Icarus Soaring: the music of John Pickard

Tempo ◽  
1997 ◽  
pp. 2-5
Author(s):  
Guy Rickards

Although John Pickard's music has received a good many performances and radio broadcasts over the past decade, it was the relay of his dazzling orchestral tone poem The Flight of Icarus (1990) during the 1996 Proms1 which brought him to the notice of the wider concert–going and –listening public. There is some justice in that piece attracting such attention, as it is one of his most immediate in impact, while completely representative of his output at large. That output to date encompasses three symphonies (1983–4, 1985–7, 1995–6) and five other orchestral works, three string quartets (1991, 1993, 1994; a fourth in progress), a piano trio (1990), sonatas for piano (1987) and cello and piano (1994–5), vocal and choral works, pieces for orchestral brass (Vortex, 1984–5) and brass band – the exhilarating Wildfire (1991), which crackles, hisses and spits in ferocious near–onomatopoeia, and suite Men of Stone (1995), celebrating four of the most impressive megalithic sites in Britain, one to each season of the year. There are other works for a variety of solo instruments and chamber ensembles, such as the intriguing grouping of flute, clarinet, harpsichord and piano trio in Nocturne in Black and Gold (1983) and the large–scale Serenata Concertante for flute and six instruments of a year later. Still in his mid-thirties – he was born in Burnley in 1963 – Pickard has already made almost all the principal musical forms of the Western Classical tradition his own, with only opera, ballet and the concerto as yet untackled.

Tempo ◽  
1999 ◽  
pp. 9-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Pickard

This year sees the centenary (on 1 May) of the birth of the composer Jón Leifs. Had it fallen just a few years earlier the occasion would have attracted virtually no attention outside his native Iceland, but over the past four years a series of CD recordings, mainly from the Swedish label BIS, has done much to establish Leifs as a figure of far more than local significance. His output included three string quartets, piano music, songs, choral works (both accompanied and unaccompanied) a sizeable number of short orchestral works, an organ concerto, oratorios and the first ever symphony composed by an Icelander. The creative personality emerging with each new recording is among the most radical and original of the 20th century and this article is intended as a short introduction to the music of this remarkable composer.


1998 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 599-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael W. McCahill

Over the past fifteen years historians of Britain have debated the degree to which the nation's aristocracy was open to newcomers. First, W. D. Rubinstein suggested that the new rich of the nineteenth century broke with the pattern of centuries and refrained from large-scale land purchases, in part because the established aristocracy had assumed a more “caste-like” mentality that held outsiders at bay. Then in 1984 two important works extended the challenge to earlier centuries. John Cannon demonstrated that throughout the eighteenth century recruits to the peerage were chosen from among the upper reaches of the landed aristocracy, a fact that suggested to him that the British nobility was a closed group, more closed than its continental counterparts. More significantly, Lawrence and Jeanne Stone completed an immense study of the elite of three counties over a 340-year period; they concluded that the proportion of newcomers was small and that new recruits were drawn mainly from groups already affiliated with the aristocracy. It was not businessmen but small gentry, office holders, and members of the professions who dominated the ranks of newcomers to their county elites.Other leading students of the British aristocracy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have taken exception to the claims of these iconoclasts. Sir John Habakkuk concluded in his Ford Lectures that “there was no weakening among new men in the eighteenth century of the desire to acquire landed estates. Almost all the wealthiest (or their descendants in the next generation) joined the landed elite….” In greater detail F. M. L. Thompson called into question Rubinstein's findings by challenging the usefulness of his probate data and by showing that millionaire Victorian businessmen or their direct heirs made substantial land purchases.


