Composer who helped to promote the national character of 20th-century Spanish music.
After studying in Seville and Madrid he went in 1905 to Paris where he was a pupil of Moritz Moszkowski for piano and Vincent d´Indy for composition.
Though he absorbed elements of the French style he was inspired in Paris by Isaac Albéniz to establish distinctly Spanish features in his music.
He wrote the Sonata española for violin and piano and the symphonic poem La procesión del rocío (1912) and in 1914 returned to Spain.
His native city Sevilla figures largely in his predominantly picturesque works notably in the Sinfonía sevillana (1920), in the Canto a Sevilla (1927) for voice and orchestra and in his albums of piano miniatures among them Rincones sevillanos and La leyenda de la Giralda.
He was most successful in his numerous songs.
He also wrote two operas, Margot (1914) and Jardín de oriente (1923), incidental music and chamber works.
His Danzas fantásticas for orchestra (1920) and La oración del torero (1925) for string quartet or string orchestra were particularly popular.
He was critic of the Madrid paper El Debate and wrote a short encyclopaedia of music.
February 26, 2015
TU FU (740)
Considered by many literary critics to be the greatest Chinese poet of all time.
Born into a cholarly family -his grandfather was a well-known poet and his father an official of medium rank-.. Tu Fu received a traditional Confucian education but failed in the Imperial examinations wasof 736.
A passing grade in the examination was necessary to secure a post in the Confucian bureaucracy that ran the country.
As a result he spent much of his youth trabelling during which he won renown as a poet and met the other poets of the period including the great Li Po.
After a brief flirtation with Taoism while travelling with Li Po he returned to the capital and the conventional Confucianism of his youth.
He never again met Li Po despite his strong admiration for his older free-wheeling contemporary.
During the 740s Tu Fu was a well-regarded member of a group of high officials even though he was without money and official position himself and failed a second time in an Imperial examination.
Between 751 and 755 he attempted to attract Imperial attention by submitting a succession of literary products in which political advice was offered, couched in a language of ornamental flattery, a device that eventually resulted in a nominal position at court.
Me married probably in 752 and acquired some farmland but by then he showed signs of a lung affliction.
In 755 he was caught in the An Lu-shan Rebellion which eventualy brought down the T´ang dynasty and he experienced extreme personal hardships. He escaped and in 757 joined the exiled court being given the position of censor. His memoranda to the Emperor do not appear to have been particularly welcome and he was relieved of his post.
Undergoing another period of poverty and hunger the poet lived to see several of his children die of starvation.
Wandering about he finally arrived at Ch´eng-tu late in 759. There with the help of friends he built a thatched hut.
Starting to drift again in the mid-760s he was at Kueichou in the service of a local war lord a position that enabled him to acquire some landed property and to become a gentleman farmer.
In 768 he again started travelling aimlessly toward the south.
He died in 770 probably at Tan-chou.
Popular legend attributes his death to overindulgence in food and wine after a 10-day fast.
Tu Fu´s early poetry celebrated the beauties of the natural world and bemoaned the passage of time. He soon began to write bitingly of war as in The Army Carts a poem about conscription and with hidden satire in The Beautiful Woman which speaks of the conspicuous luxury of the court. As he matured and especially during the years of extreme personal and national turmoil of 755 to 759, his verse began to sound a note of profound compassion for humanity caught in the toils of senseless war.
Tu Fu´s paramount position in the history of Chinese literature rests finally on his superb classicism.
He was highly erudite and his intimate acquaintance with the literary tradition of the past was equalled only by his complete ease in handling the rules of prosody.His dense, compressed language makes use of all the connotative overtones of a phrase and of all the intonational potentials of the individual word, qualities that no translation will ever reveal. He was an expert in all poetic genres current in his day but his mastery was at its height in the lü shih or regulated verse which he refined to a point of glowing intensity.
Born into a cholarly family -his grandfather was a well-known poet and his father an official of medium rank-.. Tu Fu received a traditional Confucian education but failed in the Imperial examinations wasof 736.
A passing grade in the examination was necessary to secure a post in the Confucian bureaucracy that ran the country.
As a result he spent much of his youth trabelling during which he won renown as a poet and met the other poets of the period including the great Li Po.
After a brief flirtation with Taoism while travelling with Li Po he returned to the capital and the conventional Confucianism of his youth.
He never again met Li Po despite his strong admiration for his older free-wheeling contemporary.
During the 740s Tu Fu was a well-regarded member of a group of high officials even though he was without money and official position himself and failed a second time in an Imperial examination.
