Coordinates	30°19′10″N81°39′36″N
Name	Loudun
Image coat of arms	Heraldique Blason ville fr Loudun.svg
Coat of arms legend	City coat of arms
Region	Poitou-Charentes
Department	Vienne
Arrondissement	Châtellerault
Canton	Loudun
Insee	86137
Postal code	86200
Mayor	Jean Touret
Term	2001–2008
Intercommunality	Pays Loudunais
Longitude	0.0844444444444
Latitude	47.0105555556
Elevation m	90
Elevation min m	47
Elevation max m	120
Area km2	43.77
Population	7588
Population date	2006 }}

Loudun is a commune in the Vienne department in the Poitou-Charentes region in western France.

It is located south of the town of Chinon and 25 km to the east of the town Thouars. The area south of Loudun is the place of origin of a significant portion of the Acadians, one of the early founding people of New France in Canada.

Demographics

Sights

An ancient town, Loudun contains numerous old streets, and buildings and monuments of which five are Government-listed monuments. It is also the location of a vicus type archaeological site.

Loudun possessions

Loudun was the site of hysteria concerning the mass possession of nuns by the Devil in 1634.

Personalities

Loudun is the birthplace of:

Jean Salmon Macrin (1490–1557), Neo-Latin poet

Théophraste Renaudot (1586–1653), medical practitioner, inventor of French written press, journalist, philanthropist

Ismaël Bullialdus (1604–1694), astronomer

Jean-Charles Cornay, martyr.

Marie Besnard, accused of poisoning in the '50s in what was a very mediatized trial; her story was the subject of a successful TV movie and of several books

René Monory, mayor of Loudun, senator of Vienne, president of the French Senate, Minister of Education, president of the Vienne General Council, fonder of the Futuroscope park of Poitiers

Nicolas Ghesquière (born 1972), creative director of the French fashion house Balenciaga was born in 1972 in Comines, Nord-Pas-de-Calais but was always raised in Loudun where his parents own a golf course.

Loudun is the place of death of:

Urbain Grandier (18 August 1634), French Catholic priest who was burned at the stake after being convicted of witchcraft.

André Andrejew (16 March 1967), French-Russian classic film production designer, built decors for movies produced in Germany, France, England and the US.

Twin towns

Burgos, Castile and León, Spain.

See also

Lugus

Communes of the Vienne department

References

INSEE

External links

Tourisme Loudun (in French)

Loudon

ca:Loudun ceb:Loudun de:Loudun es:Loudun eu:Loudun fr:Loudun it:Loudun la:Lodunum mg:Loudun nl:Loudun oc:Laudun (Anjau) pl:Loudun pt:Loudun sv:Loudun uk:Луден vi:Loudun vo:Loudun war:Loudun

Krzysztof Penderecki (, born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde ''Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima'' for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral ''St. Luke Passion''. Both these works exhibit novel compositional techniques. Since the 1970s Penderecki's style has changed to encompass a post-Romantic idiom.

He has won prestigious awards including Grammy Awards in 1987 and 1998 and 2001, and the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 1992.

As well as the works already mentioned, his compositions include four operas, eight symphonies and other orchestral pieces, a variety of instrumental concertos, choral settings of mainly religious texts, as well as chamber and instrumental works.

Career

Early years

After taking private composition lessons with Franciszek Skolyszewski, Penderecki studied music at Jagiellonian University and the Academy of Music in Kraków under Artur Malawski and Stanislaw Wiechowicz. Having graduated in 1958, he took up a teaching post at the Academy. Penderecki's early works show the influence of Anton Webern and Pierre Boulez (he has also been influenced by Igor Stravinsky). Penderecki's international recognition began in 1959 at the Warsaw Autumn with the premieres of the works ''Strophen'', ''Psalms of David'', and ''Emanations'', but the piece that truly brought him to international attention was ''Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima'' (see threnody and atomic bombing of Hiroshima), written for 52 string instruments. In it, Penderecki makes use of extended instrumental techniques (for example, playing on the "wrong" side of the bridge, bowing on the tailpiece). There are many novel textures in the work, which makes great use of tone clusters. He originally titled the work ''8' 37"'', but decided to dedicate it to the victims of Hiroshima.

''Fluorescences'' followed a year later; it increases the orchestral density with more wind and brass, and an enormous percussion section of 32 instruments for six players including a Mexican güiro, typewriters, gongs and other unusual instruments. The piece was composed for the Donaueschingen Festival of contemporary music of 1962, and its performance was regarded as provocative and controversial. Penderecki's intentions at this stage were quite Cagean: 'All I'm interested in is liberating sound beyond all tradition'. This preoccupation with sound culminated in ''De Natura Sonoris I'', which frequently calls upon the orchestra to use non-standard playing techniques to produce original sounds and colours. A sequel, ''De Natura Sonoris II'', was composed in 1971: with its more limited orchestra, it incorporates more elements of post-Romanticism than its predecessor. This foreshadowed Penderecki's renunciation of the avant-garde in the mid-1970s, although both pieces feature dramatic glissandos, dense clusters, and a use of harmonics, and unusual instruments (the musical saw features in the second piece).

