Franz Joseph Haydn : The Classical Symphonist from Austria

His Personality Described in One Word – Humorous Franz Joseph Haydn had told his biographer, Georg August Griesinger, “I have always preferred to see the funny side of life.” This is not to say that Haydn’s life could be described as a `bed of roses’. Haydn almost starved during his youth and that experience remained a traumatic one for him. He was not able to earn enough to eat well. When Haydn was tutoring Beethoven, he was always trying to extract some more money from Beethoven’s patron, Elector Maximilian Franz. He wrote to Franz, “While we are on the subject of Beethoven, our Highness will perhaps permit me to say a few words concerning his financial status. A hundred Ducats or 450 Gulden were allotted to him during the past year. Your Highness is no doubt convinced that this sum has been insufficient and not even enough to live from; you had your own reasons for choosing to send him into the great world with such a paltry sum. Under these circumstances and to prevent him from falling into the hands of usurers, I have in part gone bail for him and I partly lent him money; with the result that he owes me five-hundred Florins. You must know that not a Kreutzer was spent unnecessarily; which sum I would ask you to send him, here. Since the interest on borrowed money grows continually, it is very tedious for an artist like Beethoven. Please send him a thousand Florins for the coming year and you would earn his eternal gratitude, relieving him of all his distress.” This kind of writing represents a little wit rather than the tone of humour. An example of this nature could also be seen in the slow movement of his Symphony # 55, `The Schoolmaster.’ It has a tender and a moving quality, which makes the wit stand out even more. In this movement, there are sections marked `semplice’ where the violins are to play in a deadpan style and without vibrato while in the `dolce’ sections, they have to play sweetly and also with vibrato. Hints of wit are also seen in his Surprise and Clock symphony and his 88th Symphony. The String Quartets of Haydn To call Haydn the father of he symphony is wrong as Karl Stamitz and several other composers had already written symphonies much before he even began writing one. As far as string quartets are concerned, yes; Haydn was the one who made the string quartet popular. I don’t know if he invented the ensemble form. As far as I can remember, Claudio Monteverdi used to write for string quartets but the classical sonata form that Haydn introduced for the string quartets was unique and it picked up popularity in the last couple of decades of the eighteenth century. The divertimento was the preferred format for the string quartet in the early phases. Haydn’s earliest publications included the string quartets. There is plenty of self-discipline in these quartets and they have remained among his admired compositions. Haydn used fugues quite frequently in his string quartets. One of his finest is the `Lark’ string quartet, which is the fifth among the series of six quartets that Haydn wrote in 1790, op. 64. The Trumpet and Haydn The trumpet had evolved from the keyed trumpet to a valve one. Haydn was impressed by this change and wrote a concerto for this instrument which went on to become perhaps the preferred one among his concerti. The third movement is popular among the trumpeters and the audiences as it introduces its theme in a twelve-bar structure brought about by the internal repetition, first on the strings and then repeated by the full orchestra. The second theme does not begin on the tonic chord of E Flat Major. It is built out of broken chord figuration. A new motif helps end the ritornellos before the entry of the soloist. There are passages written for the trumpet with arpeggios and daring octave leaps. Haydn’s Friendship with Mozart This friendship began when Mozart edited Haydn’s manuscripts of his string quartets op. 17 for a performance in Salzburg. Both composers were fond of hearing each other’s compositions in concerts. It became cemented when Haydn joined the Masonic Lodge in December 1784. Haydn respected the music of Mozart deeply and even commented once to Leopold Mozart, “Before God and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer I know either personally or by name. He has taste in composing and has a profound knowledge on the techniques of composition. (Citations: H.C. Robbins Landon –An American musicologist from Boston University. He has done extensive research on classical composers, particularly Haydn and Mozart. He is the founder of the Haydn Society, which he formed in 1947 and has spent much of his time searching in Europe for last manuscripts of Haydn. His famous book is `The Symphonies of Franz Joseph Haydn’.)