2021 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 01029
Author(s):  
Julia Petrova ◽  
Olga Vasichkina

A large-scale global study of events both within and between disciplines provides strong evidence that leading thinkers have begun to introduce new ways of thinking to the point that most academic disciplines have undergone major paradigm changes throughout the twentieth century, according to Guidley. Increasingly, over the past forty years, we can see significant changes, if not in all, then in the main scientific disciplines. New ways of thinking have appeared in almost all disciplines. With the help of interdisciplinary approaches, a movement has emerged to integrate knowledge, moving beyond the fragmentation of knowledge related to disciplinary specialization. Computer technologies and computer concepts have penetrated almost all areas of academic research. These events can be considered as the implementation of new ways of thinking and new models of knowledge, respectively, and may be edges of the evolution of consciousness, in which computer technologies occupy a significant place. Education and communication in the age of globalization and computerization are an obvious necessity for the continued existence of society.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (16) ◽  
pp. 77-89
Author(s):  
Sergey Sandiuk

Background. The creative life of Ludwig Spohr (1784–1859) coincides with at least three historically-cultural periods: Late-Classical, Romantic and LateRomantic, thus creating a straight line from Classical works of XVIII century to those of the middle of XIX century. First works by Spohr having opus number chronologically coincide with the beginning of Beethoven’s central period of life, and in this light, he is rather seen as heir of pre-Beethoven generation of composers. But, having outlived the last Viennese Classicist by 32 years, Spohr assimilated both his experience and innovations of the new generation of musicians, his junior contemporaries. In spite of the fact that Spohr wasn’t inclined to radical innovations, unlike his coeval Weber, he became one of the first harbinger of the new music. Yet we should note that situation of drastic change of musical culture, in which the composer was brought up, programmed his lifestyle and general direction of his creativity. Moreover, “intersection of times” defined contradictions in Spohr’s legacy, that hitherto hurdle his unambiguous evaluation. Literature review. It would be unfair to state that name of Spohr doesn’ figure in musicologists’ researches at all. Although one has to admit that while in Western musicology a certain tradition of studying his creative life has been established, in Soviet and post-Soviet scientific area creativity of Spohr hasn’t ever become on object of separate dissection, with a single exception of Raaben’s essay (Raaben, 1967). But even in this work Spohr only listed alongside with other musicians, but not as a self-sufficient phenomenon. Scattered facts of Spohr’s creative life are incorporated into brief outlines of his works or spheres of activity, created by M. Cherkashyna (1998), N. Antipova (2007), V. Ferman (1961), V. Pluzhnikov (2006). Researches are actively trying to reveal diverse connections between Spohr and the past of the musical culture: his “Mozartness” (Heussner, 1957), efforts to revive music by Bach, Handel and other masters of the past (Homburg, 1958; 1960). Much less attention is drawn to historical typology of Spohr’s legacy, to his place in the spacetime of music. H. Riemann (1961) regards him as a Romantic composer, having more in common with Shubert and Mendelssohn than with Weber, Schumann and Marschner. K. Huschke (1939) notes his soft, elegiac and lofty feelings, beauty of the melodies, his nobility in stark contrast with Weber’s art founded in folk intonations, although claiming both of them to be German in spirit. Although wholistic image of Spohr in research literature, unfortunately, has not been created yet. The aim of this paper is an attempt to present complex creative personality of Spohr, comprised of the opposite constituents, as a whole. Results. On the verge of XVIII–XIX centuries even tradition, that is one of the most profound and fundamental factors of culturally-historical process, is subjected to reconsideration. For Spohr, tradition means mainly possessing skills, professionality. Spohr endeavoured mastership in every single thing he did: practicing violin 10 hours daily, polishing his Kapellmeister art, or embodying appearing musical ideas in his compositions. It was rather predictable that he had become one of the most prominent pedagogues of XIX century, progenitor of violin school and glorious Violinschule. According to the tradition dating back to the Baroque era, Spohr reveals a tendency towards inventio: both in the terms of technology (invention of a chinrest) and in creativity. In the latter case inherited meets modern. Spohr precisely formulates artistic ideas appearing to him thus becoming one of their generators. Spohr’s attitude to tradition can be understood through his favouring of musical classics as vivid reality. Almost all scholars of his legacy unanimously agree that he had enormous adoration of Mozart during all his life. One may say that in mind of Spohr two different approaches to tradition overlap: from the standpoint of XVIII century (when it was regarded as a continuity of knowledge, well-developed skills, order) and from the vantage of XIX century (as an object of reconsideration, adaptation in the context of new stylistic system and Romantic worldview). Not only did ambiguous approach to the tradition defined his art, but also affected societal, political views, spheres of activity and personal traits. Conclusions. Observations on creative life of Spohr allow to demonstrate paradoxes of his personality. He was simultaneously a court musician and a “free artist”; a proponent of musical past and critic of the modernity – and its indefatigable champion as opera Kapellmeister and as symphonic and concert conductor; performer-virtuoso – and serious, ruminant creator of large-scale oratorios, operas and symphonic conceptions; advocate for normativity in art – and pioneer in many respects, – these are pairs-oppositions defining the image of Spohr’s personality.