Between 751 and 755 he attempted to attract Imperial attention by submitting a succession of literary products in which political advice was offered, couched in a language of ornamental flattery, a device that eventually resulted in a nominal position at court.
Me married probably in 752 and acquired some farmland but by then he showed signs of a lung affliction.
In 755 he was caught in the An Lu-shan Rebellion which eventualy brought down the T´ang dynasty and he experienced extreme personal hardships. He escaped and in 757 joined the exiled court being given the position of censor. His memoranda to the Emperor do not appear to have been particularly welcome and he was relieved of his post.
Undergoing another period of poverty and hunger the poet lived to see several of his children die of starvation.
Wandering about he finally arrived at Ch´eng-tu late in 759. There with the help of friends he built a thatched hut.
Starting to drift again in the mid-760s he was at Kueichou in the service of a local war lord a position that enabled him to acquire some landed property and to become a gentleman farmer.
In 768 he again started travelling aimlessly toward the south.
He died in 770 probably at Tan-chou.
Popular legend attributes his death to overindulgence in food and wine after a 10-day fast.
Tu Fu´s early poetry celebrated the beauties of the natural world and bemoaned the passage of time. He soon began to write bitingly of war as in The Army Carts a poem about conscription and with hidden satire in The Beautiful Woman which speaks of the conspicuous luxury of the court. As he matured and especially during the years of extreme personal and national turmoil of 755 to 759, his verse began to sound a note of profound compassion for humanity caught in the toils of senseless war.
Tu Fu´s paramount position in the history of Chinese literature rests finally on his superb classicism.
He was highly erudite and his intimate acquaintance with the literary tradition of the past was equalled only by his complete ease in handling the rules of prosody.His dense, compressed language makes use of all the connotative overtones of a phrase and of all the intonational potentials of the individual word, qualities that no translation will ever reveal. He was an expert in all poetic genres current in his day but his mastery was at its height in the lü shih or regulated verse which he refined to a point of glowing intensity.
MOISE-KAPENDA TSHOMBE (1947)
Politician.
President of the secessionist African state of Katanga and premier of the united Congo (Kinshasa) Republic (now Zaire) who took advantage of an armed mutinity to announce the secession of mineral-rich Katanga (now Shaba) province in July 1960.
With covert military and technical assistance from Belgium and the aid of a white mercenary force he maintained his independent Republic of Katanga for three years in the face of combined United Nations and Congolese efforts to end the secession of the province.
Often accused of being a pawn of foreign commercial interestsTshombe was an adroit politician who used his foreign supporters to help him achieve his personal ambitions in the Congo.
Tshombe came from a wealthy family and at his father´s death inherited sizable business holdings including a hotel, several stores and some large plantations. After the business began to fall and he had declared bankruptcy three times he turned to politics.
From 1951 to 1953 he was one of the few Congolese to serve on the Katanga Provincial Council.
In 1959 he became president of Conakat (Confédération des Associations Tribales du Katanga) a political party supported by Tshombe´s tribal group, the powerful LUnda and the Belgian mining monopoly Union Minière du Haut Katanga which controlled the province´s rich copper mines. At first Conakat advocated complete independence for Katanga claiming it bore the main burden of support for the entire Congolese economy.
Later at a conference called by the Belgian government in 1960 to discuss independence for the Congo he presented Conakat´s proposals for an independent Congo made up of a loose confederation of semi-autonomous provinces.
Tshombe´s proposals as well as those of other federationists such as Joseph Kasavubu were rejected in favour of Patrice Lumumba´s plan for a strongly centralized republic.
Although Conakat won only 8 of 137 seats in the Congolese Parliament in the first national elections of May 1960, Tshombe´s party and its allies won a majority in Katanga´s Provincial Assembly and Tshombe became president of the province. Although he appeared to accept Lumumba´s national government, with the mutiny of the Force Publique (militia) two weeks after independence, he declared Katanga independent.
After the ouster of Congolese Premier Lumumba by President Kasavubu and the army in September 1960, he opened negotiations with Kasavubu toward a possible end to Katanga secession but later abandoned the talks.
He was widely thought to be implicated in the death of Lumumba who was flown from his prison near Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) to Élisabethville (now Lumumbashi) where it is believed he was killed by his army guards.
Tshombe failed in his bid to win diplomatic recognition for his state and after the UNited Nations intervened with force in Katanga in January 1963 and defeated his troops he fled to Spain.
Recalled from exile in 1964 by President Kasavubu to assume the post of premier to quell a rebellion in the eastern Congo.