Benjamin Franklin – A Legendary American Inventor

Less than a couple of centuries after the initial English settlers set foot on the North American continent, the United States gave the world a Renaissance man – Benjamin Franklin. He was a man of modest beginnings who left his impact in science, politics, diplomacy, philosophy and innovation. He was versatile and it is a tribute to his character and his natural intelligence, besides being a testament to his curious and innovative nature. He did not study in an exalted educational institute and there was no big store of wealth to fund his inventions. He was a member of the middle class and pulled himself up by his own bootstraps. He had a wife and an illegitimate son. He became a writer, a pragmatist and a philanthropist. Early Days after Birth in Boston, Massachusetts Franklin once wrote, “We are all born ignorant but we have to work hard to remain stupid.” Benjamin Franklin was born on 6th January 1706. He was one among twelve children born to Josiah Franklin. Josiah earned his living by making wax candles and soap. He had two wives and seventeen children, in all. Money became taught to educate all his children. Bejamin had to drop off from the eighth grade in South Grammar School in Boston as his father could not afford the cost of his education. When he was fifteen, he had to resort to working and not to studying. He had to work at the dock and as a cutler. With minimal schooling, Benjamin still had a lively intellect. He used to read Daniel Defoe as a child. Though his family was a church-going one, Benjamin had no interest in the church or its ministry and when he grew up; he had no vocation for it, despite his father’s insistence. However, traits of Puritanism filtered through in his lifestyle and in his writing, later. He believed in an honest and diligent living. He lived a simple and frugal life with main purpose in life being to serve and obey God. His brother, James, started a newspaper that was printed under the nomenclature of `The New England Courant’. Benjamin assisted him in this enterprise and also wrote some articles, one of which was about how people got sicker after taking inoculation for small pox. When he was seventeen, in 1723, Benjamin ran away and started to seek work in Philadelphia. He found the city bustling with life and he would settle down here for quite some time. Life in Philadelphia and then in London When he arrived in Philadelphia, he did not have much money left to spend. He decided to save up for food, stayed in a boarding house and wrote his famous maxim, “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” Philadelphia was then the largest city in the colonies. It offered more opportunity to him than Boston. Benjamin Franklin was able to find work as an apprentice printer. He was noticed by William Keith who was Governor of Pennsylvania who set him up in his own business and sent him to London to purchase rinting equipment for the business. Franklin proceeded to London and though it was not planned; he ended up staying there for a couple of years. He worked with a printer there by the name of Samuel Palmer. While in London, Franklin picked up the art of business etiquette and diplomacy. He printed one of his earliest pamphlets in London titled `A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain’. He forgot about William Keith and his business and arrived back in Philadelphia in 1726. Benjamin started considering himself as a Britisher in Philadelphia. He got into an affair with a woman named Deborah and had a child with her outside of marriage. Franklin came to be known in the city as a master printer and he built his career in his adoptive city. Deborah also proved to be a good business partner. Franklin was in-charge of the print shop while Deborah looked after the books and stationery, along with a general store that they also ran. Benjamin started his `Pennsylvania Gazette’ in 1730. In 1733, he started `Poor Richard’s Almanack’. It was a successful move. He wrote it under the alias of Richard Saunders. It was presented as the work of a man who needed money on account of a nagging wife. The almanac included recipes, weather reports and homilies that were speeches or sermons for moral or spiritual guidance. The Pennsylvania Gazette became the newspaper that was most widely read in all the thirteen colonies of the state. Benjamin Franklin started organising a Junto which was kind of a weekly meeting of artisans and tradesmen who were dedicated towards improving their standard of life. Franklin fashioned these meetings on the model of the coffee houses of London. His friends were also voracious readers who benfited from the writings of others. As time passed by, Franklin printed `Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania’ in 1749. In 1751, he was made the President of the Academy and Charity School of Philadelphia. In 1752, he promoted a textbook called `Elementa Philosophica’ by Samuel Johnson. It promoted a new educational curriculum In 1755, the College of Philadelphia opened. It has to be noted that about one-third of the men who had a big role to play in the creation of the Declaration of Independence were students of this College. Today, it stands as University of Pennsylvania. Benjamin Franklin’s enthusiasm for improvement of life came from the values that he learnt from his Puritan parents. He believed in profitable living. He was the son of a poor candle maker but by mid life; he became quite wealthy that led him to retire from the life of a printmaker and pursue other business interests. His studies and his discoveries in later life built such a reputation that he started to be a respected name in the Courts of Europe. The Inventor “As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this, we should do freely and generously.” – Benjamin Franklin. He was innovative by nature and has been given credit for many inventions of his. The principles of an air-conditioner and the concept of daylight savings time are credited to him. He has also invented the musical instrument, glass harmonica. It was an assortment of glass bowls of different sizes that were arranged on a rotating shaft. The shaft was spun with foot pedals. This invention became popular in USA and Europe.. Even Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven wrote compositions for the glass harmonica. It is surprising that not many composers wrote for this instrument and its popularity has waned down the ages. Franklin also invented a special kind of stove that offered more efficiency and safety in those homes that lacked central heating. Most fireplaces were quite inefficient in colonial homes as the heat they produced through burning wood escaped upwards with the chimney. The stove designed by Franklin enclosed the fire within a box of cast iron and it could be kept in the centre of the room for heating purposes. Heat was radiated from all four sides of that box and adjustments could be made to the flow of air and the rate at which the wood would burn could also be controlled. The enclosure of the flames reduced the risk of stray sparks igniting a fire within the house. Franklin was also interested in the study of electricity while doing work in his print shop. He made a public proposal to fly a kite (Leonardo da Vinci was one of the earliest inventors of flying kites) in a storm to prove that lightning was electricity in its most intense form. He took care not to get struck by the lightning and conducted his experiment in 1752. In that process, he also invented the lightning rod which would protect buildings from getting struck by lightning based on a theory that if a metal rod were attached to the top of a building and wired with a cable to the ground, the rod would attract the lightning from storm clouds and avoiding damage. He conducted these experiments in his own home and found that his theories were correct. Lightning rods were then installed in a big way in the Academy of Philadelphia and the State House. The news spread to Europe and French cathedrals showed lot of interest in this device. Benjamin Franklin received accolades as the world became exposed to his achievements. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1756 and he was one of the earliest and few Americans to be recognized in this way. He introduced these words to the English dictionary – battery, charge, positive and negative elements. He never bothered to apply for patents for most of his inventions. It sourced to his principle that inventors should be happy to benefit society with their creations and such inventions should be shared freely with others. Colonial Politics Benjamin Franklin always thought that being rebellious against tyrants is being obedient to God. As he grew up in life, Franklin showed much interest in every facet of life, ranging from science to education and from public service to politics. In the field of politics, he had acute insights and also had problem solving skills. His interest in politics provided him a base for a complicated and revolutionary turn in his career. In 1748, he was made a Councilman for the Philadelphia Government. The next year, he was made a Justice of the Peace. Two years later, he was elected to serve in the Pennsylvania Assembly. He began to defend the rights of the elected representatives as a leader in the Quaker Political Party which maintained the power of the Penn family. This Party were firmly on the side of the British and Britain had control of the land that was east of the Mississippi River. Such loyalty made him flourish as he was soon made the Deputy Post Master General of British North America. While at that post, he made sure that he improved the postal system. He noticed that during his days, the mail service was unstable. Coastal routes were the most reliable means of mail delivery because the roads that were connecting to the colonies were not in good condition. It was taking as long as a fortnight for a letter sent from New York City to Philadelphia. The postmen who were handed over these letters would take breaks at inns, taverns and coffee houses. He made a tour of all the colonial post offices. He then authorised the placement of milestones along the main roads after he surveyed the routes. He established direct routes between the colonies so that the mail would reach more efficiently. He started the weekly mail wagon that had to travel both during the day and night to improve the speed of mail delivery, particularly between New York City and Philadelphia. He organised postal rates based on weight and distance and standardised it throughout the thirteen colonies. He created a mail system with roads that ran from Maine to Florida. He served in this position till 1774. He then started to realise that there were flaws in the social and governmental structure run by the British. Corruption was spreading within political circles. Franklin the American When Benjamin Franklin started disagreeing with the British way of governance and administration, he was looked upon as a troublemaker. Franklin started realising that the colonists and the British could not exist peacefully for long. In the minds, the battle of independence had already begun. There was some bloodshed, too, at Concord and Lexington in Massachusetts State. When Franklin was elected by the Pennsylvania Assembly to the Second Continental Congress, he automatically became part of the Committee of Five who was assigned to write the Declaration of Independence in June 1776. Franklin was suffering with a case of gout during that period. The bulk of the writing responsibility fell on the shoulders of Thomas Jefferson. There was a risk that should the British stand firm, all members of this Committee were to be hanged and executed. Things worked out differently as on 4th July of 1776, USA got its independence and Franklin was among the heroes of that struggle. Later, in December of that year, Franklin was sent to France to serve as a Commissioner for the United States. He travelled with his grandson, William Temple Franklin. The French had heard about Franklin’s scientific experiments and they also welcomed his wit. Many French elite started befriending him. Franklin slowly started becoming the voice of the conscience of the New World. He said, “Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation (meaning slow elimination), if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils.” The country’s Declaration of Independence affirmed the equality of all races and cultures. The irony of this declaration was both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were themselves owner of slaves for over four decades. Franklin even became critical when some slaves ran off to join the British Army during the colonial period. The dichotomy ws that Franklin never attempted to recapture them. In those times, the loss of a slave meant almost a loss of property. He owned seven slaves, among them a husband and wife, who worked well but he decided to sell them because he did not like Negro servants. As time went on, his views on slavery evolved. He was very keen on Pennsylvania passing laws to oppose slavery. King George III refused to pass such laws and his attempt to bring an end to slavery, failed. In partnership with Father Benjamin Rush, Franklin founded the First Abolition Society in Pennsylvania. He achieved success eventually in 1787 when he was made the President of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. This was the last major issue he took part in as his health started deteriorating with gout and kidney problems. He died on 17th April 1790. His funeral was attended by over twenty thousand mourners in Philadelphia. He had written an epitaph for himself wich read, “Here lies the bosy of B. Franklin – Printer like the cover of an old book; its contents torn out and script of its lettering and gilding, food for worms. His works shall not be wholly lost for it will as per his belief appear once more in a new and more perfect edition, corrected and amended by the Author.” During his lifetime, Benjamin Franklin write, “I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live; the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men.” Before he died, Franklin was elected as the Sixth President of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania. It was a post similar to that of a Governor. It was in that capacity that he played host to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 which was held in Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin was the only Founding Father to sign all four major documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Treat of Paris, the Treaty of Alliance with the French and the United States Constitution. Franklin proposed daily prayers in Philadelphia in the Executive Council. He reminded the dekegates that when he conflict with Britain started, the leaders of the nation prayed for divine protection on a daily basis. He asked, “Have we now forgotten that Powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? If a sparrow can’t fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?” This idea was not welcome and his motion was opposed. It goes to show the Great Nation under God was already turning away from Divine help. Benjamin Franklin believed passionately in morality and virtue and felt that is was merely by conducting our lives according to principles of goodness that a man could prosper. He explained, “I never doubted in the existence of the Deity; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing of good to man; that our souls are immortal and that all crimes would be punished and virtue rewarded, either here or in the Hereafter.” He believed in ethics and not in man-made dogmas and doctrines. It was with this philosophy that he vehemently supported religious tolerance. Puritan values formed his growing ideals, early in life and he remained a powerful advocate for work, education, temperance , frugality, charity and concern for the community. From his young days, he forged his own destiny when he left Boston for Philadelphia and created a profitable career for himself as a printer and civic leader. He was probably the first American citizen who was comfortable in other environments of different countries, leaving an impact with his American identity, particularly in Europe. He always hoped that ultimately; goodness shall triumph so that all men and women who were created equal could live together in harmony and freedom. *******

