Alfred Guillaume (1888 – 1966) was an Arabist and Islamic scholar.

Guillaume took up Arabic after studying Theology and Oriental Languages at the University of Oxford. In the First World War he served in France and then in the Arab Bureau in Cairo. He was ordained when he returned to England.

He became Professor of Arabic and the Head of the Department of the Near and Middle East in the School of Oriental and African Studies, in the University of London. He was later Visiting Professor of Arabic at Princeton University, New Jersey.

During the Second World War the British Council invited him to accept a visiting professorship at the American University of Beirut where he greatly enlarged his circle of Muslim friends. The Arab Academy of Damascus and the Royal Academy of Baghdad honored him by electing him to their number, and the University of Istanbul chose him as their first foreign lecturer on Christian and Islamic theology.

He was best known as the author of Islam, published by Penguin Books, and as co-author, with Sir Thomas Arnold, of The Legacy of Islam, which has been translated into several languages. He also translated Ibn Ishaq's "Sirah Rasul Allah", published as The Life of Muhammad. A translation of Ishaq's "Sirat Rasul Allah".

Alfred Desenclos (7 February 1912 – 31 March 1971) was a French composer of (modern) classical music. Desenclos was a self-described "romantic" whose music is highly expressive and atmospheric and rooted in rigorous compositional technique.

To support his family Desenclos had to renounce continuing his general studies and work as an industrial designer until the age of 20, but in 1929 he entered the Conservatory in Roubaix, France, to study piano. Until that time he had played only as an amateur.

His sacred music belongs to the tradition begun by Saint-Saëns and continued by Fauré. He won the Prix de Rome in 1942.

Desenclos's Messe de requiem was written in 1963 and published by Durand et Fils in 1967. In 1999 the piece was reprinted under the name of Atlanta-based composer Tristan Foison. Foison's mass was given its "American premiere" on 18 May 1999 in a performance by the Capitol Hill Chorale - but soon after the piece was discovered to be a note-for-note duplicate of Desenclos's.[1]

Alfred Brendel KBE (born 5 January 1931) is an Austrian pianist, born in Czechoslovakia and a resident of the United Kingdom. He is also a poet and author.

Brendel was born in Wiesenberg, Czechoslovakia, now Loučná nad Desnou, Czech Republic, to a non-musical family. They moved to Zagreb when Brendel was six, and later to Graz, where they lived during World War II, towards the end of which the 14-year old Brendel was sent to Yugoslavia to dig trenches. However, he developed frostbite and was taken to hospital. Brendel began piano lessons when he was six with Sofija Deželić, and at 14 he studied piano with Ludovica von Kaan and composition in the Graz Conservatory for the next two years, but otherwise had little formal music education.

After the war, Brendel composed music, as well as continuing to play the piano and to paint. However, he never had more formal piano lessons and although he attended masterclasses with Edwin Fischer and Eduard Steuermann, he was largely self-taught.

Guillaume Faye (born 1949) is a French journalist and writer.

With a PhD from Science-Po, Guillaume Faye was one of the major theorists of the French New Right (Nouvelle Droite) in the 1970-1980’s. A former member of Alain de Benoist’s New Right organisation GRECE, he took part in the splitting of the organization in 1986 alongside Yann-Ber Tillenon, Tristan Mordrelle (fr), and Goulven Pennaod (fr). At that time he was close to nationalist neo-Pagans. Simultaneously, he made his way up as a journalist, namely in Figaro Magazine (fr), Paris-Match, VSD, etc. Guillaume Faye also led a journal called J'ai Tout Compris! (I Understood Everything!) which closed down soon after.

In 1987 Guillaume Faye withdrew from politics. In the year 1990 he took part in Skyrock radio station as 'Skyman'. He also appeared in Telematin emission on France 2 TV channel from 1991 to 1993. In 1998 he finally returned to politics after publishing some essays on various subjects such as culture, religion, etc. Several of these essays were collected into his major work, Archeofuturism, which was published in English translation in 2010. This book lays out his fundamental ideas, including his opposition to immigration, his dismissal of contemporary European politics, his call for a pan-European government, and his concept of Archeofuturism, which involves combining traditionalist spirituality and concepts of sovereignty with the latest advances in science and technology.

William Tell (in the four languages of Switzerland: German: Wilhelm Tell; French: Guillaume Tell; Italian: Guglielmo Tell; Romansh: Guglielm Tell) is a folk hero of Switzerland. His legend is recorded in a late 15th-century Swiss chronicle.

It is set in the period of the original foundation of the Old Swiss Confederacy in the early 14th century. According to the legend, Tell — an expert marksman with the crossbow — assassinated Gessler, a tyrannical reeve of Habsburg Austria positioned in Altdorf, Uri.

Along with Arnold Winkelried, Tell is a central figure in Swiss patriotism as it was constructed during the Restoration of the Confederacy after the Napoleonic era.

There are several accounts of the Tell legend. The earliest sources give an account of the apple-shot, Tell's escape and the ensuing rebellion. The assassination of Gessler is not mentioned in the Tellenlied, but is already present in the White Book of Sarnen account.

The legend as told by Tschudi (ca. 1570) goes as follows: William Tell, who originally came from Bürglen, was known as a strong man and an expert shot with the crossbow. In his time, the Habsburg emperors of Austria were seeking to dominate Uri. Albrecht (or Hermann) Gessler, the newly appointed Austrian Vogt of Altdorf, raised a pole in the village's central square, hung his hat on top of it, and demanded that all the townsfolk bow before the hat. On 18 November 1307, Tell visited Altdorf with his young son and passed by the hat, publicly refusing to bow to it, and so was arrested. Gessler — intrigued by Tell's famed marksmanship, yet resentful of his defiance — devised a cruel punishment: Tell and his son would be executed, but he could redeem his life by shooting an apple off the head of his son, Walter, in a single attempt. Tell split the apple with a bolt from his crossbow.