Tshombe was dismissed in 1965 ostensibly for using white mercenaries against the rebels. Though it is also contended that he was attempting to oust Kasavubu.
Tshombe returned to Spain.
In 1967, when there were rumours that he planned to return to the Congo he was kidnapped and taken to Algeria.
Algerian officials refused Congolese Pres.Joseph Mobutu´s demands for Tshombe´s extradition to stand trial for treason.
Tshombe remained under house arrest near Algiers where he died of a heart attack.
President of the secessionist African state of Katanga and premier of the united Congo (Kinshasa) Republic (now Zaire) who took advantage of an armed mutinity to announce the secession of mineral-rich Katanga (now Shaba) province in July 1960.
With covert military and technical assistance from Belgium and the aid of a white mercenary force he maintained his independent Republic of Katanga for three years in the face of combined United Nations and Congolese efforts to end the secession of the province.
Often accused of being a pawn of foreign commercial interestsTshombe was an adroit politician who used his foreign supporters to help him achieve his personal ambitions in the Congo.
Tshombe came from a wealthy family and at his father´s death inherited sizable business holdings including a hotel, several stores and some large plantations. After the business began to fall and he had declared bankruptcy three times he turned to politics.
From 1951 to 1953 he was one of the few Congolese to serve on the Katanga Provincial Council.
In 1959 he became president of Conakat (Confédération des Associations Tribales du Katanga) a political party supported by Tshombe´s tribal group, the powerful LUnda and the Belgian mining monopoly Union Minière du Haut Katanga which controlled the province´s rich copper mines. At first Conakat advocated complete independence for Katanga claiming it bore the main burden of support for the entire Congolese economy.
Later at a conference called by the Belgian government in 1960 to discuss independence for the Congo he presented Conakat´s proposals for an independent Congo made up of a loose confederation of semi-autonomous provinces.
Tshombe´s proposals as well as those of other federationists such as Joseph Kasavubu were rejected in favour of Patrice Lumumba´s plan for a strongly centralized republic.
Although Conakat won only 8 of 137 seats in the Congolese Parliament in the first national elections of May 1960, Tshombe´s party and its allies won a majority in Katanga´s Provincial Assembly and Tshombe became president of the province. Although he appeared to accept Lumumba´s national government, with the mutiny of the Force Publique (militia) two weeks after independence, he declared Katanga independent.
After the ouster of Congolese Premier Lumumba by President Kasavubu and the army in September 1960, he opened negotiations with Kasavubu toward a possible end to Katanga secession but later abandoned the talks.
He was widely thought to be implicated in the death of Lumumba who was flown from his prison near Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) to Élisabethville (now Lumumbashi) where it is believed he was killed by his army guards.
Tshombe failed in his bid to win diplomatic recognition for his state and after the UNited Nations intervened with force in Katanga in January 1963 and defeated his troops he fled to Spain.
Recalled from exile in 1964 by President Kasavubu to assume the post of premier to quell a rebellion in the eastern Congo.
Tshombe was dismissed in 1965 ostensibly for using white mercenaries against the rebels. Though it is also contended that he was attempting to oust Kasavubu.
Tshombe returned to Spain.
In 1967, when there were rumours that he planned to return to the Congo he was kidnapped and taken to Algeria.
Algerian officials refused Congolese Pres.Joseph Mobutu´s demands for Tshombe´s extradition to stand trial for treason.
Tshombe remained under house arrest near Algiers where he died of a heart attack.
GAIUS TREBONIUS (47 BC)
Roman general and politician who had been one of Caesar´s most trusted lieutenants before coming a leader of the conspiracy that resulted in Caesar´s death.
An aristocrat Trebonius was a conservative during his term as quaestor (financial magistrate) in c. 60 BC.
Five years later he changed allegiances and backed Caesar´s party.
He was the author of an act that granted Spain to Pompey and Syria to Gaius Crassus Longinus for an additional five years and allowed these two consuls to recruit soldiers both in Italy and in the provinces.
After Trebonius´ participation in the conquest of Gaul and the Roman Civil War, Caesar in 48 rewarded him with a praetorship (judicial magistracy) and in the following year with the governorship of Further Spain.
Trebonius soon abandoned Spain following a mutiny of his troops.
In 45 BC Caesar made him a consul and promised him the governorship of Asia but Trebonius joined the conspiracy against his master and participated in his assassination.
Appointed proconsul in Asia in 44 he was murdered the next year by the governor of Syria.
