title: Boris Berezovsky (businessman)

text: Aside from his academic publications, he frequently authored articles and gave interviews; these are collected in "The Art of the Impossible" (3 vols.). He continued to contribute articles while in exile, taking a highly critical view of Russia's political leaders.


title: Boris Berezovsky (businessman)

text: In 1996, the Russian-American journalist Paul Klebnikov wrote a highly critical article entitled "Godfather of the Kremlin?" on Berezovsky and the state of Russia more generally, in response to which Berezovsky sued "Forbes" in the UK (see above); in 2001, he expanded his article into a book entitled "Godfather of the Kremlin", alternatively subtitled "The Decline of Russia in the Age of Gangster Capitalism" and "Boris Berezovsky and the looting of Russia". On 9 July 2004, while leaving the "Forbes" office in Moscow, unknown assailants fired at Klebnikov from a slowly moving car. He was shot four times and died later in hospital. Klebnikov's body was barely cold when Boris Berezovsky, in the words of investigative journalist Richard Behar, "whipped out his tongue from its holster and publicly called the 41-year-old editor of Forbes Russia 'a dishonest reporter'." "Secret Diary of a Russian Oligarch" and "How to get rid of Oligarch or Who Beat Berezovsky" by Sasha Nerozina (friend of the Berezovsky family and a spokeswoman of Berezovsky's wife Galina) were published in Russia and other former Soviet states in 2013 and 2014 by Olma Media Publishing House.


title: Boris Berezovsky (businessman)

text: Yuli Dubov, a close business associate of Berezovsky, wrote a novel based on Berezovsky's life which provided the basis for the 2002 film "Tycoon". Like Berezovsky, he fled to London and successfully fought extradition to Russia. Judge Timothy Workman of Bow Street Magistrates' Court in central London dropped extradition proceedings against Yuly Dubov in October 2003.


title: Boris Berezovsky (businessman)

text: Alex Goldfarb, a microbiologist and activist who became acquainted with Berezovsky in the 1990s and later worked for him, provides snapshots of Berezovsky at crucial moments as background to his 2007 account of the Litvinenko murder case, co-written with Marina Litvinenko, "Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB". David E. Hoffman of "The Washington Post" wrote "The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia", which provides a comparative treatment of Berezovsky and several of his fellow so-called business oligarchs. Ben Mezrich wrote "Once Upon a Time in Russia: The Rise of the Oligarchs—A True Story of Ambition, Wealth, Betrayal, and Murder", which provides a comparative narrative of Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich through their careers, friendship, and ultimate rivalry.


title: Boris Berezovsky (businessman)

text: In 2017, the Russian book "Time of Berezovsky" was published by Corpus (an imprint of AST), in which Petr Aven – a friend of Berezovsky – interviewed various people who were close to Berezovsky at different times, including Leonid Boguslavsky, Yuli Dubov, Galina Besharova, Yelena Gorbunova, Yuri Shefler, Anatoly Chubais, Mikhail Fridman, Valentin Yumashev, Sergey Dorenko, Eugene Shvidler, Vladimir Posner, Alexander Goldfarb, Alexander Voloshin, Stanislav Belkovsky and Yuri Felshtinsky.


title: Boris Berezovsky (businessman)

text: A documentary about Berezovsky's efforts to undermine Putin from his exile in UK was shown on the BBC in December 2005.


title: Boris Berezovsky (businessman)

text: Berezovsky features in a painting by the Russian artist Ilya Glazunov, displayed in Moscow's Ilya Glazunov Gallery. According to the Rough Guide, ""The Market of Our Democracy" shows Yeltsin waving a conductor's baton as two lesbians kiss and the oligarch Berezovsky flaunts a sign reading "I will buy Russia", while charlatans rob a crowd of refugees and starving children."


title: Boris Berezovsky (businessman)

text: Berezovsky also features as a character in the opera "The Life and Death of Alexander Litvinenko" by Alexander Woolf to a libretto by David Pountney, which was premiered in July 2021 at Grange Park Opera.