In 1968 he received State Prize 1st class.Due to the jubilee of People's Republic of Poland he received Commander's Cross (1974)and Knight's Cross of Order of Polonia Restituta (1964).

''The St. Luke Passion''

!Year

|	Song title	Work	Instrumentation
	"Miserere mei, Deus"''''

The large-scale ''St. Luke Passion'' (1963–66) brought Penderecki further popular acclaim, not least because it was devoutly religious, yet written in an avant-garde musical language, composed within Communist Eastern Europe. Western audiences saw it as a snub to the Soviet authorities. Various different musical styles can be seen in the piece. The experimental textures, such as were seen in the ''Threnody'', are balanced by the work's Baroque form and the occasional use of more traditional harmonic and melodic writing. Penderecki makes use of serialism in this piece, and one of the tone rows he uses includes the BACH motif, which acts as a bridge between the conventional and more experimental elements. The Stabat Mater section towards the end of the piece concludes on a simple major chord of D major, and this gesture is repeated at the very end of the work, which finishes on a triumphant E major chord. These are the only tonal harmonies in the work, and both come as a surprise to the listener; Penderecki's use of tonal triads such as these remains a controversial aspect of the work.

Penderecki continued to write pieces that explored the sacred in music. In the early 1970s he wrote a Dies Irae, a version of the ''Magnificat'', and ''Canticum Canticorum'', a song of songs for chorus and orchestra.

1970s-present

Around the mid-1970s, while he was a professor at the Yale School of Music Penderecki's style began to change. The Violin Concerto No. 1 largely leaves behind the dense tone clusters with which he had been associated, and instead focuses on two melodic intervals: the semitone and the tritone. Some commentators compared this new direction to Anton Bruckner. This direction continued with the Symphony No. 2, ''Christmas'' (1980), which is harmonically and melodically quite straightforward. It makes frequent use of the tune of the Christmas carol ''Silent Night''.

Penderecki explained this shift by stating that he had come to feel that the experimentation of the avant-garde had gone too far from the expressive, non-formal qualities of Western music: 'The avant-garde gave one an illusion of universalism. The musical world of Stockhausen, Nono, Boulez and Cage was for us, the young - hemmed in by the aesthetics of socialist realism, then the official canon in our country - a liberation...I was quick to realise however, that this novelty, this experimentation and formal speculation, is more destructive than constructive; I realised the Utopian quality of its Promethean tone'. Penderecki concluded that he was 'saved from the avant-garde snare of formalism by a return to tradition'.

In 1980, Penderecki was commissioned by Solidarity to compose a piece to accompany the unveiling of a statue at the Gdańsk shipyards to commemorate those killed in anti-government riots there in 1970. Penderecki responded with ''Lacrimosa'', which he later expanded into one of the best known works of his later period, the ''Polish Requiem'' (1980–84, 1993, 2005). Again the harmonies are rich, although there are moments which recall his work in the 1960s. In recent years, he has tended towards more traditionally conceived tonal constructs, as heard in works like the Cello Concerto No. 2 and the ''Credo''. He conducted ''Credo'' on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Helmuth Rilling, 29 May 2003. In celebration of his 75th birthday he conducted three of his works at the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2008, among them Ciaccona from the ''Polish Requiem''.

In 2001, Penderecki's ''Credo'' received the Grammy Award for best choral performance for the world-premiere recording made by the Oregon Bach Festival, which commissioned the piece. The same year, Penderecki was awarded with the Prince of Asturias Prize in Spain, one of the highest honours given in Spain to individuals, entities, organizations or others from around the world who make notable achievements in the sciences, arts, humanities, or public affairs. Invited by Walter Fink, he was the eleventh composer featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2001. Penderecki received an honorary doctorate from the Seoul National University, Korea in 2005, as well as from the University of Münster, Germany in 2006. His notable students include Chester Biscardi and Walter Mays.

Penderecki has three children, a daughter from his first marriage, and a son and daughter with his current wife, Elżbieta Solecka, whom he married in 1965.He lives in the Kraków suburb of Wola Justowska. He is working on an opera based on Phèdre by Racine for 2014 and wishes to write a 9th symphony.

Work

Penderecki's compositions include operas, symphonies, choral works, as well as chamber and instrumental music.