An aristocrat Trebonius was a conservative during his term as quaestor (financial magistrate) in c. 60 BC.
Five years later he changed allegiances and backed Caesar´s party.
He was the author of an act that granted Spain to Pompey and Syria to Gaius Crassus Longinus for an additional five years and allowed these two consuls to recruit soldiers both in Italy and in the provinces.
After Trebonius´ participation in the conquest of Gaul and the Roman Civil War, Caesar in 48 rewarded him with a praetorship (judicial magistracy) and in the following year with the governorship of Further Spain.
Trebonius soon abandoned Spain following a mutiny of his troops.
In 45 BC Caesar made him a consul and promised him the governorship of Asia but Trebonius joined the conspiracy against his master and participated in his assassination.
Appointed proconsul in Asia in 44 he was murdered the next year by the governor of Syria.
DIEGO DE TORRES VILLARROEL (1747)
Born 1693 and died 1770 in Salamanca.
Mathematician and writer famous in his own time as the great maker of almanacs that delighted the Spanish public, now remembered for his Vida, picaresque memoirs that are among the best sources for information on life in 18th-century Spain.
The son of a bookseller he ran away from home and school and began a remarkable career as a dancer, musician, bullfighter, poet, lockpicker and seller of patent medicines.
Returning home to Salamanca he discovered a book on solid geometry and became a changed man. Mathematics was still viewed by some as related to magic and for Torres Villarroel it had the power of a secret science.
In 1721 he wrote his first almanac and in 1726 he was made professor of mathematics at the University of Salamanca.
He spent his final years in holy orders spending his money on philanthropic enterprises.
The Vida (1743) modelled on the work of the great Spanish poet Francisco Gómez de Quevedo is written in the style of the 17th-century picaresque novels. The true adventures of a man imbued with enormous energy and panache, the boook is full of fascinating details about Spanish life and customs.
A fertile lyric poet as well Torres Villarroel left 15 volumes of works.
Mathematician and writer famous in his own time as the great maker of almanacs that delighted the Spanish public, now remembered for his Vida, picaresque memoirs that are among the best sources for information on life in 18th-century Spain.
The son of a bookseller he ran away from home and school and began a remarkable career as a dancer, musician, bullfighter, poet, lockpicker and seller of patent medicines.
Returning home to Salamanca he discovered a book on solid geometry and became a changed man. Mathematics was still viewed by some as related to magic and for Torres Villarroel it had the power of a secret science.
In 1721 he wrote his first almanac and in 1726 he was made professor of mathematics at the University of Salamanca.
He spent his final years in holy orders spending his money on philanthropic enterprises.
The Vida (1743) modelled on the work of the great Spanish poet Francisco Gómez de Quevedo is written in the style of the 17th-century picaresque novels. The true adventures of a man imbued with enormous energy and panache, the boook is full of fascinating details about Spanish life and customs.
A fertile lyric poet as well Torres Villarroel left 15 volumes of works.
TOMÁS DE TORQUEMADA (1474)
First grand inquisitor in Spain whose name has become synonymous with the Inquisition´s horror, religious bigotry and cruel fanaticism.
He joined the Dominicans and from 1452 to 1474 was prior of Santa Cruz Monastery Segovia.
His belief that the Marranos (Jewish converts) and the Moors threatened Sapin´s welfare enabled him to influence and effect the religious policies of the Catholic monarchs Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand V to whom he was confessor and adviser.
Torquemada ironically of Jewish descent himself in 1492 persuaded the rulers to expel all Jews who refused to be baptized causing about 170,000 Jewish subjects to leave Spain.
In August 1483 he was appointed grand inquisitor for Castilla and León and on October 17 for Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia and Mallorca.
As grand inquisitor Torquemada established local tribunals at Sevilla, Jaén, Córdoba, Ciudad Real and Zaragoza.
The following year he promulgated 28 articles to guide inquisitors judging crimes of heresy, apostasy, witchcraft, bigamy, usury and blasphemy and authorized torture to obtain evidence if the accused failed to confess.
The number of burnings at the stake during his tenure has been estimated at about 2,000.
Torquemada´s health and age, coupled with widespread outrage and complaints, caused Pope Alexander VI to appoint four assistant inquisitors in June 1494 to restrain him.
He joined the Dominicans and from 1452 to 1474 was prior of Santa Cruz Monastery Segovia.
His belief that the Marranos (Jewish converts) and the Moors threatened Sapin´s welfare enabled him to influence and effect the religious policies of the Catholic monarchs Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand V to whom he was confessor and adviser.