title: Boris Berezovsky (businessman)

text: "Patriots" premiered at the Almeida Theatre in Islington, London, in May 2022, following the life of Berezovsky from the president's inner circle to public enemy number one. Tom Hollander played Berezovsky. The play was written by Peter Morgan and directed by Rupert Goold. It played a limited run from 2 July 2022 until 20 August. It will transfer to the West End in 2023


title: MP 40

text: The MP 40 ("Maschinenpistole 40") is a submachine gun chambered for the 9×19mm Parabellum cartridge. It was developed in Nazi Germany and used extensively by the Axis powers during World War II.


title: MP 40

text: Designed in 1938 by Heinrich Vollmer with inspiration from its predecessor the MP 38, it was heavily used by infantrymen (particularly platoon and squad leaders), and by paratroopers, on the Eastern and Western Fronts as well as armoured fighting vehicle crews. Its advanced and modern features made it a favorite among soldiers and popular in countries from various parts of the world after the war. It was often called "Schmeisser" by the Allies, after Hugo Schmeisser, who designed the MP 18, although he was not involved in the design or production of the MP 40. The weapon's other variants included the MP 40/I and the MP 41. From 1940 to 1945, an estimated 1.1 million were produced by Erma Werke.


title: MP 40

text: The "Maschinenpistole 40" ("Machine pistol 40") descended from its predecessor the MP 38, which was in turn based on the MP 36, a prototype made of machined steel. The MP 36 was developed independently by Erma Werke's Berthold Geipel with funding from the German Army. It took design elements from Heinrich Vollmer's VPM 1930 and EMP. Vollmer then worked on Berthold Geipel's MP 36 and in 1938 submitted a prototype to answer a request from the "Heereswaffenamt" (Army Weapons Office) for a new submachine gun, which was adopted as MP 38. The MP 38 was a simplification of the MP 36, and the MP 40 was a further simplification of the MP 38, with certain cost-saving alterations, most notably in the more extensive use of stamped steel rather than machined parts.


title: MP 40

text: The MP 40 was often called the "Schmeisser" by the Allies, after the weapon designer Hugo Schmeisser. Schmeisser had designed the MP 18, which was the first mass-produced submachine gun. He did not, however, have anything to do with the design or development of the MP 40, although he held a patent on the magazine.


title: MP 40

text: The MP 40 submachine guns are open-bolt, blowback-operated automatic arms. The only mode of fire is automatic, but the relatively low rate of fire permits single shots with controlled trigger pulls. The bolt features a telescoping return spring guide which serves as a pneumatic recoil buffer. The cocking handle was permanently attached to the bolt on early MP 38s, but on late-production MP 38s and MP 40s, the bolt handle was made as a separate part. It also serves as a safety by pushing the head of the handle into one of two separate notches above the main opening; this action locks the bolt in either the cocked (rear) or uncocked (forward) position. The absence of this feature on early MP 38s resulted in field expedients such as leather harnesses with a small loop that were used to hold the bolt in the forward position.


title: MP 40

text: The MP 38 receiver was made of machined steel, but this was a time-consuming and expensive process. To save time and materials, and thus increase production, construction of the MP 40 receiver was simplified by using stamped steel and electro-spot welding as much as possible. The MP 38 also features longitudinal grooving on the receiver and bolt, as well as a circular opening on the magazine housing. These features were eliminated on the MP 40.


title: MP 40

text: One feature found on most MP 38 and MP 40 submachine guns is an aluminum, steel, or Margolit (a variation of Bakelite) resting bar under the barrel. This was used to steady the weapon when firing over the side of open-top armored personnel carriers such as the Sd.Kfz. 251 half-track. A handguard, also made of Margolit, is located between the magazine housing and the Margolit pistol grip. The barrel lacked any form of insulation, which often resulted in burns on the supporting hand if it was incorrectly positioned. The MP 40 also has a forward-folding metal stock, the first for a submachine gun, resulting in a shorter overall weapon when folded. However, this stock design was at times insufficiently durable for hard combat use.


