Spruce
Norway Spruce (Picea abies)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Pinophyta
Class:	Pinopsida
Order:	Pinales
Family:	Pinaceae
Subfamily:	Piceoideae Frankis
Genus:	Picea Mill.
Species
About 35; see text.

A spruce is a tree of the genus Picea ( /paɪˈsiːə/),^[1] a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the Family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the earth. Spruces are large trees, from 20–60 metres (66–200 ft) tall when mature, and can be distinguished by their whorled branches and conical form. The needles, or leaves, of spruce trees are attached singly to the branches in a spiral fashion, each needle on a small peg-like structure called a pulvinus. The needles are shed when 4–10 years old, leaving the branches rough with the retained pulvinus (an easy means of distinguishing them from other similar genera, where the branches are fairly smooth).

Spruces are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species; see list of Lepidoptera that feed on spruces. They are also used by the larvae of gall adelgids (Adelges species).

In the mountains of western Sweden scientists have found a Norway Spruce tree, nicknamed Old Tjikko, which by reproducing through layering has reached an age of 9,550 years and is claimed to be the world's oldest known living tree.^[2]

Classification[link]

DNA analyses^[3][4] have shown that traditional classifications based on the morphology of needle and cone are artificial. A recent study^[3] found that P. breweriana had a basal position, followed by P. sitchensis, and the other species were further divided into three clades, suggesting that Picea originated in North America.

Species[link]

There are thirty-five named species of spruce in the world.

P. glauca sapling, Kluane National Park, Canada

Immature P. mariana cones, Ouimet Canyon, Ontario, Canada

P. pungens cone and foliage

• Clade I

• Picea breweriana Brewer's Spruce. Klamath Mountains, North America; local endemic.

• Clade II

• Picea sitchensis Sitka Spruce. Pacific Coast of North America; the largest species, to 95m tall; important in forestry.

• Clade III

• Picea engelmannii Engelmann Spruce. Western North American mountains; important in forestry.
• Picea glauca White Spruce. Northern North America; important in forestry.

• Clade IV

• Picea brachytyla Sargent's Spruce. Southwest China.
• Picea chihuahuana Chihuahua Spruce. Northwest Mexico (rare).
• Picea farreri Burmese Spruce. Northeast Burma, southwest China (mountains).
• Picea likiangensis Likiang Spruce. Southwest China.
• Picea martinezii Martinez Spruce. Northeast Mexico (very rare, endangered).
• Picea maximowiczii Maximowicz Spruce. Japan (rare, mountains).
• Picea morrisonicola Yushan Spruce . Taiwan (high mountains).
• Picea neoveitchii Veitch's Spruce. Northwest China (rare, endangered).
• Picea orientalis Caucasian Spruce or Oriental Spruce . Caucasus, northeast Turkey.
• Picea purpurea Purple Spruce. Western China.
• Picea schrenkiana Schrenk's Spruce. Mountains of central Asia.
• Picea smithiana Morinda Spruce. Western Himalaya.
• Picea spinulosa Sikkim Spruce. Eastern Himalaya.
• Picea torano Tiger-tail Spruce. Japan.
• Picea wilsonii Wilson's Spruce . Western China.

• Clade V

• Picea abies Norway Spruce. Europe; important in forestry. The original Christmas tree.
• Picea alcoquiana ("P. bicolor") Alcock's Spruce. Central Japan (mountains).
• Picea alpestris Norway Spruce, Alpine Spruce. The Alps in Europe; rare, often treated as a variant of P. abies (and hybridises with it) distinct cones.
• Picea asperata Dragon Spruce. Western China; several varieties.
• Picea crassifolia. China.
• Picea glehnii Glehn's Spruce. Northern Japan, Sakhalin.
• Picea jezoensis Jezo Spruce. Northeast Asia, Kamchatka south to Japan.
• Picea koraiensis Korean Spruce. Korea, northeast China.
• Picea koyamae Koyama's Spruce. Japan (mountains).
• Picea mariana Black Spruce. Northern North America.
• Picea meyeri Meyer's Spruce. Northern China (from Inner Mongolia to Gansu).
• Picea obovata Siberian Spruce. North Scandinavia, Siberia. Often treated as a variant of P. abies (and hybridises with it) but distinct cones.
• Picea omorika Serbian Spruce. Serbia and Bosnia; local endemic; important in horticulture.
• Picea pungens Blue Spruce or Colorado Spruce. Rocky Mountains, North America; important in horticulture.
• Picea retroflexa. China.
• Picea rubens Red Spruce. Northeastern North America; important in forestry. Known as Adirondack in musical instrument making.

Uses[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2009)

Timber[link]

P. abies wood

Spruce is useful as a building wood, commonly referred to by several different names including North American timber, SPF (spruce, pine, fir) and whitewood. Spruce wood is used for many purposes, ranging from general construction work and crates to highly specialised uses in wooden aircraft, and as a tonewood in many musical instruments, including guitars, mandolins, cellos, violins, and the soundboard at the heart of a piano and the harp. The Wright brothers' first aircraft, the Flyer, was built of spruce.^[5]

Because this species has no insect or decay resistance qualities after logging, it is generally recommended for construction purposes as indoor use only (ex. indoor drywall framing). Spruce wood, when left outside can not be expected to last more than 12–18 months depending on the type of climate it is exposed to.

Pulpwood[link]

Spruce is one of the most important woods for paper uses, as it has long wood fibres which bind together to make strong paper. The fibres are thin walled and collapses to thin bands upon drying. Spruces are commonly used in mechanical pulping as they are easily bleached. Together with northern pines northern spruces are commonly used to make NBSK. Spruces are cultivated over vast areas as pulpwood.

Food and medicine[link]

The fresh shoots of many spruces and pines are a natural source of vitamin C.^[6] Captain Cook made alcoholic sugar-based spruce beer during his sea voyages in order to prevent scurvy in his crew.^[7][8] The leaves and branches, or the essential oils, can be used to brew spruce beer.

The tips from the needles can be used to make spruce tip syrup^{[clarification needed]}. Native Americans in New England also used the sap to make a gum which was used for various reasons, and which was the basis of the first commercial production of chewing gum.^[9] In survival situations spruce needles can be directly ingested or boiled into a tea.^[10] This replaces large amounts of vitamin C. Also, water is stored in a spruce's needles, providing an alternative means of hydration^{[clarification needed]}. Spruce can be used as a preventive measure for scurvy in an environment where meat is the only prominent food source^{[clarification needed]}.

Other uses[link]

The resin was used in the manufacture of pitch in the past (before the use of petrochemicals); the scientific name Picea is generally thought to be derived from Latin pix, pitch (though other etymologies have been suggested).

Native Americans in North America use the thin, pliable roots of some species for weaving baskets and for sewing together pieces of birch bark for canoes. See also Kiidk'yaas for an unusual golden Sitka Spruce sacred to the Haida people.

Spruces are also popular ornamental trees in horticulture, admired for their evergreen, symmetrical narrow-conic growth habit. For the same reason, some (particularly Picea abies and P. omorika) are also extensively used as Christmas trees.

Spruce branches are also used at Aintree racecourse, Liverpool, to build several of the fences on the Grand National course. It is also used to make sculptures and Christmas trees.

Etymology[link]

Picea used in coat-of-arms of Kuhmo, Finland

The word "spruce" entered the English language from Old French Pruce, the name of Prussia. Spruce was a generic term for commodities brought to England by Hanseatic merchants and the tree was believed to have come from Prussia.^[11] According to a different theory, some suggest that it may however be a direct loanword from a Polish expression [drzewo / drewno] z Prus which literally means "[tree / timber] from Prussia". That would suggest that the late mediaeval Polish-speaking merchants would import the timber to England and the English would pick up the expression from them.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Picea

• Arboretum de Villardebelle: Cones of selected species of Picea: page 1, Arboretum de Villardebelle page 2
• Gymnosperm Database - Picea

vep:Kuz'

Portrait of Jean Sibelius from 1913

Jean Sibelius ( pronunciation (help·info); 8 December 1865 – 20 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period. His music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."^[1]

The core of Sibelius's oeuvre is his set of seven symphonies. Like Beethoven, Sibelius used each successive work to further develop his own personal compositional style. His works continue to be performed frequently in the concert hall and are often recorded.

In addition to the symphonies, Sibelius's best-known compositions include Finlandia, the Karelia Suite, Valse triste, the Violin Concerto in D minor and The Swan of Tuonela (one of the four movements of the Lemminkäinen Suite). Other works include pieces inspired by the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala; over 100 songs for voice and piano; incidental music for 13 plays; the opera Jungfrun i tornet (The Maiden in the Tower); chamber music; piano music; Masonic ritual music;^[2] and 21 separate publications of choral music.

Sibelius composed prolifically until the mid-1920s. However, after completing his Seventh Symphony (1924), the incidental music to The Tempest (1926), and the tone poem Tapiola (1926), he produced no large scale works for the remaining thirty years of his life. Although he is reputed to have stopped composing, he in fact attempted to continue writing, including abortive efforts to compose an eighth symphony. He wrote some Masonic music and re-edited some earlier works during this last period of his life, and retained an active interest in new developments in music, although he did not always view modern music favorably.

The Finnish 100 mark bill featured his image until it was taken out of circulation in 2002.^[3] Since 2011, Finland celebrates a Flag Day on 8 December, the composer's birthday, also known as the 'Day of Finnish Music'.^[4]

Life and work[link]

Johan Julius Christian Sibelius was born in Hämeenlinna in the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland, the son of Swedish-speaking MD Christian Gustaf Sibelius and Maria Charlotta Sibelius née Borg. Although known by a typical Finnish and Swedish name "Janne" to his family, during his student years he began using the French form of his name, "Jean", inspired by the business card of his seafaring uncle.^[5] He is now universally known as Jean Sibelius.

Jean´s younger brother Christian Sibelius (1869-1922), MD, University Professor and head of Lapinlahti Asylum, was a psychiatrist and founder of modern psychiatry in Finland.

The rapid rise of Romantic Nationalism in Europe was inspired by the philosophy of Hegel and had a profound effect on educational systems in Europe. The gradual demise of Latin was accompanied by opportunities to study more native languages. In Finland this meant either Finnish or Swedish, which became part of the syllabus, from elementary school up to university. Young Janne Sibelius went to the Finnish-speaking Hämeenlinnan normaalilyseo, which he attended from 1876 to 1885. His home language remained though Swedish all his life. Romantic Nationalism was to become a crucial element in Sibelius' artistic output and his political leanings. From around the age of 15, he set his heart on becoming a great violin virtuoso, and he did become quite an accomplished player of the instrument, even publicly performing the last two movements of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in Helsinki.

Sibelius in 1889.

After Sibelius graduated from high school in 1885, he began to study law at the Imperial Alexander University of Finland (now the University of Helsinki). However, he was more interested in music than in law, and he soon quit his studies. From 1885 to 1889 Sibelius studied music in the Helsinki music school (now the Sibelius Academy). One of his teachers there was Martin Wegelius. Sibelius continued studying in Berlin (from 1889 to 1890 with Albert Becker) and in Vienna (from 1890 to 1891). It was around this time that he finally abandoned his cherished violin playing aspirations: "It was a very painful awakening when I had to admit that I had begun my training for the exacting career of a virtuoso too late".

According to Sibelius's biographer Erik Tawaststjerna, he was an enthusiastic Wagnerian at the beginning of the 1890s but then began to feel disgust for his music, calling it pompous and vulgar.

On 10 June 1892, Jean Sibelius married Aino Järnefelt (1871–1969) at Maxmo. Their home, called Ainola, was completed at Lake Tuusula, Järvenpää in 1903. They had six daughters: Eva, Ruth, Kirsti (who died at a very young age), Katarina, Margareta and Heidi. Eva married an industrial heir Arvi Paloheimo and became later herself the CEO of the Paloheimo Corporation. Ruth Snellman was a prominent actress, Katarina Ilves wife of a banker, and Heidi Blomstedt a designer, her husband Aulis Blomstedt being an architect. Margareta married the conductor Jussi Jalas, previously Blomstedt, Aulis Blomstedt´s brother.

In 1908, Sibelius underwent a serious operation for suspected throat cancer. The impact of this brush with death has been said to have inspired works that he composed in the following years, including Luonnotar and the Fourth Symphony.

Sibelius spent long periods abroad studying in Vienna and Berlin 1889-91 and 1900-1901 with family in Italy. He composed, conducted and socialized actively in Scandinavian Countries, UK, France and Germany. In 1914 he was the composer of the year in Norfolk Music Festival in USA, Conn., premiering there his symphonic poem The Oceanids commissioned by the millionaire Carl Stoeckel.^[6] Sibelius met the Ex President Taft in Washington DC and visited also shortly Canada. He had five tours in England 1905-1922. After 1930 he did not travel abroad any more. Instead he became a representative figure of the Finnish Music and received a constant flow of dignitaries and delegations in Ainola until his last days.

When freemasonry was revived in Finland, having been forbidden during the Russian sovereignty, Sibelius was one of the founding members of Suomi Lodge Nr 1 in 1922 and later the Grand Organist of the Grand Lodge of Finland. He composed the ritual music used in Finland (op 113) in 1927 and added two new pieces composed 1946. The new revision of the ritual music of 1948 is one of his last works.^[7]

Sibelius loved nature, and the Finnish landscape often served as material for his music. He once said of his Sixth Symphony, "[It] always reminds me of the scent of the first snow." The forests surrounding Ainola are often said to have inspired his composition of Tapiola. On the subject of Sibelius's ties to nature, one biographer of the composer, Erik W. Tawaststjerna, wrote the following:

Even by Nordic standards, Sibelius responded with exceptional intensity to the moods of nature and the changes in the seasons: he scanned the skies with his binoculars for the geese flying over the lake ice, listened to the screech of the cranes, and heard the cries of the curlew echo over the marshy grounds just below Ainola. He savoured the spring blossoms every bit as much as he did autumnal scents and colours.^[8]

Sibelius in 1939

The grave in the garden of Ainola. Bronze memorial by the son-in-law of Sibelius, Aulis Blomstedt.

The year 1926 saw a sharp and lasting decline in Sibelius's output: after his Seventh Symphony he only produced a few major works in the rest of his life. Arguably the two most significant were incidental music for Shakespeare's The Tempest and the tone poem Tapiola. For most of the last thirty years of his life, Sibelius even avoided talking about his music publicly.

There is substantial evidence that Sibelius worked on an eighth numbered symphony. He promised the premiere of this symphony to Serge Koussevitzky in 1931 and 1932, and a London performance in 1933 under Basil Cameron was even advertised to the public. However, the only concrete evidence for the symphony's existence on paper are a 1933 bill for a fair copy of the first movement and short draft fragments first published and played 2011.^[9][10] Sibelius had always been quite self-critical; he remarked to his close friends, "If I cannot write a better symphony than my Seventh, then it shall be my last." Since no manuscript survives, sources consider it likely that Sibelius destroyed most traces of the score, probably in 1945, during which year he certainly consigned a great many papers to the flames.^[11] His wife Aino recalled,

"In the 1940s there was a great auto da fé at Ainola. My husband collected a number of the manuscripts in a laundry basket and burned them on the open fire in the dining room. Parts of the Karelia Suite were destroyed – I later saw remains of the pages which had been torn out – and many other things. I did not have the strength to be present and left the room. I therefore do not know what he threw on to the fire. But after this my husband became calmer and gradually lighter in mood."^[1]

On 1 January 1939, Sibelius participated in an international radio broadcast which included the composer conducting his Andante Festivo. The performance was preserved on transcription discs and later issued on CD. This is probably the only surviving example of Sibelius interpreting his own music.^[12]

Since 1903 Sibelius had lived in the country, but 1939-1944 Jean and Aino had again a residence in Helsinki. After the war he came to the city only a couple of times. The so called "Silence of Ainola" appears a myth, knowing that in addition to countless official vistors and visiting colleagues also his grandchildren and great grandchildren spent their holidays in Ainola.

Sibelius avoided public statements of other composers, but Tawaststjerna and Sibelius´secretary Santeri Levas have documented his private conversations in which he considered Bartók and Schostakowich the most talented composers of the younger generations. In 1950´ he promoted actively the young Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara.

His 90th birthday, in 1955, was widely celebrated and both the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham gave special performances of his music in Finland. The orchestras and their conductors also met the composer at his home; a series of memorable photographs were taken to commemorate the occasions. Both Columbia Records and EMI released some of the pictures with albums of Sibelius's music. Beecham was honored by the Finnish government for his efforts to promote Sibelius both in the United Kingdom and in the United States.

Tawaststjerna also related an endearing anecdote regarding Sibelius's death:

[He] was returning from his customary morning walk. Exhilarated, he told his wife Aino that he had seen a flock of cranes approaching. "There they come, the birds of my youth," he exclaimed. Suddenly, one of the birds broke away from the formation and circled once above Ainola. It then rejoined the flock to continue its journey. Two days afterwards Sibelius died of a brain hemorrhage, at age 91 (on 20 September 1957), in Ainola, where he is buried in the garden. Another well-known Finnish composer, Heino Kaski, died that same day. Aino lived there for the next twelve years until she died on 8 June 1969; she is buried with her husband.^[8]

In 1972, Sibelius's surviving daughters sold Ainola to the State of Finland. The Ministry of Education and the Sibelius Society of Finland opened it as a museum in 1974. In 2011, a fragment was discovered of what appeared to be an early draft of the missing eighth symphony.^[13]

Musical style[link]

Like many of his contemporaries, Sibelius was initially enamored of the music of Wagner. A performance of Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival had a strong effect on him, inspiring him to write to his wife shortly thereafter, "Nothing in the world has made such an impression on me, it moves the very strings of my heart." He studied the scores of Wagner's operas Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, and Die Walküre intently. With this music in mind, Sibelius began work on an opera of his own, entitled Veneen luominen (The Building of the Boat).

However, his appreciation for Wagner waned and Sibelius ultimately rejected Wagner's Leitmotif compositional technique, considering it to be too deliberate and calculated. Departing from opera, he later used the musical material from the incomplete Veneen luominen in his Lemminkäinen Suite (1893). He did, however, compose a considerable number of songs for voice and piano, whose early interpreters included Aino Ackté and particularly Ida Ekman.

More lasting influences included Ferruccio Busoni, Anton Bruckner and Tchaikovsky. Hints of Tchaikovsky's music are particularly evident in works such as Sibelius's First Symphony (1899) and his Violin Concerto (1905). Similarities to Bruckner are most strongly felt in the 'unmixed' timbral palette and sombre brass chorales of Sibelius's orchestration, a fondness for pedal points, and in the underlying slow pace of the music.

Sibelius progressively stripped away formal markers of sonata form in his work and, instead of contrasting multiple themes, he focused on the idea of continuously evolving cells and fragments culminating in a grand statement. His later works are remarkable for their sense of unbroken development, progressing by means of thematic permutations and derivations. The completeness and organic feel of this synthesis has prompted some to suggest that Sibelius began his works with a finished statement and worked backwards, although analyses showing these predominantly three- and four-note cells and melodic fragments as they are developed and expanded into the larger "themes" effectively prove the opposite.^[14]

Portrait of Sibelius from 1894 by Eero Järnefelt

This self-contained structure stood in stark contrast to the symphonic style of Gustav Mahler, Sibelius's primary rival in symphonic composition. While thematic variation played a major role in the works of both composers, Mahler's style made use of disjunct, abruptly changing and contrasting themes, while Sibelius sought to slowly transform thematic elements. In November 1907 Mahler undertook a conducting tour of Finland, and the two composers had occasion to go on a lengthy walk together. Sibelius later reported that during the walk:

However, the two rivals did find common ground in their music. Like Mahler, Sibelius made frequent use both of folk music and of literature in the composition of his works. The Second Symphony's slow movement was sketched from the motive of Il Commendatore in Don Giovanni, while the stark Fourth Symphony combined work for a planned "Mountain" symphony with a tone poem based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven". Sibelius also wrote several tone poems based on Finnish poetry, beginning with the early En Saga and culminating in the late Tapiola (1926), his last major composition.

Over time, he sought to use new chord patterns, including naked tritones (for example in the Fourth Symphony), and bare melodic structures to build long movements of music, in a manner similar to Joseph Haydn's use of built-in dissonances. Sibelius would often alternate melodic sections with noble brass chords that would swell and fade away, or he would underpin his music with repeating figures which push against the melody and counter-melody.

Sibelius's melodies often feature powerful modal implications: for example much of the Sixth Symphony is in the (modern) Dorian mode. Sibelius studied Renaissance polyphony, as did his contemporary, the Danish composer Carl Nielsen, and Sibelius's music often reflects the influence of this early music. He often varied his movements in a piece by changing the note values of melodies, rather than the conventional change of tempi. He would often draw out one melody over a number of notes, while playing a different melody in shorter rhythm. For example, his Seventh Symphony comprises four originally sketched movements fused into telescopical and partly parallel functions without pause, where every important theme is in C major or C minor; the variation comes from the time and rhythm. His harmonic language was often restrained, even iconoclastic, compared to many of his contemporaries who were already experimenting with musical Modernism. As reported by Neville Cardus in the Manchester Guardian newspaper in 1958,

Reception[link]

Sibelius exerted considerable influence on symphonic composers and musical life, at least in English-speaking and Nordic countries. Finnish symphonist Leevi Madetoja was a pupil of Sibelius. In Britain, Vaughan Williams and Arnold Bax both dedicated their 5th symphonies to Sibelius. Furthermore, Tapiola is prominently echoed in both Bax's Sixth Symphony and Moeran's Symphony in G Minor. The influence of Sibelius's compositional procedures is also strongly felt in the First Symphony of William Walton.^[17] When these and several other major British symphonic essays were being written in and around the 1930s, Sibelius's music was very much in vogue, with conductors like Beecham and Barbirolli championing its cause both in the concert hall and on record. Walton's composer friend Constant Lambert even claimed that Sibelius was "the first great composer since Beethoven whose mind thinks naturally in terms of symphonic form".^[18] Earlier, Granville Bantock had championed Sibelius (the esteem was mutual: Sibelius dedicated his Third Symphony to the English composer, and in 1946 he became the first President of the Bantock Society). More recently, Sibelius was also one of the composers championed by Robert Simpson. Malcolm Arnold acknowledged his influence, and Arthur Butterworth continues to see Sibelius's music as a source of inspiration in his own work.^[19]

Eugene Ormandy and, to a lesser extent, his predecessor Leopold Stokowski, were instrumental in bringing Sibelius's music to American audiences by programming his works often; the former developed a friendly relationship with Sibelius throughout his life. Later in life he was championed by critic Olin Downes, who wrote a biography of the composer.

In 1938 Theodor Adorno wrote a critical essay about the composer, notoriously charging that "If Sibelius is good, this invalidates the standards of musical quality that have persisted from Bach to Schoenberg: the richness of inter-connectedness, articulation, unity in diversity, the 'multi-faceted' in 'the one'."^[20] Adorno sent his essay to Virgil Thomson, then music critic of the New York Herald Tribune, who was also critical of Sibelius; Thomson, while agreeing with the essay's sentiment, declared to Adorno that "the tone of it [was] more apt to create antagonism toward [Adorno] than toward Sibelius".^[1] Later, the composer, theorist and conductor René Leibowitz went so far as to describe Sibelius as "the worst composer in the world" in the title of a 1955 pamphlet.^[21]

Sibelius has sometimes been criticized^{[by whom?]} as a reactionary or even incompetent figure in 20th century classical music. Despite the innovations of the Second Viennese School, he continued to write in a strictly tonal idiom. Although Sibelius's music is considered by some critics to be insufficiently complex, he was immediately respected even by some of his more progressive peers.^[who?] Critics^[who?] who have sought to re-evaluate Sibelius's music have cited its self-contained internal structure, which distills everything down to a few motivic ideas and then permits the music to grow organically, as evidence of a previously under-appreciated radical bent to his work. The severe nature of Sibelius's orchestration is often noted^{[by whom?]} as representing a "Finnish" character, stripping away the superfluous from music.

Evaluating Sibelius for The Washington Post, music critic Tim Page opined, "There are two things to be said straightaway about Sibelius. First, he is terribly uneven (much of his chamber music, a lot of his songs and most of his piano music might have been churned out by a second-rate salon composer from the 19th century on an off afternoon). Second, at his very best, he is often weird."^[22] Perhaps one reason Sibelius has attracted both the praise and the ire of critics is that in each of his seven symphonies he approached the basic problems of form, tonality, and architecture in unique, individual ways. On the one hand, his symphonic (and tonal) creativity was novel, but others thought that music should be taking a different route. Sibelius's response to criticism was dismissive: "Pay no attention to what critics say. No statue has ever been put up to a critic."

In the latter decades of the twentieth century, Sibelius began to be re-assessed more favourably: Milan Kundera dubbed the composer's approach to be that of "antimodern modernism", standing outside the perpetual progression of the status quo.^[1] In 1990, the composer Thea Musgrave was commissioned by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra to write a piece in honour of the 125th anniversary of Sibelius's birth: Song of the Enchanter was premiered on 14 February 1991.^[23] In 1984, American avant-garde composer Morton Feldman gave a lecture in Darmstadt, Germany, wherein he stated that "the people you think are radicals might really be conservatives – the people you think are conservatives might really be radical," whereupon he began to hum Sibelius' Fifth Symphony.^[1]

Sibelius has fallen in and out of fashion, but remains one of the most popular 20th century symphonists, both in the concert hall and on record. Sibelius had spent much time producing profitable chamber music for home use, salon music, occasional works for the stage and other incidental music, all of which has now been systematically recorded on BIS Records' complete Sibelius Edition. This major editorial project to record every note Sibelius left us also encompasses surviving sketches and early versions of the major works.

Selected works[link]

These are ordered chronologically; the date is the date of composition rather than publication or first performance.

Orchestral works[link]

Other works[link]

• Viisi joululaulua, Op. 1, five Christmas songs (1895–1913)
• Seven Songs, Op. 17, with lyrics by J. L. Runeberg, K.A. Tavaststjerna, Oscar Levertin, A.V. Forsman (Koskimies, Finnish surname), and Ilmari Calamnius (Kianto, Finnish surname). Composed between 1891 and 1904.
• Incidental music to Hjalmar Procopé's play Belshazzar's Feast, Op. 51 (1906)
• Voces intimae, Op. 56, string quartet (1909)
• Jäger March (Jääkärimarssi) (1915)

Media[link]

	Valse Triste Conductor: Simon Schindler Ensemble: Fulda Symphonic Orchestra Location: Großer Saal der Orangerie, Fulda (Germany) Date: 18 March 2001 Size: 6468KB
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

See also[link]

• International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition
• Mozart and Freemasonry
• Sibelius monument

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Burnett-James, David (1989). Sibelius. London, New York: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-1683-7. 
• Pike, Lionel (1978). Beethoven, Sibelius and 'the Profound Logic': Studies in Symphonic Analysis. London: Athlone Press. ISBN 0-485-11178-0. 
• Ekman, Karl (1972). Jean Sibelius, His Life and Personality. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-8371-6027-8. 

