Handel & Hendrix in London (previously Handel House Museum) is a museum in Mayfair, London, dedicated to the lives and works of the German-born British baroque composer George Frideric Handel and the American rock singer-guitarist Jimi Hendrix, who lived at 25 and 23 Brook Street respectively.

Handel made his home in London in 1712 and eventually became a British citizen in 1727. Handel was the first occupant of 25 Brook Street, which he rented from 1723 until his death there in 1759. Almost all his works after 1723, amongst them many of his best-known operas, oratorios and ceremonial music, were composed and partially rehearsed in the house, which contained a variety of keyboard instruments, including harpsichords, a clavichord and a small chamber organ.

The museum was opened in 2001 by the Handel House Trust as the result of an initiative of the musicologist and Handelian Stanley Sadie in 1959. It comprises a carefully restored set of period rooms on the first and second floors of 25 Brook Street together with exhibition rooms in number 23, the adjacent house on the terrace. In 2016 the museum expanded to incorporate the upper floors of 23 Brook Street, home of Jimi Hendrix in the late 1960s.

The museum

The original idea for establishing a museum at 25 Brook Street to commemorate its original and most notable occupant first occurred to the musicologist Stanley Sadie in 1959, at a party held there by the fashion company Viyella to commemorate the bicentenary of Handel's death. After a further 30 years, in the early 1990s Sadie and his wife Julie Anne set up the Handel House Trust, the charity which oversaw the conversion of the house into a museum.

The house has been restored to look as it did during Handel's 36 year occupancy from 1723 to 1759. A typical early 18th century London terrace house, it comprises a basement, three main storeys and an attic, and Handel was the first occupant. The attic was later converted into a fourth full floor. The ground floor is a shop not associated with the Museum, and the upper floors are leased to a charity called the Handel House Trust, and have been open to the public since 8 November 2001.

The interiors have been restored to the somewhat spartan style of the Georgian era, using mostly architectural elements from elsewhere, since, apart from the staircase, few of the original interior features survived.

The Handel House Collection Trust has assembled a collection of Handel memorabilia, including the Byrne Collection of several hundred items, which was acquired in 1998.

History

Handel acquired 25 Brook Street in the summer of 1723, shortly after having been appointed by George II as composer to the Chapel Royal, for which he was paid £400 per annum. The house had been newly built with Nos. 23, 27/29 and 31 by George Barnes as part of the planned extension of Brook Street, linking Hanover Square with Grosvenor Square, between 1717 and 1726. Originally, as a foreign national, Handel was not eligible to buy or take long-term leases on property in London; and even when he acquired British nationality in 1727, Handel continued renting the property on short-term leases. The fact that he remained there for the rest of his life, almost 40 years, is remarkable, since opera composers at the time were rarely of fixed abode; prior to that, Handel had been lodged in the homes of friends and patrons. At the age of 38, Handel had become accepted within the higher echelons of British society, with whom he freely mixed. His immediate neighbours on either side were from the upper middle classes and initially included the Member of Parliament, John Monckton, who later became the first Viscount Galway in 1727.
The layout of the rooms followed the conventions for a modest Georgian townhouse: the basement contained the kitchens; on each of the three floors above, there was a front room and a smaller back room with an adjacent closet; under the roof were garrets for servants.

The larger front first room was used for rehearsal and probably contained a harpsichord and a small house chamber organ. The museum currently contains a reproduction of a period harpsichord of the Flemish firm Ruckers; a reproduction of a period chamber organ, based on the designs of the
organbuilders Richard Bridge and Thomas Parker, was made for the Handel House Trust in 1998 and can be seen in Handel's parish church, St George's, Hanover Square, round the corner from Brook Street.

From the 1730s onwards there are many references to rehearsals of operas and oratorios at Brook Street by Handel's friends and fellow musicians. Listening to a rehearsal of Alcina with the soprano Anna Maria Strada, Mrs Pendarves commented, "Whilst Mr Handel was playing his part, I could not help thinking him a necromancer in the midst of his enchantments." Messiah was also rehearsed there; the lead violinist Abraham Wilson recounted to the musicologist Charles Burney "how civilly he had been attended by him [Handel] to the door, and how carefully cautioned, after being heated by a crowded room and hard labour, at the rehearsal in Brook-street, not to stir without a [Sedan] chair."

The adjacent room at the rear of the house was Handel's composing room and probably contained Handel's clavichord, an instrument Handel used when composing, portable enough to be taken on journeys and which, according to an anecdote oft-repeated by his biographers, he secretly played as a child in the garret of his house, in defiance of his father. Handel's clavichord was built in 1726 by the Italian instrument maker Annibale Traeri from Modena; it is now in
the Maidstone Museum & Art Gallery in Kent.

The remaining rooms on the second floor comprised a main bedroom containing a full tester bed dressed in crimson harateen, connected to a dressing room and closet in the back. The servants, three or more in number, occupied the garret rooms on the floor above.

Handel used his house not only for entertainment, composition and rehearsal, but also for business: in the late 1730s the scores of Alexander's Feast and other works could be purchased directly there. His home also contained an extensive art collection, and by the end of his life Handel possessed over 80 paintings and prints, including works by Watteau, Teniers and Poussin.

After Handel's death in 1759, his musical instruments passed to John Christopher Smith and his son of the same name: the father had been summoned from the continent by Handel to act as his copyist when Handel first arrived in London; and his son had acted as amanuensis and assistant when Handel's blindness prevented him from writing and conducting in his later years. The tenancy of the house and Handel's clothing passed to his servant John Du Burk. The detailed inventory, a transcript of which is now stored in the British Library, gives a clear guide as to how the house was decorated and used. Apart from the conversion of the garrets into a fourth storey in the 1830s, the house remained largely unchanged until 1905, when C. J. Charles converted the house into a shop, removing the original façade and the internal dividing walls. It was subsequently occupied by interior decorators and antiques dealers. In 1971 it was acquired by the Co-operative Insurance Society and the Handel House Trust has leased the upper storeys of the property since 2000.

Restoration

When the Handel House Trust leased 25 Brook Street in 2000, it had already been decided that Handel's rooms on the first and second floors would be restored to their prior eighteenth century state as far as possible. This was justified by the fact that it was only Handel's occupancy that had led to the classification as a Grade I listed building and by the presence of an internal period staircase in near perfect condition. Later partition walls were removed to restore the original Georgian room plans. The refurbishment of the interior, including panelling, shutters, window seats and cornices, was based primarily on period details from the adjacent house at 27/29 Brook Street. Three marble Georgian fireplaces, formerly in Russell Street, Covent Garden, were installed in the first floor rooms and bedroom. The floorboards were replaced with old wood, treated with lime and wax, and the ceilings refinished with lime plaster.

Careful research revealed samples of the original 1720s paint on woodwork on the staircase and surviving second floor door, which in its history had been painted 28 times. The original colour was lead grey throughout the house and No. 27/29; the door had been subsequently painted chocolate brown, a colour popular in Georgian times for concealing grime. These are the colours that have been used to redecorate the house, with more grey on the first floor to indicate its importance.

The detailed two page inventory from August 1759, made after more valuable items had been removed, gave a guide to the furnishings of the house. The paired curtains
mentioned in the inventory, although in vogue in the 1720s, had fallen out of fashion by the 1750s. On the first floor the curtains would have been of green silk, but are listed only for the back room; possibly there were none in the rehearsal room in the front for acoustic reasons.

Most of the furniture was in walnut with a few tables in oak. Although none of Handel's original furniture has been found, pieces have been placed in the rooms which adhere as closely as possible to the inventory. The large full tester bed with it crimson harateen hangings has been reconstructed, using a period bed; the woven wool fabric and silk braid for the upholstery and curtains were prepared based on a full tester bed at Hanbury Hall, Worcestershire. The bed linen, pillows and quilt mentioned in the inventory have been recreated using items from the Historic Royal Palaces.

Permanent collection

In 1998 the Handel House Collections Trust acquired the Byrne Collection, a large collection of several hundred objects connected with Handel. These include:

correspondence of Handel,
original manuscripts,
a copy of one of the first biographies of Handel by John Mainwaring, with marginal comments by his friend and librettist Charles Jennens,
early editions of operas and oratorios
prints,
paintings
sculptures.

Around the same time the trust also bought two paintings of Jennens (by Thomas Hudson) and the opera singer Faustina Bordoni (by Bartolomeo Nazari).

25 Brook Street

In 2022 it was reported that Handel & Hendrix in London had embarked on a £3 million project to open all of Handel's house to the public for the first time.

The following rooms have been open to the public.

Rehearsal and performance room
On the first floor at the front of the house, this was used as a rehearsal room by Handel from the 1730s onwards. It contains portraits of contemporary singers and a reproduction of a two manual harpsichord by the Flemish firm Ruckers. The harpsichord is used for concerts and is also available for rehearsals by musicians from the general public.

Composition room
On the first floor at the back of the house, this is believed to be the room in which Handel composed some of his most celebrated works, including Messiah. It contains portraits of Handel and Charles Jennens, Handel's friend and librettist of Messiah.

London room
On the second floor at the rear of the house, this served as Handel's dressing room and was originally connected to a small closet.

Bedroom
On the second floor at the front of the house, this is probably the room where Handel died. A complete inventory was made within months of his death. Amongst the furniture, it describes a large canopied tester bed similar to the one now in the room.

23 Brook Street

The museum incorporates the upper floors of its neighbour at 23 Brook Street, which was the home of American rock singer-guitarist Jimi Hendrix in 1968–1969. These rooms were used for temporary exhibitions and events, but after fundraising, these and the rest of the rooms from the Hendrix apartment were opened to the public in February 2016 as "Handel and Hendrix in London". One exhibit permanently on display here is a collection of Hendrix's old records. Both houses have blue plaques for their respective occupants.

Opening hours and events
The house is open to the public five days a week, Wednesday-Sunday. The museum has a lively events programme including live music, changing exhibitions, lectures and children's educational events. Several performances of baroque music are staged each month, recitals are sometimes during opening hours, but more usually in the early evening for a separate charge.

See also
 List of music museums
Will of George Frideric Handel

Notes

References

Other references

Bibliography

External links

Exorcist called to banish ghost in Handel's house, Daily Telegraph
Handel exhibition suggests his poison was the lead in his wine, Guardian

2001 establishments in England
Biographical museums in London
George Frideric Handel
Grade I listed buildings in the City of Westminster
Grade I listed houses in London
Grade I listed museum buildings
Historic house museums in London
Houses completed in the 18th century
Houses in the City of Westminster
Jimi Hendrix
Mayfair
Music museums in London
Museums established in 2001
Museums in the City of Westminster

Handel & Hendrix in London


The title Duke of Orléans is an old French Dukedom that was highly regarded whilst the country was a monarchy. The title was usually used by a younger son of a reigning King and was passed from father to son. During the reign of Louis XIV of France the title was used by his only broth Philippe who as a Son of France was known simply as Monsieur. At the death of Philippe in 1701 the Dukes only held the rank of Prince of the blood  but maintained their rank due to being descended from a son of a previous king. The holder of the title was entitled to be addressed as Your Serene Highness but this was used in writing only. The present day House of Orléans is descended from this line and takes its name from the prestigious title.

As princes of the blood they ranked above that of the Princes of Condé the Princes of Conti as well as the Count of Soissons.

The Dukes main seat was the Palais Royal in Paris and the lavish Château de Saint Cloud outside the capital as well as countless other residences. The Duke and his wife were also entitled to their own apartment in the Palace of Versailles.

List of Dukes
 Philippe of France, Duke of Orléans, "Monsieur" (10 May 1661 – 9 June 1701) - The only sibling of King Louis XIV, known simply as "Monsieur".
Philippe, Duke of Orléans, Regent of France (9 June 1701 – 2 December 1723) - Regent of France for the young Louis XV.
 Louis, Duke of Orléans (2 December 1723 - 4 February 1752).
 Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans (4 August 1752 – 18 November 1785).
 Philippe Égalité (18 November 1785 – 6 November 1793) guillotined during the French Revolution.
 Louis Philippe I (6 November 1793 - 9 August 1830). Eventually created King of The French.

Titles in the old Kingdom of France
Dukes and Duchesses of Orléans

Duke of Orléans


The National Labor Party was an Australian political party which only existed for three months. It was started  by Prime Minister Billy Hughes in November 1916. Hughes had taken over as leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and Prime Minister when Andrew Fisher resigned in 1915. Hughes formed the new party after he was forced out of the ALP a month after conscription was rejected by the people in the 1916 vote. Hughes still wanted conscription for World War I.

On 15 September 1916 the Labor Party in New South Wales forced Hughes from the Labor Party. On 14 November 1916, Hughes and 24 other Labor members walked out of a meeting of the Labor members of parliament. The remaining 43 members said they did not want Hughes to continue as their leader. Hughes and his followers formed a minority Government with support from the Commonwealth Liberal Party (CLP) led by Joseph Cook. They said the Australian Labor Party was no longer  nationalist. They wanted a new party that would be both socially radical and nationalist.

The National Labor Party had to depend on support from the Commonwealth Liberal Party to govern. In 1917 the two groups joined to form a new party, the Nationalist Party of Australia, with Hughes as leader.

The National Labor Party was never a proper political party. It did not have any organisational structure. It did get support from some trade union officials and Labor Party branches, particularly in Western Australia and Tasmania.

Western Australia
The National Labor Party in Western Australia started off as two separate groups. One group was the Labor Solidarity Committee based in Perth. The other was National Labor based on the goldfields. The two joined in April-May 1917, led by former Premier John Scaddan. After he lost his seat in Parliament the party turned to Federal Senators Patrick Lynch, Hugh de Largie and George Pearce for leadership and guidance. Unlike the federal party, it did not join with the CLP and kept its own identity. It worked with the Nationalist Party as partners.

The party won six of 50 Assembly seats in the Western Australian state elections of 1917 and 1921. It also held three of 30 Council seats during this period. However, in 1924 elections they won only one seat in the Assembly and two in the Council. Later that year they were taken over by the Nationalists.

References
Australian Dictionary of Biography - Billy Hughes
Robertson, John R. (1958). The Scaddan government and the conscription crisis, 1911-17 : aspects of Western Australia's political history (thesis). University of Western Australia. Accessed in Scholars Centre, Reid Library, UWA.
Cusack, Danny. (2002). With an olive branch and a shillelagh: The political career of Senator Paddy Lynch (1867-1944) (thesis). Murdoch University. Accessed via Murdoch Digital Theses.

Political parties in Australia
1916 establishments
1910s establishments in Australia
1917 disestablishments
20th-century disestablishments in Australia

National Labor Party


The Labour Representation Committee (LRC) was a pressure group founded in 1900 as an alliance of socialist organisations and trade unions, aimed at increasing representation for labour interests in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Labour Party traces its origin to the LRC's foundation.

Formation

In 1899, a Doncaster member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, Thomas R. Steels, proposed in his union branch that the Trade Union Congress call a special conference to bring together all left-wing organisations and form them into a single body that would sponsor Parliamentary candidates. The motion was passed at all stages by the TUC, and the proposed conference was held at the Memorial Hall on Farringdon Street, London on 26 and 27 February 1900. The meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations — trades unions represented about a half of the unions and one third of the membership of the TUC delegates. The LRC is the direct predecessor of the modern British Labour Party.

In addition to various trade union leaders, organisations present at this conference were the Independent Labour Party (ILP), the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) and the Fabian Society, After a debate all the 129 delegates passed Keir Hardie's motion to establish "a distinct Labour group in Parliament, who shall have their own whips, and agree upon their policy, which must embrace a readiness to cooperate with any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interests of labour." This created an association called the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), meant to coordinate attempts to support MPs sponsored by trade unions and represent the working-class population. To make this possible the Conference established the LRC. This committee included two members from the ILP, two from the SDF, one Fabian, and seven trade unionists.

Operation
It had no single leader, and in the absence of one, the Independent Labour Party nominee Ramsay MacDonald was elected as Secretary. He had the difficult task of keeping the various strands of opinions in the LRC united. The October 1900 "Khaki election" came too soon for the new party to campaign effectively; total expenses for the election only came to £33 and between them they won 62,698 votes. Only 15 candidatures were sponsored, but two were successful; Keir Hardie in Merthyr Tydfil and Richard Bell in Derby.

Support for the LRC was boosted by the 1901 Taff Vale Case, a dispute between strikers and a railway company that ended with the union being ordered to pay £23,000 damages for a strike. The judgement effectively made strikes illegal since employers could recoup the cost of lost business from the unions. The apparent acquiescence of the Conservative Government of Arthur Balfour to industrial and business interests (traditionally the allies of the Liberal Party in opposition to the Conservative's landed interests) intensified support for the LRC against a government that appeared to have little concern for the industrial proletariat and its problems.

In the 1906 election, the LRC won 29 seats—helped by a secret Gladstone–MacDonald pact in 1903 between Ramsay MacDonald and Liberal Chief Whip Herbert Gladstone that aimed to avoid splitting the opposition vote between Labour and Liberal candidates in the interest of removing the Conservatives from office.

Historian Eric J. Evans argues:
The MacDonald–Gladstone pact proved to be a turning point. It gave the LRC a bridgehead in parliament, with twenty-nine of its candidates elected in 1906. By the end of 1910, the Labour party (as it was known from 1906) had forty-two MPs....With the benefit of hindsight, the MacDonald-Gladstone pact looks to have been a tactical disaster for the Liberals....On deeper investigation, Gladstone's decision is defensible and might even have been the best option.

The Labour Party

On 15 February 1906, at their first meeting after the election, the group's Members of Parliament decided to adopt the name "The Labour Party" formally.

Keir Hardie, who had taken a leading role in getting the party established, was elected as Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party (in effect, the Leader), although only by one vote over David Shackleton after several ballots. In the party's early years the Independent Labour Party (ILP) provided much of its activist base as the party did not have individual membership until 1918 but operated as a conglomerate of affiliated bodies. The Fabian Society provided much of the intellectual stimulus for the party. One of the first acts of the new Liberal Government was to reverse the Taff Vale judgement.

The Labour Party itself regarded 2000 as its centenary year, though it also marked the founding of the party with the singing of "The Red Flag" in parliament at the end of Commons business on 9 February 2006.

Archive
The People's History Museum in Manchester holds the minutes of the first Labour Party meeting in 1906 and has them on display in the Main Galleries. Also within the museum is the Labour History Archive and Study Centre, which holds the collection of the Labour Party, with material ranging from 1900 to the present day.

Chairmen of the LRC
The following served as Chairman of the LRC:
1900-01 Frederick Rogers
1901-02 Allen Gee
1902-03 Richard Bell MP
1903-04 John Hodge
1904-05 David Shackleton MP
1905-06 Arthur Henderson MP

Election results

References

External links

Defunct political party alliances in the United Kingdom
Political parties established in 1900
Defunct social democratic parties in the United Kingdom
Social Democratic Federation
History of the Labour Party (UK)

Labour Representation Committee (1900)


A nuclear power plant is a type of power station that generates electricity using heat from nuclear reactions.  These reactions take place within a reactor.  The plant also has machines which remove heat from the reactor to operate a steam turbine and generator to make electricity.  Electricity made by nuclear power plants is called nuclear power.

Nuclear power plants are usually near water to remove the heat the reactor makes. Some nuclear power plants use cooling towers to do this. Nuclear power plants use uranium as fuel.  When the reactor is on, uranium atoms inside the reactor split into two smaller atoms.  When uranium atoms split, they give off a large amount of heat.  This splitting of atoms is called fission.