Use

Some of Penderecki's music has been adapted for film soundtracks. ''The Shining'' (1980) features six pieces of Penderecki's music: ''Utrenja II: Ewangelia, Utrenja II: Kanon Paschy, The Awakening of Jacob, De Natura Sonoris No. 1, De Natura Sonoris No. 2'' and ''Polymorphia''. ''The Exorcist'' (1973) features ''Polymorphia'' as well as his String Quartet and ''Kanon For Orchestra and Tape''; fragments of the Cello Concerto and ''The Devils of Loudun'' are also used in the film. Writing about ''The Exorcist'', the film critic for ''The New Republic'' wrote "even the music is faultless, most of it by Krzysztof Penderecki, who at last is where he belongs." David Lynch has used Penderecki's music in the soundtracks of the movies ''Wild at Heart'' (1990) and ''Inland Empire'' (2006). In the film ''Fearless'' by Peter Weir, the piece ''Polymorphia'' was once again used for an intense plane crash scene seen from the point of view of the passenger played by Jeff Bridges. Penderecki's piece, ''Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima'', was also used during one of the final sequences in the film ''Children of Men.'' Penderecki composed music for Andrzej Wajda's 2007 film ''Katyń'', while Martin Scorsese's ''Shutter Island'' featured his ''Symphony No. 3'' and ''Fluorescences''.

References

Sources

''Penderecki, Krzysztof'' by Adrian Thomas, in 'The New Grove Dictionary of Opera', ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) ISBN 0-333-73432-7

External links

Penderecki's official home page (in Polish)

Penderecki page at the Polish Music Center (last updated 2001)

Penderecki homepage maintained by Schott Music publishers (German/English)

Krzysztof Penderecki interview by Bruce Duffie (March 2000)

Sheet Music - 3 Miniatures For Clarinet with Piano (1956). Krzysztof Penderecki

Category:1933 births Category:20th-century classical composers Category:21st-century classical composers Category:Grawemeyer Award winners Category:Living people Category:Microtonal musicians Category:Opera composers Category:People from Dębica Category:Polish composers Category:Polish people of Armenian descent Category:Polish conductors (music) Category:Polish Roman Catholics Category:Yale School of Music faculty Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Members of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts Category:Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music Category:Polish people of Armenian descent Category:Alumni of the Academy of Music in Kraków Category:Academics of the Academy of Music in Kraków Category:Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Category:Wolf Prize in Arts laureates Category:Recipients of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1944-1989) Category:State Prize laureates (People's Republic of Poland)

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Nicolás Rodriguez Peña (Buenos Aires 1775 – Santiago de Chile; 1853) was an Argentine politician. Born in Buenos Aires in April 1775, he worked in commerce which allowed him to amass a considerable fortune. Among his several successful businesses, he had a soap factory partnership with Hipólito Vieytes, which was a center of conspirators during the revolution against Spanish rule. In 1805 he was a member of the "Independence Lodge", a masonic lodge, along with other prominent revolutionary patriots such as Juan José Castelli and Manuel Belgrano. This group used to meet in his ranch, then situated in what today is Rodriguez Peña square in Buenos Aires.

He was a member of the local militia in the British invasions of the Río de la Plata (1806 and 1807), and after taking part as promoter and financier of the May Revolution, he collaborated in the formation of the Primera Junta. Was secretary to Castelli, and went with him in the liberation army's expedition to Córdoba, where he authorized the death by firing squad of the previous viceroy Santiago de Liniers. After fighting at the Battle of Suipacha he entered Upper Peru, where he was for a short time governor of La Paz. Returning to Buenos Aires in February, he took the place of Mariano Moreno at the First Junta (''"Primera Junta"''). He was deposed by the revolution of April 1811 and confined to San Juan Province. Rodiguez Peña returned later the same year to Buenos Aires, returning to commerce once again. He joined the Logia Lautaro, directed by Carlos María de Alvear. Due to the revolution of October 1812, he was elected member of the Second Triumvirate, a government just created by the Constitutional Congress.

When the Triumvirate was dissolved, the Supreme Director, Gervasio Antonio de Posadas, selected him to preside the State Council (''"Consejo de Estado"''). He was also assigned as a colonel in the army. In 1814 he was named first governor delegate of the Eastern Province (present-day Uruguay), a post he held for only a short time.

After the fall of Director Alvear, he was charged, judged, and exiled, and was allowed to live in San Juan. In 1816 he went back to Buenos Aires, but the new Supreme Director, Juan Martín de Pueyrredón, forced him to return to exile in San Juan where he helped José de San Martín organize the Army of the Andes for the crossing into Chile.

After the Battle of Chacabuco he self-exiled himself in Santiago de Chile, where he remained until his death in December 1853. His remains were interred in La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires.

Category:1775 births Category:1853 deaths Category:People from Buenos Aires Category:Members of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies Category:Members of Argentine triumvirates Category:Argentine military personnel Category:Governor of Montevideo

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