Further reading[link]

• Ekman, Karl. "Jean Sibelius, His Life and Personality". New York, Tudor Publishing Co., 1945.
• Levas, Santeri. Sibelius: a personal portrait. London, Dent, 1972. ISBN 0-460-03978-4.
• Tawaststjerna, Erik. "Sibelius" (transl. Layton, Robert). London, Faber & Faber, vol.1, 1865–1905 (1976), vol.2, 1904–1914 (1986), vol. 3, 1914–1957 2008).
• de Gorog, Lisa (with the collaboration of Ralph de Gorog) "From Sibelius to Sallinen: Finnish Nationalism and the Music of Finland". New York, Greenwood Press, 1989.
• Layton, Robert. Sibelius. New York: Schirmer Books, 1993. Master Musicians Series. ISBN 0-02-871322-2.
• Rickards, Guy. Jean Sibelius. London and New York, Phaidon Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0-7148-4776-4.
• Goss, Glenda Jean Sibelius: Guide to Research. New York: Garland Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8153-1171-0
• Tomi Mäkelä: "Poesie in der Luft. Jean Sibelius, Studien zu Leben und Werk". Wiesbaden, Breitkopf & Härtel, 2007. 978-3-7651-0363-6
• Barnett, Andrew. Sibelius. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-300-11159-0
• Tomi Mäkelä: "Jean Sibelius". Woodbridge and Rochester, Boydell, 2011* Minnesota Orchestra's showcase concert magazine, 6 May, page 44
• Morgan, Robert P. (1991) [1990]. "Other European Currents". The Norton Introduction to Music History: Twentieth-Century Music (1st ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 121–123. ISBN 0-393-95272-X. 
• Goss, Glenda Sibelius: A Composer’s Life and the Awakening of Finland. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009. ISBN 0-226-30477-9

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jean Sibelius

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jean Sibelius

Wikisource has the text of a 1922 Encyclopædia Britannica article about Jean Sibelius.

• Jean Sibelius – the website (English)
• The Sibelius Society of Finland
• Fennica Gehrman's Sibelius page (publisher)
• Films on Jean Sibelius by director Christopher Nupen
• Jean Sibelius Museum
• Finlandia by Jean Sibelius, thisisFINLAND
• Ainola – The home of Aino and Jean Sibelius
• Jean Sibelius link collection
• Free scores by Jean Sibelius at the International Music Score Library Project
• Works by or about Jean Sibelius in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Eugene Ormandy – Jean Sibelius: A Reminiscence
• Musical Finland in Brussels
• Free scores by Jean Sibelius in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Veijo Murtomäki, Sibelius, Jean (1865–1957). National Biography of Finland, online collection. 16.9.1997. Finnish Literature Society.

Howard Hughes
Born	Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. (1905-12-24)December 24, 1905 Humble, Texas, US
Died	April 5, 1976(1976-04-05) (aged 70) Houston, Texas, US
Alma mater	Rice University (dropped out in 1924)
Occupation	Chairman of Hughes Aircraft
Years active	1926–1976
Net worth	USD $1.5 billion at the time of his death (approximately 1/1190th of US GNP)[1]
Spouse	Ella Rice (m. 1925–1929) «start: (1925)–end+1: (1930)»"Marriage: Ella Rice to Howard Hughes" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Howard_Hughes) Terry Moore (m. 1949–1976) «start: (1949)–end+1: (1977)»"Marriage: Terry Moore to Howard Hughes" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Howard_Hughes) (alleged) Jean Peters (m. 1957–1971) «start: (1957)–end+1: (1972)»"Marriage: Jean Peters to Howard Hughes" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Howard_Hughes)
Signature
Aviation career
Known for	Hughes Aircraft
Famous flights	Transcontinental airspeed record from Los Angeles to New York City (1937), round the world airspeed record (1938)
Awards	Harmon Trophy (1936 and 1938) Collier Trophy (1938) Octave Chanute Award (1940) Congressional Gold Medal (1939)

Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. (December 24, 1905^[2] – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world. He gained prominence from the late 1920s as a maverick film producer, making big-budget and often controversial films like The Racket (1928), Hell's Angels (1930), Scarface (1932), and The Outlaw (1943). Hughes was one of the most influential aviators in history; he set multiple world air-speed records, built the Hughes H-1 Racer and H-4 "Hercules" (better known to history as the "Spruce Goose" aircraft), and acquired and expanded Trans World Airlines which would later on merge with American Airlines. Hughes is also remembered for his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle in later life, caused in part by a worsening obsessive–compulsive disorder and chronic pain. His legacy is maintained through the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Early years[link]

Hughes' birthplace is recorded as either Humble or Houston, Texas. The date is also uncertain, though Hughes claimed his birthday was Christmas Eve. A 1941 affidavit birth certificate of Hughes signed by his aunt Annette Gano Lummis and Estelle Boughton Sharp states he was born on December 24, 1905, in Harris County, Texas.^{[N 1]} However, his baptismal record of October 7, 1906, in the parish register of St. John's Episcopal Church, in Keokuk, Iowa, has his birth listed as September 24, 1905, without reference to the place of birth.^{[N 2]}

His parents were Allene Stone Gano (a descendant of Owen Tudor, second husband of Catherine of Valois, Dowager Queen of England)^[3][4] and Howard R. Hughes, Sr. from Missouri of English descent,^[5] who patented the two-cone roller bit, which allowed rotary drilling for petroleum in previously inaccessible places. Howard R. Hughes, Sr. made the shrewd and lucrative decision to commercialize the invention by leasing the bits instead of selling them, and founded the Hughes Tool Company in 1909.

Showing great aptitude in engineering at an early age, Hughes built Houston's first radio transmitter when he was 11 years old.^[6] At 12, he was photographed in the local newspaper as being the first boy in Houston to have a "motorized" bicycle, which he had built himself from parts taken from his father's steam engine.^[7] He was an indifferent student with a liking for mathematics, flying, and things mechanical, taking his first flying lesson at 14 and later auditing math and aeronautical engineering courses at Caltech.^[6][7]

Allene Hughes died in March 1922 from complications of an ectopic pregnancy. In January 1924, Howard Hughes Sr. died of a heart attack. Their deaths apparently inspired Hughes to include the creation of a medical research laboratory in his will that he signed in 1925, at age 19. Because Howard Sr.'s will had not been updated since Allene's death, Hughes inherited 75 percent of the family fortune.^[8] On his 19th birthday, Hughes was declared an emancipated minor, enabling him to take full control of his legacy.^[9]

Hughes was an outstanding and enthusiastic golfer from a young age, often scoring near par figures, and held a handicap of three during his twenties. He played frequently with top players, including Gene Sarazen.^[10] Hughes rarely played competitively, and gradually gave up his interest in the sport.

Hughes dropped out of Rice University shortly after his father's death. On June 1, 1925, he married Ella Botts Rice (1925–1929), daughter of David Rice and Martha Lawson Botts of Houston, Texas. They moved to Los Angeles, where he hoped to make a name for himself making movies.

Hollywood years[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2010)

His first two films, Everybody's Acting (1927) and Two Arabian Knights (1928), were financial successes, the latter winning the first Academy Award for Best Director of a comedy picture. The Racket (1928) and The Front Page (1931) were also nominated for Academy Awards. Hughes spent US$3.8 million to make the flying film Hell's Angels (1930). He produced another hit, Scarface (1932), a production delayed by censors' concern over its violence. The Outlaw (1943), completed in 1941, which featured Jane Russell, also received considerable attention from industry censors, this time owing to Russell's revealing costumes. Hughes designed a special bra for his leading lady, although Russell decided against wearing the bra because of a mediocre fit.