The most popular atoms to fission are uranium and plutonium.  Those atoms are slightly radioactive.  The atoms produced when fuel atoms break apart are strongly radioactive.  Today, fission only happens in nuclear reactors.  In nuclear reactors, fission only happens when the reactors parts are arranged properly.  Nuclear power plants turn their reactors off when replacing old nuclear fuel with new fuel.

There are about four hundred nuclear power plants in the world, with many in the United States, France, and Japan. Some famous accidents at nuclear power plants were the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, and the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States.  An Anti-nuclear movement in Australia opposes the making of any nuclear power plants in the country.

Power plants
Nuclear energy

Nuclear power plant


The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef. It is near the coast of Queensland, Australia. It is made up of nearly 2900 coral reefs and over 600 islands. It is 327,800 km2 big and 2600 km long. It has been listed an important World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The Great Barrier Reef is the biggest structure made by living things. It can be seen from outer space. The Reefs are threatened.
The biggest threat to the Great Barrier Reef today is coral bleaching caused by high sea water temperatures as a result of global warming. During 2016, the worst die-off ever recorded occurred, due to seas warming around the Great Barrier Reef. Two-thirds of a 700-km (435 miles) stretch of coral in nine months were killed.

Geology
The Reef Research Centre has found the remains of coral that are half a million years old. Corals have been growing in the region for as long as 25 million years. The corals have not always formed coral reefs.

It is difficult to work out the age of the Great Barrier Reef. This is because of the way a reef can grow and shrink as the sea level changes. A coral reef can grow in diameter, that is how wide they are, from 1 to 2 cm per year. They can also grow upwards from 1 to 15 cm per year. Coral can not grow if the water is too deep (150 metres or more) because it needs light from the sun. They cannot grow out of the water (above sea level).

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and Australian Institute of Marine Science say the current, living reef started growing about 20,000 years ago. It started to grow on an older reef. This makes the beginning of the reef duringay. The land that forms the bottom of the Great Barrier Reef was a coastal plain. The plain had some large hills. Some of these hills were parts of older reefs.

From 20,000 years ago until 6,000 years the sea level began to rise. As it rose, the corals could grow higher on the hills of the coastal plain. 13,000 years ago the sea level was 60 metres lower than the present day. Corals began to grow around the hills of the coastal plain. These became continental islands. As the sea level rose higher, most of these continental islands were covered by water. The corals could then grow over the hills. This formed the present cays and reefs. Sea level on the Great Barrier Reef has not risen much in the last 6,000 years. The CRC Reef Research Centre has worked out that the present, living reef is 6,000 to 8,000 years old.

The remains of a very old barrier reef has been found in the Kimberley area. This is in the northern part of Western Australia.

The Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area has been divided into 70 different areas. These are called bioregions. Each bioregion has its own special plants and animals. There are 30 reef bioregions, and 40 are non-reef bioregions. In the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef, there are ribbon reefs and deltaic reefs. These kinds of reef do not exist in the rest of the Great Barrier Reef system.

Ecology
The Great Barrier Reef has 1,500 species of fish, and many other animals, algae, and corals. This includes many vulnerable or endangered species. Some of these exist only on this reef system.

Mammals
Thirty species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises have been seen in the Great Barrier Reef. This includes the dwarf minke whale, Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin, and the humpback whale. Most of the population of the dugongs live there.

Turtles and Dugongs
Six species of sea turtles come to the reef to breed. These are the green sea turtle, leatherback sea turtle, hawksbill turtle, loggerhead sea turtle, flatback turtle, and the olive ridley. There are two different groups of green sea turtles on the Great Barrier Reef. One group lives in the northern part of the reef and the other in the south. Fifteen species of seagrass attract the dugongs and turtles. They also provide a food and shelter for fish. The most common kinds of seagrasses are Halophila and Halodule.

Other sea animals
Saltwater Crocodiles live in mangrove and salt marshes on the coast near the reef. No crocodile nests have been found on the reef. The salt water crocodiles on the reef travel long distances. There are not many living around the reef. Around 125 species of shark, stingray, skates or chimaera live on the reef. About 5,000 species of mollusc live on the reef. These include the giant clam, nudibranchs and cone snails. Forty-nine species of pipefish and nine species of seahorse have been found. Seven species of frogs live on the islands. Also, the Moray eel lives on the bottom, preying on fish.

Birds

215 species of birds come to the reef or nest or roost on the islands. This includes 22 species of seabirds and 32 species of shorebirds. These include the white-bellied sea eagle and roseate tern. Most nesting sites are on islands in the northern and southern regions of the Great Barrier Reef. About 1.7 million birds use the sites to breed.

Plants
The islands of the Great Barrier Reef have 2,195 known plant species. Three of these do not live anywhere else. The northern islands have 300-350 plants which are woody. The southern islands have 200 plants which are herbaceous. The Whitsunday region has the most plant species placing at 1,141. The plant species are mostly spread by fish

Sea snakes
Seventeen types of sea snake live on the Great Barrier Reef. They take about 4 years to become old enough to breed. They usually live on the sea floor. They live in warm waters up to  deep. They are more common in the southern part of the reef.

Fish, ascidians and bryozoans
More than 1,500 species of fish live on the reef. These include the clownfish, red bass, red-throat emperor, and several types of snapper and coral trout. There are at least 330 species of sea squirts (ascidians) on the reef. These vary in size from 1 mm-10 cm in diameter. Between 300 and 500 species of bryozoans live on the reef system. These are small water animals that look like moss, or
branches

Corals

Four hundred species of corals, both hard corals and soft corals live on the reef. Most of these spawn, releasing thousands of eggs, in huge events. This spawning is controlled by the rising sea temperatures. This happens in spring, summer and some parts of autumn, as part of the moons lunar cycle, and the day/night diurnal cycle. Reefs in the inner Great Barrier Reef spawn during the week after the full moon in October. Outer reefs spawn in November and December. The common soft corals on the Great Barrier Reef belong to 36 different types. Five hundred species of marine algae or seaweed live on the reef. This includes thirteen types of Halimeda. These deposit chalky (calcareous) mounds up to 100 metres wide. They have mini-ecosystems on their surface which have been compared to rainforest cover.

Climate change
A new report, the Reef Outlook Report, says that climate change will cause huge damage to the reef. The report was written by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. Warmer and more acidic water around the coral reef will slow down calcification, which is how the coral grows and becomes strong. The corals will become bleached (lose their colours) and many species that live on and around the reef will be in danger. The Australian government has already spent AU$325 million to improve the health of the reef in the last two years.

Other dangers
The Reef Outlook Report also warned of other dangers to the reef. These included poor quality water running into the sea from the mainland. This water is polluted with farm insecticides and rubbish from nearby towns. The increasing amount of development on the coast is destroying natural marine and coastal habitats. There is also some damage from fishing.

Related pages
 List of World Heritage Sites in Australia

References

Further reading

Other websites

 Great Barrier Reef website
 How the Great Barrier Reef Works
 World heritage listing for Great Barrier Reef
 Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
 CRC Reef Research Centre
 Great Barrier Reef (World Wildlife Fund)
 Dive into the Great Barrier Reef from National Geographic
   Reef Outlook Report 2009
 Great Barrier Reef,AUSTRALIA

World Heritage Sites in Australia
National parks in Australia
Reefs
Geography of Queensland
Ecoregions
Australian National Heritage List
Protected areas of Queensland

Great Barrier Reef


The Castello Sforzesco (Italian for "Sforza's Castle") is a medieval fortification located in Milan, Northern Italy. It was built in the 15th century by Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, on the remnants of a 14th-century fortification. Later renovated and enlarged, in the 16th and 17th centuries it was one of the largest citadels in Europe. Extensively rebuilt by Luca Beltrami in 1891–1905, it now houses several of the city's museums and art collections.

History
The original construction was ordered by Galeazzo II Visconti, a local nobleman, in 1358 –  1370; this castle was known as the Castello di Porta Giova (or Porta Zubia), from the name of a gate in walls located nearby. It was built in the same area of the ancient Roman fortification of Castrum Portae Jovis, which served as castra pretoria when the city was the capital of the Roman Empire. It was enlarged by Galeazzo's successors, Gian Galeazzo, Giovanni Maria and Filippo Maria Visconti, until it became a square-plan castle with 200 m-long sides, four towers at the corners and up to  walls. The castle was the main residence in the city of its Visconti lords, and was destroyed by the short-lived Golden Ambrosian Republic which ousted them in 1447.

In 1450, Francesco Sforza, once he had shattered the republicans, began reconstruction of the castle to turn it into his princely residence. In 1452 he hired the sculptor and architect Filarete to design and decorate the central tower, which is still known as the Torre del Filarete. After Francesco's death, the construction was continued by his son Galeazzo Maria, under the architect Benedetto Ferrini. The decoration was executed by local painters. In 1476, during the regency of Bona of Savoy, the tower bearing her name was built.

In 1494 Ludovico Sforza became lord of Milan, and called on numerous artists to decorate the castle. These include Leonardo da Vinci (who frescoed several rooms, in collaboration with Bernardino Zenale and Bernardino Butinone) and Bramante, who painted frescoes in the Sala del Tesoro; the Sala della Balla was decorated with Francesco Sforza's deeds. Around 1498, Leonardo worked on the ceiling of the Sala delle Asse, painting decorations of vegetable motifs. In the following years, however, the castle was damaged by assaults from Italian, French and German troops; a bastion, known as tenaglia, was added, perhaps designed by Cesare Cesariano.

After the French victory in the Battle of Marignano in 1515, the defeated Maximilian Sforza, his Swiss mercenaries, as well as the cardinal-bishop of Sion retreated into the castle. However, King Francis I of France followed them into Milan, before his sappers placed mines under the castle's foundations, whereupon the defenders capitulated. In 1521, in a period in which it was used as a weapons depot, the Torre del Filarete exploded. When Francesco II Sforza returned briefly to power in Milan, he had the fortress restored and enlarged, in addition to a part of it adapted as a residence for his wife, Christina of Denmark.