Galileo Galilei - A Misunderstood Renaissance Man

No one wants to ponder about this character, nowadays. Students of world history may be coming across him in cursory class sessions. All are with the momentum of modern living. There are few who would like to stop in their tracks and ponder over such extraordinary talents from history who deserve a re-discovery. One of these remarkable lives was that of Galileo Galilei. He was born in the sixteenth century and lived into the seventeenth. He was much more than just a mathematician. He explored many interests during his lifetime, ranging from being a scientist to being a music aficionado. There was hardly any subject that he did not know about up to his time. You may call him a philosopher, an engineer, a mathematician, an astronomer or a physicist. He was a genuine Renaissance man or a polymath. He played a considerable role in the scientific revolution which was brewing during his lifetime. His discoveries and his philosophy on astronomy came under attack, later on in his life. He stirred up controversies which involved everyone. His contemporaries, scholars and close friends and the clergy all went out of their way to stifle that which he held as his truth. However, they do not matter as Galileo changed the world we live in by ways others could not. His arguments and controversies considering the problems of his age brought him to the centre stage of attraction, even if they came into conflict with the culture of those times. All his statements had to be addressed to, for they could no longer be ignored or denied. This is the main reason why his name is still mentioned, today – five hundred years later. A Representative of the Italian Renaissance As per Ralph Waldo Emerson, Galileo was great but highly misunderstood. In Europe, the Renaissance movement occurred between the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries. It was a bridge on which historical events took place, transitioning between medieval times and the Baroque age. It was into this age that Galileo Galilei was born. It was a period of a cultural movement which affected European life greatly. Before this happened, people were controlled and governed by the Catholic Church and life revolved around the doctrines and dogmas of the churches. It was also a period which brought the Black Death or the plague which was spread by rats and fleas. People died in big numbers. It is estimated that almost half of the European population was wiped off on this account. The plague did not spare even the royalty or the clergy. Everyone and everything became vulnerable to the plague. People started picking up their lives once this phase passed. In this time of revival, writers, artists, musicians, philosophers and politicians started expressing themselves with a fervour which was missing for a great while in the past in this humanist period. The works of art were now being created with intense emotion. The artists found that they had to display man and project him and his works in complete human glory. This period brought a renewal of thoughts and ideas from ancient Greeks and Romans to let people develop new ways of understanding their place in the world. Europe went through a cultural revolution. Besides Galileo, this was the age that saw the emergence of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Dante, Raphael, Shakespeare, Thomas More, the Medicis and Francis Bacon. It was the age of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I. People across Europe, particularly Russia, were commissioning artists for new buildings, churches, museums and palaces. In Italy, the movement flourished in Milan and Florence. Ideas spread like wildfire from these cities. People were now taking interest in how to read and write well and how to project their emotions and feelings and how they could put their innate talents to use. Galileo was born in 1564, a year in which William Shakespeare was also born and Michelangelo died. Early Life At the age of eighty-seven, Galileo had mentioned to his peers that he was “still learning”. Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, in the duchy of Florence, Italy on 15th February, 1564. He was the eldest of six children to his parents. Three of his siblings survived infancy. Infant mortality was quite high, in those days. His ancestors were rich in terms of wealth, culture and humanism. His father was a music composer and theorist; he played the lute. His brother also became a famous music composer during the Renaissance period in music history. Galileo showed an inclination towards experimentation and mathematics. At the age of eight, his family moved to Florence from Pisa and this shift had a big impact on his early life. He found the city culturally very impressive. He got his formal education at the Camaldolese Monastery in Vallombrosa. His father insisted on a university education to avoid the chances of Galileo choosing priesthood. Galileo had started thinking about becoming a monk but dropped the idea in his late teens. He joined the University of Pisa to study medicine. He lost his interest in medicine soon and became fascinated with natural philosophy and mathematics. While studying at Pisa, Galileo became familiar with Aristotle and his view of the world changed. He was impressed by philosophy that relied on deductive reasoning. He began to study mathematics with Filippo Fantoni who was head of the Mathematics Department at the university. He studied Archimedes and Euclid. Inherent Qualities of a Master Galileo once said, “You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.” He began teaching mathematics in Florence in 1585. Then, he moved on to Siena and found a job. He also taught at Vallombrosa. He invented a thermoscope here and this instrument was the predecessor of the thermometer. He wrote his first scientific book here, `The Little Balance’ and got it published. This treatise was all about the design of a hydrostatic balance that he had invented. Hydrostatics is actually a branch of fluid mechanics and it deals with incompressible fluids that are at rest. Galileo started studying disegno; in those days, it was a term that covered all fine arts. He was inspired by the Renaissance artists to do that. After he completed his studies, he became an instructor in the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence. He taught perspective and chiaroscuro, a technique in the field of oil paintings, which was developed during his time. This technique uses deep contrasts between dark and light and paintings often look three dimensional because of this effect. In 1589, he filled an opening in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Pisa. He stayed there for three years and wrote a series of essays that were called `De Motu’. These essays dealt with the theory of motion. One of the main ideas in these essays was that theories could be tested about falling bodies by using an inclined plane to slow down the rate of descent. During this period, his father, Vincenzo, died in 1591. The responsibility of providing for his younger sisters and a younger brother fell on him. He looked out for a higher paying university position. He shifted to University of Padua in Venezia and settled down there. He remained here for the next eighteen years. This was perhaps the happiest time of his life. He taught Euclid’s geometry mostly. During this period, he made some crucial discoveries and came across new findings in fundamental science that included kinematics of motion and astronomy along with practical applied sciences. He designed telescope here and also started studying astrology. His keen interest in mathematics led him to explore the beauty of the heavens and helped him bring light to ancient controversies. The Galilean Moons “Science would not be what it is if there had not been a Galileo… the world as we know it is the product of his genius,” said Norman Robert Campbell. Galileo was a pious Roman Catholic but with a woman named Marina Gamba; he fathered three children that were born out of wedlock. By May of 1609, Galileo developed a new series of telescopes, purely out of his mathematical skills and his passion for craftsmanship. These designs brought a new dimension to astronomical science. To increase the magnification of the lenses, Galileo learnt how to grind his lenses and the people who benefited most out of his creations were the sailors. The whole world was impressed with his innovations. Through the telescopes he made, people could look through them and see upright and magnified images on land. At the same time, they were able to see the objects in the skies, above. Galileo explored further and realised that telescopes were meant for more significant things than the concept of scanning the horizons on earth. He began turning his attention to the night sky. Galileo, the mathematician, was slowly metamorphosing into a scientist. In his famous work, `Sidereus Nuncius’, meaning the starry messenger, he started mentioning the moon not only of Earth but the four moons that were orbiting the Jupiter planet. He was the first to point out that the Earth’s moon was not at all smooth and that there were several craters to be found there, along with mountains. He started challenging the Aristotelian views that everything above the Earth was incorruptible and perfect. Galileo also became the first one to observe the line that separated the lunar day from night and named it as the terminator. He arrived at a conclusion that the darker regions of the moon were low-lying flat areas and the brighter regions were mountainous and rough. He happened to judge correctly that the mountains on the moon were about four miles high. He showed to the world that with his telescope; people could see ten times more objects in the sky than what was available to see with the naked eye. He published star charts of the Orion belt and of the Pleiades that is a small star cluster. He also reported that he had discovered four objects, when seen through the telescope he had invented, went on to form a straight line of stars near planet Jupiter. He also noted that these bodies changed their positions from January through March in 1610 in relation to Jupiter’s position, but they always remained in a straight line. The conclusion drawn was that these objects were orbiting Jupiter, which is the largest planet in the Solar System. He called these moons the Medician Stars, naming them after the four royal Medici brothers. Today, the moons of Jupiter are referred to always as Galilean moons. Some have named them individually as Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Changing the Views of the World Galileo Galilei once said, “In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.” Once Galileo’s treatise in the book `The Starry Messenger’ was published, he became a celebrity in Rome in 1611. The Collegio Romano gave great banquets in his honour and he was made a member of the Academia dei Lincei. Galileo was quite pleased with this distinction. People were fascinated with his theory about the four moons of Jupiter. He was able to establish the orbital periods for these four moons after making observations through his telescope. He struggled to make