Hughes' wife returned to Houston in 1929 and filed for divorce. Hughes dated many famous women, including Billie Dove, Bette Davis, Ava Gardner, Olivia de Havilland, Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers and Gene Tierney. He also proposed to Joan Fontaine several times, according to her autobiography No Bed of Roses. Bessie Love was a mistress during his first marriage. Jean Harlow accompanied him to the premiere of Hell's Angels, but Noah Dietrich wrote many years later that the relationship was strictly professional—Hughes personally disliked Harlow. In his 1971 book, Howard: The Amazing Mr. Hughes, Dietrich said that Hughes genuinely liked and respected Jane Russell but never sought romantic involvement with her. According to Russell's autobiography, however, Hughes once tried to bed her after a party. Russell (who was married at the time) refused him and Hughes promised it would never happen again. The two maintained a professional and private friendship for many years. Hughes remained good friends with Tierney who was quoted after his failed attempts to seduce her "I don't think Howard could love anything that did not have a motor in it." Later, when Tierney's daughter Daria was born deaf and blind and with a severe learning disability, due to Tierney's being exposed to rubella during her pregnancy, Hughes saw to it that Daria received the best medical care and paid all expenses.^[11]

On July 11, 1936, Hughes struck and killed a pedestrian named Gabriel S. Meyer with his car, at the corner of 3rd Street and Lorraine in Los Angeles.^[12] Although Hughes was certified as sober at the hospital to which he was taken after the accident, an attending doctor made a note that Hughes had been drinking. A witness to the accident told police that Hughes was driving erratically and too fast, and that Meyer had been standing in the safety zone of a streetcar stop. Hughes was booked on suspicion of negligent homicide and held overnight in jail until his attorney, Neil McCarthy, obtained a writ of habeas corpus for his release pending a coroner's inquest.^[13][14] By the time of the coroner's inquiry, however, the witness had changed his story and claimed that Meyer had moved directly in front of Hughes's car. Nancy Bayly (Watts), who was in the car with Hughes at the time of the accident, corroborates this version. On July 16, 1936, Hughes was held blameless by a coroner's jury at the inquest into Meyer's death.^[15] Hughes told reporters outside the inquiry, "I was driving slowly and a man stepped out of the darkness in front of me."

On January 12, 1957, Hughes married actress Jean Peters. The couple met in the 1940s, before Peters became a film actress.^[16] They had a highly publicized romance in 1947 and there was talk of marriage, but she said she could not combine it with her career.^[17] It was later claimed that Peters was "the only woman [Hughes] ever loved",^[18] and he reportedly had his security officers follow her everywhere even when they were not in a relationship. This was confirmed by actor Max Showalter, who became a close friend of Peters during shooting of Niagara (1953).^[19] Showalter told in an interview that because he frequently met with Peters, Hughes' men threatened to ruin his career if he did not leave her alone.^[19]

Aviation[link]

Hughes was a lifelong aircraft enthusiast and pilot. At Rogers Airport in Los Angeles, he learned to fly from pioneer aviators, including Moye Stephens. He set many world records and commissioned the construction of custom aircraft to be built for himself while heading Hughes Aircraft at the airport in Glendale. Operating from there, the most technologically important aircraft he commissioned was the Hughes H-1 Racer. On September 13, 1935, Hughes, flying the H-1, set the landplane airspeed record of 352 mph (566 km/h) over his test course near Santa Ana, California (Giuseppe Motta reached 362 mph in 1929 and George Stainforth reached 407.5 mph in 1931, both in seaplanes). A year and a half later, on January 19, 1937, flying a redesigned H-1 Racer featuring extended wings, Hughes set a new transcontinental airspeed record by flying non-stop from Los Angeles to Newark in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds (beating his own previous record of 9 hours, 27 minutes). His average ground speed over the flight was 322 mph (518 km/h).^[20]

The H-1 Racer featured a number of design innovations: it had retractable landing gear (as Boeing Monomail had five years before) and all rivets and joints set flush into the body of the aircraft to reduce drag. The H-1 Racer is thought to have influenced the design of a number of World War II fighters such as the Mitsubishi Zero, the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and the F8F Bearcat;^[21] although that has never been reliably confirmed. The H-1 Racer was donated to the Smithsonian in 1975 and is on display at the National Air and Space Museum.

On July 10, 1938, Hughes set another record by completing a flight around the world in just 91 hours (3 days, 19 hours), beating the previous record by more than four hours. Taking off from New York City, he continued to Paris, Moscow, Omsk, Yakutsk, Fairbanks, Minneapolis, and continued to New York City. For this flight he flew a Lockheed Super Electra (a twin-engine transport with a four-man crew) fitted with all of the latest radio and navigational equipment. Hughes wanted the flight to be a triumph of technology, illustrating that safe, long-distance air travel was possible. In 1938, the William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas, known at the time as Houston Municipal Airport, was renamed Howard Hughes Airport, but the name was changed back after people objected to naming the airport after a living person.

He also had a role in the design and financing of both the Boeing 307 Stratoliner and Lockheed L-049 Constellation.^[22]

Hughes received many awards as an aviator, including the Harmon Trophy in 1936 and 1938, the Collier Trophy in 1938, the Octave Chanute Award in 1940, and a special Congressional Gold Medal in 1939 "in recognition of the achievements of Howard Hughes in advancing the science of aviation and thus bringing great credit to his country throughout the world." According to his obituary in The New York Times, Hughes never bothered to come to Washington to pick up the Congressional Gold Medal. It was eventually mailed to him by President Harry S. Truman.

Hughes D-2 and XF-11[link]

The Hughes D-2 was conceived in 1939 as a bomber with five crew members, powered by 42-cylinder Wright R-2160 Tornado engines. In the end it appeared as two-person fighter-reconnaissance aircraft designated the D-2A, powered by two Pratt & Whitney R-2800-49 engines. The aircraft was constructed using the Duramold process. The prototype was brought to Harper's Dry Lake California in great secrecy in 1943 and first flew on June 20 of that year.^[23] In November 1944, the hangar containing the D-2A was hit by lightning and the aircraft was destroyed. The design of the D-2 led to the Hughes XF-11. The XF-11 was an all-metal, two place reconnaissance aircraft, powered by two Pratt & Whitney R-4360-31 engines, each driving a set of contra-rotation propellers.

Near-fatal crash of the Sikorsky S-43[link]

In the spring of 1943 Hughes spent nearly a month in Las Vegas, test flying his Sikorsky S-43 amphibian aircraft, practicing touch-and-go landings on Lake Mead in preparation for flying the H-4 Hercules. The weather conditions at the lake during the day were ideal and he enjoyed Las Vegas at night. On May 17, 1943, Hughes flew the Sikorsky from California carrying two CAA aviation inspectors, two of his employees and actress Ava Gardner. Hughes dropped Gardner off in Las Vegas and proceeded to Lake Mead to conduct qualifying tests in the S-43. The test flight did not go well. The Sikorsky crashed killing CAA inspector Ceco Cline and Hughes employee Richard Felt. Hughes suffered a severe gash on the top of his head when he hit the upper control panel and had to be rescued by one of the others on board.^[24] Hughes paid divers $100,000 to raise the aircraft and later spent more than $500,000 restoring the aircraft.^[25]

Near-fatal crash of the XF-11[link]

1946 newsreel

Hughes was involved in a near-fatal aircraft accident on July 7, 1946, while piloting the experimental U.S. Army Air Force reconnaissance aircraft, the XF-11, over Los Angeles. An oil leak caused one of the contra-rotating propellers to reverse pitch, causing the aircraft to yaw sharply. Hughes tried to save the craft by landing it at the Los Angeles Country Club golf course, but just seconds before he could reach his attempted destination, the XF-11 started to drop dramatically and crashed in the Beverly Hills neighborhood surrounding the country club.^[26]

When the XF-11 finally came to a halt after destroying three houses, the fuel tanks exploded, setting fire to the aircraft and a nearby home at 808 North Whittier Drive, owned by Lt Col. Charles E. Meyer.^[27] Hughes managed to pull himself out of the flaming wreckage but lay beside the aircraft until he was rescued by Marine Master Sergeant William L. Durkin, who happened to be in the area visiting friends. Hughes sustained significant injuries in the crash, including a crushed collar bone, multiple cracked ribs,^[28] crushed chest with collapsed left lung, shifting his heart to the right side of the chest cavity, and numerous third-degree burns. A oft-told story said that Hughes sent a check to the Marine weekly for the remainder of his life as a sign of gratitude. However, Durkin's daughter denied that he took any money for the rescue.^[29]

However, Hughes was proud that his mind was still working. As he lay in his hospital bed, he decided that he did not like the bed's design. He called in plant engineers to design a "tailor-made" bed, equipped with hot and cold running water, built in six sections, and operated by 30 electric motors, with push-button adjustments.^[30] The hospital bed was designed by Hughes specifically to alleviate the pain caused by moving with severe burn injuries. Despite the fact that he never had the chance to use the bed that he designed, Hughes's bed served as a prototype for the modern hospital bed in common usage today.^[31] Hughes's recovery was considered by his doctors to be almost miraculous. Hughes, however, believed that neither miracle nor modern medicine contributed to his recovery. Instead he vigorously believed that the natural life-giving properties of fresh squeezed orange juice (Hughes would only drink orange juice that had been squeezed before his eyes) were responsible for his rapid recovery.^[31]

Many attribute his long-term addiction to opiates to his use of codeine^[32] as a painkiller during his convalescence. The trademark mustache he wore afterward was used to hide a scar on his upper lip resulting from the accident.^[33]

H-4 Hercules[link]

The Hughes H-4 Hercules with Howard Hughes at the controls

The Spruce Goose test plane in Brazoria County Airport in Texas

Brazoria County Airport Texas: The S-43 Sikorsky test plane

The Hughes H-4 Hercules was originally contracted by the U.S. government for use during World War II to transport troops and equipment across the Atlantic as an alternative to sea-going troop transport ships that were vulnerable to German U-boats. However the aircraft was not completed until after the end of World War II. The concept for the Hercules was originally conceived by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, who teamed with Hughes to build the aircraft.

The Hercules was the world's largest flying boat, the largest aircraft made from wood,^[34] and, at 319 feet 11 inches (97.51 m), had the longest wingspan of any aircraft (the next largest wingspan is about 30 ft (9 m) shorter). (The Hercules is no longer the longest or heaviest aircraft ever built; both of those titles are currently held by the Antonov An-225.)

The Hercules flew only once for one mile (1.6 km), and 70 feet (21m) above the water, with Hughes at the controls, on November 2, 1947.

The Hercules was nicknamed the "Spruce Goose" by critics, but was actually made largely from birch (not from spruce), rather than of aluminum, because the contract required the aircraft to be built of "non-strategic materials." It was built in Hughes's Westchester, California facility. Howard Hughes was summoned to testify before the Senate War Investigating Committee to explain why the aircraft had not been delivered to the United States Army Air Forces during the war, but the committee disbanded without releasing a final report. After display at the Long Beach, California harbor, the aircraft was moved to McMinnville, Oregon, where it is now part of the Evergreen Aviation Museum.^[35]

Hughes Aircraft[link]

Hughes Aircraft Company, a division of Hughes Tool Company, was originally founded by Hughes in 1932, in a rented corner of a Lockheed Aircraft Corporation hangar in Burbank, California, to build the H-1 racer. During and after World War II, Hughes fashioned his company into a major defense contractor. The Hughes Helicopters division started in 1947 when helicopter manufacturer Kellett sold their latest design to Hughes for production.

In 1948, Hughes created a new division of the company, the Hughes Aerospace Group. The Hughes Space and Communications Group and the Hughes Space Systems Division were later spun off in 1948 to form their own divisions and ultimately became the Hughes Space and Communications Company in 1961. In 1953, Howard Hughes gave all his stock in the Hughes Aircraft Company to the newly formed Howard Hughes Medical Institute, thereby turning the aerospace and defense contractor into a tax-exempt charitable organization. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute sold Hughes Aircraft in 1985 to General Motors for US$5.2 billion. In 1997, General Motors sold Hughes Aircraft to Raytheon and in 2000, sold Hughes Space & Communications to Boeing. A combination of Boeing, GM and Raytheon acquired the Hughes Research Laboratories.

Airlines[link]

In 1939, at the urging of Jack Frye, president of TWA, Hughes quietly purchased a majority share of TWA stock for nearly US$7 million and took control of the airline. Upon assuming ownership, Hughes was prohibited by federal law from building his own aircraft. Seeking an aircraft that would perform better than TWA's fleet of Boeing 307 Stratoliners, Hughes approached Boeing's competitor, Lockheed. Hughes had a good relationship with Lockheed since they had built the aircraft he used in his record flight around the world in 1938. Lockheed agreed to Hughes's request that the new aircraft be built in secrecy. The result was the revolutionary Constellation and TWA purchased the first 40 of the new airliners off the production line.

In 1956, Hughes placed an order for 63 Convair 880s for TWA at a cost of US$400 million. Although Hughes was extremely wealthy at this time, outside creditors demanded that Hughes relinquish control of TWA in return for providing the money. In 1960, Hughes was ultimately forced out of TWA, although he owned 78% of the company and battled to regain control.

Before Hughes' removal, the TWA jet financing issue precipitated the end of Hughes' relationship with Noah Dietrich. Dietrich claimed Hughes developed a plan by which Hughes Tool Company profits were to be inflated in order to sell the company for a windfall that would pay the bills for the 880s. Dietrich agreed to go to Texas to implement the plan on the condition that Hughes agreed to a capital gains arrangement he had long promised Dietrich. When Hughes balked, Dietrich resigned immediately. "Noah," Dietrich quoted Hughes as replying, "I cannot exist without you!" Dietrich stood firm and eventually had to sue to retrieve personal possessions from his office after Hughes ordered it locked.

In 1966, Hughes was forced by a U.S. federal court to sell his shares in TWA because of concerns over conflict of interest between his ownership of both TWA and Hughes Aircraft. The sale of his TWA shares netted him a profit of US$547 million. During the 1970s, Hughes went back into the airline business, buying the airline Air West and renaming it Hughes Airwest.

RKO[link]

In 1948, Hughes gained control of RKO, a struggling major Hollywood studio, by acquiring 25 percent of the outstanding stock from Floyd Odlum's Atlas Corporation. Within weeks of taking control, he dismissed three-quarters of the work force and production was shut down for six months in 1949 while he undertook the investigation of the politics of all remaining studio employees. Completed pictures would be sent back for re-shooting if he felt his star (especially female) was not properly presented, or if a film's anti-communist politics were not sufficiently clear. In 1952, an abortive sale to a Chicago-based group with no experience in the industry disrupted studio operations even further.

Hughes sold the RKO theaters in 1953 as settlement of the United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. antitrust case. With the sale of the profitable theaters, the shaky status of the film studio became increasingly apparent. A steady stream of lawsuits from RKO's minority shareholders, charging him with financial misconduct and corporate mismanagement, became an increasing nuisance, especially because Hughes wanted to focus on his aircraft-manufacturing and TWA holdings during the Korean War years. Eager to be rid of the distraction, Hughes offered to buy out all other stockholders.

By the end of 1954, at a cost of nearly US$24 million, he had gained near total control of RKO, becoming the closest thing to a sole owner of a Hollywood studio seen in three decades. Six months later, Hughes sold the studio to the General Tire and Rubber Company for US$25 million. Hughes retained the rights to pictures he had personally produced, including those made at RKO. He also retained Jane Russell's contract. For Howard Hughes, this was the virtual end of his 25-year involvement in motion pictures; though he had all but destroyed a major Hollywood studio, his reputation as a financial wizard emerged unscathed. He reportedly walked away from RKO having made US$6.5 million in personal profit.^[36]

General Tire was interested mainly in exploiting the value of the RKO library for television programming, though it made some attempts to continue producing films. After a year and a half of mixed success, General Tire shut down film production at RKO for good at the end of January 1957. The studio lots in Hollywood and Culver City were sold to Desilu Productions later that year for US$6.15 million.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute[link]

In 1953, Hughes launched the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Miami, Florida, and currently located in Chevy Chase, Maryland, formed with the express goal of basic biomedical research, including trying to understand, in Hughes' words, the "genesis of life itself." Hughes' first will, which he signed in 1925 at the age of 19, stipulated that a portion of his estate should be used to create a medical institute bearing his name.^[37] When a major battle with the IRS loomed ahead, Hughes gave all his stock in the Hughes Aircraft Company to the institute, thereby turning the aerospace and defense contractor into a for-profit entity of a fully tax-exempt charity. Hughes' internist, Dr. Verne Mason, who treated Hughes after his 1946 plane crash, was chairman of the institute's medical advisory committee.^[38] The Howard Hughes Medical Institute's new board of trustees sold Hughes Aircraft in 1985 to General Motors for US$5.2 billion, allowing the institute to grow dramatically.

The deal was the topic of a protracted legal battle between Hughes and the Internal Revenue Service, which Hughes ultimately won. After his death in 1976, many thought that the balance of Hughes' estate would go to the institute, although it was ultimately divided among his cousins and other heirs, given the lack of a will to the contrary. The HHMI was the 4th largest private organization as of 2007^[39] and the largest devoted to biological and medical research, with an endowment of US$16.3 billion as of June 2007.

Nixon scandal[link]

Shortly before the 1960 Presidential election, Richard Nixon was harmed by revelations of a US$205,000 loan from Hughes to Nixon's brother Donald. It has long been speculated that Nixon's drive to learn what the Democrats were planning in 1972 was based in part on his belief that the Democrats knew about a later bribe that his friend Bebe Rebozo had received from Hughes after Nixon took office.

In late 1971, Donald Nixon was collecting intelligence for his brother in preparation for the upcoming presidential election. One of Donald's sources was John H. Meier,^[40] a former business adviser of Hughes who had also worked with Democratic National Chairman Larry O'Brien.

However, Meier, in collaboration with former Vice President of the United States Hubert Humphrey and others, wanted to feed misinformation to the Nixon campaign. Meier told Donald that he was sure the Democrats would win the election because Larry O’Brien had a great deal of information on Richard Nixon’s illicit dealings with Howard Hughes that had never been released;^[41][42] O’Brien didn’t actually have any such information, but Meier wanted Nixon to think he did. Donald told his brother that O’Brien was in possession of damaging Hughes information that could destroy his campaign.^[43] Terry Lenzner, who was the chief investigator for the Senate Watergate Committee, speculates that it was Nixon's desire to know what O'Brien knew about Nixon's dealings with Hughes that may have partially motivated the Watergate break-in.^[44]

[edit] Glomar Explorer

In 1972, Hughes was approached by the CIA to help secretly recover Soviet submarine K-129 which had sunk near Hawaii four years earlier. Thus, the special-purpose salvage vessel Glomar Explorer was born. Hughes' involvement provided the CIA with a plausible cover story, having to do with civilian marine research at extreme depths and the mining of undersea manganese nodules. In the summer of 1974, Glomar Explorer attempted to raise the Soviet vessel.^[45]

However, during the recovery a mechanical failure in the ship's grapple caused half of the submarine to break off and fall to the ocean floor. This section is believed to have held many of the most sought-after items, including its code book and nuclear missiles. Two nuclear-tipped torpedoes and some cryptographic machines were recovered, along with the bodies of six Soviet submariners who were subsequently given formal burial at sea in a filmed ceremony. The operation, known as Project Azorian (but incorrectly referred to by the press as Project Jennifer), became public in February 1975 because burglars had obtained secret documents from Hughes' headquarters in June 1974.^[46] Though he lent his name to the operation, Hughes and his companies had no actual involvement in the project.

