Research Results For 'Accompaniment'

BATH

Bath is the immersion of the body in water, or an apparatus for this purpose. The use of the bath as an institution apart from occasional immersion in rivers or the sea, is, as might be anticipated, an exceedingly old custom. Homer mentions the bath as one of the first refreshments offered to a guest; thus, when Ulysses enters the palace of Circe, a bath is prepared for him, and he is anointed after it with costly perfumes. No representation, however, of a bath as we understand it is given upon the Greek vases, bathers being represented either simply washing at an elevated basin, or having water poured over them from above. In later times, rooms, both public and private, were built expressly for bathing, the public baths of the Greeks being mostly connected with the gymnasia. Apparently, by an inversion of the later practice, it was customary in the Homeric epoch to take first a cold and then a hot bath; but the Lacedemonians substituted the hot-air sudorific bath, as less enervating than warm water, and in Athens at the time of Demosthenes and Socrates the warm bath was considered by the more rigorous as an effeminate custom.

The fullest details we have with respect to the bathing of the ancients apply to its luxurious development under the Romans. Their bathing establishments consisted of four main sections: the undressing room, with an adjoining chamber in which the bathers were anointed; a cold room with provision for a cold bath; a room heated moderately to serve as a preparation for the highest and lowest temperatures; and the sweating-room, at one extremity of which was a vapour-bath and at the other an ordinary hot bath. After going through the entire course both the Greeks and Romans made use of strigils or scrapers, either of horn or metal, to remove perspiration, oil, and impurities from the skin. Connected with the bath were walks, covered race-grounds, tennis-courts, and gardens, the whole, both in the external and internal decorations, being frequently on a palatial scale. The group of the Laocoon and the Parnese Hercules were both found in the ruins of Roman baths.

With respect to modern baths, that commonly in use in Russia consists of a single hall, built of wood, in the midst of which is a powerful metal oven, covered with heated stones, and surrounded with broad benches, on which the bathers take their places. Cold water is then poured upon the heated stones, and a thick, hot steam rises, which causes the sweat to issue from the whole body. The bather is then gently whipped with wet birch rods, rubbed with soap, and washed with lukewarm and cold water; of the latter, some pailfuls are poured over his head; or else he leaps, immediately after this sweating-bath, into a river or pond, or rolls in the snow.

The Turks, by their religion, are obliged to make repeated ablutions daily, and for this purpose there is, in every city, a public bath connected with a mosque. A favourite bath among them, however, is a modification of the hot-air sudorific-bath of the ancients introduced under the name of Turkish Bath into other than Islamic countries. A regular accompaniment of this bath, when properly given, is the operation known as 'kneading,' or massage, generally performed at the close of the sweating process, after the final rubbing of the bather with soap, and consisting in a systematic pressing and squeezing of the whole body, stretching the limbs, and manipulating all the joints as well as the fleshy and muscular parts.

Public baths were common in Europe during the late 19th century, but the first English public baths and wash-houses of the kind common in all cities during the late 19th century were established in Liverpool and near the London docks in 1844. In 1846 an act was passed for their encouragement, and a Baths and Wash-houses Act of 1878 authorized the establishment of cheap swimming-baths.

The principal natural warm baths in England are at Bath in Somersetshire (the hottest), and Brixton and Matlock in Derbyshire. The temperature of the Bath springs ranges from 109 to 117 degrees, while that of the Buxton and Matlock waters scarcely exceeds 82 degrees. The baths of Harrogate, which are strongly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen gas, are also of great repute for the cure of obstinate cutaneous diseases, indurations of the glands, etc. The most celebrated natural hot baths in Europe are those of Aix-la-Chapelle, and the various Baden in Germany; Toeplitz, in Bohemia; Bagnieres, Bareges, and Dax, in the south of France; and Spa, in Belgium. Besides the various kinds of water-bath with or without medication or natural mineral ingredients, there are also milk, oil, wine, earth, sand, mud, and electric baths, smoke-baths and gas-baths; but these are as a rule only indulged after specific prescription.