Torquemada ironically of Jewish descent himself in 1492 persuaded the rulers to expel all Jews who refused to be baptized causing about 170,000 Jewish subjects to leave Spain.
In August 1483 he was appointed grand inquisitor for Castilla and León and on October 17 for Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia and Mallorca.
As grand inquisitor Torquemada established local tribunals at Sevilla, Jaén, Córdoba, Ciudad Real and Zaragoza.
The following year he promulgated 28 articles to guide inquisitors judging crimes of heresy, apostasy, witchcraft, bigamy, usury and blasphemy and authorized torture to obtain evidence if the accused failed to confess.
The number of burnings at the stake during his tenure has been estimated at about 2,000.
Torquemada´s health and age, coupled with widespread outrage and complaints, caused Pope Alexander VI to appoint four assistant inquisitors in June 1494 to restrain him.
WOLFE TONE (1774)
Irish republican ad rebel who sought to overthrow English rule in Ireland and who led a French military force to Ireland during the insurrection of 1798.
The son of a coach maker Tone studied law and was called to the Irish bar (1789) but soon gave up his practice.
In October 1791 he helped found the Society of United Irishmen a predominantly Protestant organization that worked for parliamentary reforms such as universal suffrage and Roman Catholic emancipation.
In Dublin of 1792 he organized a Catholic convention of elected delegates that forced Parliament to pass the Catholic Relief Act of 1793. Tone himself was anticlerical and hoped for a general revolt against religious creeds in Ireland as a sequet to the attainment of Irish political freedom.
By 1794 he and his United Irishmen friends began to seek armed aid from Revolutionar France to help overthrow English rule. After an initial effort failed Tome went to the U.S. and obtained letters of introduction from the French minister at Philadelphia to the Committee of Public Safety in Paris.
Arriving in the French capital (February 1796) he presents his plan for a French invasion of Ireland and was favourably received. The Directory then appointed one of the most brilliant young French generals Lazare Hoche to command the expedition and made Tone an adjutant in the French Army.
On Dec. 15 1796 Tone sailed from Brest with 43 ships and nearly 14,000 men.
But the ships were badly handled and after reaching the coast of west Cork and Kerry were dispersed by a storm.
Tome again brought an Irish invasion plan to Paris in October 1797.
But the principal French military leader Napoleon Bonaparte took little interest.
When insurrection broke out in Ireland in May 1798 he could only obtain enough French forces to make small raids on different parts of the Irish coast.
In September he entered Lough Swilly Donegal with 3,000 men and was capture there.
On November 10 at his trial in Dublin he defiantly proclaimed his undying hostility to England and his desire in fair and open war to produce the separation of the two countries.
Early in the morning of November 12, the day he was to be hanged, he cut his throat with a penknife and died seven days later.
The son of a coach maker Tone studied law and was called to the Irish bar (1789) but soon gave up his practice.
In October 1791 he helped found the Society of United Irishmen a predominantly Protestant organization that worked for parliamentary reforms such as universal suffrage and Roman Catholic emancipation.
In Dublin of 1792 he organized a Catholic convention of elected delegates that forced Parliament to pass the Catholic Relief Act of 1793. Tone himself was anticlerical and hoped for a general revolt against religious creeds in Ireland as a sequet to the attainment of Irish political freedom.
By 1794 he and his United Irishmen friends began to seek armed aid from Revolutionar France to help overthrow English rule. After an initial effort failed Tome went to the U.S. and obtained letters of introduction from the French minister at Philadelphia to the Committee of Public Safety in Paris.
Arriving in the French capital (February 1796) he presents his plan for a French invasion of Ireland and was favourably received. The Directory then appointed one of the most brilliant young French generals Lazare Hoche to command the expedition and made Tone an adjutant in the French Army.
On Dec. 15 1796 Tone sailed from Brest with 43 ships and nearly 14,000 men.
But the ships were badly handled and after reaching the coast of west Cork and Kerry were dispersed by a storm.
Tome again brought an Irish invasion plan to Paris in October 1797.
But the principal French military leader Napoleon Bonaparte took little interest.
When insurrection broke out in Ireland in May 1798 he could only obtain enough French forces to make small raids on different parts of the Irish coast.
In September he entered Lough Swilly Donegal with 3,000 men and was capture there.
On November 10 at his trial in Dublin he defiantly proclaimed his undying hostility to England and his desire in fair and open war to produce the separation of the two countries.
Early in the morning of November 12, the day he was to be hanged, he cut his throat with a penknife and died seven days later.
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