Aschenbach is being rowed on the water. He can smell disinfectant. There are notices in the streets warning people to be careful of the sickness. In a German newspaper he reads that the sickness in Venice is cholera. It says that all German people should leave the city and return home. Aschenbach does not want the Polish family to leave Venice. He does not want them to know about the cholera. He follows then to a café and to church, but he still cannot find the courage to speak to them. After dinner the guests watch a group of actors. Aschenbach notices that Tadzio, like himself, cannot laugh at their jokes.
Lots of the hotel guests are leaving. An English clerk tells him that lots of people in the city have Asiatic cholera. He tells him he ought to leave immediately before they stop everyone from leaving the city.
Aschenbach decides to warn Tadzio's mother of the danger of the illness, but he just cannot do it. He has a dream about the Greek gods. When he awakes he realises that these wild thoughts about Tadzio have gripped him. He cannot do anything about it.
Again Aschenbach watches as Tadzio and his friends play a game on the beach; they soon leave. Aschenbach goes to the barber. He asks him to try to make him beautiful and young. When he goes on a gondola he realises he is just like the old man he saw on the boat. He follows the Polish family. Tadzio starts to walk separately from his family. He waits for Aschenbach and looks straight at him, but Aschenbach turns away. He is pleased that Tadzio does not let his mother notice what happened. Aschenbach is alone again, and buys some strawberries. They are not fresh. He thinks about the Greek gods again, and about the relationship between a writer and what he writes about.
The hotel manager organizes the departure of the last guests. The Polish family are leaving. Aschenbach watches Tadzio and another boy playing on the beach. The game gets rough, and the other boy pushes Tadzio’s face into the sand. Aschenbach tries to get up to help him, but he is too weak to get out of his chair. Tadzio is left alone on the beach. He gives Aschenbach a sign to follow him, but Aschenbach slumps back in his chair and dies. Tadzio continues walking far out into the sea.
The part of the boy Tadzio is a dancing part. He and his family never speak or sing in the opera.
All the different characters that Aschenbach meets: the man by the cemetery, the old man dressed as a young man, the gondolier, the hotel manager, the barber, the leader of the actors and the voice of the God Dionysus are really like one character. They are sung by the same singer, a bass-baritone. Apart from him and Aschenbach (a tenor) the only other solo singer in the opera is the voice of Apollo, sung offstage by a countertenor as the boys play sport on the beach. There are several choruses: the groups of young people, hotel staff, actors, church choir and tourists.
The whole sound of the opera is written with the voice of Peter Pears in mind. Britten’s music is partly tonal but also uses twelve-tone music and gamelan music from the Far East. When Aschenbach sings recitative (telling the story) he is just accompanied by the piano. Britten deliberately uses a limited number of musical sounds. This gives the opera a specially expressive character, particularly in the beautiful ending.
Territory of the Saar Basin
The Territory of the Saar Basin (, "Saarterritorium;" ) was usually called the Saar or the . It was a territory governed by the League of Nations under the Treaty of Versailles for 15 years from 1920.
Its population in 1933 was 812,000, and its capital was Saarbrücken.
It was made up of parts of the Prussian Rhine Province and the Bavarian Palatinate of the Rhine. It was slightly smaller than the modern German state of Saarland.
According to Treaty of Versailles the highly industrialized Saarland was to be governed by the League of Nations for a period of 15 years, and its coalfields given to France. The "Commission of Government", which represented the League of Nations, had five members. At least one member had to be French and one a native of the Saar.
At the end of the 15 year period, in 1935, the people of the Saar voted on how they wanted their country. They voted to become a part of Nazi Germany.
It had a currency, the Saar franc, and its own postage stamps during this period.
The League of Nations' control to the region was represented by the following Chairmen of the Commission of Government:
In 1933, many anti-Nazi Germans fled to the Saar, as it was the only part of Germany left outside the Third Reich's control. As a result, anti-Nazi groups wanted the Saarland to remain under control of League of Nations as long as Adolf Hitler ruled Germany. However, France had a lot of power in the Saar, including control of the coal mines. Not many "Saarlanders" liked France, and in the plebiscite on 13 January 1935, 90% of the voters wished to join Germany, and 8.86% wanted to stay with the League of Nations. Only 0.40% (that is, four voters in every thousand) wanted to join France.
On 17 January 1935, the territory's re-union with Germany was approved by the League Council. On 1 March, the Nazi Germany took over the region, and appointed Josef Bürckel as "Reichskommissar für die Rückgliederung des Saarlandes", "Reich Commissioner for the re-union of Saarland".
Many former politicians and office holders of the Saargebiet were changed or arrested by the Nazis.
When re-incorporation was completed, the governor became "Reichskommissar für das Saarland", "Reich Commissioner of Saarland" on 17 June 1936.
William Walton
Sir William Walton OM, (born Oldham, 29 March 1902; died Ischia, Italy, 8 March 1983) was a British composer and conductor. He was one of the most important British composers of the mid-20th century, a period that included Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett. His music has very lively rhythms which are often jazzy.
Walton’s family were musical but they had very little money. Both his parents sang, and Walton sang in the local church choir. His father would hit him if he made a mistake. This may be why in later life he was so careful about every note he wrote.
At the age of ten he joined the choir of Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford. He learned the piano and violin. He was only 16 years when he went to University of Oxford where he was at Christ Church, Oxford. Most of what he knew about composing he taught himself. He studied the scores of works by Stravinsky, Debussy, Sibelius and others. He had some lessons from Hugh Allen, the cathedral organist. At Oxford Walton became friends with two poets: Sacheverell Sitwell and Siegfried Sassoon. Most of the music he wrote when he was very young has been lost, but the choral anthem "A Litany", written when he was just fifteen, shows his musical talent with its modern harmonies.
Walton left Oxford in 1920 without a degree having failed his exams three times. He went to live with the Sitwell family, who introduced him to many important people, including the composer Constant Lambert and song writer Noel Coward. He also travelled with the Sitwells to Italy. In 1923 he set one of Edith Sitwell’s poems to music. The piece was called "Façade". The music was very jazzy and almost jokey, and it sounded very modern to many people at that time.
During the 1920s, Walton earned some money playing the piano at jazz clubs, but he spent most of his time composing in the Sitwells' . The orchestral overture "Portsmouth Point" (which he dedicated to Sassoon) was the first work which shows Walton’s real style. In 1929 the Viola Concerto started to make him really famous. This was followed by "Belshazzar's Feast" (1931), the Symphony No. 1 (1935), the coronation march "Crown Imperial" (1937), and the Violin Concerto (1939). All these works are very popular today.