2021 ◽  
Vol 81 (11) ◽  
pp. 1203-1216
Author(s):  
Jan Weichert ◽  
Amrei Welp ◽  
Jann Lennard Scharf ◽  
Christoph Dracopoulos ◽  
Wolf-Henning Becker ◽  
...  

AbstractThe long-awaited progress in digitalisation is generating huge amounts of medical data every day, and manual analysis and targeted, patient-oriented evaluation of this data is becoming increasingly difficult or even infeasible. This state of affairs and the associated, increasingly complex requirements for individualised precision medicine underline the need for modern software solutions and algorithms across the entire healthcare system. The utilisation of state-of-the-art equipment and techniques in almost all areas of medicine over the past few years has now indeed enabled automation processes to enter – at least in part – into routine clinical practice. Such systems utilise a wide variety of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, the majority of which have been developed to optimise medical image reconstruction, noise reduction, quality assurance, triage, segmentation, computer-aided detection and classification and, as an emerging field of research, radiogenomics. Tasks handled by AI are completed significantly faster and more precisely, clearly demonstrated by now in the annual findings of the ImageNet Large-Scale Visual Recognition Challenge (ILSVCR), first conducted in 2015, with error rates well below those of humans. This review article will discuss the potential capabilities and currently available applications of AI in gynaecological-obstetric diagnostics. The article will focus, in particular, on automated techniques in prenatal sonographic diagnostics.


2013 ◽  
pp. 109-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Rühl

This paper presents the highlights of the third annual edition of the BP Energy Outlook, which sets out BP’s view of the most likely developments in global energy markets to 2030, based on up-to-date analysis and taking into account developments of the past year. The Outlook’s overall expectation for growth in global energy demand is to be 36% higher in 2030 than in 2011 and almost all the growth coming from emerging economies. It also reflects shifting expectations of the pattern of supply, with unconventional sources — shale gas and tight oil together with heavy oil and biofuels — playing an increasingly important role and, in particular, transforming the energy balance of the US. While the fuel mix is evolving, fossil fuels will continue to be dominant. Oil, gas and coal are expected to converge on market shares of around 26—28% each by 2030, and non-fossil fuels — nuclear, hydro and renewables — on a share of around 6—7% each. By 2030, increasing production and moderating demand will result in the US being 99% self-sufficient in net energy. Meanwhile, with continuing steep economic growth, major emerging economies such as China and India will become increasingly reliant on energy imports. These shifts will have major impacts on trade balances.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lungwani Muungo

