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L'Arpeggiata performs Tarantella Napoletana by Athanasius Kircher
L'Arpeggiata is a European early music group led by Christina Pluhar, and founded by her in 2000. The group has presented both traditional early music and also several collaged and themed performances and recordings - Christina Pluhar (Graz, 1965) is an Austrian theorbist, conductor, and leader of L'Arpeggiata ensemble.[1]
Christina Pluhar (Graz, 1965) is an Austrian theorbist, conductor, and leader of L'Arpeggiata ensemble.[1]
The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck and a second pegbox, related to the liuto attiorbato, the French théorbe des pièces, the archlute, the German baroque lute, and the angélique or angelica.
Athanasius Kircher, S.J. (sometimes erroneously spelled Kirchner; 1602–1680) was a 17th-century German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works, most notably in the fields of comparative religion, geology, and medicine. Kircher has been compared to fellow Jesuit Roger Boscovich and to Leonardo da Vinci for his enormous range of interests, and has been honored with the title "Master of a Hundred Arts".[2] A resurgence of interest in Kircher has occurred within the scholarly community in recent decades.
Kircher claimed to have deciphered the hieroglyphic writing of the ancient Egyptian language, but most of his assumptions and translations in this field were later found to be nonsensical. He did, however, correctly establish the link between the ancient Egyptian and the modern Coptic languages, and some commentators regard him as the founder of Egyptology. He is known to have read the work of Ibn Wahshiyya, who had proposed the link between ancient and Coptic Egyptian centuries earlier.[citation needed]
Kircher was also fascinated with Sinology and wrote an encyclopedia of China, in which he noted the early presence there of Nestorian Christians while also attempting to establish links with Egypt and Christianity that modern scholars regard as largely imaginary.[citation needed]
Kircher's work in geology included studies of volcanoes and fossils. One of the first people to observe microbes through a microscope, Kircher was ahead of his time in proposing that the plague was caused by an infectious microorganism and in suggesting effective measures to prevent the spread of the disease. Kircher also displayed a keen interest in technology and mechanical inventions; inventions attributed to him include a magnetic clock, various automatons and the first megaphone. The invention of the magic lantern is often misattributed to Kircher, although he did conduct a study of the principles involved in his Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae.
A scientific star in his day, towards the end of his life he was eclipsed by the rationalism of René Descartes and others. In the late 20th century, however, the aesthetic qualities of his work again began to be appreciated. One modern scholar, Alan Cutler, described Kircher as "a giant among seventeenth-century scholars", and "one of the last thinkers who could rightfully claim all knowledge as his domain".[3] Another scholar, Edward W. Schmidt, referred to Kircher as "the last Renaissance man". In A Man of Misconceptions, his 2012 book about Kircher, John Glassie writes that while "many of Kircher's actual ideas today seem wildly off-base, if not simply bizarre,"[4] he was "a champion of wonder, a man of awe-inspiring erudition and inventiveness," whose work was read "by the smartest minds of the time."[5]
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Improvisations on Purcell - Christina Pluhar & L'Arpeggiata, Purcell - Music for a while
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