title: MP 40

text: Although the MP 40 was generally reliable, a major weakness was its 32-round magazine. Unlike the double-column, staggered-feed magazine found on the Thompson M1921/1928 variants, the MP 40 uses a double-column, single-feed version. The single-feed insert resulted in increased friction against the remaining cartridges moving upwards towards the feed lips, occasionally resulting in feed failures; this problem was exacerbated by the presence of dirt or other debris. Another problem was that the magazine was also sometimes misused as a handhold. This could cause the weapon to malfunction when hand pressure on the magazine body caused the magazine lips to move out of the line of feed, since the magazine well did not keep the magazine firmly locked. German soldiers were trained to grasp either the handguard on the underside of the weapon or the magazine housing with the supporting hand to avoid feed malfunctions.


title: MP 40

text: At the outbreak of World War II, the majority of German soldiers carried either Karabiner 98k rifles or MP 40s, both of which were regarded as the standard weapons of choice for an infantryman.


title: MP 40

text: However, later confrontations with Soviet troops such as the Battle of Stalingrad, where entire enemy units were armed with PPSh-41 submachine guns, the Germans found themselves out-gunned in short range urban combat which caused a shift in their tactics, and by the end of the war the MP 40 and its derivatives were sometimes issued to entire assault platoons. Starting in 1943, the German military moved to replace both the Karabiner 98k rifle and MP 40 with the new, revolutionary StG 44. By the end of World War II in 1945, an estimated 1.1 million MP 40s had been produced of all variants.


title: MP 40

text: During and after the end of World War II, many MP 40s were captured or surrendered (upwards of 200,000) to the Allies and were then redistributed to the paramilitary and irregular forces of some developing countries. The Norwegian army withdrew the MP 38 from use in 1975 but used the MP 40 for some years more. In particular, the Territorials (Heimevernet) used it until about 1990, when it was replaced by the Heckler & Koch MP5.


title: MP 40

text: The MP 40/I (sometimes erroneously called "MP 40/II") was a modified version of the standard MP 40 with a dual side-by-side magazine holder (for a theoretical ammunition total of 64 rounds), designed for special operations troops on the Eastern Front to compensate for the enemies' PPSh-41 larger magazine capacity. However, the design proved unsuccessful due to weight and reliability issues. Authentic versions, in addition to the dual mag magazine well, also have a smaller buttpad and shortened ejector.


title: MP 40

text: In 1941, Hugo Schmeisser designed the MP 41, which was, in reality, an MP 40 upper receiver with a lower receiver of an MP 28 submachine gun. It saw limited service, however, and was issued only to SS and police units in 1944. The MP 41 was also supplied to Germany's Axis ally Romania.


title: MP 40

text: Later in 1941, rival company Erma Werke sued Haenel, at which Schmeisser was Chief Designer, for patent infringement. Production subsequently ceased on the MP41.


title: MP 40

text: The MP 38 and MP 40 also directly influenced the design of later weapons, including the Spanish Star Z45, the Yugoslavian Zastava M56, and the semi-automatic German "Selbstladebüchse BD 38" replica.


title: MP 40

text: Details of the MP 40 have also been adopted in other submachine guns, which otherwise differ significantly from a technical point of view:


title: MP 40

text: During World War II, the resistance and the Allies sometimes captured MP 40s to replace or supplement their own weapons. The MP 40 was used for several decades following World War II by many countries around the world in armed conflicts. Some found their way into guerrilla groups such as the Viet Cong or African guerrillas.


title: MP 40

text: During the Allied occupation of Germany starting in 1945, U.S. servicemen shipped home thousands of captured firearms as war trophies, including MP 40s. This practice required proper registration of automatic weapons in accordance with the National Firearms Act before they could be imported, but this was curtailed later in the occupation, meaning a relatively small number of civilian-transferable original German MP 40s remain in circulation and are valued at around $20,000-37,500 as of 2021, with some selling for almost $50,000.


