The instruments in the orchestra for the Violin Concerto are: 2 flutes (both doubling as piccolo), 2 oboes, (one doubling as a cor anglais), alto saxophone (doubling as a clarinet), 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp piano and strings.
The concerto has two movements. Each movement is also divided into two sections. The first movement begins with an Andante in classical sonata form, followed by the Allegretto, a dance-like section. The second movement starts with an Allegro which uses a small rhythmic idea. The solo part is very difficult to play here. The orchestra plays very loudly and comes to a big climax. The work ends quietly. The first two sections are meant to be about life, the last two sections are about death.
Berg composed music using the twelve tone technique that he had learned from his teacher Arnold Schoenberg, but his music also sounds at times as if it is an ordinary major or minor key. A piece of music using twelve tone technique starts with twelve notes in which each of the 12 pitches (C, C sharp, D etc.) is used before it can be repeated.
Here is Berg's tone row in the Violin Concerto:
This tone row does not sound as random as many tone rows are because parts of it sound quite tonal. This is because the first three notes are a G minor triad; notes three to five are a D major triad; notes five to seven are an A minor triad; notes seven to nine are an E major triad; and the last four notes together make up part of a whole tone scale. The first notes of each group of triads together form G, D, A and E, which are the open strings of the violin. The opening of the concerto makes this very obvious.
The last four notes of the row, rising whole tones, are also the first four notes of the chorale melody, "Es ist genug" ("It Is Enough"). Berg quotes this chorale in the last movement of the piece, using the harmony composed by Johann Sebastian Bach.
There is also another quotation in the piece: a Carinthian folk song. It is unusual to have a simple folk song in the middle of a concerto. Berg wanted it to describe Manon Gropius, a simple young girl.
Many people find twelve tone music hard to listen to, but this concerto is easier than most serial works to understand. This is partly because some of the music is tonal, but also because of the programme: the idea behind the music (Manon, life and death).
Portia (moon)
Portia is a closer moon to Uranus. It was found from the images taken by "Voyager 2" on 1986-01-03, and was given the designation S/1986 U 1. The moon is named after Portia, the heroine of William Shakespeare's play "The Merchant of Venice". It is also designated Uranus XII.
Portia is the second biggest closer moon of Uranus after Puck. The Portian orbit, which lies inside Uranus' synchronous orbital radius, is slowly shrinking due to tidal deceleration. The moon will one day either break up into a planetary ring or hit Uranus.
It heads a group of moons called Portia Group, which includes Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Rosalind, Cupid, Belinda and Perdita. These moons have similar orbits and photometric properties.
Little is known about Portia beyond its size of about 140 km, orbit, and geometric albedo of about 0.08.
In the Voyager 2 images, Portia appears as a stretched object whose major axis points towards Uranus. The ratio of axises of the Portia's prolate spheroid is 0.8 ± 0.1. Its surface is grey in color. Observations with Hubble Space Telescope and large terrestrial telescopes found water ice absorption features in the spectrum of Portia.
Tom and Jerry Tales
Tom and Jerry Tales is an animated television series which began production in 2005. It was on The CW's "Kids WB" block. The series stars the well-known title characters from the "Tom and Jerry" shorts, and is the first made for TV cartoon to emulate the theatrical shorts. It grew from dircet-to-video movies "" (2001), "", "" (2005), "" (2006), and "" (2007).
Ragıp Zarakolu
Ragıp Zarakolu (born 1948) is a Turkish publisher who has long faced legal problems for publishing books on controversial things in Turkey, especially on minority and human rights in Turkey.
Ragıp Zarakolu was born in 1948 on the island of Büyükada close to Istanbul. His father, Remzi Zarakolu, was the district governor on that island. Ragıp Zarakolu grew up with members of the Greek and Armenian minority in Turkey and began writing for "Ant" and "Yeni Ufuklar" magazines in 1968.
In 1971, the Turkish government was overthrown. Ragıp Zarakolu was tried on charges of secret relations to Amnesty International. He spent five months in prison before being declared innocent. In 1972 Ragıp Zarakolu was sentenced to 2 years in prison for his paragraph in the journal "Ant" (Oath) on "Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnam War". He stayed in Selimiye Prison (in Istanbul) and was set free in 1974 after a general amnesty. On his release Zarakolu refused to abandon his work for freedom of thought, because he wanted different thoughts and cultures to be available in Turkey.
The Belge Publishing House, established in Istanbul in 1977 by Zarakolu and his wife Ayşenur, has been a focus for Turkish censorship laws ever since. The couple was imprisoned and the books confiscated and destroyed.
In 1979 Ragıp Zarakolu was one of the founders of the daily newspaper "Demokrat" and took responsibility for the news desk on foreign affairs. The paper was banned and Ragıp Zarakolu was shortly imprisoned in 1982 because of his link to "Demokrat". He was banned from leaving the country between 1971 and 1991. In 1986 he became one of 98 starters of the Human Rights Association in Turkey (HRA or in Turkish IHD). For some time Ragıp Zarakolu chaired the Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN in Turkey. Currently (beginning of 2007) he chairs the Committee for Freedom of Publication in the Union of Publishers.
Until the military coup of 12 September 1980, "Belge" Publishing House mostly published academic and theoretical books. Afterwords "Belge" started to publish books written by political prisoners. The series of 35 books consisted of poems, shorts stories, novels. The list of publications (see a list of selected publications below) include more than 10 books (translations) of Greek literature, 10 books on the Armenian Question and five books related to the Jews in Turkey. There are also a number of books dealing with the Kurds in Turkey.
He also published several books on the Armenian Genocide – such as George Jerjian's book "History Will Free All of Us/Turkish-Armenian Conciliation" and Professor Dora Sakayan's "An Armenian Doctor in Turkey: Garabed Hatcherian: My Smyrna Ordeal of 1922" – which brought new criminal charges in 2005.
In 1995 the Belge Publishing House offices were firebombed, forcing it to be housed in a cellar. Since his wife's death in 2002, Zarakolu continues to face further prosecutions.
Press release / OSCE
Aska Yang
Aska Yang (born April 4, 1978) is a popular Taiwanese singer and a member of Million Star Gang (星光幫).
Aska Yang is listed in "Taiwan Who is Who 2007-2008" and he is also ranked the 2nd place of Yahoo! Taiwan Person of the Year 2007, the 2nd place of United Daily Star News of the Year 2007, the 1st place of Apple Daily Person of the Year 2007 and one of the Top Five Newcomers 2007 chosen by SinaNet.
On November 17, 2007, Aska Yang was invited to perform at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall for the 42nd Golden Bell Awards (金鐘獎) in Taipei. He sang a medley of eleven classic TV drama theme songs from the past century.