The practice of bathing as a method of cure in cases of disease falls under the head of hydrotherapathy; in the 19th century it was advised that even when bathing was employed simply for pleasure or purification due regard should be paid to the physiological condition of the bather. During the Victorian era in Britain writers were concerned about the potential dangers of bathing, and one warned:

'in many cases cold bathing should be avoided altogether, especially by those who have any tendency to spitting of blood or consumption, by gouty people, or by those who have any latent visceral disease or apoplectic tendency. Wherever the bath is followed by shivering instead of by a healthy reactionary glow, it is undesirable; and a cold bath in the morning after any debauchery or excess in eating or drinking on the previous evening is exceedingly imprudent. Delicate persons and children ought not to bathe in the sea before ten or eleven o'clock in the morning, and in no case should bathing be indulged after a long fast. In cold streams and rivers additional precautions should be taken, the cold plunge, when heated or fatigued, being frequently attended with fatal results. Even warm baths are not wholly free from danger; apoplexy and death having been known to follow a hot bath when entered with a full stomach. As a rule the temperature should not exceed 105 degrees, and they should not be too long continued. Frequent indulgence in them has an enervating effect, though the majority of people need as yet no renewal of Hadrian's prohibitive legislation in this matter.'

The eminent author, George Black, in 1892, while generally encouraging bathing, and describing bathing as 'likely to be of excellent use and efficacy both in the prevention and cure of disease.' Also went on to warn:

'Baths should never be taken immediately after a meal, nor when the body is very much exhausted by fatigue or excitement of any kind, nor during nor just before menstruation; and they should be sparingly and guardedly used by pregnant women.'
Research Bath

JAPANESE DRAMA

Japanese drama commenced around the 7th century and to date has evolved a wide variety of genres characterised generally by the fusion of dramatic, musical, and dance elements. The music and dance, as well as the subjects, settings, costumes, and acting styles, were rigidly stylised and, until recent times, offered relatively few realistic or naturalistic qualities. Some genres utilise almost exclusively a fixed repertoire of plays, often many centuries old. The earliest known type of Japanese theatrical entertainment is gigaku, which was introduced into Japan in 612 from southern China; it is thought to have been ultimately of Indian or possibly even of Greek origin. Gigaku dances, performed with masks, seem to have been humorous. In the 8th century gigaku fell into disfavour because its frivolous character displeased the Japanese rulers of the period. It was supplanted largely by bugaku, an entertainment introduced from China. Bugaku dances portrayed simple situations such as the return of a general from war.

The performers wore impressive robes, and their dances had exotic splendour. Japanese rulers, intent on imitating Chinese court etiquette, favoured bugaku, both because of its solemnity and because of its similarity to Chinese court entertainments, and it quickly acquired a ritual character. Bugaku may now be seen only at ceremonies. A type of acrobatic entertainment known as sangaku, transmitted similarly to Japan from the Asian continent and popular in the 8th century, also influenced Japanese drama. Typical acts included tightrope walking, juggling, and sword swallowing. A Combination of these secular entertainments and the sacred dances and songs associated with the Shinto religion gradually evolved into more complex forms of drama. Surviving documents from the 11th century describe comic playlets, and one play still performed, the ritual dance Okina, may date from this period.

Plays were also performed at shrine festivals in support of prayers for harvests or to depict the history of the shrine. The actors and musicians were organised into troupes. By the 14th century the theatre had developed one of its foremost artistic achievements, No drama. These plays included solemn dances intended to suggest the deepest emotions of the principal character and were written in the poetic language of the Japanese classics. A program also often included kyo gen, or farces written in colloquial language. No was brought to the level of great art by the genius of two dramatists, Kanami Kiyotsugu and his son Zeami Motokiyo. No was patronised by the Ashikaga shogunate after a shogun saw the boy Zeami perform in 1374. Zeami developed No into refined aristocratic drama, but after his death it tended to lose its creative vitality and become ritualistic. Many No plays performed at present are by Zeami, and his books of criticism are considered the final authority on the subject.

For a short period after the Meiji restoration in 1868, No was threatened with extinction because of its connections with the discredited shogunate. It survived the threat, however, and thereafter enjoyed popularity with specialised audiences. An entire program of No drama traditionally consists of five No plays in poetry with music and four kyo gen farces in prose without music, performed alternately. Kyogen farces feature representational acting, and the actors wear neither masks nor makeup. No plays avoid representational accuracy in favour of a symbolic treatment of subjects concerning the worlds of the living and the dead. The principal types of No plays are those dealing with deities, the ghosts of warriors, women with tragic destinies, mad persons, and devils or festive spirits. The actors, who often wear masks, are richly and elaborately costumed. The No drama is performed in a theatre with a roofed stage. The audience is seated on two or, less commonly, three sides of the stage. The actors reach the stage by a passageway, called the bridge, which is marked by three pine trees. The only backdrop is a large painted pine. The scenery consists entirely of impressionistic props suggesting the outlines of a building, a boat, or any other object of importance to the play. Only male actors perform in No dramas. When they play the roles of women or of men whose age is markedly different from their own, they wear masks, many of which are exceptionally beautiful. The No drama also includes a chorus that sits at one side of the stage and recites for the actors when they dance, but the chorus has no identity in the drama. Full programs are seldom presented any longer, but kyo gen continues to be an indispensable part of the entire performance, for it presents the humorous aspects of life with which No is never concerned.