title: MP 40

text: After the commercial importation of complete machine guns was banned by the Gun Control Act of 1968, MP 40 parts kits (the disassembled parts of the gun excluding the receiver tube) were imported and reassembled onto receivers manufactured in the United States by Charles Erb, Wilson Arms, and others. These remanufactured legally transferable machine guns, colloquially called "tube guns", are (depending on quality of construction and condition) generally valued at 50-75% of the price of original German MP 40s, as they do not have their historical background. As such, they are commonly used for recreational range shooting and WW2 historical reenactments, because the associated wear and tear (within reasonable limits) will not significantly diminish their value, as it would on original collectible examples. Manufacture of new tube guns ceased following the passage of the Firearm Owners Protection Act in 1986.


title: MP 40

text: There are several semi-automatic variants and cosmetic replicas of the MP 40 available for civilian ownership in the U.S. Beginning in 2014, American Tactical Imports began importing an MP 40 replica manufactured by German Sporting Guns GmbH chambered in .22LR, and since 2016 has also imported a pistol variant chambered in 9mm. The .22LR variant features an all-metal construction with period-accurate Bakelite furniture, a folding stock, and a faux-suppressor to meet barrel length import requirements. The 9mm variant is classified as a pistol and therefore does not ship with a folding stock. Both variants are closed-bolt, blowback-operated semi-automatic firearms that vary substantially from originally manufactured MP 40s in internal operation, making them more of an affordable cosmetic replica than a faithful reproduction. Neither of the GSG-manufactured variants are compatible with originally manufactured MP 40 parts and magazines.


title: Baroque music

text: Baroque music ( or ) refers to the period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period, and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transition, the galant style. The Baroque period is divided into three major phases: early, middle, and late. Overlapping in time, they are conventionally dated from 1580 to 1650, from 1630 to 1700, and from 1680 to 1750. Baroque music forms a major portion of the "classical music" canon, and is now widely studied, performed, and listened to. The term "baroque" comes from the Portuguese word "barroco", meaning "misshapen pearl". The works of George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach are considered the pinnacle of the Baroque period. Other key composers of the Baroque era include Claudio Monteverdi, Domenico Scarlatti, Alessandro Scarlatti, Antonio Vivaldi, Henry Purcell, Georg Philipp Telemann, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Arcangelo Corelli, François Couperin, Heinrich Schütz, Dieterich Buxtehude, and others.


title: Baroque music

text: The Baroque saw the creation of common-practice tonality, an approach to writing music in which a song or piece is written in a particular key; this type of harmony has continued to be used extensively in Western classical and popular music. During the Baroque era, professional musicians were expected to be accomplished improvisers of both solo melodic lines and accompaniment parts. Baroque concerts were typically accompanied by a basso continuo group (comprising chord-playing instrumentalists such as harpsichordists and lute players improvising chords from a figured bass part) while a group of bass instruments—viol, cello, double bass—played the bassline. A characteristic Baroque form was the dance suite. While the pieces in a dance suite were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were designed purely for listening, not for accompanying dancers.


title: Baroque music

text: During the period composers experimented with finding a fuller sound for each instrumental part (thus creating the orchestra), made changes in musical notation (the development of figured bass as a quick way to notate the chord progression of a song or piece), and developed new instrumental playing techniques. Baroque music expanded the size, range, and complexity of instrumental performance, and also established the mixed vocal/instrumental forms of opera, cantata and oratorio and the instrumental forms of the solo concerto and sonata as musical genres. Dense, complex polyphonic music, in which multiple independent melody lines were performed simultaneously (a popular example of this is the fugue), was an important part of many Baroque choral and instrumental works. Overall, Baroque music was a tool for expression and communication.


title: Baroque music

text: The etymology of "baroque" is likely via the French "baroque" (which originally meant a pearl of irregular shape), and from the Portuguese "barroco" ("irregular pearl"); also related are the Spanish "barrueco" and the Italian "barocco." The term is of uncertain ultimate origin, but possibly from Latin "verrūca" ("wart") or possibly from Baroco, a technical term from scholastic logic.