Under the Spanish domination which followed, the castle became a citadel, as the governor's seat was moved to the Ducal Palace (1535). Its garrison varied from 1,000 to 3,000 men, led by a Spanish castellan. In 1550 works began to adapt the castle to modern fortification style, as a hexagonal (originally pentagonal) star fort, following the addition of 12 bastions. The external fortifications reached 3 km in length and covered an area of 25.9 hectares. The castle also remained in use as a fort after the Spaniards were replaced by the Austrians in Lombardy.

Most of the outer fortifications were demolished during the period of Napoleonic rule in Milan under the Cisalpine Republic. The semi-circular Piazza Castello was constructed around the city side of the castle, surrounded by a radial street layout of new urban blocks bounded by the Foro Buonaparte. The area on the "country" side of the castle was laid out as a  square parade ground known as Piazza d'Armi.

After the unification of Italy in the 19th century, the castle was transferred from military use to the city of Milan. Parco Sempione, one of the largest parks in the city, was created on the former parade grounds.

The government of Milan undertook restoration works, directed by Luca Beltrami. The Via Dante was cut through the medieval street layout in the 1880s to provide a direct promenade between the castle and the Duomo on an axis with the main gate. Between 1900 and 1905 the Torre del Filarete was rebuilt, on the basis of 16th-century drawings, as a monument to King Umberto I.

Allied bombardment of Milan in 1943 during World War II severely damaged the castle. The post-war reconstruction of the building for museum purposes was undertaken by the BBPR architectural partnership.

Description
The castle has a quadrangular plan, on a site across the city's walls. The wall which once faced the countryside north of Milan has square towers and an ogival gate. This was once accessed through a drawbridge. The northern tower is known as the Torre della Corte, and its counterpart to the west the Torre del Tesoro; both received wide windows during the Sforza age.

The corner defended by the Torre Ducale is characterized by a loggia bridge, attributed to Bramante, and commissioned by Ludovico Sforza in the late 15th century to connect the Corte Ducale (the court in the area used as a ducal residence) and the Cortile della Ghirlanda. This ghirlanda refers to a wall, protected by a ditch filled with water, built under Francesco Sforza, of which few traces remain today, including the Porta del Soccorso. Remains of two later ravelins can be seen in correspondence of the point in which the castle was joined by the city walls (near the Porta Comasina gate) and the Porta del Carmine. The Porta della Ghirlanda gate was entered through a ravelin (now lost) and had two entrances accessed through runways, which lead to an underground passage which continued along the walls.

The external side which once faced the walled city has two round towers, commissioned by Francesco Sforza to replace the former square ones, which had become less suitable to defend against fire weapons. The central tower, called the Torre del Filarete, is a modern reconstruction. The round towers lost their upper parts under the Austrians, who needed open space for their artillery; the towers' present-day upper sections are modern reconstructions. The Torre del Filarete and the Porta del Santo Spirito, located further to the south, are both preceded by a ravelin.

The main gate leads to a large court from which several internal features can be seen. These include the Tower of Bona of Savoy (1476) and the Rocchetta, a sort of internal defensive ridotto with a gate of its own. At the right of the Porta del Carmine are the remains of two 15th-century courts. The Rocchetta, whose access gate from the main court (a modern addition) features the Sforza coat of arms, has an internal court with, on three sides, a portico with 15th-century arcades. The Corte Ducale is the wing of the castle originally used as a ducal residence; it features a court with two loggias, a smaller one on the left and a larger one at its end, called Loggiato dell'Elefante due to the presence of a fresco of an elephant.

Civic Museums

The Castello Sforzesco complex includes the following museums:

 The Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, with an art collection which includes Andrea Mantegna's Trivulzio Madonna and masterpieces by Canaletto, Tiepolo, Vincenzo Foppa, Titian and Tintoretto.
 The Museum of Ancient Art which includes the armory, the tapestry room and some funerary monuments.
 The Museum of Musical Instruments.
 The Egyptian Museum.
 The Prehistoric collections of the Archaeological Museum of Milan.
 Applied Arts Collection.
 The Antique Furniture & Wooden Sculpture Museum.
 The Achille Bertarelli Print Collection.
 The Museum of the Rondanini Pietà which includes Michelangelo's last sculpture (the Rondanini Pietà)

The Biblioteca Trivulziana holds a manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci, the Codex Trivulzianus. In 2012, new paintings attributed to Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio were discovered at the castle.

Burials
Bona of Savoy

See also

House of Sforza
Sala delle Asse

References

Bibliography
 Michela Palazzo e Francesca Tasso (edited by), "The Sala delle Asse of the Sforza Castle. Leonardo da Vinci. Diagnostic Testing and Restoration of the Monochrome", Cinisello Balsamo 2017.

External links

 Panoramic virtual tour outside the castle
 Official website for the restoration of Sala delle Asse

Archaeological museums in Italy
Art museums and galleries in Lombardy
Buildings and structures in Milan
Sforzesco
Culture in Milan
Decorative arts museums in Italy
Egyptological collections in Italy

Museums in Milan
Music museums in Italy
Tourist attractions in Milan
Brick buildings and structures
Renaissance architecture in Milan

Castello Sforzesco


Väinämöinen is the heidmaist chairacter in Finnish meethologie as weil as the Finnish naitional epic, Kalevala.  He is aften descrived as a wyce auld man wi a pouersome, weirdly voice.

Väinämöinen in non-Kalevalan fowklair
Ane o the first screivers in the Finnish leid, Michael Agricola, scrieved a list o auld Tavastian gods in 1551, in whilk the name o Väinämöinen kythes.  He wes, in monie tales, the heidmaist figure in the bith or makkin o the yird.  There twa-thrie versions o the yird-makkin meeth, bot they seem tae involve burds' eigs bein uised tae mak the warld.

Väinämöinen in Kalevala
In Kalevala, Väinämöinen kythes as a muckle less godlike chiel, bein mair a shaman, or spaeman.  Maist o the stories in Kalevala ar anent Väinämöinen, maistle in his search fer a guidwife, whilk at the end o aa the stories he still ne'er finnds.  This search fer a guidwife brings his fowk, the fowk o Kalevala intil conrack wi the fowk o Pohjola, whilk is at first friensome, bot later comes nesty.

Forbye bein a wyce-chiel, Väinämöinen is a lilter o unco pouer an aw.  In ae poem he kills a muchle pike, an uises its chowk-banes tae mak a kantele, a Finnish stringed instument a tait like a zither.

The last poem o Kalevala sees Väinämöinen leave the warld.  In it a woman cryed Marjatta gets impregnatit frae a berry she ate an gies birth tae a son, whilk is an allusion tae Mary an Jesus (In Finnish Maria means Mary an marja means berry).  Whan Väinämöinen orders the killin o the lad, the lad stairts tae speak an wytes Väinämöinen fer his sins an ill walin; the bairn is then baptised king o Karelia. Väinämöinen lilts a capper boat intae existence an sails awa, leavin ahent his kantele as a seembol o the gift o muisic tae his fowk, hechtin tae retour at sum tyme..  Maist scholars ar greed that this poem represents the kythin o Christianity in Finland - the bairn is a representation o Jesus, an Väinämöinen's quattin the land is a seembol for the fadin o the native pagan releegions.  There ithir fowktales sib tae this ane, sic as that o King Arthur.

In Popular Cultur
Fowk metal baund Ensiferum is amang a wheen o fowk metal baunds wha haes baised sum o their wark on Kalevala, sic as their sangs Old Man an Little Dreamer whilk ar anent Väinämöinen.

Sum fowk threap that Gandalf in JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit an The Lord of the Rings wes in pairt baised on Väinämöinen.

There is a Finnish comic-beuk cryed Väinämöisen paluu (Sco: The Retour o Väinämöinen) whilk is anent Väinämöinen retourin frae his thousan yeir awa an his humorous adventures an comments on life in modren Finland.

A Finnish battleship uisit in the Seicond Warld Weir wes cryed Väinämöinen.  It survived the weir, bot wes scrapped in 1968.

See Forbye
Kalevala
Ilmarinen

Finnish gods
Airts gods
Magic gods
Creaution myths
Chairacters in the Kalevala

Väinämöinen


Clayton Lee Condrey (born November 19, 1975) is an American former professional baseball relief pitcher, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the San Diego Padres and Philadelphia Phillies. Condrey featured five pitches: a sinker, cutter, curveball, changeup, and a four-seam fastball.

Early life
The right-handed pitcher played at Navasota High School and McNeese State University. The New York Yankees selected Condrey in the 94th round, with selection No. 1,730 of the 1996 Major League Baseball draft out of Angelina (Texas) Junior College.

Professional career
Condrey would eventually sign with the San Diego Padres in 1998. He was signed by then-Padres scout Theo Epstein.

Condrey pitched with the San Diego Padres in the  and  seasons before he moved to the Phillies in the offseason. In the Padres organization as a starter, Clay started 43 games between the Triple-A Portland Beavers and the major leagues, giving up 118 earned runs in 257.1 innings (ERA of 4.13).

Condrey pitched his entire  season for the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons of the International League, where he led the team in starts and innings pitched (28 ST, 162 IP), compiling an ERA of 5.50. His  campaign dropped slightly in appearances, where he appeared in only 24 starts (132.1 IP), but he subsequently lowered his ERA to 4.15. After being converted to relief, he was off to a strong start in  as well, allowing only 3 earned runs in eight appearances, but was called up to the Phillies in May.

Condrey began the  season on the Phillies' active roster, but on April 14, 2007, Condrey was designated for assignment by the Phillies to make room on the roster for starting pitcher Freddy García, who had been on the DL since the end of spring training. Condrey would be designated for assignment three other times, up until August 3, 2007, when he was recalled from Triple-A Ottawa for his fifth stint of the season with the Phillies. Condrey was included on the postseason roster for the National League East Champion Phillies in 2007 and appeared in Game 2 of the NLDS against the Colorado Rockies.