At the end of the 15th century two new popular forms appeared; they were the puppet theatre, jo ruri, also called bunraku, and a form known as kabuki. The puppet theatre combines three elements: the puppets; the chanters who sing and declaim for the puppets; and the players of the samisen, a three-stringed instrument, who provide the accompaniment. The greatest Japanese dramatist, Chikamatsu Monzaemon, wrote chiefly for the puppet theatre, the artistic level of which is perhaps higher in Japan than anywhere else in the world. The puppet theatre, after attaining its greatest popularity in the 18th century, lost in public favour to the kabuki, which has continued to be the most popular traditional dramatic genre. By the mid-1980s kabuki was popular with American audiences, and troupes made annual appearances in the USA Kabuki tends to be spectacle rather than drama. Original kabuki texts, as opposed to those adapted from the puppet theatre, are of lesser importance than the remarkable acting, the music and dance, and the brilliantly collared settings.

Kabuki plays are performed in large theatres, with a hanamichi, or raised platform, extending from the back of the theatre to the stage. In addition to the traditional drama, a modern theatrical repertoire consisting of original Japanese plays in a modern idiom and of translations of European plays has been active in Japan since the beginning of the 20th century. Some 20th-century playwrights have attempted to compromise between traditional Japanese forms and essentially Western idioms, either by introducing modern psychology into their treatment of the ancient tales or by making kabuki-style plays out of such European classics as Shakespeare's Macbeth. Highly successful modern presentations of traditional themes are offered in Five Modern No Plays (1956) by Mishima Yukio. Other plays, notably Twilight Crane, produced in 1949, by Kinoshita Junji, are derived from old folktales. Many contemporary Japanese playwrights deal with such themes as conflict in modern Japanese society and problems of social injustice; other playwrights prefer to work out Japanese equivalents of modern symbolic drama or of the American musical comedy.
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NURSERY RHYME

A nursery rhyme is a short traditional poem or song for children. Usually limited to a couplet or quatrain with strongly marked rhythm and rhymes,
nursery rhymes have often been handed down by oral tradition. Some of the oldest nursery rhymes are connected with a traditional tune and were sung as accompaniment to ancient ring games, such as 'Here we go round the mulberry bush', which was part of the May Day festivities. Others contain fragments of incantations and other rites; still others have a factual basis and commemorated popular figures, such as Jack Sprat and Jack Horner.
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QUARTERING

Quartering is a form of torturous execution in which the victim is torn apart by four horses, one each attached to each limb and then driven in opposite directions. A typical example is recounted by Casanova who witnessed the execution of Damien in 1757. He recounts how every available spot within sight of the scaffold was crowded with Parisian sightseers who gloated over the doomed man's sufferings. After having his hand burned off and being subjected to the torture of boiling oil and melted lead, for hours, to the accompaniment of his piercing screams, the whip-goaded horses dragged his limbs and body apart.
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CAPER

Caper (Capparis spinosa) is a deciduous, shrubby perennial of the family Capparidaceae found in rocky places and waste areas of the Mediterranean region. It has straggly, sometimes spiny stems branching from the base. The leaves are circular to ovate in shape and rather fleshy. The flowers are carried singly in the leaf axils, opening flat with four white or purplish- tinged petals. The fruit is a rounded berry, about two centimetres across, which splits open when ripe to reveal numerous seeds embedded in a sticky mucilage.

Picked and pickled in vinegar and salt the, unopened flower-buds are much used as a condiment (caper-sauce being especially the accompaniment of boiled mutton). The plant was introduced into Britain as early as 1596, but has never been grown on a large scale. The flower-buds of the marsh-marigold (Caltha palustria) and nasturtium are frequently pickled and eaten as a substitute for capers.
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CRANBERRY

Cranberry (Vaccinium oxycoccus) is a prostrate evergreen shrub of the natural order Vacciniaceae (whortleberry group) with oval leaves, red wheel-shaped corolla and red berries. It is native to Europe, north Asia and North America where it is extensively cultivated for its fruit. It is also called Moss-berry or Moor-berry, as it grows only on peat-bogs or swampy land, usually among masses of sphagnum. The berry, when ripe, is globose and dark red, and a little more than six millimetres in diameter. These berries form a sauce of exquisite flavour, and were originally used for tarts, before being used for an accompaniment to turkey and as a juice drink. The American cranberry, a native of Canada and the United States, has larger berries than the European species, and is extensively cultivated in some localities. Vaccinium vitis-idaea, the cowberry, is often called the cranberry in Scotland.
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HEMLOCK

Hemlock (Conium maculatum) is a poisonous biennial herb of the family Umbelliferae supposed to be identical with the plant koneion of the Greeks.. It is a tall, erect, branching biennial, with a smooth, shining, hollow stem usually marked with purple spots. It has elegant, much divided leaves which when bruised emit a nauseous odour. The flowers are white in compound umbels of ten or more rays surrounded by a general involucre of three to seven leaflets.

