Word: sung
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Pergolesi. This work was originally written to be performed between the acts of a grand and tragic opera; now only the light-hearted and melodic spoof survives. The production, staged and adroitly conducted by Arthur Schoep, was acted in a spirit of god fun by all, and well sung by Pauline Gingras and William Nethercut...
Longing for serenity and harmony, Sung emperors liked to turn for contrast to closeups of nature, developed a keen liking for small and intimate scenes. I Yuan-chi's Monkey and Cats, almost playful in both subject matter and execution, is an outstanding example. Such paintings so won the admiration of the Emperor that he awarded I Yuan-chi the commission of decorating a courtyard at his palace on the Yellow River plain...
Whirlwind Hand. When the fierce Chin Tartars ("The Golden Tribes") swept down over the Great Wall, captured the capital Kaifeng and took Sung Emperor Huitsung, along with 3,000 of his court, into captivity in Mongolia, about 6,500 paintings in the imperial collection dating back over 1,000 years were destroyed or dispersed. But the Sung Dynasty held out in the south for another 150 years-long enough to make their new capital. Hangchow, with its willows and delicately arched bridges, one of the most beautiful cities of antiquity...
...which Marco Polo described with its "walls covered with gold and silver") or his pleasure-domed summer palace, with its 16-square-mile enclosed park at Shangtu (the Xanadu of Coleridge's famed verses). But because the Mongol Khans decreed that the elite Confucian scholars -who, under the Sung Dynasty, had ranked just below royalty-should be reduced to a category one degree above beggars, few Chinese scholars showed up in Peking to answer Kubla Khan's invitation to join his court...
...Mongol troops north of the Great Wall and installed a young peasant on the throne as the first Ming Emperor in 1368 rapidly produced an epicurean age of elegance, not unlike that which marked the courts of Europe in the 18th century. The great pottery works of the Sung emperors were revived and expanded. For Emperor Hsuan-te's Dragon Soup Bowl, craftsmen ground rubies to powder to achieve richness of color; court ladies dipped their fingers into exquisite candy dishes for the cardamoms and nutmegs that served as breath sweeteners. Jade was in such demand that...