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York, Edmund of Langley, duke of

(Encyclopedia)York, Edmund of Langley, duke of, 1341–1402, fifth son of Edward III of England. He was made (1362) earl of Cambridge, served on expeditions to Spain and France, and married (1372) Isabel, daughter ...

Protocols of the Elders of Zion

(Encyclopedia)Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fraudulent document that reported the alleged proceedings of a conference of Jews in the late 19th cent., at which they discussed plans to overthrow Christianity thr...

Dearborn, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Dearborn, Henry, 1751–1829, American general and cabinet member, b. Hampton, N.H. He was a physician and became a captain of militia. When the American Revolution broke out, he led his company in th...

melodrama

(Encyclopedia)melodrama [Gr.,=song-drama], originally a spoken text with musical background, as in Greek drama. The form was popular in the 18th cent., when its composers included Georg Benda, J. J. Rousseau, and W...

serial music

(Encyclopedia)serial music, the body of compositions whose fundamental syntactical reference is a particular ordering (called series or row) of the twelve pitch classes—C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B—t...

Křenek, Ernst

(Encyclopedia)Křenek, Ernst krĕˈnĕk, Czech kerzhĕˈnĕk [key], 1900–1991, Austrian-American composer, b. Vienna. to Czech parents. He studied in Vienna and Berlin, and in the early 1920s he composed chamber ...

angry young men

(Encyclopedia)angry young men, term applied to a group of English writers of the 1950s whose heroes share certain rebellious and critical attitudes toward society. This phrase, which was originally taken from the t...

Atkins, Chet

(Encyclopedia)Atkins, Chet (Chester Burton Atkins), 1924–2001, American country guitarist, singer, and record company executive, b. Luttrell, Tenn. Part of a musical family, he played fiddle and guitar as a young...

Blitzstein, Marc

(Encyclopedia)Blitzstein, Marc (Marcus Samuel Blitzstein), 1905–64, American composer, pianist, and librettist, b. Philadelphia. After attending the Univ. of Pennsylvania and the Curtis Institute of Music, he stu...

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