In , Condrey made the Phillies' Opening Day squad and pitched well in middle-relief. In accordance with one of the oddities of the baseball rulebook, he earned a save in a 12–2 Phillies victory over the Nationals on May 21 by pitching three innings in relief of Jamie Moyer and not surrendering the lead, though he entered the game with the Phillies leading by twelve runs. Philadelphia won its second straight NL East title in 2008, and Condrey was again part of the postseason roster. He appeared in Game 3 of the NLDS against the Milwaukee Brewers and Game 3 of the NLCS against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Condrey would get a World Series ring as the Phillies defeated the Tampa Bay Rays in five games. Though still part of the active roster, Condrey did not appear in any World Series games.

Condrey went 6–2 with one save and a 3.00 ERA in 45 appearances for the Phillies in 2009, but was not included on the postseason roster as Philadelphia returned to the World Series before falling to the Yankees in six games. On December 12, , Condrey was non-tendered by the Phillies and became a free agent.

On January 6, 2010, Condrey signed a one-year deal with the Minnesota Twins. but experienced some elbow discomfort at the beginning of the season and did not pitch after 2010.

References

External links

1975 births
Living people
American expatriate baseball players in Canada
Angelina Roadrunners baseball players
Arizona League Padres players
Baseball players from Texas
Clearwater Threshers players
Fort Myers Miracle players
Fort Wayne Wizards players
Florida Complex League Phillies players
Gulf Coast Twins players
Idaho Falls Braves players
Major League Baseball pitchers
McNeese Cowboys baseball players
Mobile BayBears players
Ottawa Lynx players
Philadelphia Phillies players
Portland Beavers players
Rancho Cucamonga Quakes players
Rochester Red Wings players
San Diego Padres players
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons players
Sportspeople from Beaumont, Texas

Clay Condrey


A hedge or hedgerow is a line of closely spaced shrubs and sometimes trees, planted and trained to form a barrier or to mark the boundary of an area, such as between neighbouring properties. Hedges that are used to separate a road from adjoining fields or one field from another, and are of sufficient age to incorporate larger trees, are known as hedgerows. Often they serve as windbreaks to improve conditions for the adjacent crops, as in bocage country. When clipped and maintained, hedges are also a simple form of topiary.

A hedge often operates as, and sometimes is called, a "live fence". This may either consist of individual fence posts connected with wire or other fencing material, or it may be in the form of densely planted hedges without interconnecting wire. This is common in tropical areas where low-income farmers can demarcate properties and reduce maintenance of fence posts that otherwise deteriorate rapidly. Many other benefits can be obtained depending on the species chosen.

History

The development of hedges over the centuries is preserved in their structure. The first hedges enclosed land for cereal crops during the Neolithic Age (4000–6000 years ago). The farms were of about , with fields about  for hand cultivation. Some hedges date from the Bronze and Iron Ages, 2000–4000 years ago, when traditional patterns of landscape became established. Others were built during the Medieval field rationalisations; more originated in the industrial boom of the 18th and 19th centuries, when heaths and uplands were enclosed.

Many hedgerows separating fields from lanes in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Low Countries are estimated to have been in existence for more than seven hundred years, originating in the medieval period.  The root word of 'hedge' is much older: it appears in the Old English language, in German (Hecke), and Dutch (haag) to mean 'enclosure', as in the name of the Dutch city The Hague, or more formally 's Gravenhage, meaning The Count's hedge.
Charles the Bald is recorded as complaining in 864, at a time when most official fortifications were constructed of wooden palisades, that some unauthorized men were constructing haies et fertés; tightly interwoven hedges of hawthorns.

In parts of Britain, early hedges were destroyed to make way for the manorial open-field system. Many were replaced after the Enclosure Acts, then removed again during modern agricultural intensification, and now some are being replanted for wildlife.

Composition
A hedge may consist of a single species or several, typically mixed at random.  In many newly planted British hedges, at least 60 per cent of the shrubs are hawthorn, blackthorn, and (in the southwest) hazel, alone or in combination.  The first two are particularly effective barriers to livestock. In North America, Maclura pomifera (i.e., hedge apple) was grown to form a barrier to exclude free-range livestock from vegetable gardens and corn fields. Other shrubs and trees used include holly, beech, oak, ash, and willow; the last three can become very tall. Of the hedgerows in the Normandy region of France, Martin Blumenson said, The hedgerow is a fence, half earth, half hedge. The wall at the base is a dirt parapet that varies in thickness from one to four or more feet and in height from three to twelve feet. Growing out of the wall is a hedge of hawthorn, brambles, vines, and trees, in thickness from one to three feet. Originally property demarcations, hedgerows protect crops and cattle from the ocean winds that sweep across the land.

The hedgerows of Normandy became barriers that slowed the advance of Allied troops following the D-Day invasion during World War II. Allied armed forces modified their armored vehicles to facilitate breaking out of their beachheads into the Normandy bocage.

Species
Formal, or modern garden hedges are grown in many varieties, including the following species:
 Berberis thunbergii -  native to Japan and eastern Asia
 Buxus sempervirens (box) - native to western and southern Europe, northwest Africa, and southwest Asia, from southern England south to northern Morocco, and east through the northern Mediterranean region to Turkey.
 Carpinus betulus (European hornbeam) - native to Western Asia and central, eastern, and southern Europe, including southern England.
 Crataegus monogyna (hawthorn) - native to Europe, northwestern Africa, and West Asia
 Fagus sylvatica (European green beech) - native from northern Europe, in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Bulgaria, eastern parts of Russia, Romania, through central Europe to France, southern England, northern Portugal, central Spain, and east to northwest Turkey where it intergrades with the oriental beech (Fagus orientalis)
 Fagus sylvatica 'Purpurea' (European purple beech) - a variant of the above
 Ilex aquifolium (European holly) - native to western and southern Europe, northwest Africa, and southwest Asia
 Ligustrum ovalifolium (privet) - native to Japan and Korea
 Ligustrum × ibolium (north privet) - native to Japan and Korea
 Photinia × fraseri (red robin) - a hybrid between Photinia glabra and Photinia serratifolia, native to Japan and to China, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and India, respectively
 Prunus laurocerasus (common laurel) - native to regions bordering the Black Sea in southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe, from Albania and Bulgaria east through Turkey to the Caucasus Mountains and northern Iran
 Prunus lusitanica (Portuguese laurel) - native to southwestern France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, and Macaronesia (the Azores, Canary Islands and Madeira)
 Quercus ilex (holm oak) -native to the Mediterranean region
 Taxus baccata (yew) - native to Western Europe, Central Europe and Southern Europe (including Great Britain and Ireland), Northwest Africa, northern Iran, and Southwest Asia
 Thuja occidentalis (yellow ribbon; northern white cedar) -  native to eastern Canada and much of the north-central and northeastern United States
 Thuja plicata (western red cedar) - native to the Pacific Northwest of North America

Hedgerow trees

Hedgerow trees are trees that grow in hedgerows but have been allowed to reach their full height and width.  There are thought to be around 1.8 million hedgerow trees in Britain (counting only those whose canopies do not touch others) with perhaps 98% of these being in England and Wales. Hedgerow trees are both an important part of the English landscape and valuable habitats for wildlife. Many hedgerow trees are veteran trees and therefore of great wildlife interest.

The most common species are English oak (Quercus robur) and ash (Fraxinus excelsior), though in the past field elm (Ulmus minor 'Atinia') would also have been common. Around 20 million elm trees, most of them hedgerow trees, were felled or died through Dutch elm disease in the late 1960s. Many other species are used, notably including common beech (Fagus sylvatica) and various nut and fruit trees.

The age structure of British hedgerow trees is old because the number of new trees is not sufficient to replace the number of trees that are lost through age or disease.

New trees can be established by planting but it is generally more successful to leave standard trees behind when laying hedges. Trees should be left at no closer than  apart and the distances should vary so as to create a more natural landscape. The distance allows the young trees to develop full crowns without competing or producing too much shade.

It is suggested that hedgerow trees cause gaps in hedges but it has been found that cutting some lower branches off lets sufficient light through to the hedge below to allow it to grow.

Importance of hedgerows
Hedges are recognised as part of a cultural heritage and historical record and for their great value to wildlife and the landscape. Increasingly, they are valued too for the major role they have to play in preventing soil loss and reducing pollution, and for their potential to regulate water supply and to reduce flooding. There is increased earthworm diversity in the soils under hedgerows which also help to store organic carbon and support distinct communities of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi.

In addition to maintaining the health of the environment, hedgerows also play a huge role in providing shelter for smaller animals like birds and insects. Recent study by Emma Coulthard mentioned the possibility that hedgerows may act as guides for moths, like Acronicta rumicis, when flying from one location to another. As moths are nocturnal, it is highly unlikely that they use visual aids as guides, but rather are following sensory or olfactory markers on the hedgerows. Larkin et al. 2013 find 100% of northwest European farms have hedges, providing 43% of the wildlife habitat there.

Historically, hedges were used as a source of firewood, and for providing shelter from wind, rain and sun for crops, farm animals and people. Today, mature hedges' uses include screening unsightly developments.

In England and Wales agricultural hedgerow removal is controlled by the Hedgerows Regulations 1997, administered by the local planning authority.

Dating

Hedges that have existed for hundreds of years are colonised by additional species. This may be useful as a means of determining the age of the hedge. Hooper's rule (named for Dr. Max Hooper) is based on ecological data obtained from hedges of known age, and suggests that the age of a hedge can be roughly estimated by counting the number of woody species counted in a thirty-yard distance and multiplying by 110 years.

Max Hooper published his original formula in the book Hedges in 1974. This method is only a rule of thumb, and can be off by a couple of centuries; it should always be backed up by documentary evidence, if possible, and take into account other factors. Caveats include the fact that planted hedgerows, hedgerows with elm, and hedgerows in the north of England tend not to follow the rule as closely. The formula also does not work on hedges more than a thousand years old.

