two great operas. The first one was called "Ivan Susanin". The story of the opera, set in 1612, is about a poor peasant Ivan Susanin who dies to save the life of the Tsar (the Tsar was the ruler of Russia, like a king or emperor). The Tsar liked the opera and thought that it should be called "A Life for the Tsar". It was a big success when it was first performed in 1836.
He soon wrote his second opera: "Ruslan and Lyudmila". The story comes from a tale by the famous Russian poet Pushkin. The man who wrote the words for him did it very quickly while he was drunk, so the story is a bit muddled, but the music is wonderful. It is a fairy tale about a nasty dwarf Chernomor who has taken away a princess called Lyudmila. In the end Ruslan, the hero, rescues her. Some of the music sounds quite oriental. The overture that starts the opera is very famous.
Glinka also wrote piano music, songs and chamber music.
Glinka’s music is important because he was the first Russian composer to write music that sounded Russian. Later composers like Tchaikovsky were influenced by his music.
1510
Ellipsoid
An ellipsoid is a shape like a sphere, but it may be longer in one or more directions, like an egg, or a rugby ball. It is the 3 dimensional analogue of an ellipse.
The Earth is shaped slightly like an ellipsoid. Its shape is called an oblate spheroid. An ellipsoid shaped like the Earth, called a reference ellipsoid, is often preferred to the geoid because it makes calculations simpler.
Liancourt Rocks
Liancourt Rocks (Takeshima　竹島 in Japanese, Dokdo 독도 in Korean) are a group of small islands in the Sea of Japan. The islands are currently occupied under the South Korean armed police. The name Liancourt Rocks comes from the French whaling ship Liancourt. The people on the Liancourt made a map of the islands in 1849. The islands have been in dispute for some time by both Korea and Japan. Japan has been suggesting to sort the dispute in International Court of Justice but South Korean government keeps refusing it.
Liancourt Rocks consists of two islets, that are 150 metres apart. These small islands are called West Islet and East Islet. The western islet is the larger of the two islets. Altogether, there are about 90 islets and reefs. The islands and rocks have a volcanic nature. A total of 37 of these islets are recognized as permanent land. The eastern islet formed 4.5 million years ago. Ulleungdo formed 2 million years later. Both are quickly eroding and weathering.
The total area of the islets is about 187,450 square meters. Their highest point is 169 meters on the western islet. The western islet is about 88,640 square meters in area; the eastern islet about 73,300 square meters. Liancourt Rocks is at about 131°52′ East longitude and about 37°14′ North latitude. The western islet is at and the eastern islet is at . The main islands coast lines are 217 km apart from mainland Korea and 212 km apart from main island's of Japan (Honshu). The nearest Korean territory (Ulleung-do) is 87 km away and can be visible on fair days; the nearest Japanese territory (Oki islands) is 157 km away.
The western islet is made of a single peak. It has many caves along the coastline. The cliffs of the eastern islet are about 10 to 20 meters high. There are two caves giving access to the sea, as well as a crater.
40 Korean people are staying on the islets, several Korean telecom service providers (namely SK Telecom, KT, and LG U+) have also installed stations on Liancourt Rocks to cover the islets in the South Korean wireless telephone network. There is also regular ferry service from Ulleung-do.
Although the islets themselves are barely habitable, the Exclusive Economic Zone surrounding them has rich fishing grounds and possible reserves of natural gas. As of 2006, the expected reserves have not been found. A wide variety of fish as well as seaweed, kelp, sea slugs, and clams live around the islets. Major fishery catches in the area are squid, Alaskan pollock, codfish, and octopus. There are 102 species of seaweed, although many of these have no economic value.
This area used to be one of the largest breeding grounds of sea lions ("Zalophus californianus japonicus") and a good spot for hunting them and also a spot for obtaining abalone at the end of the Meiji period (1868-1912). Until the 1950s, sea lions were observed on the islets by the voluntary guards.