Barbara Hendricks

Barbara Hendricks (born November 20, 1948) is an African-American operatic soprano and concert singer. Hendricks has lived in Europe since 1977, and in Switzerland in Basel since 1985. She is a citizen of Sweden following her marriage to a Swedish citizen.

Early life and education

Hendricks was born in Stephens, Arkansas. She graduated from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and chemistry at the age of 20. She attended the Aspen Music Festival and School and then attended Juilliard School of Music in New York, where she studied with mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel and participated in master classes led by soprano Maria Callas. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in music.

Musical career

In 1974, Hendricks made her professional operatic debut in Europe at the Glyndebourne Festival and in America at the San Francisco Opera. During her career, she has appeared at major opera houses throughout the world, including the Opéra National de Paris, the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and La Scala. In 1998 she sang Liu in the historical performance of Turandot at the Forbidden City in Beijing. Hendricks has performed more than twenty roles, twelve of which she has recorded.

Barbara Hendricks (politician)

Barbara Anne Hendricks (born 29 April 1952) is a German politician and member of the SPD.

Since 17 December 2013 she has been Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. From 2007 to 2013, she was Federal Treasurer of the SPD, and from 1998 to 2007 she was Parliamentary Secretary of State at the Federal Ministry of Finance.

Early life and career

Barbara Hendricks was born in Kleve.

After obtaining her Abitur in 1970 at the Johanna Sebus Gymnasium in Kleve, Barbara Hendricks studied History and Social Sciences in Bonn, passing the Staatsexamen examination for high school teachers in 1976. She then worked for the Association for Student Affairs until 1978. After that, until 1981, she was a deputy press secretary at the press office of the Bundestag parliamentary party of the SPD. In 1980 she was awarded a doctorate based on a thesis entitled Die Entwicklung der Margarineindustrie am unteren Niederrhein [The development of the margarine industry on the lower Rhine]. She was then press secretary of the minister of finance of the state of North Rhine-Westfalia until 1990. In 1991 she was appointed Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of the Environment, Spatial Planning and Agriculture of the State of North Rhine-Westfalia.

A German Requiem

A German Requiem may refer to:

See also

Deutsches Requiem (short story)

"Deutsches Requiem" is a short story by Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges.

Published on Sur in February 1946, it was reprinted in the collection El Aleph (1949). It is the last testament of Otto Dietrich zur Linde, the one-legged commandant of a Nazi concentration camp. After being tried and convicted of crimes against humanity, Zur Linde reflects back on his own sins and those of Nazi Germany while he awaits the firing squad.

Synopsis

A member of the German nobility, zur Linde is born in Marienburg, West Prussia in 1908. Raised Lutheran, zur Linde loses his faith in Christianity after reading the writings of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Oswald Spengler. Soon after, he joins the Schutzstaffel. Despite his deep contempt for his fellow SS men, zur Linde persuades himself that the Nazi Party needs men like himself to assure the world a glorious future.

On March 1, 1939, he is wounded in the leg while attacking a synagogue in Tilsit. Days later, the Wehrmacht invades Czechoslovakia, zur Linde is recuperating in a hospital following the amputation of his leg. Declaring how Raskolnikov's switch to robbery and murder was more difficult than the conquests of Napoleon Bonaparte, zur Linde relates how, on February 7, 1941, he was appointed subdirector of Tarnowitz concentration camp. There, many Jewish intellectuals are tortured and murdered under his orders.

A German Requiem (Brahms)

A German Requiem, To Words of the Holy Scriptures, Op. 45 (German: Ein deutsches Requiem, nach Worten der heiligen Schrift) by Johannes Brahms, is a large-scale work for chorus, orchestra, a soprano and a baritone soloist, composed between 1865 and 1868. It comprises seven movements, which together last 65 to 80 minutes, making this work Brahms's longest composition. A German Requiem is sacred but non-liturgical, and unlike a long tradition of the Latin Requiem, A German Requiem, as its title states, is a Requiem in the German language.

History

Brahms's mother died in February 1865, a loss that caused him much grief and may well have inspired Ein deutsches Requiem. Brahms's lingering feelings over Robert Schumann's death in July 1856 may also have been a motivation, though his reticence about such matters makes this uncertain.

His original conception was for a work of six movements; according to their eventual places in the final version, these were movements 1–4 and 6–7. By the end of April 1865, Brahms had completed the first, second, and fourth movements. The second movement used some previously abandoned musical material written in 1854, the year of Schumann's mental collapse and attempted suicide, and of Brahms's move to Düsseldorf to assist Clara Schumann and her young children.