Mental illness and physical decline[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2009)

As early as the 1930s, Hughes displayed signs of mental illness, primarily obsessive-compulsive disorder. Close friends reported that he was obsessed with the size of peas, one of his favorite foods, and used a special fork to sort them by size.

While directing The Outlaw, Hughes became fixated on a minor flaw in one of Jane Russell's blouses, claiming that the fabric bunched up along a seam and gave the appearance of two nipples on each breast. He was reportedly so upset by the matter that he wrote a detailed memorandum to the crew on how to fix the problem. Richard Fleischer, who directed His Kind of Woman with Hughes as executive producer, wrote at length in his autobiography about the difficulty of dealing with the tycoon. In his book, Just Tell Me When to Cry, Fleischer explained that Hughes was fixated on trivial details and was alternately indecisive and obstinate. He also revealed that Hughes' unpredictable mood swings made him wonder if the film would ever be completed.

In December 1957, Hughes told his aides that he wanted to screen some movies at a film studio near his home. Hughes stayed in the studio's darkened screening room for more than four months, never leaving. He subsisted exclusively on chocolate bars, chicken, and milk, and relieved himself in the empty bottles and containers. He was surrounded by dozens of Kleenex boxes, which he continuously stacked and re-arranged. He wrote detailed memos to his aides on yellow legal pads giving them explicit instructions not to look at him, to respond when spoken to, but otherwise not speak to him. Throughout this period, Hughes sat fixated in his chair, often naked, continuously watching movies, reel after reel, day after day. When he finally emerged in the spring of 1958, his hygiene was terrible, as he had not bathed or cut his hair and nails for weeks (although this may have been due to allodynia - pain upon being touched^[32]). The Screening Room was located at Sunset Boulevard and Doheny Drive in Los Angeles; it was owned by Martin Nosseck and was called the "Martin Nosseck Projection Theatre" - Martin Nosseck was the full time projectionist for Hughes during that time.

After the screening room incident, Hughes moved into a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He also rented out several other rooms for his aides, his wife, and his numerous girlfriends. His erratic behavior continued, however, as he would sit naked in his bedroom with a pink hotel napkin placed over his genitals, watching movies. In one year, he spent an estimated $11 million at the hotel.

In a bout of obsession with his home state, Hughes began purchasing all restaurant chains and four star hotels that had been founded within the borders of Texas. This included, if for only a short period, many unknown franchises currently out of business. Ownership of the restaurants was placed in the hands of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and all licenses were resold shortly after.

Another time, he became obsessed with the 1968 film Ice Station Zebra and had it running on a continuous loop in his home. According to his aides, he watched it 150 times.^[47]

Hughes insisted on using tissues to pick up objects, so that he could insulate himself from germs. He would also notice dust, stains or other imperfections on people's clothes and demand that they take care of it.

Once one of the most visible men in America, Hughes ultimately vanished from public view, although the tabloids continued to follow rumors of his behavior and whereabouts. He was reported to be terminally ill, mentally unstable or even dead.

As a result of numerous plane crashes, Hughes spent much of his later life in pain, eventually becoming severely addicted to codeine, which he injected intramuscularly.^[32] Hughes only had his hair cut and nails trimmed once a year. He may have been in severe chronic pain from his extensive injuries, so much so that even the act of tooth brushing was painful, so he avoided it.^[32]

A retrospective case study suggests that Hughes' drug situation is more reminiscent of "pseudoaddiction" than true addiction; he suffered chronic pain and used narcotic medicine to control it.^[32] He did not inject it intravenously for immediate effect, rather, he injected it into muscle, where it would have more of an effect on pain,^[32] however it should be noted that codeine, when injected intravenously, leads to life threatening symptoms and is not by any means a safe route of administration, under any circumstance.^[48] He did not use tobacco or other drugs, and rarely consumed alcohol.^[32] He used diazepam to control the symptoms of withdrawal when he had not taken enough codeine.^[32] At the time, the field of pain management was small and there were few options for long-term pain control.^[32] As codeine is a relatively weak narcotic, his pain was probably not controlled effectively.^[32]

Toward the end of his life, his inner circle was largely composed of Mormons, as they were the only people he considered trustworthy, even though Hughes himself was not a member of their church.

Hughes equipped this 1954 Chrysler New Yorker with an aircraft-grade air filtration system which took up the entire trunk

Las Vegas baron and recluse[link]

The wealthy and aging Howard Hughes, accompanied by his entourage of personal aides, began moving from one hotel to another, always taking up residence in the top floor penthouse. During the last ten years of his life, from 1966 to 1976, Hughes lived in hotels in Beverly Hills, Boston, Las Vegas, Nassau, Freeport, Vancouver,^[49] London, Managua, Acapulco, and others.

On November 24, 1966 (Thanksgiving Day),^[50] Hughes arrived in Las Vegas by railroad car and moved into the Desert Inn. Because he refused to leave the hotel and to avoid further conflicts with the owners of the hotel, Hughes bought the Desert Inn in early 1967. The hotel's eighth floor became the nerve center of his empire and the ninth-floor penthouse became Hughes' personal residence. Between 1966 and 1968, Hughes bought several other hotels/casinos such as the Castaways, New Frontier, The Landmark Hotel and Casino, and the Sands. He bought the small Silver Slipper casino only to reposition the hotel's trademark neon silver slipper, visible from Hughes bedroom, which apparently had been keeping him up at night. An unusual incident marked an earlier Hughes connection to Las Vegas: during his 1954 engagement at the Last Frontier hotel in Las Vegas, flamboyant entertainer Liberace mistook Howard Hughes for his lighting director, instructing him to instantly bring up a blue light should he start to play Clair de lune. Hughes nodded in compliance. Then the hotel's entertainment director arrived to properly introduce Hughes to Liberace.^[51]

Hughes wanted to change the image of Las Vegas to something more glamorous than it was. As Hughes wrote in a memo to an aide, "I like to think of Las Vegas in terms of a well-dressed man in a dinner jacket and a beautifully jeweled and furred female getting out of an expensive car." Hughes bought several local television stations (including KLAS-TV).

Hughes' considerable business holdings were overseen by a small panel unofficially dubbed "The Mormon Mafia" because of the many Latter-day Saints on the committee, led by Frank William Gay.^[52] In addition to supervising day-to-day business operations and Hughes' health, they also went to great pains to satisfy Hughes' every whim. Hughes once became fond of Baskin-Robbins' Banana Ripple ice cream, so his aides sought to secure a bulk shipment for him—only to discover that Baskin-Robbins had discontinued the flavor. They put in a request for the smallest amount the company could provide for a special order, 200 gallons (750 L), and had it shipped from Los Angeles. A few days after the order arrived, Hughes announced he was tired of Banana Ripple and wanted only Chocolate Marshmallow ice cream. The Desert Inn ended up distributing free Banana Ripple ice cream to casino customers for a year. In a 1996 interview, ex-Howard Hughes communicator Robert Maheu said "There is a rumor that there is still some Banana Ripple ice cream left in the freezer. It is most likely true."

As an owner of several major businesses in Las Vegas, Hughes wielded enormous political and economic influence in Nevada and elsewhere. During the 1960s and early 1970s, Hughes disapproved of the underground nuclear testing taking place at the Nevada Test Site. Hughes was concerned about the risk posed by the residual nuclear radiation from the tests, and so attempted to halt the tests. When the tests finally went through despite Hughes' efforts, the detonations were powerful enough that the entire hotel in which he was staying trembled with the shock waves.^[53] In two separate, last-ditch maneuvers, Hughes instructed his representatives to offer million-dollar bribes to both presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon.^[54] His aides, however, never offered the bribes, instead reporting to Hughes that Johnson declined the offer and they were unable to contact Nixon.^{[citation needed]}

In 1971, Jean Peters filed for divorce; the two had not lived together for many years. Peters requested a lifetime alimony payment of US$70,000 a year, adjusted for inflation, and waived all claims to Hughes' estate. Hughes offered her a settlement of over a million dollars, but she declined it. Hughes did not insist upon a confidentiality agreement from Peters as a condition of the divorce; aides reported that Hughes never spoke ill of her. She refused to discuss her life with Hughes and declined several lucrative offers from publishers and biographers. Peters would state only that she had not seen Hughes for several years before their divorce and had only dealt with him by phone.