Hooper's scheme is important not least for its potential use in determining what an important hedgerow is, given their protection in The Hedgerows Regulations (1997; No. 1160) of the Department of the Environment, based on age and other factors.

Removal

Hedgerow removal is part of the transition of arable land from low-intensity to high-intensity farming.  The removal of hedgerows gives larger fields making the sowing and harvesting of crops easier, faster and cheaper, and giving a larger area to grow the crops, increasing yield and profits.

Hedgerows serve as important wildlife corridors, especially in the United Kingdom where they link the country's fractured ancient woodland.  They also serve as a habitat for birds and other animals.  As the land within a few metres of hedges is difficult to plough, sow, or spray with herbicides, the land around hedges also typically includes high plant biodiversity.  Hedges also serve to stabilise the soil and on slopes help prevent soil creep and leaching of minerals and plant nutrients. Removal thus weakens the soil and leads to erosion.

In the United Kingdom hedgerow removal has been occurring since World War I as technology made intensive farming possible, and the increasing population demanded more food from the land.  The trend has slowed down somewhat since the 1980s when cheap food imports reduced the demand on British farmland, and as the European Union Common Agricultural Policy made environmental projects financially viable.  Under reforms to national and EU agricultural policies the environmental impact of farming features more highly and in many places hedgerow conservation and replanting is taking place.

In England and Wales agricultural hedgerow removal is controlled by the Hedgerows Regulations 1997, administered by the local planning authority.

Hedge laying

If hedges are not maintained and trimmed regularly, gaps tend to form at the base over many years. In essence, hedgelaying consists of cutting most of the way through the stem of each plant near the base, bending it over and interweaving or pleaching it between wooden stakes.  This also encourages new growth from the base of each plant. Originally, the main purpose of hedgelaying was to ensure the hedge remained stock-proof. Some side branches were also removed and used as firewood.

The maintenance and laying of hedges to form an impenetrable barrier for farm animals is a skilled art. In Britain there are many local hedgelaying traditions, each with a distinct style. Hedges are still being laid today not only for aesthetic and functional purposes but also for their ecological role in helping wildlife and protecting against soil erosion.

Hedge trimming

An alternative to hedge laying is trimming using a tractor-mounted flail cutter or circular saw, or a hedge trimmer. The height of the cutting can be increased a little every year. Trimming a hedge helps to promote bushy growth. If a flail cutter is used, then the flail must be kept sharp to ensure that the cutting is effective on the hedge. The disadvantage of this is that the hedge species takes a number of years before it will flower again and subsequently bear fruit for wildlife and people. If the hedge is trimmed repeatedly at the same height, a 'hard knuckle' will start to form at that height – similar to the shape of a pollarded tree. Additionally, hedge trimming causes habitat destruction to species like the small eggar moth which spend nearly their entire life cycle in blackthorn and hawthorn hedgerow. This has led to a decline in the moth's population. It is now nationally scarce in Britain.

General hedge management
A 'hedgerow management' scale has been devised by an organisation called Hedgelink UK ranging from 1 to 10. '1' describes the action to take for a heavily over trimmed hedge, '5' is a healthy dense hedgerow more than 2 metres in height, and '10' is a hedge that has not been managed at all and has become a line of trees.

The RSPB suggest that hedges in Britain not be cut between March and August. This is to protect nesting birds, which are protected by law.

Coppicing
The techniques of coppicing and hard pollarding can be used to rejuvenate a hedge where hedge-laying is not appropriate.

Types

Instant hedge
The term instant hedge has become known since early this century for hedging plants that are planted collectively in such a way as to form a mature hedge from the moment they are planted together, with a height of at least 1.2 metres. They are usually created from hedging elements or individual plants which means very few are actually hedges from the start, as the plants need time to grow and entwine to form a real hedge.

An example of an instant hedge can be seen at the Elveden Hall Estate in East Anglia, where fields of hedges can be seen growing in cultivated rows, since 1998. The development of this type of mature hedge has led to such products being specified by landscape architects, garden designers, property developers, insurance companies, sports clubs, schools and local councils, as well as many private home owners. Demand has also increased from planning authorities in specifying to developers that mature hedges are planted rather than just whips (a slender, unbranched shoot or plant).

A 'real' instant hedge could be defined as having a managed root growth system allowing the hedge to be sold with a continuous rootstrips (rather than individual plants) which then enables year-round planting. During its circa 8-year production time, all stock should be irrigated, clipped and treated with controlled-release nutrients to optimise health.

Quickset hedge

A quickset hedge is a type of hedge created by planting live whitethorn (common hawthorn) cuttings directly into the earth (hazel does not sprout from cuttings). Once planted, these cuttings root and form new plants, creating a dense barrier. The technique is ancient, and the term quickset hedge is first recorded in 1484. The word quick in the name refers to the fact that the cuttings are living (as in "the quick and the dead"), and not to the speed at which the hedge grows, although it will establish quite rapidly. An alternative meaning of quickset hedging is any hedge formed of living plants or of living plants combined with a fence. The technique of quicksetting can also be used for many other shrubs and trees.

Devon hedge

A Devon hedge is an earth bank topped with shrubs. The bank may be faced with turf or stone. When stone-faced, the stones are generally placed on edge, often laid flat around gateways.

A quarter of Devon's hedges are thought to be over 800 years old. There are approximately 33,000 miles (53,000 km) of Devon hedge, which is more than any other county. Traditional farming throughout the county has meant that fewer Devon hedges have been removed than elsewhere.

Devon hedges are particularly important for wildlife habitat. Around 20% of the UK's species-rich hedges occur within Devon. Over 600 species of flowering plants, 1500 species of insects, 65 species of birds and 20 species of mammals have been recorded living or feeding in Devon hedges.

Hedge laying in Devon is usually referred to as steeping and involves cutting and laying steepers (the stems) along the top of the bank and securing them with crooks (forked sticks).

Cornish hedge

A Cornish hedge is an earth bank with stones. It normally consists of large stone blocks constructed either side of a narrow earth bank, and held in place with interlocking stones. The neat rows of square stones at the top are called "edgers". The top of the hedge is planted with grass turf.

Sometimes hedging plants or trees are planted on the hedge to increase its windbreaking height. A rich flora develops over the lifespan of a Cornish hedge. The Cornish hedge contributes to the distinctive field-pattern of the Cornish landscape and its semi-natural wildlife habitat. There are about  of hedges in Cornwall today.

Hedges suffer from the effects of tree roots, burrowing rabbits, rain, wind, farm animals and people. How often repairs are needed depends on how well the hedge was built, its stone, and what has happened to it since it was last repaired. Typically a hedge needs a cycle of repair every 150 years or so, or less often if it is fenced. Building new hedges, and repairing existing hedges, is a skilled craft, and there are professional hedgers in Cornwall. The Cornish Hedge Research and Education Group (CHREG) supports the development of traditional skills and works with Cornwall Council, FWAG (Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group), Stone Academy Bodmin, Cornwall AONB, Country Trust and professional hedgers to ensure the future of Cornish Hedges in the landscape.

In gardening
Hedges, both clipped and unclipped, are often used as ornament in the layout of gardens. Typical woody plants for clipped hedges include privet, hawthorn, beech, yew, leyland cypress, hemlock, arborvitae, barberry, box, holly, oleander, lavender, among others. An early 20th-century fashion was for tapestry hedges, using a mix of golden, green and glaucous dwarf conifers, or beech and copper beech. Unclipped hedges take up more space, generally at a premium in modern gardens, but compensate by flowering. Rosa multiflora is widely used as a dense hedge along the central reservation of dual-carriageway roads, such as parkways in the United States. In mild climates, more exotic flowering hedges are formed, using Ceanothus, Hibiscus, Camellia, orange jessamine (Murraya paniculata), or lillypilly (Syzygium species).
It is also possible to prepare really nice and dense hedge from other deciduous plants, however they do not have decorative flowers as the bushes mentioned before.

Hedges of clipped trees forming avenues are a feature of 16th-century Italian gardens such as the Boboli Gardens in Florence, and of formal French gardens in the manner of André Le Nôtre, e.g. in the Gardens of Versailles, where they surround bosquets or areas formalized woodland. The English version of this was the wilderness, normal in large gardens until the English landscape garden style and the rise of the shrubbery began to sweep them away from about 1750.  The 'hedge on stilts' of clipped hornbeams at Hidcote Manor Garden, Gloucestershire, is famous and has sometimes been imitated; it is fact a standard French and Italian style of the bosquet.

Hedges below knee height are generally thought of as borders. Elaborately shaped and interlaced borders forming knot gardens or parterres were fashionable in Europe during the 16th and early 17th centuries. Generally they were appreciated from a raised position, either the windows of a house, or a terrace.

Clipped hedges above eye level may be laid out in the form of a labyrinth or garden maze. Few such mazes survived the change of fashion towards more naturalistic plantings in the 18th and 19th centuries, but many were replanted in 20th-century restorations of older gardens. An example is behind the Governor's Palace, Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.

Hedges and pruning can both be used to enhance a garden's privacy, as a buffer to visual pollution and to hide fences. A hedge can be aesthetically pleasing, as in a tapestry hedge, where alternate species are planted at regular intervals to present different colours or textures.

In America, fences have always been more common than hedges to mark garden boundaries. The English radical William Cobbett was already complaining about this in 1819:And why should America not possess this most beautiful and useful plant [the Haw-Thorn]? She has English gew-gaws, English Play-Actors, English Cards and English Dice and Billiards; English fooleries and English vices enough in all conscience; and why not English Hedges, instead of post-and-rail and board fences? If, instead of these steril-looking and cheerless enclosures the gardens and meadows and fields, in the neighbourhood of New York and other cities and towns, were divided by quick-set hedges, what a difference would the alteration make in the look, and in the real value too, of those gardens, meadows and fields!

Regulation

In the US, some local jurisdictions may strictly regulate the placement or height of a hedge, such as the case where a Palo Alto city resident was arrested for allowing her xylosma hedge to grow above two feet.