The purpose of this review is to evaluate progress inmolecular epidemiology over the past 24 years in canceretiology and prevention to draw lessons for futureresearch incorporating the new generation of biomarkers.Molecular epidemiology was introduced inthe study of cancer in the early 1980s, with theexpectation that it would help overcome some majorlimitations of epidemiology and facilitate cancerprevention. The expectation was that biomarkerswould improve exposure assessment, document earlychanges preceding disease, and identify subgroupsin the population with greater susceptibility to cancer,thereby increasing the ability of epidemiologic studiesto identify causes and elucidate mechanisms incarcinogenesis. The first generation of biomarkers hasindeed contributed to our understanding of riskandsusceptibility related largely to genotoxic carcinogens.Consequently, interventions and policy changes havebeen mounted to reduce riskfrom several importantenvironmental carcinogens. Several new and promisingbiomarkers are now becoming available for epidemiologicstudies, thanks to the development of highthroughputtechnologies and theoretical advances inbiology. These include toxicogenomics, alterations ingene methylation and gene expression, proteomics, andmetabonomics, which allow large-scale studies, includingdiscovery-oriented as well as hypothesis-testinginvestigations. However, most of these newer biomarkershave not been adequately validated, and theirrole in the causal paradigm is not clear. There is a needfor their systematic validation using principles andcriteria established over the past several decades inmolecular cancer epidemiology.


1987 ◽  
Vol 19 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 701-710 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. L. Reidy ◽  
G. W. Samson

A low-cost wastewater disposal system was commissioned in 1959 to treat domestic and industrial wastewaters generated in the Latrobe River valley in the province of Gippsland, within the State of Victoria, Australia (Figure 1). The Latrobe Valley is the centre for large-scale generation of electricity and for the production of pulp and paper. In addition other industries have utilized the brown coal resource of the region e.g. gasification process and char production. Consequently, industrial wastewaters have been dominant in the disposal system for the past twenty-five years. The mixed industrial-domestic wastewaters were to be transported some eighty kilometres to be treated and disposed of by irrigation to land. Several important lessons have been learnt during twenty-five years of operating this system. Firstly the composition of the mixed waste stream has varied significantly with the passage of time and the development of the industrial base in the Valley, so that what was appropriate treatment in 1959 is not necessarily acceptable in 1985. Secondly the magnitude of adverse environmental impacts engendered by this low-cost disposal procedure was not imagined when the proposal was implemented. As a consequence, clean-up procedures which could remedy the adverse effects of twenty-five years of impact are likely to be costly. The question then may be asked - when the total costs including rehabilitation are considered, is there really a low-cost solution for environmentally safe disposal of complex wastewater streams?


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qihui Wu ◽  
Hanzhong Ke ◽  
Dongli Li ◽  
Qi Wang ◽  
Jiansong Fang ◽  
...  

Over the past decades, peptide as a therapeutic candidate has received increasing attention in drug discovery, especially for antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), anticancer peptides (ACPs) and antiinflammatory peptides (AIPs). It is considered that the peptides can regulate various complex diseases which are previously untouchable. In recent years, the critical problem of antimicrobial resistance drives the pharmaceutical industry to look for new therapeutic agents. Compared to organic small drugs, peptide- based therapy exhibits high specificity and minimal toxicity. Thus, peptides are widely recruited in the design and discovery of new potent drugs. Currently, large-scale screening of peptide activity with traditional approaches is costly, time-consuming and labor-intensive. Hence, in silico methods, mainly machine learning approaches, for their accuracy and effectiveness, have been introduced to predict the peptide activity. In this review, we document the recent progress in machine learning-based prediction of peptides which will be of great benefit to the discovery of potential active AMPs, ACPs and AIPs.


Author(s):  
Ken Peach

This chapter discusses the process of building research teams. Increasingly over the past three-quarters of a century, science has become a collective activity, with teams of tens, hundreds or even thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians working together on a common goal. Consequently, almost all research involves building, motivating and maintaining a research team. Even a theoretical group is likely to have one or two postdocs, graduate students and visitors, but research teams will, in addition, have engineers and technicians, as well as, possibly, research administrators. The chapter also addresses the importance of creating and maintaining a good team and team spirit, as large projects are assembled from a large number of small teams working on common goals, usually in a loose federated structure with some overall coordination and leadership.


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