Hughes was living in the Intercontinental Hotel near Lake Managua in Nicaragua, seeking privacy and security,^[55] when a magnitude 6.5 earthquake damaged Managua in December 1972. As a precaution, Hughes moved to the Nicaraguan National Palace and stayed there as a guest of Anastasio Somoza Debayle before leaving for Florida on a private jet the following day.^[56] He subsequently moved into the Penthouse at the Xanadu Princess Resort on Grand Bahama Island, which he had recently purchased. He lived almost exclusively in the penthouse of the Xanadu Beach Resort & Marina for the last four years of his life. Hughes had spent a total of US$300 million on his many properties in Las Vegas.^[50]

Memoir hoax[link]

In 1972, author Clifford Irving created a media sensation when he claimed to have co-written an authorized autobiography of Hughes. Hughes was such a reclusive figure that he did not immediately publicly refute Irving's statement, leading many people to believe Irving's book was a genuine autobiography. Before the book's publication, however, Hughes finally denounced Irving in a teleconference and the entire project was eventually exposed as a hoax. Irving was later convicted of fraud and spent 17 months in prison. In 1974, the Orson Welles film F for Fake included a section dealing with the entire Hughes biography hoax. In 1977, The Hoax by Clifford Irving was published in England; it is the story of these events. The 2007 film The Hoax, starring Richard Gere, is based on these events.^[57]

Death[link]

Hughes was reported to have died on April 5, 1976, at 1:27 pm on board an aircraft owned by Robert Graf and piloted by Jeff Abrams, en route from his penthouse at the Acapulco Fairmont Princess Hotel in Mexico to The Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. Alternatively, other accounts indicate that he died in the flight from Freeport Grand Bahamas to Houston.^[58] His reclusive activities (and possibly his drug use) made him practically unrecognizable; his hair, beard, fingernails, and toenails were long (possibly due to allodynia making him averse to touch^[32]), his tall 6 ft 4 in (193 cm) frame now weighed barely 90 lb (41 kg), and the FBI had to resort to fingerprints to identify the body.^[59] Howard Hughes' alias, John T. Conover, was used upon the arrival of his body at a morgue in Houston on the day of his death. There, his body was received by Dr. Jack Titus.^[60]

A subsequent autopsy noted kidney failure as the cause of death. Hughes was in extremely poor physical condition at the time of his death. He suffered from malnutrition. While his kidneys were damaged, his other internal organs, including his brain, were deemed perfectly healthy.^[32] X-rays revealed five broken-off hypodermic needles in the flesh of his arms.^[32] To inject codeine into his muscles, Hughes used glass syringes with metal needles that easily became detached.^[32] Phenacetin, used for chronic pain, may have been the cause of his kidney failure.^[32]

Hughes is buried in the Glenwood Cemetery in Houston, Texas, next to his parents.^[61]

Estate[link]

Approximately three weeks after Hughes' death, a handwritten will was found on the desk of an official of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. The so-called "Mormon Will" gave US$1.56 billion to various charitable organizations (including US$625 million to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute); nearly US$470 million to the upper management in Hughes' companies and to his aides; US$156 million to first cousin William Lummis; and US$156 million split equally between his two ex-wives Ella Rice and Jean Peters.

A further US$156 million was endowed to a gas-station owner named Melvin Dummar. Dummar told reporters that late one evening in December 1967, he found a disheveled and dirty man lying along U.S. Highway 95, 150 miles (240 km) north of Las Vegas. The man asked for a ride to Las Vegas. Dropping him off at the Sands Hotel, Dummar said the man told him he was Hughes. Dummar then claimed that days after Hughes's death, a "mysterious man" appeared at his gas station, leaving an envelope containing the will on his desk. Unsure if the will was genuine, and unsure of what to do, Dummar left the will at the LDS Church office. In a trial lasting seven months, the Mormon Will was eventually rejected by the Nevada court in June 1978 as a forgery. The court declared that Hughes had died intestate.

Hughes' US$2.5 billion estate was eventually split in 1983 among 22 cousins, including William Lummis who serves as a trustee of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dummar was largely discounted by the public as a phony and an opportunist. Jonathan Demme's film Melvin and Howard (starring Jason Robards and Paul Le Mat), was based on Dummar's tale.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Hughes Aircraft was owned by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which sold it to General Motors in 1985 for US$5.2 billion. Suits brought by the states of California and Texas claiming they were owed inheritance tax were both rejected by the court. In 1984, Hughes's estate paid an undisclosed amount to Terry Moore, who claimed to have been secretly married to Hughes on a yacht in international waters off Mexico in 1949 and never divorced. Although Moore never produced proof of a marriage, her book, The Beauty and the Billionaire, became a bestseller.

Awards[link]

This section requires expansion.

• Congressional Gold Medal (presented August 7, 1939).

Popular culture[link]

Howard Hughes has now emerged as one of the 20th century's most iconic business and aviation figures spawning a wide range of cultural references.

Audio[link]

• Howard Hughes flying boat maiden test run and flight, Parts 1 & 2. [soundrecording] (1947). LCCN 20-646215, LCCN 20-646218
• The American rock band Kansas recorded a song entitled, "Closet Chronicles", on their 1977 album, "Point of Know Return". This song, written by Steve Walsh and Kerry Livgren, is an allegory about Howard Hughes.^{[citation needed]}
• The British comedy musical duo Pig With The Face Of A Boy recorded a song named "Howard Hughes Blues" for their debut album, "La La Haha". The song contains humorous lyrics concerning Howard Hughes' eccentricities.^{[citation needed]}

Film[link]

(Chronological)

• Willard Whyte, a billionaire from the 1971 James Bond movie, Diamonds Are Forever, is based on Howard Hughes. Hughes, a friend of producer Albert Broccoli, allowed his hotel and casino to be used in the filming.
• The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977), directed by William A. Graham. Tommy Lee Jones stars as Howard Hughes.
• Melvin and Howard (1980), directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Jason Robards (a distant cousin) as Howard Hughes and Paul Le Mat as Melvin Dummar. The film won Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress (Mary Steenburgen). The film focuses on Melvin Dummar's claims of meeting Hughes in the Nevada desert and subsequent estate battles over his inclusion in Hughes's will. Critic Pauline Kael called the film "an almost flawless act of sympathetic imagination."^[62]
• Hughes was portrayed by Terry O'Quinn in Disney's The Rocketeer (1991), substituting for the "mystery inventor" (Doc Savage) in the original comic book version.
• "Howard Hughes Documentary", broadcast in 1992 as an episode of the Time Machine documentary series, was introduced by Peter Graves, later released by A&E Home Video.^[63]
• Before The Aviator (2004), there were several attempts to create a biopic based on the life of Hughes. For years, director-actor Warren Beatty wanted to play Hughes and direct a big-screen film of the mogul. It was to be released alongside Beatty's film Reds, but due to the lack of the right script, the project was abandoned. In the 1990s, producers with Touchstone Pictures wanted to do it with John Malkovich, Edward Norton, or Johnny Depp as Hughes, but, due to climbing costs, that venture was abandoned. Castle Rock Entertainment also tried to develop a biopic called Mr. Hughes with Jim Carrey starring and with Christopher Nolan directing and re-writing a script originated by David Koepp and Brian De Palma. When The Aviator began production, the idea was scrapped, and Nolan went on to direct Batman Begins. Some of the details of Hughes as an adult were confirmed in A. Scott Berg's memoir of Katharine Hepburn, Kate Remembered.
• The Aviator (2004), directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Hughes. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards, and winning five, the acclaimed film focuses primarily on Hughes' achievements in aviation and in the movies and on the increasing handicaps imposed on him by his obsessive–compulsive behavior, and ends shortly after the successful flight of the Hercules in 1947.
• Iron Man, directed by Jon Favreau is an adaptation of a comic book about a wealthy weapons manufacturer, Tony Stark. According to creator Stan Lee, the character's personality and playboy lifestyle were inspired by Hughes,^[64] explaining, "Howard Hughes was one of the most colorful men of our time. He was an inventor, an adventurer, a multi-billionaire, a ladies' man and finally a nutcase".^[65]
• Howard Hughes: The Real Aviator documentary was broadcast in 2004, and went on to win the Grand Festival Award for Best Documentary at the 2004 Berkeley Video & Film Festival.^[66]
• The American Aviator: The Howard Hughes Story was broadcast in 2006 on the Biography Channel. It was later released to home media as a DVD with a copy of the full length film The Outlaw starring Jane Russell.^[67]

Games[link]

• In BioShock, Andrew Ryan, founder of the dystopian underwater city, Rapture, was based between Howard Hughes and Ayn Rand.^{[citation needed]}
• In Fallout: New Vegas, one of the major characters, Mr. House is based upon Hughes' personality and achievements as a prodigal engineer.^{[citation needed]}
• In L.A. Noire, Hughes makes an appearance presenting his Hercules H-4 aircraft in the opening introduction of the game.^[68]

References[link]

Notes[link]

Citations[link]