title: Baroque music

text: The term "baroque" is generally used by music historians to describe a broad range of styles from a wide geographic region, mostly in Europe, composed over a period of about 150 years. Though it was long thought that the word as a critical term was first applied to architecture, in fact it appears earlier in reference to music, in an anonymous, satirical review of the première in October 1733 of Rameau's "Hippolyte et Aricie," printed in the "Mercure de France" in May 1734. The critic implied that the novelty in this opera was "du barocque", complaining that the music lacked coherent melody, was filled with unremitting dissonances, constantly changed key and meter, and speedily ran through every compositional device.


title: Baroque music

text: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was a musician and composer as well as philosopher, wrote in 1768 in the "Encyclopédie": "Baroque music is that in which the harmony is confused, and loaded with modulations and dissonances. The singing is harsh and unnatural, the intonation difficult, and the movement limited. It appears that term comes from the word 'baroco' used by logicians." Rousseau was referring to the philosophical term "baroco", in use since the 13th century to describe a type of elaborate and, for some, unnecessarily complicated academic argument.


title: Baroque music

text: The systematic application by historians of the term "baroque" to music of this period is a relatively recent development. In 1919, Curt Sachs became the first to apply the five characteristics of Heinrich Wölfflin's theory of the Baroque systematically to music. Critics were quick to question the attempt to transpose Wölfflin's categories to music, however, and in the second quarter of the 20th century independent attempts were made by Manfred Bukofzer (in Germany and, after his immigration, in America) and by Suzanne Clercx-Lejeune (in Belgium) to use autonomous, technical analysis rather than comparative abstractions, in order to avoid the adaptation of theories based on the plastic arts and literature to music. All of these efforts resulted in appreciable disagreement about time boundaries of the period, especially concerning when it began. In English the term acquired currency only in the 1940s, in the writings of Bukofzer and Paul Henry Lang.


title: Baroque music

text: As late as 1960, there was still considerable dispute in academic circles, particularly in France and Britain, whether it was meaningful to lump together music as diverse as that of Jacopo Peri, Domenico Scarlatti, and Johann Sebastian Bach under a single rubric. Nevertheless, the term has become widely used and accepted for this broad range of music. It may be helpful to distinguish the Baroque from both the preceding (Renaissance) and following (Classical) periods of musical history.


title: Baroque music

text: Throughout the Baroque era, new developments in music originated in Italy, after which it took up to 20 years before they were broadly adopted in rest of the Western classical music practice. For instance, Italian composers switched to the galant style around 1730, while German composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach largely continued to write in the baroque style up to 1750.


title: Baroque music

text: The Florentine Camerata was a group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama. In reference to music, they based their ideals on a perception of Classical (especially ancient Greek) musical drama that valued discourse and oration. Accordingly, they rejected their contemporaries' use of polyphony (multiple, independent melodic lines) and instrumental music, and discussed such ancient Greek music devices as monody, which consisted of a solo singing accompanied by a kithara (an ancient strummed string instrument). The early realizations of these ideas, including Jacopo Peri's "Dafne" and "L'Euridice", marked the beginning of opera, which was a catalyst for Baroque music.


title: Baroque music

text: Concerning music theory, the more widespread use of "figured bass" (also known as "thorough bass") represents the developing importance of harmony as the linear underpinnings of polyphony. Harmony is the end result of counterpoint, and figured bass is a visual representation of those harmonies commonly employed in musical performance. With figured bass, numbers, accidentals or symbols were placed above the bassline that was read by keyboard instrument players such as harpsichord players or pipe organists (or lutenists). The numbers, accidentals or symbols indicated to the keyboard player what intervals are to be played above each bass note. The keyboard player would improvise a chord voicing for each bass note. Composers began concerning themselves with harmonic progressions, and also employed the tritone, perceived as an unstable interval, to create dissonance (it was used in the dominant seventh chord and the diminished chord). An interest in harmony had also existed among certain composers in the Renaissance, notably Carlo Gesualdo; However, the use of harmony directed towards tonality (a focus on a musical key that becomes the "home note" of a piece), rather than modality, marks the shift from the Renaissance into the Baroque period. This led to the idea that certain sequences of chords, rather than just notes, could provide a sense of closure at the end of a piece—one of the fundamental ideas that became known as tonality.