precise calculations. He was not able to identify which moon was which. In the following year, he was able to provide accurate periods of each moon cycle of Jupiter. One of his contemporaries was Johannes Kepler, a German astronomer and scientist. Kepler inspired Galileo to turn his attention to Planet Saturn. At first glance, Galileo thought that the planet looked like three bodies as his telescope was not strong enough to show the planet’s rings. They appeared to him as separate globes that were circling round. He was puzzled. He also observed through his telescope that the planet Venus showed phases like those of the Earth’s moon. He concluded that the planet may be orbiting the Sun and not the Earth. During Galileo’s days, most astronomers believed in a system that was initiated by a Danish astronomer by the name of Tycho Brahe who surmised that everything apart from the Earth and the Moon went round the Sun and the Sun orbited the Earth. Another way of looking at the heavens was the system of Nicolaus Copernicus who said that all bodies of planets orbited the Sun. Copernicus was born almost a generation before Galileo. He wrote `On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres’ and it was published in 1543, the year of his death. His theory was not backed and eventually was ignored. Galileo did not have sufficient proof to challenge the traditional opinion. He conducted experiments at the Tower of Pisa and refuted the ancient Aristotelian idea that heavier objects fell faster than the lighter ones. During his experiment, he dropped a couple of spheres of different weight and observed as they hit the ground at the same time. During those days, majority of the people in the world believed that the Earth was stationary and that it did not move. Galileo tried to prove with his `falling bodies’ theory that this was not the case. Opposition to the Church Observing the skies had been going on since time immemorial. A Greek scientist, Ptolemy, from Alexandria, Egypt in the second century after Christ had concluded that there was a geocentric theory concerning the heavens. He put forth a theory that the sun and the heavenly bodies rotated around the earth. Copernicus had mentioned that the sun was the centre of all and he developed the heliocentric system. Then, Galileo gave his observations on the planet Venus and concluded that the Ptolemaic system would have to go into the shadows. Most astronomers were slowly converting to the Copernican system when observing the heavens. In 1612, Galileo made another discovery – the planet Neptune. At first, it was a dim and unremarkable star to him. Later, he took note of the planet’s motion in relation to the stars. He published his findings in `Discourse on Floating Bodies’ which he released in the same year. In the following year, he published `Letters on the Sunspots’. Galileo started to get fascinated with the Milky Way Galaxy. Other scientists did not know what to make of it. Galileo recognised that the Milky Way was a myriad of stars that was packed together very tightly and that made them look like clouds when being observed from the Earth. Galileo was the first astronomer who could actually tell the difference between the stars and the planets. He described the stars as blazes of light and the planets as discs. He was able to approximately measure the size of stars without the help of a telescope. It has to be kept in our minds that the Vatican ran all things in Europe in the early seventeenth century. The Reformation was fast approaching and Catholic Church’s prominent figure, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, ignored Galileo and opposed his theories. Galileo’s theories struck a raw nerve of the Church and they attacked him by saying that he was attempting to reinterpret the Holy Bible. His theories contradicted what was mentioned in the Old Testament such as “this world is firmly established and that it cannot be moved.” Ecclesiastes 1:5 stated that ‘the sun rises and sets and returns to its place.” The Church called the astronomers absurd and foolish to bring forth their opposing theories. Galileo’s theories were considered controversial. In 1618, three comets came into sight. Galileo became involved in their appearance. He thought that they were close to Earth but that assumption was incorrect as that feeling was caused by optical refraction and the change in light waves as a result of a change in their transmission. As Galileo started arguing, he started antagonising the Jesuits. Galileo’s stand was publicised by Father Grassi in a pamphlet called `Discourse on the Comets: An Astronomical Disputation on the Three Comets of the Year 1618’. These events led to Galileo publishing his next work, `The Assayer’ in which he kept on stating against Father Grassi. As his arguments did not create an impact in the society, he decided that he would stay away from further controversies. During this period, his health declined. The Trial of Galileo Galilei In 1624, Galileo wrote a book, `Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems’. He published it in Florence. In that, he mentioned, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” In the 1630s, Galileo Galilei was busy facing the wrath of the powers that were, in Rome. He was ostracised for trying to stay on the side of what he knew to be correct thinking about the cosmos. Johannes Kepler had also called the tides theory of Galileo as false. Plenty of negative opinion spread about Galileo after his publication of `Dialogue’. Pope Urban got outraged at one point and summoned Galileo to stand trial in Rome. This Inquisition eventually banned the sale of his book. He was being tried for advocating a new world view concerning helio-centrism. To make matters worse, Galileo had turned seventy and was not keeping good health. The proceedings of his trial were conducted by the Congregation of the Holy Office which went on to be called the Roman Inquisition. Ten cardinals, who were appointed by the Pope, presided over the trial. It was their task to safeguard the Catholic dogma and to prevent any attacks against it. During the trial, Galileo was not put in prison but was allowed to stay in the Villa Medici, at the Tuscan Ambassador’s residence in Rome. The trial was completed on 10th July in 1633. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine came to the rescue of Galileo. The trial ordered Galileo to be punished by praying the seven penitential Psalms – 6, 32, 38, 51,102,130 and 143. The other punishment he got was by nature when his eldest daughter who was only thirty-three years of age, died. Galileo did not resume work for many many months. When Galileo started to write again, he started on a project that was known as `Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning the Two New Sciences’. This project that eventually turned into a book was one of his finest works. This work was actually published in the Netherlands. After the publication of this work, many scholars held an opinion that Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo did not solve old problems but they asked new questions; and in doing so, they changed the whole basis on which the old questions had been framed. The two new sciences that Galileo wrote on were the strength of materials and kinematics. He also wrote on the subject of impetus and the centre of gravity. Einstein referred to Galileo as the `father of modern physics’. In 1638, Galileo started suffering from insomnia and hernia. He went to Florence to take medical advice. He also started suffering from heavy palpitation. At the age of seventy-seven, Galileo died in January 1642. The Grand Duke of Tuscany wanted Galileo to be buried in the Basilica of Santa Croce but Pope Urban reminded him that Galileo was condemned by the Catholic Church for heresy. So, Galileo was buried in Novices’ Chapel. The Inquisition’s ban on the reprinting of Galileo’s works was eventually lifted in 1718 and his books got published in Florence. In 1939, Pope Pius XII described Galileo as among the audacious heroes of research’. In October 1992, Pope John Paul II expressed deep regret for how Galileo was treated during his life and in the last three centuries. He acknowledged the errors that were committed by the Catholic Church tribunal that had judged the scientific positions which were held by Galileo. He blamed the Pontifical Council for Culture. The Legacy of Galileo Galileo once wrote, “I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.” Whether people and scientists acknowledge it or not, Galileo Galilei was one of the most important founders of modern science. Galileo could be described as being among an esteemed group of scientists who could not live comfortably in the status quo; a group that included Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Christiaan Huygens and Isaac Newton. Among all these mentioned here, Galileo deserves a place above all others. Stephen Hawking also acknowledged that Galileo carries more responsibility than anyone else in science and Einstein called him the father of modern science. Not to be underestimated is the very fact that Galileo was the one who invented the telescope in 1609. He had the uncanny ability to turn his eyes to the night sky and see things that other found it difficult to observe. His observations were formulated carefully and with passage of time; most of his theories have been proven correct. Most of the theories that have been established are mostly the work and thinking of Galileo. He could see through his telescope that what had been followed as gospel truth by the Church for centuries was not true when we looked at the heavens, above. He tried to tell the world in his book `Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems’, he was charged with heresy and had to go through a trial. Unfortunately, it would take centuries for the Catholic Church and the world to come to its senses. It was Pope John Paul II who brought the reality out and rehabilitated Galileo between 1979 and 1992. He made it possible for people to think that it was Galileo who made it possible for the world to think for itself. Galileo’s voice became one for individual freedom. He was an extra-ordinary personality who lived in the age of the Renaissance. He had the guts to speak the truth no matter what people thought of him or what the consequences would be when he spoke or wrote. Despite his trial and condemnation by the Catholic Church, Galileo has remained a fascinating person. He was a genius in his scientific findings and contributed much to the study of astronomy. He brought the distinction between astrology and astronomy. He understood that the Earth moved and always maintained his philosophy to the chagrin of the Church and the powers to be of that age. He became aware that the Earth was not the centre of the universe as the Church had been preaching for centuries. He continued to stand up for his belief even in the face of imprisonment and death. He stands exonerated today. Galileo correctly identified the four moons of Jupiter – Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto. When NASA sent a space mission to Jupiter in 1990, they called it `Galileo’ in honour of this great scientist.