Hemlock is found in Britain and throughout Europe and temperate Asia in waste places, banks, and under walls. It is said to be fatal to cows when they eat it, but that horses, goats, and sheep may feed upon it without danger. In the human subject it causes paralysis, convulsions, and death. The poison administered to Socrates is supposed to have been a decoction of it, though others are of opinion that the potion was obtained from water-hemlock (Cicuta virosa).

Hemlock is a powerful sedative, and is used medicinally. The extract is considered the best preparation. It was formerly used as a substitute for, or as an accompaniment to opium. It has been found very useful in chronic rheumatism and in hooping-cough, in allaying the pain of irritable sores and cancerous ulcers. The virtues of hemlock reside in an alkaline principle termed coma or coniine.
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MARIA CALLAS

Maria Meneghini Callas (Sophie Cecelia Kalogeropoulou) was an American opera singer. She was born in 1923 at New York and died in 1977. She left the United States in 1937 to move to Greece. There she studied at the Athens Conservatory. She made her professional operatic debut in a major role, Tosca, at the Athens Opera in 1941 going on to triumphant performances at all of the major opera houses. Her last operatic appearance was in 1965 at Covent Garden, again as Tosca. She gave a number of master classes from 1971 to 1972. In the following two years, she toured with Giuseppe di Stefano in recitals of arias with piano accompaniment.
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TRENCH WARFARE

Trench warfare is a method of conducting hostilities which was very greatly developed during the Great War, but examples of which had previously occurred both in South Africa and Manchuria. In Manchuria both armies resorted freely to 'digging in' tactics, and in South Africa the Boers evolved a new kind of trench usually cut in a hill-side, in which a man standing upright or nearly upright could obtain protection from any but directly overhead. In the Great War a prolonged period of trench warfare ensued after the retreat of the Germans from the Marne to the Aisne, and lasted at one point or another of the line until the eve of the Allies' victorious advance.

On both sides the trenches became semi-permanent habitations, and considerable care was expended upon their construction. The German trenches were, as a rule, better constructed than the British which, especially during the winter of 1914-15, and particularly in the northern sections of the line, were often many inches deep in water. By degrees improvements were effected, until a fair degree of comfort was reached; but nowhere in the British front was the trench system comparable with that on the German side in the Somme region, and throughout the Hindenburg Line.

The protracted occupation of trenches on this elaborate scale produced a special kind of trench warfare, ranging from long distance pounding with heavy artillery to the interchange of shells from trench mortars, discharges of bombs and grenades, mining, and finally trench-raiding. A trench being almost immune from ordinary artillery fire, high-explosive shells were employed for wrecking purposes, and also as a means of destroying before an attack the wire entanglements with which lines of trenches wore commonly protected. Considerable annoyance, too, was caused to the occupants of trenches by projectiles of the primitive form known as common shell, and more familiarly as 'rum jars', which were cast, from small mortars and frequently did much material damage. Grenades were thrown both by hand and from a special rifle, and bombs filled with the high explosive T.N.T. were in frequent use, especially for clearing dug-outs.

Mining and counter-mining constituted another accompaniment of trench warfare, the most important operation of this kind being the 19 great explosions which preceded the capture of the Messines Ridge on June the 7th, 1917. Finally, a system of trench-raids was adopted by the British infantry, small parties of whom made swift and sudden incursions into the enemy trenches by night, generally killing or wounding a good many Germans, and frequently returning with useful information. Daylight trench-raids were also adopted, but less frequently. The British ministry of munitions had a special trench warfare department.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, many British generals assumed that trench warfare would be the norm once more as it had been some twenty years previously. However, the advent of the tank, which the British had invented during the Great War but which had not been properly utilised, but which the Germans had realised the full potential of which, rendered trench warfare obsolete and allowed a swift German victory in most of Europe.
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DAUPHINE POTATOES

Dauphine potatoes is an accompaniment dish of potatoes reduced to a puree, added to choux pastry, rolled into balls and then fried. Dauphine potatoes are served with grilled or roasted meat and game. Sometimes the potato mixture has grated cheese or ham added to it.
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