In the UK the owner of a large hedge that is adversely affecting the reasonable enjoyment of neighbouring domestic property can be made to reduce it in height. In England and Wales, high hedges are covered under Part 8 of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003. For a hedge to qualify for reduction, it must be made up wholly or mainly of a line of two or more evergreen or semi-evergreen trees or shrubs and be over 2 metres high. To some degree, it must be a barrier to light or access. It must be adversely affecting the complainant's reasonable enjoyment of their domestic property (either their house or garden) because of its height. Later legislation with similar effect was introduced in Northern Ireland, Isle of Man and Scotland.

Significant hedges

The 19th-century Great Hedge of India was probably the largest example of a hedge used as a barrier. It was planted and used to collect taxes by the British.

The Willow Palisade, constructed during the early Qing dynasty (17th century) to control people's movement and to collect taxes on ginseng and timber in southern Manchuria, also had hedge-like features. The palisade included two dikes and a moat between them, the dikes topped by rows of willow trees, tied to one another with their branches.
Gradually decaying throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries, the palisade disappeared in the early 20th century, its remaining willows cut during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 by the two countries' soldiers.

The Meikleour Beech Hedges, located near Meikleour in Scotland, are noted in the Guinness World Records as the tallest and longest hedge on earth, reaching  in height and  in length. The beech trees were planted in 1745 by Jean Mercer on the Marquess of Lansdowne's Meikleour estate.

The hedgerows and sunken lanes in Normandy, France posed a problem to Allied tanks after Operation Overlord, the invasion of Europe, in World War 2. The hedgerows prevented the tanks from freely moving about the area, until they were fitted with tusks.

See also
 Bibliography of hedges and topiary
 Bocage
 Dead hedge
 Drovers' road
 Enclosure
 Green wall
 Hedgehog
 Hedgelaying
 Shelterbelt
 Topiary

Notes

References
 Brooks, Alan and Agate, Elizabeth Agate (1998). Hedging, a Practical handbook. British Trust for Conservation Volunteers.
 Pollard, E., Hooper, M.D. and Moore, N.W. (1974). Hedges. London: Collins.
 Rackham, Oliver (1986). The History of the Countryside. London: J.M. Dent and Sons.

External links

 The British Hedgelaying Society
 The English Hedgerow Trust
 Devon Hedge Group
 The age of hedges - "Botanist Max Hooper correlates number of species in English hedgerows with centuries in age". Whole Earth Review,  Summer 1995, by Charles Elliott.
 How to Date Hedges - Bingham Heritage.

About the Hedgerows Regulations 1997
 Bunny Guinness in The Telegraph
 Alan Titchmarsh in Daily Express
 Gareth James in Huffington Post
 Jo Morrison in The Telegraph

Fences
Garden features
Landscape architecture

Hedge


The Quinault ( or ) are a group of Native American peoples from western Washington in the United States. They are a Southwestern Coast Salish people and are enrolled in the federally recognized Quinault Tribe of the Quinault Reservation.

The name "Quinault" is an anglicized version of  /ˈkʷinajɬ/, the traditional name of a village at the mouth of the Quinault River, today called Taholah. The river, village, and people were given the anglicized name Quinault in 1787 by the maritime fur trader Charles William Barkley. It is also possible that both names come from a French trapper from the Quinault family who visited the area.

Lands
The Quinault Indian Reservation, at , is located on the Pacific coast of Washington, primarily in northwestern Grays Harbor County, with small parts extending north into southwestern Jefferson County. It has a land area of 819.294 km² (316.331 sq mi) and reported a resident population of 1,370 persons as of the 2000 census. The Quinault people settled onto reservation lands after signing the Quinault Treaty with the former Washington Territory in 1856. About 60% of the reservation's population lives in the community of Taholah, on the Pacific coast at the mouth of the Quinault River.

Motorists are cautioned that it is not possible to traverse the entire reservation on Highway 109, in spite of what some online mapping services indicate. Construction of the highway north from Taholah to U.S. Highway 101 was halted in the late 1960s. There is only limited access (for private property owners and tribe members) along the northern coast of the reservation.

Currently, only enrolled members of the Quinault Indian Nation and their guests are allowed onto the beaches throughout the reservation without a pass. Guests can obtain access passes that allow them to use the beaches for the day issued.

Culture

Language

Related peoples
The mixture of members with ethnic ties to the modern Quinault tribe is made up of the Quinault, Hoh, Chehalis, Chinook, Cowlitz, Queets, and Quileute peoples. Linguistically, these groups belong to three language families: Chimakuan (Quileute, Hoh), Chinookan (Chinook groups), and Salishan (Chehalis, Cowlitz, Queets, and Quinault).

Basketry and weaving

The Quinault people have been noted basket makers and weavers. Baskets were made from locally available materials such as reeds and grasses, spruce, maple and red cedar, and in many styles suited to the task at hand. For instance, burden baskets made for gathering oysters and other shellfish had an open weave to allow for drainage, and were made from water resistant materials like cedar bark. Archaeology has revealed some of the ways basketmaking evolved over time, and the Ozette Indian Village Archeological Site, about  up the Pacific coast from the present-day Quinault reservation, has been an invaluable site that preserved objects subject to decay, such as baskets and blankets, in a mudslide.

Quinault basket artifacts are in many museums in the Northwest and around the world. The following were notable basket weavers of the Quinault prior to 1960.

Anna Black of Queets
Beatrice Black b. 1886 of Taholah
Irene Charley (Shale) b. 1908 of Taholah
Lena Hebalakp Charley (Bastian) b. 1877 of Taholah
Maggie Charley (Kalama) b. 1870 of Hoquiam
Mary Chips b. 1857 of Puyallup and La Push
Emily Cleveland b. 1929 of Queets
Lilly Cliff or Clip (Ford) b. 1865 of Neah Bay
Agnes Garfield (Hudson) b. 1894 of Taholah
Frances James (Bowechop) (1905-1972) of Neah Bay
Maggie James (Wain)(Kelly) b. 1886 of Queets
Anna Jette (Jackson) b. 1889 of Taholah
Hannah Mason (Bowechop)(Saux)(Payne) (1895-1971) of Taholah
Blanche Mowitch b. 1908 of Quinault
Laura Obi (Sam) b. 1864 of Queets
Charlotte Penn (Kalama) (1924-2010) of Queets
Hazel Purdy (Underwood) b. 1908 of Taholah
Blanche Lila Shale (McBride) b. 1925 of Taholah
Ella Shileba Hobucket  Wa-uc or Wa-bas-tub b. 1865 of La Push
Sarah or Sally Shileba/Shalber Legg (James)(Mason)(Freeman) b. 1865 of Lake Quinault and Taholah, wife of Chief Taholah
Joyce Simmons (Cheeka) b. 1901 of Neah Bay
Ida Strom (Law) b. 1898 of Taholah
Alice Taholah (Jackson) b. 1853 of Taholah, daughter of Chief Taholah
Maggie Ward (Harlow) Tso-ba-dook b. 1886 of Queets
Annie Williams (Waukenas) (1859-1951) of Taholah
Leta Williams (Shale) (Sailto) b. 1928 of Queets

There has been some attempt to preserve traditional basketmaking techniques on the Quinault reservation, though the style has been intermixed with that of other tribes.

Economy
Many tribes within the Pacific Northwest receive per capita payments from their tribes but the Quinault Indian Nation currently does not. The economy for Quinault Indian Nation is mainly derived from the Quinault Beach Resort and Casino, timber, and various fishing entities (Quinault Pride Seafood, etc.). Quinault Indian Nation is the largest employer within Grays Harbor County.

Communities
Amanda Park
Queets
Qui-nai-elt Village
Santiago
Taholah

References

Sources

Further reading

External links

Quinault Indian Nation, official website
University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections – The Pacific Northwest Olympic Peninsula Community Museum
 Inventory of the Quinault Indian Reservation Collection, 1939–1977, in the Forest History Society Library and Archives, Durham, NC
 Quinault artwork, collections of the National Museum of the American Indian

Native American tribes in Washington (state)
Coast Salish
Quinault

Quinault people


Yu Xiaogang () is a Chinese environmentalist. He was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2006 for his efforts in "creating groundbreaking watershed management programs while researching and documenting the socioeconomic impact dams had on local Chinese communities". He is among the six winners of the 2009 Ramon Magsaysay Awards, considered by many to be the Asian equivalent of the Nobel prize. He completed his Master's from the Asian Institute of Technology(AIT) in Thailand and his award citation says:
His (Yu Xiaogang) interest in the environment was cultivated during a stint in the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, and was further deepened when he attended the Asian Institute of Technology, where he earned a master's degree in watershed management.

References

Chinese scientists
Chinese environmentalists
Living people
Asian Institute of Technology alumni
Ramon Magsaysay Award winners
21st-century Chinese scientists
Year of birth missing (living people)
Goldman Environmental Prize awardees

Yu Xiaogang


Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation (ARMM) was a program developed by Richard Depew in 1993 to aid in the control of Usenet abuse. Concerned by abusive posts emanating from certain anonymous-posting sites, Depew developed ARMM to allow news administrators to automatically issue cancel messages for such posts. This was a controversial act, as many news administrators and users were concerned about censorship of the netnews medium.

An early version of ARMM contained a bug which caused it to post follow-ups to its own messages, recursively sending posts to the news.admin.policy newsgroup. This was an early example of (unintentional) Usenet spam.

References

Usenet
Spam filtering

ARMM (Usenet)


A containment building is a building with a nuclear reactor in it. It is built around the reactor to keep the radiation from getting out, if something happens to the reactor. The containment building is the last barrier to the radiation getting into the environment. Containment systems for nuclear power reactors are distinguished by size, shape, materials used, and suppression systems. The kind of containment used is determined by the type of reactor, generation of the reactor, and the specific plant needs.

The Chernobyl accident was very bad partly because the Soviet RBMK reactors used at the Chernobyl power plant had no containment buildings. The explosion, however, was so powerful that it is unlikely a containment building would have completely prevented the release of radiation.

Layers of nuclear defense
The diagram shows the order of defense layers for a nuclear reactor. The first layer of defense is the inert, ceramic quality of the uranium oxide itself. The second layer is the air tight zirconium alloy of the fuel rod. The third layer is the reactor pressure vessel made of steel more than a dozen centimeters thick. The fourth layer is the pressure resistant, air tight containment building. The fifth layer is the exclusion zone around the reactor.

Notes

Nuclear power plants

Containment building


The piano is an acoustic, keyboard and stringed musical instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys (small levers) that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. It was invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700 (the exact year is uncertain).

History
The piano has been an extremely popular instrument in Western classical music since the late 18th century. The piano was invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori of Padua, Italy.  He made his first piano in 1709. It developed from the clavichord which looks like a piano but the strings of a clavichord are hit by a small blade of metal called a "tangent". In the piano the strings are hit by a block of wood called a hammer. The early keyboarded instruments, such as the clavichords, harpsichords and organs that were used at that time, had a much shorter keyboard than they do today. Gradually the keyboard became longer until it had the 88 notes (7 octaves plus three notes) of the modern piano.

At first the instrument was called the "fortepiano". This means "loud-soft" in Italian. It was given this name because it could be played either loudly or softly, depending on how hard the note was hit (the harpsichord could not do this, and the clavichord could only make a tiny difference between louder and softer). Later this name changed to "pianoforte". This is normally shortened to "piano". The word "fortepiano" is sometimes used to describe the pianos of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In some languages, such as Russian, "fortepiano" is the normal word for a piano.

Although the piano was invented at the beginning of the 18th century, it was not until 50 years later that it started to become popular. The first time the piano was played in a public concert in London was in 1768 when it was played by Johann Christian Bach.  The upright piano was invented in 1800 by John Isaac Hawkings. Seven years later T. Southwell invented "over-stringing". This means that the strings for the low notes go diagonally across the soundboard so that they can be longer and make a much bigger sound.

The early pianos had strings that were fastened to a frame made of wood. They were not very heavy, but they were not very strong or loud, so they could not be heard very well in a big concert hall. In 1825 the cast-iron frame was invented in America. This made the piano much stronger so that it could make a bigger sound and the strings were not likely to break.

One of the most known fortepiano builders was Johann Andreas Stein from Augsburg, Germany. Stein developed the "Viennese" action, popular on Viennese pianos up to the mid-19th century. Another important Viennese piano maker was Anton Walter. Mozart's own Walter fortepiano is presently at the Mozart Museum in Salzburg, Austria. Haydn also owned Walter piano, and Beethoven expressed a wish to buy one. The most famous early-romantic piano maker was Conrad Graf (1782–1851), who made Beethoven's last piano. His instruments were played by Chopin, Mendelssohn and Schumann. Johannes Brahms had preferred pianos by Johann Baptist Streicher. The English piano school builders included Johannes Zumpe, Robert Stodart and John Broodwood. Prominent piano makers among the French during the era of the fortepiano included Erard, Pleyel (Chopin's favorite maker) and Boisselot (Liszt's favorite).

The production of this older type of instrument had stopped in the end of the 19th century. In the second half of the 20th century people started to be more interested in period instruments, including harpsichord and fortepiano. Some of the more known fortepiano builders included in this 20th-century fortepiano revival have been Philip Belt, Margaret F. Hood, Christopher Clark and Paul McNulty.

Piano parts

A piano has a keyboard with white keys and black keys. When a key is pressed down, the damper comes off the string and a hammer hits the string. It hits it very quickly and bounces off so that the string is free to vibrate and make a sound.  Each key is a level that makes a hammer inside the piano hit a string inside, producing a sound. Each string has a different length and so produces-a different note. When the player takes their finger off the key the damper falls back onto the string and the sound stops.  The strings are stretched very tightly across the frame, passing over a bridge on the way.  The bridge touches the soundboard.  This means that the vibrations are sent to the soundboard.  The soundboard is a very important part of the piano.  If it is damaged the piano will not make a sound.

The mechanism which makes the hammer bounce off the string very quickly is called the "escapement". In 1821 Sebastian Erard invented a kind of double escapement. This made it possible to repeat the note very quickly. The hammer only touches the string for about one thousandth of a second.  The hammers are covered with felt which is a mixture of wool, silk and hair.

Pedals
At the bottom of every modern piano, there are at least two pedals, which are levers that the pianist presses down with his or her feet to change the sound. Many pianos have three pedals, but a few have even more. Each pedal changes the sound in a different way.

 The damper pedal (also called the sustain pedal) is the pedal on the right, and the one that is used most often. For this reason, it is often called just "the pedal". It is pressed with the pianist's right foot, and makes the dampers (which look a bit like the hammers) that usually rests on the strings come off, so the strings are free to vibrate. As long as the pianist holds this pedal down, the notes he plays will keep on sounding even when he takes his fingers off the keys. Some other strings will also vibrate very lightly (this is called "sympathetic vibration"), which makes the sound smoother and richer. Pianists have to learn how to use this pedal well. This will depend on such things as the style of the music, the size of the piano, the size and the acoustics of the room in which the instrument is in.
 The soft pedal (also called the una corda pedal) is the pedal on the left, and is pressed with the pianist's left foot. As its name suggests, this pedal makes the notes sound quieter. On a grand piano, the whole keyboard and action shift a bit to the left so that the hammers only hit two strings instead of three. The soft pedal is usually used only in classical music and is normally kept down for the whole of a piece or a section of a piece.
On pianos with three pedals, the pedal in the middle does different things on a grand and upright piano. On a grand piano, it is the sostenuto pedal, and is pressed with the pianist's left foot. Like the right pedal, it keeps the sound going, but only on the notes that are being played at the moment when the middle pedal is pressed down. This makes it possible to keep one chord going while playing other notes that will not carry on. All concert grand pianos have a sostenuto pedal, and some modern upright pianos do as well. The middle pedal on some upright pianos is not a sostenuto pedal at all, but a practice pedal. It places a piece of cloth in front of the strings, making the sound very quiet so that a pianist can practice without disturbing other people. The practice pedal can usually be pressed down and put in a slot so that it will stay in place.

Pedal marks in music

The damper pedal is the most important pedal, and so many composers often write down in a piece of music when the pianist should press and when he or she should let go of the damper pedal. In most classical music, there is a sign that says Ped. where the pedal should be pressed, and one that looks like an asterisk where the pedal should be let go. Pedal marks can also appear as a straight line under the staff. Often, the pianist will let go of the pedal and press it again right away; this is called changing pedal. Sometimes, the music will simply say con pedale, which in Italian means with pedal. It means that the damper pedal should be used, but the pianist should know when to change the pedal.

Another sign, which tells a pianist to press the soft pedal is una corda, (Italian for one string). It is held down until another sign, tre corde (meaning three strings), appears, telling the pianist to let go of the soft pedal. In early pianos, it was possible to press the pedal a little way so that the hammers hit two strings, then press it further so that they hit only one string.

There is no sign for the sostenuto pedal, so it is up to the pianist on whether to use it in a specific piece of music.

Famous piano composers
Once the piano became popular in the late 18th century many composers wrote music for the piano. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart started to learn on harpsichords when he was very small, but the piano was becoming popular when he was a young man and he wrote many sonatas and concertos for the piano.  Franz Joseph Haydn also wrote a lot of piano music.  Ludwig van Beethoven was a very famous pianist before he became very famous as a composer. His piano compositions include 5 concertos and 32 sonatas. In the Romantic period many composers wrote for the piano. They include Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Franz Liszt and Frederic Chopin.  Later composers include Sergei Rachmaninoff, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich and Bela Bartok.

Famous piano players
Some famous piano players from the early days of the piano include Dussek, Mozart, Muzio Clementi, John Field and Chopin. In the 19th century Franz Liszt was a very great influence on the piano by composing and performing very difficult music. Other great pianists include Clara Schumann and Anton Rubinstein. 20th century pianists include Artur Schnabel, Vladimir Horowitz, Josef Hofmann, Wilhelm Kempff, Dinu Lipati, Claudio Arrau, Artur Rubinstein,  Sviatoslav Richter and Alfred Brendel. Among the greatest pianists today are Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, Leif Ove Andsnes, Boris Berezovsky and Evgeny Kissin.

Pianists who play popular music include Liberace, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Elton John, Billy Joel, Thelonious Monk, Tori Amos and Ray Charles.  Perhaps the greatest jazz pianist was Fats Waller.

Also a number of modern harpsichordists and pianists have achieved success in fortepiano performance, including Paul Badura-Skoda, Malcolm Bilson, Andras Schiff, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Ronald Brautigam, Alexei Lubimov, duet Katie and Marielle Labeque, Yuan Sheng, Gary Cooper, Jörg Demus, Richard Egarr, Richard Fuller, Robert Hill, Geoffrey Lancaster, Vladimir Feltsman, Robert Levin, Steven Lubin, Bart van Oort, Trevor Pinnock, Viviana Sofronitsky, Andreas Staier, Melvyn Tan, Jos van Immerseel and Olga Pashchenko.

Playing the piano
The piano has been a very popular instrument ever since the mid 18th century when it soon replaced the clavichord and the harpsichord. By the early 19th century the sound that the piano made was big enough to fill large concert halls. Smaller pianos were made for use in people's homes. At first these included square pianos and giraffe pianos, later on the upright pianos became popular for home use. Pianos are not often used in orchestras (if they are, they are part of the percussion section). They may, however, be used for piano concertos (pieces for solo pianist accompanied by orchestra). There is a vast amount of music written for piano solo. The piano can also be used together with other instruments, in jazz groups, and for accompanying singing.

Related pages
Keyboard instrument
Pedal
Piano duet
Piano six hands
Piano trio

References

Keyboard instruments
Percussion instruments

Piano