HMS Bickerton (K466)

HMS Bickerton was a Captain-class frigate of the Buckley type during World War II. Named after Sir Richard Bickerton commander of HMS Terrible at the First Battle of Ushant during the American Revolutionary War.

Originally this ship was provisionally given the name USS Eisele (this name was reassigned to DE-34) however the delivery was diverted to the Royal Navy before launch. The Commanding Officers were Lieutenant EM Thorpe RN and Commander D. MacIntyre, (Senior Officer 5th Escort Group).

Construction and career

Bickerton served exclusively with the 5th Escort Group earning battle honours for service in the Arctic (Russian Convoys), North Atlantic, off Normandy and in the English Channel.

On 6 May 1944, the German submarine U-765 was sunk in the North Atlantic — in position 52°30′N 28°28′W / 52.500°N 28.467°W / 52.500; -28.467 — by depth charges from Bickerton, operating alongside two Fairey Swordfish (No. 825 Squadron) of the escort carrier Vindex and frigates Bligh and Aylmer. Of the crew of U-765, 37 died and 11 survived.

Piano concerto

A piano concerto is a concerto written for a piano accompanied by an orchestra or other large ensemble.

Keyboard concerti were common in the time of Johann Sebastian Bach. Occasionally, Bach's harpsichord concerti are played on piano.

History

In the 17th and 18th centuries, typical concertos for keyboard were organ concertos and harpsichord concertos, such as those written by George Friedrich Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach.

Classical and romantic

As the piano developed and became accepted, composers naturally started writing concerti for it. This happened in the late 18th century, during the Classical music era. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the most important composer in the early development of the form. Mozart's body of masterly piano concerti put his stamp firmly on the genre well into the Romantic era.

Mozart wrote many piano concertos for himself to perform (his 27 piano concertos also include concerti for two and three pianos). With the rise of the piano virtuoso, many composer-pianists did likewise, notably Ludwig van Beethoven, Frédéric Chopin, and Robert Schumann—and also lesser-known musicians like Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Joseph Wölfl, Carl Maria von Weber, John Field, Ferdinand Ries, and F. X. Mozart.

D minor

D minor is a minor scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B♭, and C. In the harmonic minor, the C is raised to C♯. Its key signature has one flat (see below: Scales and keys).

Its relative major is F major, and its parallel major is D major. D minor is one of the two flat-signature keys whose melodic and harmonic scale variations require the addition of a written sharp; the other is G minor.

Of Domenico Scarlatti's 555 keyboard sonatas, 151 are in minor keys, and with 32 sonatas, D minor is the most often chosen minor key. Nigel Tufnel, one of the members of the musical spoof megagroup Spinal Tap speaks of "a musical trilogy I'm working on in D minor which is the saddest of all keys, I find. People weep instantly when they hear it, and I don't know why."

J. S. Bach's entire The Art of Fugue is in D minor. According to Alfred Einstein, the history of tuning has led D minor to be associated with counterpoint and chromaticism (for example, the chromatic fourth), and cites Mozart's chromatic fugue in D minor. Mozart's Requiem is also written primarily in D minor, as is the aria "Der Hölle Rache". Of the two piano concertos that Mozart wrote in a minor key, one of them is in D minor, No. 20, K. 466. Sibelius's Violin Concerto is in D minor, as is Schumann's. The tonality of D minor held special significance for Helene and Alban Berg.

Piano Concerto No. 20 (Mozart)

The Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466, was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1785. The first performance took place at the Mehlgrube Casino in Vienna on February 11, 1785, with the composer as the soloist.

Background

A few days after the first performance, the composer's father, Leopold, visiting in Vienna, wrote to his daughter Nannerl about her brother's recent success: "[I heard] an excellent new piano concerto by Wolfgang, on which the copyist was still at work when we got there, and your brother didn't even have time to play through the rondo because he had to oversee the copying operation."

It is written in the key of D minor. Other works by the composer in that key include the Fantasia K. 397 for piano, Requiem, a Kyrie, the aria "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" from the opera The Magic Flute and parts of the opera Don Giovanni. It is the first of two piano concertos written in a minor key (No. 24 in C minor being the other).

The young Ludwig van Beethoven admired this concerto and kept it in his repertoire. A bass run from the first movement appears for comic effect in Variation 22 of the Diabelli Variations. Daniel Barenboim contends that this concerto was Joseph Stalin's favorite piece of music. Composers who wrote cadenzas for it include Beethoven (WoO 58), Charles-Valentin Alkan, Johannes Brahms (WoO 16), Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Ferruccio Busoni, and Clara Schumann.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (German: [ˈvɔlfɡaŋ amaˈdeːʊs ˈmoːtsaʁt], English see fn.; 27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty.

At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons.