The Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano in A minor, D. 821, was written by Franz Schubert in Vienna in November 1824. The sonata is the only substantial composition extant today for the arpeggione (which was essentially a bowed guitar). The sonata was composed in November 1824, about a month after Schubert had returned to Vienna from his second stay in Zseliz. It has been adapted to other string instruments, especially the cello.
Martha Argerich – on piano
Mischa Maisky on cello
Enjoy, Jack
Jack, thanks. so that was music for the “ bowed guitar” played like a cello? here’s that nutty Mozart Group’s music on a cello (and violins) played Un-bowed like a guitar:
a “happy birthday” observance from the guardian
The weekend is 100 years old – but have ‘skiveday Fridays’ and hybrid working ruined it for everyone?
In 1926, Henry Ford gave his employees both Saturdays and Sundays off – and the two-day chunk of time to party, pray or simply do nothing was born. Now it’s changed beyond recognition
For 11 years, from 1929 to 1940, the Soviet Union did not have weekends. Instead, to increase productivity citizens were allocated a day off in every seven at random. With 80% of the population at work on any given day, factories never had to power down.
A letter from a disgruntled worker to Pravda newspaper, published soon after the implementation of this new working calendar, outlined the problems: “What is there for us to do at home if our wives are in the factory, our children at school, and nobody can visit us?” the letter-writer asked. “It is no holiday if you have to have it alone.” Parents found themselves at home while their children were at school, or with kids unsupervised while they were on shift. With no shared day off, extended family gatherings became impossible. The workforce became demoralised and listless, the projected spike in productivity never materialised, and the policy was first modified, then abandoned altogether.
[…]
Remarkably, the concept of the weekend as we know it is only 100 years old. In 1926, Henry Ford changed the shape of the week, announcing that the workers at his factories would now do five eight-hour days instead of six, with no cut in pay. Ford did not invent the weekend – the idea had been bubbling under for a century, in campaigns by trade unions, religious groups and progressive employers – but by putting his considerable industrial weight behind it, the two-day chunk of freedom was born.
“It is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either lost time or a class privilege,” Ford wrote in his company’s Ford News in October 1926. Ford’s innovation was in part a response to his earlier invention: the assembly line, which had increased productivity but exhausted workers, with absenteeism up to 10% in factories; in his article he did not disguise that there was self-interest involved. “People who have more leisure require more transportation in vehicles,” he continued. The new fashion for day trips was an effective marketing device to sell cars. Meanwhile, his factories maintained a steady level of productivity despite the reduced hours. In 1938, faced with rising unemployment levels in the Great Depression, the five-day week was officially adopted across the US.
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Ever since we invented the weekend, we have been anxiously taking its pulse. The Victorians worried that workers would waste their precious leisure days drinking. Mid-century Britain feared television was keeping families indoors. Today’s concern is that we spend Saturday scrolling Instagram and Sunday answering emails. The rituals change; the suspicion that the weekend is being ruined remains. Yet the weekend survives, perhaps because it has never demanded perfection. The lie-in and the late night are equally valid forms of resistance. Its holiest rites – the greasy fry-up, the football terrace, Saturday-night shiny-floor television – are gloriously unrefined. The weekend is where a good time still trumps good taste.
The Soviets discovered that a day off is not much use unless other people are off, too; Ford understood that workers needed time in which to become themselves again, even if he hoped they would spend it buying cars. At 100, the two-day weekend is fraying at the edges, leaking into Friday and nibbled away by Sunday night emails. The weekend will keep changing, because work keeps changing. But it will still always be the best thing work ever invented.
GOOD MORNING TRAILMIXERS ☕
— Silicon Tomato Reviews The News (Gemini Pro}