Charles Spencer Chaplin: A Profile

When you think of a tramp or comedy in either silent or talkie films, you think of Charlie Chaplin. He portrayed the homeless hobo to perfection. You could see him lining up in the soup kitchens of the Great Depression period. The whole world was going through an economic meltdown while Chaplin was busy making the term destitute an actual term of endearment. One of the easily recognisable scenes from this period is Chaplin boiling his shoes to eat them. That was a move which made people of those times identify with him and relate to him. People got encouraged to see a poor character that is broke with his pockets turned out, sitting in gutters as the rain poured down; yet being happy. They felt that they could also get through those hard times. The comedy dished out by Chaplin could never be termed either goofy or slapstick. It was portrayal of life in its dark and stark reality and in terms of great adversity. There was not a Chaplin film that was ignored by people. One of the famous quotes of Chaplin goes like this – “A man’s true character comes out when he’s drunk.” Chaplin’s early life was a troubled one. He was born in a poor section of South London. His father ws Charles Chaplin Sr. While his mother was Hannah Chaplin. He was born on 16th April 1889. His father was a singer and his mother was an actress and a dancer. She danced in British musical halls of those times. By the time Chaplin was a toddler, his parents were already estranged. At the age of seven, he was sent to Lambeth Workhouse to take care of payments of some of the family’s debts. His early experiences in life brought out the enactment of the `tramp’ in him in later life. His father passed away with cirrhosis of liver when Chaplin was nine. Later in life, Chaplin said, “To laugh truly, you should be able to take your pain and play with it.” From a young age, Charles Chaplin Jr. Always found the time to follow in the footsteps of his parents; by being a performer on the stage. At the age of nine, he was recruited to become a member of a dancing troupe. He was picking up well as a tap dancer and made his mark by practicing his routines many times during a day. His commitment and hard work helped him to earn money to live by. At thirteen years of age, he was self-sufficient. At the age of fourteen, he played his first acting part on stage as local newspaper boy in `Romance of Cockayne’. It turned out to be a big break for him. He was appreciated for his ability to play a comedy character. He was being noticed as a bright child actor. He also played Billie, the pageboy in Sherlock Holmes dramas. At seventeen, he joined the circus. It was called `Casey’s Circus’ as a dancer. He reached the New World, travelling with this circus troupe. When Chaplin visited the United States of America, Vaudeville was at the peak of its glory. Dancers and singers entertained local communities with their skills and they were in demand. Chaplin was fortunate to do his shows at the Colonial Theatre in New York City. He got good reviews for his acts. He became famous with the role of a drunkard because of its slapstick humour. He spent two years doing such shows. He went back to England in June 1912 and had to face days of depression, once again. Luckily, he did not have to wait for long as he got a chance to go back to New York City in the month of October, that same year. During this visit, he was introduced to the film business with New York City Motion Picture Company. He got a break after that with Keystone Picture Studios and worked out a contract of $150 a week. This meant that Chaplin would not have to struggle, ever again. He began playing the penniless tramp to perfection. He ventured out the next year, in December 2013, to the Western Coast and arrived in Los Angeles. He used the moustache to look a little older. He enjoyed playing that and the drunken clown. He directed a film in 1914 and it was called `Caught in the Rain’. He gets mixed up in a lover’s quarrel and did plenty of slapstick. It was a success. Keystone then depended on him to direct most of his films from then on. One of the greatest compliments Chaplin got in his life was from Walt Disney who said that it was the template of Chaplin’s tramp on which the Mickey Mouse cartoon character got inspiration from. The features of Chaplin’s tramp were everywhere. In the year 1917, Chaplin became a worldwide phenomenon. His films were being played in every country. The First World War was thinning down after the heating up in 1916. USA entered the war in April 1917. Chaplin refused to join the war effort. He hated wars. In 1918, Chaplin made an innovative film that was called `A Dog’s Life’. This ilm opens with the familiar figure of the penniless tramp entering the screen, hungry and desperate, looking for where the next meal would come from. He is followed by a dog whose name is Scraps. This dog is rescued by Chaplin from a dog fight. The dog and the tramp do everything together; they work, look for food and even look for women in tandem. Edna Purviance and his brother Sidney also make their appearance in this film. The timing of Chaplin’s comedy was brilliant in this film. It was hailed as a total work of art by the film critics. Married Life Mildred Harris became Chaplin’s first wife. She was a child star and made her debut when she was only eleven years old. She met Chaplin in 1918 and they dated each other. At first, Chaplin was not serious. When he came to know that she was pregnant with his child, he became concerned and consented to marriage. He did not want a scandal to escalate at this point in his life. The marriage was actually out of fear; not love. There was a miscarriage and the child was lost. He had an unhappy marriage which ended the following year with a settlement from Chaplin’s estate. His unhappy days led to the making of the film, `The Kid’ which turned out to be a masterpiece. It touched upon loss and sadness and the world came to know that Chaplin can even make people cry besides making them laugh. From this moment in his life, all Chaplin’s creations started touching the hearts of people and engaging their minds. When `The Kid’ was released, it became a blockbuster hit, internationally. Chaplin turned into a wealthy man on its account. Thousands of fans flocked to meet him when he stepped out on the streets of England. His next work was a romantic film called `A Woman of Paris’. He decided not to act in this film and allowed his protégé, Edna Purviance to hog the limelight by merely directing. In the field of direction, Chaplin was moving way ahead of his time. The film did not do well as the audience was not ready to see a film without Chaplin in it and a plot that requires thinking and complexity. He had to return to comedy after that. He did it in a big way by making `The Gold Rush’ in 1925. He was inspired by the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. It cost him one million dollars to make as a result of multiple shooting locations, special effects and costly set material. He used over six hundred people to make the movie. It turned out to be an iconic epic. Chaplin portrayed a powerful role in this film. Marriage to avoid a Scandal In the nineteen twenties, Chaplin got involved with a sixteen-year old Lita Grey and got her pregnant. He was thirty-six at that time. In an act of panic, he married her. They went away to Mexico and got married in November 1924. She gave birth to Chaplin’s first child; a son named Spencer. Charlie Chaplin began to resent his wife after few months and spent most of his time in studios, away from her. In time, they had one more child together and the second son was Sydney Earl Chaplin. The audiences did not like the way Chaplin was treating his wife and it translated into box office earnings that fell. Chaplin divorced Lita Grey in August 1927 and went back to his work. A film out of these dark days was `Circus’. It got good reviews. He picked up his first Oscar in 1928. The Advent of Talkies Chaplin lost his balance as an actor with the introduction of the talkies. He was used to the silent films shooting and editing. He felt that movies were better with just background music and no sound dubbing. He was also nervous about the tramp character getting ruined if he started lending voice to his comic and wild gestures on film. He continued working on silent films and passed up on the spoken dialogue. His major film during these times was `City Lights’. In this plot, his character falls in love with a blind girl he meets at a street corner, where she sells flowers. He earns money to pay for her eye operation that would restore her vision. It took Chaplin a couple of years to complete the filming. The final edit was completed in December 1930 and the film was released in early 1931. It earned high praise from the critics and people started saying things like no one except Chaplin could have made such a film. The film had instant audience appeal. Chaplin’s fans were quite satisfied watching films without dialogues. In those days, the film earned Chaplin a huge sum of three million dollars. It was a big crowning achievement for him. After this film, Chaplin took a sabbatical for almost a year and a half from films. During this time, he came across a young actress, Paulette Goddard. He knew that she was going to be a star and he saw to it that she became one. He cast her as his co-star in `Modern Times’ in 1936. This film was a masterpiece – a satire of modern industrialised society. The film’s setting is the Great Depression. It highlights the struggle between workers who go on a strike and the factory owners; all this happens in a comic fashion. Industry is projected as a juggernaut which is ready to replace humanity. Isn’t that is what is happening today with artificial intelligence and its rise and control over human minds? Chaplin himself scored the music for this film. There is a satirical song that is made up of incoherent gibberish. Socialist Mind Not many people are aware that Chaplin had socialist leanings. He said, “To those who can hear me, I say – do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed – the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die; liberty will never perish.” Chaplin penned `The Dictator’ and inserted this quote of his in that film. It was a mocking satire of Hitler and the Nazis. He began filming this epic film just six days after Britain issued a formal declaration of war against Germany. It was pretty controversial for Chaplin to make a film of this kind. He had also received a warning from his peers. If left to others, this film would never have seen the light of day. He had sufficient money to pull it off on a private basis. He wanted to make sure that Hitler would be laughed at. The film covered serious stuff and the ending was almost like a public service announcement. Chaplin looks right into the camera and addresses the audience as to why war is abominable and fascism had to be stopped. What was the result? Chaplin’s fame and star began to fade considerably. Taking exile from the United States of America Chaplin was outspoken with his `Great Dictator’ and `Modern Times’. He used to tell people in his inner circle, “Greed has poisoned men’s souls and it has barricaded the world with hate ... machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity; more than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.” By the middle of nineteen forties, his film career declined and Chaplin started going through a hard time, coping with his popularity that was on a wane. J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation began tracking every move of Chaplin but in vain; they could not find any dirt on him. In frustration, Hoover began a wicked smear campaign which was aimed at wrecking the public image of the star director. Chaplin came into the negative limelight by his open support of Russian War Relief. This kind of support was unacceptable in U.S. politics scene. It helped cast suspicion on to Chaplin’s motivation to help Russia. His detractors became worried that with his massive appeal; he would be able to reach the undesirables with his kind of socialist propaganda. FBI did their best to take Chaplin’s public persona down to reduce his influence on the world stage. Westbrook Pegler, hired by Hoover, started printing one story after another about Chaplin to make him unpopular. He was shown out as an ardent supporter of Russian communism and made out as a villain who hated American values. His divorce was portrayed as one that went against family values. By dumping his wife, he was made to look as if he was dumping America itself. To make matters worse, after few months, an alleged former lover of his came forward to file a paternity suit. Chaplin was vindicated from these vicious claims as blood tests proved that he was not the father. Public opinion did much damage to the reputation of Charles Spencer Chaplin in USA. In the name of national security, the FBI screwed up his life and image. Poor Chaplin had not even joined the communist party but was officially maligned as a traitor and communist. Chaplin did not take such kind of attacks, lying down. He turned the press conferences into circuses when he mentioned to the reporters, “Proceed with the butchery! Fire on at this old gray head!” During this phase, Chaplin managed to find happiness and love when he met an actress, Oona O’Neil. She stayed by his side till the day he died. She began worshipping him. Oona became his real friend and his comfort and saving grace. In 1951, Chaplin made `Limelight’, which, in my opinion, is his finest film. He gave the music for this film and it was magical. A brilliant score! The FBI did its best to ban this movie. This spelt his self-imposed exile from the United States of America. He would not set foot on American soil till 1972. By this time, the media’s desire in this country to malign Chaplin had grown cold and to a degree; the `little tramp’ was forgotten and forgiven. Chaplin was next seen when receiving the Special Academy Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oscars. Standing next to the host Jack Lemmon, Chaplin looked like a fragile image of his former self. Chaplin was tormented by J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and he could care less of the public sentiment. He was not expecting to be received in this country with open arms; yet, he got a deafening standing ovation for a long time. The audience finally acknowledged his work with a big `Thank You’. If I am not mistaken, the applause set a record for the longest standing ovation that anyone had received on that stage since the inception in 1933. Later that year, Chaplin suffered a major stroke and had to spend most of his time on a wheelchair. He found it difficult to speak even; with his voice slurring. He still managed to release an illustrated biography called `my Life in Pictures’ in 1974. He rescored an old film, `A Woman of Paris’. He also featured in a documentary called `The Gentleman Tramp’, which was aired in 1975. In that year, he received knighthood by Queen Elizabeth, on a wheelchair. Subsequently, his health started to fade and he died on Christmas Day in 1977.

Henri Matisse - Master of Impressionist Art

“What I dream of is an art of balance, purity, and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter... a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.” - Henri Matisse Henri Matisse was born in Le Cateau-Cambresis, Nord, France. He grew up in Bohain-en-Vermandois, Picardy, France, where his parents owned a flower business; he was their first son. In 1887, he went to Paris to study law, working as a court administrator in Le Cateau-Cambrésis after gaining his qualification. He first began painting in 1889, after his mother brought him art supplies during a period of convalescence following an attack of appendicitis. He discovered "a kind of paradise" as he later described it, and decided to become an artist. In 1891, he returned to Paris to study art at the Académie Julian and became a student of William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Gustave Moreau. Initially, he painted still-lives and landscapes in a traditional style proficiently. Matisse was influenced by the works of earlier masters such as Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Nicolas Poussin and Antoine Watteau and Edouard Manet. Chardin was one of Matisse's most admired painters; as an art student, he made copies of four Chardin paintings in the Louvre. He emerged as a Post-Impressionist and achieved prominence as the leader of the French movement Fauvism. He preferred to use color as the foundation for expressive and decorative paintings. He became famous for his original use of colour. He had skills as a draughtsman and a printmaker. He went on also to become a sculptor but was known essentially as a painter. He defined revolutionary developments in the visual arts during the first couple of decades of the twentieth century along with Pablo Picasso. His work between 1900 and 1905 brought him recognition as the `wild one’ or one of the `Fauves’. He developed a style that was rigorous; one which emphasized decorative patterns and flattened forms. He started living in Nice on the French Riviera from 1917 and adopted a more relaxed style of work up to the nineteen twenties. He upheld the classical tradition in French painting style. After 1930, he continued with a simplification of form. Ill health in later years prevented him from painting and he started to do work in the medium of cut paper collage. Matisse has left his stamp through his expressive use of drawing and colour and is an important figure in the history of modern art. He is recognised for his original and fluid draughtsman ship. He was also a fine sculptor and printmaker although he is considered mainly as a painter. Along with Marcel Duchamp and Pablo Picasso, he has helped shape the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts during the initial decades of the twentieth century. Several of his paintings during the last decade of the nineteenth century use a `divisionist’ technique which he adopted after reading Eugene Delacroix and Neo-Impressionism, a work by Paul Signac. His work as a sculptor started with a copy after Antoine-Louis Barye in 1899. He devoted his energy later to working with clay when he completed `The Slave’ in 1903. His solo exhibition was in 1904 at the Ambroise Vollard Gallery. He did not achieve much success. In 1904, he spent a summer painting in St. Tropez with Neo-Impressionists Henri Edmond Cross and Paul Signac. His important works from this period are `Luxe’ and `Calme et Volupte’. He also worked with Andre Derain at Collioure. He laid an emphasis on controlled lines and flat shapes. In 1905, there was an exhibition held by Matisse and a group of artists known as `Fauves’ at the Salon d'Automne. The paintings expressed emotion with wild and dissonant colours, often without regard for the natural colours of the subject. Matisse showed `Open Window’ and `Woman with the Hat’. Critic Louis Vauxcelles described the work with the phrase `Donatello au milieu des fauves!’ (Donatello among the wild beasts); he was referring to a Renaissance-type sculpture that existed in the same room. His comment was printed on 17th October 1905 in `Gil Blas’, a daily. The exhibition drew harsh criticism from some - "A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public", said the critic Camille Mauclair but it also attracted some favorable attention. When the painting that was singled out for special condemnation, Matisse's `Woman with a Hat’, was bought by Gertrude and Leo Stein, the nervous artist’s morale improved considerably. Matisse once wrote, “if my story were to be written truthfully from beginning to end, it would amaze everyone.” He developed a long association with Sergei Shchukin, a Russian art collector. His major work, `La Danse’ (1909), was done especially for Shchukin. It was part of a double painting commission. The other work was `Music’ (1910). These works could be seen now in the collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Henri Matisse died of a cardiac arrest in 1954, at the age of eighty-four. He is buried in the cemetery of Monastere Notre Dame de Cimiez. It is near Nice. The impact of Matisse on Fauvism is no less than that of William Shakespeare on English literature and Sigmund Freud on psychology. American abstract artists such as Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock were influenced by him in making the colour responsible for structural configurations. Their works showcased this kind of style. Matisse has had a great impact on artists of late twentieth century who defined a pictorial language clearly with colours and arabesque lines instead of making a painting look like a means to an end.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – The Prodigy of Prodigies

