Please answer this: What is the first name of the person who played a piano arrangement of Auber's overture to La muette de Portici?  Answer the above question based on the context below:  Bedřich Smetana, first named Friedrich Smetana, was born on 2 March 1824, in Litomyšl (German: Leitomischl), east of Prague near the traditional border between Bohemia and Moravia, then provinces of the Habsburg Empire. He was the third child, and first son, of František Smetana and his third wife Barbora Lynková. František had fathered eight children in two earlier marriages, five daughters surviving infancy; he and Barbora had ten more children, of whom seven reached adulthood. At this time, under Habsburg rule, German was the official language of Bohemia. František knew Czech but, for business and social reasons, rarely used it; and his children were ignorant of correct Czech until much later in their lives. The Smetana family came from the Hradec Králové (German: Königgrätz) region of Bohemia. František had initially learned the trade of a brewer, and had acquired moderate wealth during the Napoleonic Wars by supplying clothing and provisions to the French Army. He subsequently managed several breweries before coming to Litomyšl in 1823 as brewer to Count Waldstein, whose Renaissance castle dominates the town.The elder Smetana, although uneducated, had a natural gift for music and played in a string quartet. Bedřich was introduced to music by his father and in October 1830, at the age of six, gave his first public performance. At a concert held in Litomyšl's Philosophical Academy he played a piano arrangement of Auber's overture to La muette de Portici, to a rapturous reception. In 1831 the family moved to Jindřichův Hradec in the south of Bohemia—the region where, a generation later, Gustav Mahler grew up. Here, Smetana attended the local elementary school and later the gymnasium. He also studied violin and piano, discovering the works of Mozart and Beethoven, and began composing simple pieces, of which one, a dance (Kvapiček, or "Little Galop"), survives in sketch form.In 1835, František retired to a farm in the south-eastern region of Bohemia. There being no suitable local school, Smetana was sent to...
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Answer: Bedřich


Please answer this: What is the last name of the person who formally described bird specimens in 1827?  Answer the above question based on the context below:  English jeweller and naturalist William Bullock and his son travelled to Mexico soon after its independence, spending six months in 1823 collecting archeological artifacts and many bird and fish species new to science. The bird specimens were given to naturalist William John Swainson, their countryman, to formally describe, which he did in 1827. Among these was the red warbler, which was assigned to the genus Setophaga, as Setophaga rubra. Over the next half century, other authorities moved it to Cardellina, with the red-faced warbler, and to the widespread tropical warbler genus Basileuterus, as well as to the Old World warbler genus Sylvia and the Old World tit genus Parus. In 1873, English naturalists Philip Lutley Sclater and Osbert Salvin moved the species to the genus Ergaticus, where it remained for more than a century.The red warbler forms a superspecies with the pink-headed warbler of Chiapas and Guatemala. Despite their disjunct ranges and considerably different plumages, the two have sometimes been considered conspecific. Conversely, it has also been suggested that the red warbler should be split into a northern gray-eared species (C. melanauris) and a southern white-eared species (C. rubra). A comprehensive 2010 paper by Irby Lovette and colleagues analysing mitochondrial and nuclear DNA of the New World warblers found that the red and pink-headed warblers are each others' closest relative and that their common ancestor diverged from a lineage that gave rise to the red-faced warbler. The authors recommended moving the red and pink-headed warblers to the genus Cardellina, a suggestion which has been adopted by the International Ornithologists' Union (IOC).There are three subspecies, which differ slightly in appearance: C. r. rubra, described by Swainson in 1827, has white ear patches and is found from southern Jalisco and southern Hidalgo to Oaxaca.
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Answer: Swainson


Please answer this: What is the last name of the person who was offered a song on the condition that he release it as his next single?  Answer the above question based on the context below:  Paul McCartney said he came up with the title "The Long and Winding Road" during one of his first visits to his property High Park Farm, near Campbeltown in Scotland, which he purchased in June 1966. The phrase was inspired by the sight of a road "stretching up into the hills" in the remote Highlands surroundings of lochs and distant mountains. He wrote the song at his farm in 1968, inspired by the growing tension among the Beatles. Based on other comments McCartney has made, author Howard Sounes writes, the lyrics can be seen as McCartney expressing his anguish at the direction of his personal life, as well as a nostalgic look back at the Beatles' history. McCartney recalled: "I just sat down at my piano in Scotland, started playing and came up with that song, imagining it was going to be done by someone like Ray Charles. I have always found inspiration in the calm beauty of Scotland and again it proved the place where I found inspiration."Once back in London, McCartney recorded a demo version of "The Long and Winding Road" during one of the recording sessions for The Beatles. Later, he offered the song to Tom Jones on the condition that the singer release it as his next single. In Jones' recollection, he was forced to turn it down since his record company were about to issue "Without Love" as a single.The song takes the form of a piano-based ballad, with conventional chord changes. McCartney described the chords as "slightly jazzy" and in keeping with Charles' style. The song's home key is E-flat major but it also uses the relative C minor. Lyrically, it is a sad and melancholic song, with an evocation of an as-yet unrequited, though apparently inevitable, love. In an interview in 1994, McCartney described the lyric more obliquely: "It's rather a sad song. I like writing sad songs, it's a good bag to get into because you can actually acknowledge some deeper feelings of your own and put them in it. It's a good vehicle, it saves having to go to a psychiatrist."The opening theme is repeated throughout. The...
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Answer:
Jones