There is a whole spectrum of classical music composers throughout history who have left a deep impact on the fine art of music. Before Mozart, it was Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Haendel, Antonio Vivaldi and Tomaso Albinoni. These were household names. After the birth of Mozart in 1756 in Salzburg Austria, this was one composer who usurped the throne of music from all his predecessors as the never-ending fountain of music, all in the short life span of thirty-four years. His childhood was an exciting one as a child prodigy. From an early age, he had an ambitious thirst for recognition which drove him to the distant courts of Europe from Salzburg, Austria in search of fame and wealth. His family struggled financially in his early years when he was compelled to become a child performer. It was observed that he became an eccentric at an early age. He was a slender and non-descript boy but a soft-spoken musician who had a mischievous glint in his eye. He was liable at any moment to crack a dirty joke or play a prank. All said and done, the compositions he created in his short life were sublime and divinely inspired works of extreme sophistication. He defined an entire age of music history and inspired music composers who followed him. Nearly every opera he wrote premiered to popular and critical acclaim. He also won a vast variety of audiences as a skilled performer on the harpsichord and later, the clavier or the pianoforte. All this was possible because of his prodigious talents. Bulk of his career was spent in the concert halls of Vienna, playing solo concerts of his own planning. His sister was also a talented performer and his father was a skilled musician. The Mozart family was well exposed to European nobility as a result of their extensive travel. This experience allowed his music to become universally acknowledged. His voluminous output includes some of the most sophisticated and complex works of music in the entire history of music. His father, Leopold Mozart, had considerable musical skills. He made a moderate living as a composer and a teacher. He was also a violinist in the court of the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg. He was eventually made the Kapellmeister. He wrote an educational textbook on violin playing which sold successfully. He taught his children several languages along with academic subjects and rounded off their education, giving special time to their prodigious musical talents. Wolfgang, from his childhood, was able to recreate effortlessly musical pieces that he had been taught. He was not only striking the correct chords but he was doing that delicately and with precision. By the age of four, he was able to compose pieces which were approved by his father. His first ever compositions have survived in the form of Nannerl Notenbuch. They were hardly a couple of minutes’ long but they projected a fine understanding of musical composition and theory. They are very significant because a toddler has written them. He took u violin practice at that age and began transcribing new compositions of his own. When his father observed how keenly Wolfgang focused on music, he gave up composing himself and began to focus on teaching his children. Wolfgang suffered serious health scare when he was touring Vienna at the age of seven as he had contracted small pox. He was lucky to survive during that harsh outbreak. He started writing larger music opuses and when he was fourteen; he wrote his first opera - `Mitridate, re di Ponto’. No one has written a full opera at that age. At that age, Mozart had realized that he possessed superior and extraordinary talent. The opera received moderate success. He received commissions to write other operas. The works that followed were Ascanio en Alba and Lucio Silla. Archduke Ferdinand was impressed with these operas when he attended their premieres. He was the Governor of Milan at that time. Wolfgang was appointed court musician at Salzburg to Prince Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo. He had no respect for this Archbishop. During this tenure, he wrote several violin concerti. Then, he started writing many piano concerti. Mozart was not satisfied with his pay at the court. He wrote a new opera, La Finta Giardiniera. He wrote his thirteenth opera in 1781, `Idomeneo, re di Creta’. It was performed in Munich and was received successfully. Mozart had always told the world that music written should never be painful to the ear. After leaving the court at Salzburg, Mozart found work in Vienna and achieved success. He started living in a degree of relative comfort. He performed tours as a pianist and a famous tour involved a competition with Muzio Clementi. At the end of that tour, Mozart was hailed as the finest keyboard player in Vienna. He also received regular commissions to compose. In 1782, at the age of 25, he wrote his opera `Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail’. It was among his biggest critical successes and was performed widely all over Europe. During this time, Mozart started a love affair with Aloysia Weber and she had become a famous singer. She ditched him later and married an actor by the name of Joseph Lange. Mozart then turned his attention on her younger sister, Constanze. She became his wife and remained so until his death nine years later. They had six children in these nine years and only two of them survived infancy. With the help of the patronage of Gottfried van Swieten, a Viennese government official, Mozart had access to volumes of scores of Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Frideric Haendel. These studies had a big influence on many of Mozart’s later works as there was a shift in his work to a more Baroque style of writing. The influence is marked in his finest opera, Die Zauberflote, the Mass in C Minor and his last Jupiter symphony # 41. Mozart met Franz Joseph Haydn in the early part of 1784. The two formed a good friendship and collaborated frequently. They often played together in string quartet ensembles. Not many people are aware that Mozart wrote six string quartets that were dedicated to Haydn. Both composers drew inspiration from each other and this is what Haydn had to say about him, “I tell you before God and as an honest man that Mozart is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute; he has taste and what is more, the greatest skill in composition.” We can understand the evolution of the musical style of Mozart by reading one of his diary entries, “It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art comes easy to me. I assure the world that I give much care to the study of composition. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied.” At his most productive, Mozart in 1785, wrote three new clavier concerti in a season. The success of his concerts and composition commissions afforded his family a degree of wealth that they had not experienced until then. However, the money was spent foolishly and frivolously in this period of financial excess. They moved into a lavish apartment in central Vienna with an annual rent of four hundred florins and their eldest son, Karl Thomas, was sent to an elite boarding school. The family kept several full-time servants. With this extravagant lifestyle, they were not able to save much and this would prove to be serious mistakes made by Mozart. In 1784, he became a Freemason and the institution became important for him for the remainder of his life. He started moving around in Freemasonry circles and attended the lodge meetings regularly. He wrote several compositions for the Masonic Lodge. The most famous piece is a funeral march he composed on the occasion of the death of his Masonic brothers. In 1785, Mozart shifted his focus to operas and wrote The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi fan Tutte. The public reception to these operas was positive, despite the audience finding some parts of the operas complex to follow. He lost his father this year before the premiere of Don Giovanni. The news of his father’s death affected him profoundly. Mozart sought an appointment as Emperor Joseph II’s chamber composer. It gave him an annual income of eight hundred florins. He had to write dances for the annual balls and galas at Hofburg Palace. Mozart and Haydn stand as archetypes of the Classical style in music. It has to be remembered that Mozart began composition of very intricate pieces in an era when the popular genre was `style galant’. This style was a reaction to the Baroque period style. Music in that age was embellished and defined by ornamentation or complicated measures inserted throughout a piece of music. Popular musical forms included cantatas and sonatas. Baroque music was also defined by its seriousness. Many consider it unpleasant to listen to. Style galant depended on its being light-hearted and its vast range of appeal. Mozart’s prodigious bloodline and his worldly education allowed him to evolve into one of the classical masters in history. Once in his diary, he wrote, “Show the whole world that you are not afraid; be silent, if you choose but when it is necessary – speak in such a way that people will remember it.” People forget that behind the beauty of the creations of Mozart, there was a man full of pain who was at the mercy of same joys and sorrows as any other human. As far as his physical appearance went, he was rather averagely built and gave no indication about the genius that lay within him. His hair was light. He was not tall but had large, expressive eyes. His face was scarred and pitted due to a bout of smallpox that he had as a child when he was eleven. He was soft-spoken but mischievous and with a good sense of humour. While at work in the court, he had a reputation of being a practical jokester. He was deeply fond of scatological or toilet humour. Mozart had a keen interest in the fashion of his day in terms of clothes. He had an extravagant wardrobe of fashionable clothes. His hobbies included dancing and billiards. For a while, he got interested in fencing. He had a special fondness for animals and kept multiple pets at home. He had a dog, a horse and different kinds of birds. Concerning his work ethics, he always composed several drafts before he settled on a final product. He wrote once in his diary on why he wrote simple and recognizable tunes, “The golden mean, the truth, is no longer recognized or valued. To win applause, one must write stuff so simple that a coachman might sing it, or so incomprehensible that it pleases simply because no sensible man can comprehend it.” As the 1780s were drawing to a close, the financial situation of the Mozart family was worsening. He produced his final three symphonies in such a situation. In 1789, he wrote an opera, Cosi fan Tutte. In 1791, in the months leading up to his death, h wrote the liturgical motet Ave Verum Corpus and Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute) and his incomplete Requiem. In September 1791, Mozart fell seriously ill while attending the premiere of his opera, `La Clemenza di Tito’ in Prague. By November, he was bedridden. He used to suffer with considerable physical pain along with swelling and bouts of vomiting. He was suffering with uremia and kidney disease. In his last days, Mozart was looked after by his wife and his sister and his family physician. Even with his suffering, he tried his level best to complete his Requiem. He died on 5th December, 1791. It is pure myth that Antonio Salieri poisoned him out of jealousy. That was not the case! However, it is true that Mozart had premonitions about his death a month before he passed away. The parish register records registering his death stated kidney disease and swelling, suggesting a compromised immune system. Mozart had become a living legend in his own lifetime; he is the prime example of being a Prodigy of Prodigies! Ludwig van Beethoven, despite Haydn being his tutor, besides admiring Haydn hailed Mozart once in his diary and wrote, “I have always reckoned myself among the greatest admirers of Mozart and shall do so till the day of my death.” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart summed up every important trait of the Classical musical style. His approach to music composition and his innovative style of writing influenced all his successors for a long, long time. There was a stage play by an English playwright, Peter Shaffer, called `Amadeus’. It was turned into an important film by Milos Forman. Though the film depicted many scenes surrounding the life of Mozart effectively, I am not one of the followers of the theory of Antonio Salieri poisoning Mozart out of envy and I did not like Tom Hulce portraying Mozart as a naughty buffoon. To summarise, the unique childhood of this composer contributed very strongly to his musical style and the influence he commanded. He mixed around with several musicians and artists from the European continent. Many of them had well-situated social connections and court appointments, while others challenged his methods of writing and exposed him to new styles and genres for creating music. Mozart died a premature death at the age of thirty-five, cutting short a productive period in his career as a music composer and leaving his Requiem unfinished. One thing is certain; that after his death, he was admired and recognized throughout the world. His legacy will live on in every new wave of musical transition.

The Art Story of John Constable

He was an English painter. He was born on 11th June 1776 in East Bergholt, Suffolk, England and died on 31st March 1837 in London. He revolutionised landscape painting of the nineteenth century along with J.M.W. Turner. His paintings had a far reaching impact on European art, especially in France. He turned away from the idealised landscapes that were an expected norm during his times and preferred realistic depiction of the natural world around him through a close and keen observation. He is remembered for his pastoral images, in and around Stour Valley. He is also remembered for his portraits that are more than hundred in number. He has left behind a large number of preparatory sketches that were often completed in oil. He experimented in these sketches with a free style of representation which allowed him to capture the effects of elementary changes in the countryside quite spontaneously, which he was able to transfer to the finished works. At close observation, his sketches are actually impressionistic, carrying less detail than his display canvases. The bottom line is that he managed to depict the scenery, which he captured in a realistic manner. Constable said, “Landscape is my mistress, ‘tis to her that I look for fame and all that the warmth of the imagination renders dear to Man.” Constable used colour more than what his contemporaries did. He wanted to reflect the hues that he would find in nature. He is recognized for his addition of pure white highlights that represented the sparkle of light on water. Constable was always fascinated by the changing patterns of clouds and light and he wanted to capture these moments in his oil sketches. He worked with loose and large brushstrokes to represent an overall sense of what he actually observed and experienced. His work can actually be described as a precursor to the Impressionist art that followed three decades later. He abandoned the conservative and invisible brushstrokes that were expected in Academic art of that period. He decided to apply paint in a large range of ways that included even a palette knife to give his canvases an imperfect and textured finish that went on to boost their realism. Dedham Vale (1802) is one of Constable’s first major paintings. He was only twenty-six when he created it. This painting illustrates his commitment to his keen powers of observation of nature by the details rendered of the sky and the trees. Your eye is led through the painting from the foreground along the river route to the distant town of Dedham Church, which forms a focal point for this work. The trees on both sides of the canvas form a central focus of this image. These experiences may have formed a crucial part of Constable’s childhood. He made another painting in 1828, twenty-six years later and called it `The Vale of Dedham’. He included few figures in that painting. He made another masterpiece in 1821 - `The Hay Wain’. This is perhaps his most celebrated work. River Stour is depicted in it as it divides the counties of Essex and Suffolk. The cottage of Willy Lott stands to the left. The cart is standing in a small pond. The image displays serenity by means of the colour palette. The blue of the sky is reflected in the tones of the water. The terracotta of the house is reflected in the harness of the horse. The green of the vegetation in the meadow also stands out. Hay Wain is glorifying nature without much exaggeration. Another noteworthy masterwork of Constable is his `Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows’ of 1837. This is the last of his large six-foot canvases and he considered it as his finest work. The sky is depicted as a violent one and the rainbow adds to the drama. He used the rainbow effectively in another great work of his - `The Stonehenge’ of 1835. It is a symbol of hope in the Romantic Movement for painters. Constable wrote, “Nature, in all the varied aspects of her beauty, exhibits no other feature lovelier nor any that awakens a more soothing reflection than the rainbow.” The rainbow helps in heightening the drama in the blustery sky. Constable is known for realistic depictions of the natural world. He rejected the styles that were contemporary in his days for landscapes, stating that “the vices of the present day are bravura; it is an attempt to do something beyond the truth.” He created his own distinct style of representation that was based on transferring what he saw amidst nature as truthfully as possible to a canvas.

Zubin Mehta A Musical Journey [Source Extracts: Bakhtiar. K. Dadabhoy]

This bio sketch covers almost six decades of the Maestro’s life. Not many people are aware of a unique achievement of Zubin and that was to conduct two principal orchestras in North America simultaneously (in Montreal and Los Angeles). He was also the youngest conductor in history to be featured on the cover of `Time’ magazine. He was just thirty-one then. He has been conducting since 1961 and it is now sixty-one years he has been on the podium. His health has been indifferent since the past couple of years and now he is unable to conduct while standing. He has to sit in a chair and conduct like Klemperer and Celibidache. The only conductor who in his nineties is still active on his feet is Blomstedt. Zubin Mehta has had the privilege of working with distinguished artistes and orchestras in his long career. He had a long standing relationship as Music Director for Life with Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, right from 1969 until a couple of years ago, when he retired from that position. The baton that is held by a modern conductor has been credited largely to Ludwig Spohr who was a violinist and a conductor. He had initially used the violin bow and then shifted to holding a roll of stiff paper for keeping time. Eventually, he introduced the modern baton in 1817 in Hamburg. The cult of a virtuoso conductor was, at first, viewed with suspicion; but now, it is there to stay. The conductor, particularly a model such as Wilhelm Furtwangler, has emerged as a person who interprets the whole orchestral music completely and controls all individual skills of his ensemble. Music notation is an inexact art and instructions on a music score are subject to different interpretations. Leonard Bernstein said, “A conductor is a sculptor whose element is time rather than marble; and while sculpting, he has to have a superior sense of both relationship and proportion.” All teachers in the art of conducting feel that a good conductor will have a proper blend of knowing how much to prod and when to leave the members alone. The founder of modern conducting was the Hungarian Artur Nikisch. Zubin Mehta studied under Hans Swarowsky in Vienna and made his debut in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1961. He also took training as a contrabassist. He has retained his Indian passport while holding a dual citizenship of the United States of America. He was born in Bombay, India on 29th April 1936. This also happened to be the day Arturo Toscanini conducted his last performance with New York Philharmonic Orchestra. He was originally being groomed for the medical profession. His father, Mehli Mehta was an amateur musician, violinist and conductor but professionally, he was an accountant. It was his father who honed Zubin’s talent and his mother, Tehmina, who gave him encouragement to leave Medicine as vocation and take up music studies. He studied at Campion School in Bombay, India as well as St. Mary’s at Mazagaon in Bombay. `Zubin’ in Gujarati means a powerful sword. Zubin shares his birthday – 29th April with two great English conductors, Thomas Beecham and Malcolm Sargent. Young Days The Parsis in India embraced Western Classical music more than they did Indian Classical music. In 1922, J.B. Petit, a Parsi philanthropist, funded the first symphony orchestra in Bombay and a chamber orchestra at the same time. Most of the initial musicians were Goans and the audiences were, of course, mostly Parsis. In the 1940s, a prominent lawyer of India, Nani Palkhivala played violin in the Bombay Symphony Orchestra that was directed by Mehli Mehta. He taught himself the art of playing the violin. In 1935, when Anna Pavlova toured Bombay, she relied on Bombay Symphony Orchestra to add to the ensemble she was touring with and it was Mehli Mehta who played all the solos in the performances in Bombay of Adam’s Giselle and Glazunov’s Raymonda. A Dutch musician who was living in Bombay, Jules Craen, was a big support to Mehli Mehta in managing the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. Early Training During his early training days, Zubin became friends with Daniel Barenboim. This was a friendship that began when Daniel was only twelve years of age and was well established as a prodigy. They met at Siena when they were taking training at Accademia Musicale Chigiana. Soon after, Zubin met Claudio Abbado. After taking up the musical directorship for life with Israel Philharmonic in 1969, Zubin supported efforts of Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said towards bringing together Palestinian and young Israeli musicians. The West-Eastern Divan project came to life, then. Among other friends of Zubin during these days were Jacqueline du Pre, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and Placido Domingo. Zubin has another feather in his cap. Karl Bohm handed over the Nikisch Ring in Vienna. His stint with the New York Philharmonic between 1978 and 1991 also happens to be the longest incumbency of any conductor in the history of that orchestra. He achieved instant stardom after his `Three Tenors’ concert in Rome. One of his main adventurous achievements was playing Wagner in Israel, in 1981. His relationship with the New York Philharmonic was not really on amicable terms after his interview with `Newsweek’ when he mentioned that New York was notorious for finishing off careers of many conductors. He apologised to the orchestra management before taking up the assignment but it took several years for the wounds to heal. He noticed during his tenure there that he rarely received good press for his concerts, particularly in his last few years. He also crossed paths with a music critic and correspondent while he was in Los Angeles and that was Martin Bernheimer. Zubin gave his first concert with Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 1961 when he had to fill in at the last minute for Eugene Ormandy. In 1967, when the six-day war broke out with Palestine, Zubin dropped his engagements in Montreal and flew straight to Tel Aviv to conduct Israel Philharmonic. On this occasion also, he was filling in after the cancellation of Erich Leinsdorf’s visit. His gorgeous looks during his early days of training made him a big hit with women. His aquiline features and his zest for life gave him an appeal of a movie celebrity and a unique cultural icon. He had a charismatic personality and his musical performances were galvanizing, to say the least. While at Los Angeles, he developed a good friendship with Edward. G. Robinson. Taking up the helm at New York City Zubin Mehta succeeded Pierre Boulez at the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in September 1978. At the same time, Zubin was succeeded by Carlo Maria Giulini at Los Angeles. His tenure was extended in 1983 for a further period of seven years. In March of 1984, Zubin had to undergo surgery for lateral epicondylitis. This condition involves severe and chronic inflammation of the muscles which are attached to the elbow. This is akin to a tennis elbow and it results after vigorous hand and arm movements. He had to be hospitalised for a week and had to take rest for a fortnight after the surgery. After recovery, Zubin took the New York Philharmonic Orchestra on a tour of India in September 1984. The tour was a success. Zubin had come to India with an orchestra after seventeen years. I remember that very well as I was present during the Bombay concert and was pleased with the rendition at Shanmukhananda Hall in Matunga. The program included Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances, Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin and Dvorak’s New World Symphony. In June 1988, he took the orchestra to Soviet Union. Three performances were given at Leningrad’s Philharmonic Hall and three at Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall. After the Russian tour, the orchestra visited ten other European countries in 1988. Zubin’s contract expired in 1991. His successor was Kurt Masur. Florence, Valencia and Munich Zubin got his contract with Maggio Musicale Fiorentino after New York Philharmonic and he managed to take the orchestra to twelve countries in a span of next twenty years. While conducting Wagner’s Ring with Valencia Community Orchestra, Zubin paid a great tribute to Wilhelm Furtwangler. He was an admirer of Furtwangler and of the latter’s philosophy of searching for deep messages between the music sheets. Zubin mentioned that Furtwangler had inspired all his players to give something over and above the score and their normal abilities and how Furtwangler had made every concert of his an emotionally intense experience for himself and his audience.

Charles Dickens – A Novelist of Substance

Dickens is remembered as a novelist who established his reputation during his lifetime and it now one and a half century since he has left us; his works remain as masterpieces among creations in English literature. We cannot forget dialogues like “Please Sir, may I have some more?” from Oliver Twist or “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” from A Tale of Two Cities. Most of his creations have been adapted into cinema screenplays or television drama series. They were also adapted for the stage during his lifetime. The Christmas Carol gets performed year after year. When he was twelve, he worked in a shoe-blacking factory while his father was put in prison for outstanding debts. Dickens was always observant, even as a child and was able to create characters of a dramatic nature by means of his close scrutiny of people around him. The people he knew inspired almost all his characters that he wrote about. His sister’s four-year old boy who was a cripple turned into Tiny Tim of A Christmas Carol. His childhood love, Maria Beadnell turned into Flora Finching of Little Dorrit. Dickens was impulsive and hot-headed but never allowed his nature to get the better of him. He always wanted to bring about change for the good in the society that he lived in. He loved theatre right from his childhood and was always unsuccessful in his love affairs. He survived a train accident and was very concerned about how man exploited his own species and brought about poverty. He helped raise the genre of English novel writing to popular heights. He recalled his work in the blacking factory and wrote in his diary, “No words can express the secret agony of my soul... the sense I had of being utterly neglected and hopeless; of the shame I felt in my position … my whole nature was penetrated with grief and humiliation.” He was born on 7th February 1812. His full name was Charles John Huffman Dickens. His mother, Elizabeth Dickens had a good sense of humour, a pleasant personality and was well educated. His father, John, was in the Navy but lived beyond his means and put himself into serious debts. Charles started reading classics at the tender age of five. His first back was Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. An early favourite of his was the compilation of Arabian Nights. He was also introduced to Shakespeare’s plays by the local theatre in Kent. One of the first plays that Charles Dickens wrote when he was just nine was ‘Misnar – the Sultan of India’. His father was arrested and put in prison when Charles was only twelve. At that age, Charles helped his family survive by pawning their possessions – furniture and books. He was lucky to be given work at the blacking factory. He had to label pots of boot and shoe blacking. With the help of his friend, he got a membership to the reading room of the British Museum and spent much of his spare time there. In 1830, he met Maria Beadnell at that place and courted her, hoping to marry her someday. Her parents rejected him because of his family’s financial situation. He eventually lost her as she married someone else. Dejected in love, he published his first short piece of fiction which he called, `A Dinner at Poplar Walk’. It was an achievement that he was proud of, later in life. His next big work was `The Strange Gentleman’. He courted and got married to Catherine Hogarth in April 1836. After the wedding, he started work on his first major success, the `Pickwick Papers’. The next year, Charles and Catherine had their first child, a son. Dickens started work on `Oliver Twist’. Catherine suffered with depressive bouts after childbirth. Charles also had indifferent health. He sorted out his health problems by taking long walks in the countryside for fresh air. This period in his life saw him move up in life, both socially and economically. During this time, he developed a strong bond with John Forster and Dickens started sharing his deepest thoughts and his feelings with him. The two men became companions while walking, riding and attending the theatre. Forster became a literary agent for Dickens. After Oliver Twist, Dickens started work on `Nicholas Nickleby’. This novel went a long way in attracting attention of the readers towards the dismal conditions at schools for orphans and illegitimate children in Yorkshire. In 1838, Charles and Catherine had a second child, a daughter. The next year, they had their third child, a daughter again. He had to move into a larger house in Devonshire. He started work on a new project and named it `Barnaby Rudge’. Heavy workload started telling on his health. He started work on a new novel, ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’. This novel brought him impressive popularity. It was hailed as a masterpiece. The theme of the protagonist’s death (Nell) struck a deep chord with the audiences of his times and infant mortality rate had already become a personal tragedy experience for most in England. His next important work was ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’. Sales of this work were dismal. However, he did not lose hope and started work on his next project – A Christmas Carol. This story and Ebenezer Scrooge in particular captured the attention of the audiences and the book has remained among the most popular works of Dickens for over fifteen decades now. Dickens went on to write two more stories related with Christmas time. They were `The Chimes’ and `Cricket on the Hearth’. Dickens wrote a pensive preface to another masterpiece of his, `David Copperfield’. “An author feels as though he were dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him forever.” This novel contains many autobiographical elements. During the summer of 1846, Dickens began work on `Dombey and Son’ in Switzerland. He was living in Lausanne at that time. After that he wrote another Christmas Novella and called it `The Haunted Man’. The story is quite interesting – a chemist is troubled by painful memories and he accepts a ghost’s offer to remove his memories and allow him to remove those of everyone he meets. The story has a strong underlying message of tolerance and forgiveness. In 1851, after enjoying the success of `David Copperfield’, Dickens wrote a satirical essay, “A Child’s History of England”. In 1852, he started work on another novel, `Bleak House’. This work focused on the inefficiency of the Chancery and the problems it caused. It was filled with dark cynicism. He followed this work with `Hard Times’ and `Little Dorrit’. On a personal front, Dickens lost in his wife and children and became selfish and indifferent. However, he kept himself engrossed while reading his works. It fit into his love of the theatre and gave him an opportunity to enact all his characters and gave them personality and voices. He enjoyed this experience and he became popular doing it. He went on tour through major cities from Dublin to Edinburgh and London and Manchester. In April 1859, he started writing `A Tale of Two Cities’. The plot for this book was inspired by the drama `the Frozen Deep’ written by Wilkie Collins. Dickens had taken part in that and acted on stage. Dickens had deep interest in the French Revolution after reading Thomas Carlyle’s `History of the French Revolution’. This novel of Dickens is more action-based than most of his other works. His next great work was to be `Great Expectations’. It told the story of the orphan, Pip. Many consider the development of Pip’s character to be the ultimate among authorial achievements of Dickens. Charles Dickens visited the United States of America and did not like the tall buildings of New York City and its garish lights. In 1863, Dickens began work on his last novel, `Our Mutual Friend’. He suffered a stroke in 1866 and after that; his health declined. He had indifferent health for the next three years. He started work on another novel, `The Mystery of Edwin Drood’ but could not finish it and left the ending hanging. He died on 9th June 1870. It is a general consensus in England that after Shakespeare; it was Dickens who was the best known among English authors. His popularity has been great down the ages. His characters have become icons and are remembered to be given attached meanings; for example, `Scrooge’ is associated with miserliness. His works have left their mark on his readers. It has to be mentioned that not all his novels were successes. However, his works have inspired many film adaptations.