title: Baroque music

text: By incorporating these new aspects of composition, Claudio Monteverdi furthered the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition—the heritage of Renaissance polyphony (prima pratica) and the new basso continuo technique of the Baroque (seconda pratica). With basso continuo, a small group of musicians would play the bassline and the chords which formed the accompaniment for a melody. The basso continuo group would typically use one or more keyboard players and a lute player who would play the bassline and improvise the chords and several bass instruments (e.g., bass viola, cello, double bass) which would play the bassline. With the writing of the operas "L'Orfeo" and "L'incoronazione di Poppea" among others, Monteverdi brought considerable attention to this new genre. This Venetian style was taken handily to Germany by Heinrich Schütz, whose diverse style also evolved into the subsequent period.


title: Baroque music

text: Idiomatic instrumental textures became increasingly prominent. In particular, the "style luthé"—the irregular and unpredictable breaking up of chordal progressions, in contrast to the regular patterning of broken chords—referred to since the early 20th century as "style brisé", was established as a consistent texture in French music by Robert Ballard, in his lute books of 1611 and 1614, and by Ennemond Gaultier. This idiomatic lute figuration was later transferred to the harpsichord, for example in the keyboard music of Louis Couperin and Jean-Henri D'Anglebert, and continued to be an important influence on keyboard music throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries (in, for example, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Frédéric Chopin).


title: Baroque music

text: The rise of the centralized court is one of the economic and political features of what is often labelled the Age of Absolutism, personified by Louis XIV of France. The style of palace, and the court system of manners and arts he fostered became the model for the rest of Europe. The realities of rising church and state patronage created the demand for organized public music, as the increasing availability of instruments created the demand for chamber music, which is music for a small ensemble of instrumentalists.


title: Baroque music

text: One pre-eminent example of a court style composer is Jean-Baptiste Lully. He purchased patents from the monarchy to be the sole composer of operas for the French king and to prevent others from having operas staged. He completed 15 lyric tragedies and left unfinished "Achille et Polyxène". Lully was an early example of a conductor; he would beat the time with a large staff to keep his ensembles together.


title: Baroque music

text: Musically, he did not establish the string-dominated norm for orchestras, which was inherited from the Italian opera, and the characteristically French five-part disposition (violins, violas—in hautes-contre, tailles and quintes sizes—and bass violins) had been used in the ballet from the time of Louis XIII. He did, however, introduce this ensemble to the lyric theatre, with the upper parts often doubled by recorders, flutes, and oboes, and the bass by bassoons. Trumpets and kettledrums were frequently added for heroic scenes.


title: Baroque music

text: The middle Baroque period in Italy is defined by the emergence of the vocal styles of cantata, oratorio, and opera during the 1630s, and a new concept of melody and harmony that elevated the status of the music to one of equality with the words, which formerly had been regarded as pre-eminent. The florid, coloratura monody of the early Baroque gave way to a simpler, more polished melodic style. These melodies were built from short, cadentially delimited ideas often based on stylized dance patterns drawn from the sarabande or the courante. The harmonies, too, might be simpler than in the early Baroque monody, to show expression in a lighter manner on the string and crescendos and diminuendos on longer notes. The accompanying bass lines were more integrated with the melody, producing a contrapuntal equivalence of the parts that later led to the device of an initial bass anticipation of the aria melody. This harmonic simplification also led to a new formal device of the differentiation of recitative (a more spoken part of opera) and aria (a part of opera that used sung melodies). The most important innovators of this style were the Romans Luigi Rossi and Giacomo Carissimi, who were primarily composers of cantatas and oratorios, respectively, and the Venetian Francesco Cavalli, who was principally an opera composer. Later important practitioners of this style include Antonio Cesti, Giovanni Legrenzi, and Alessandro Stradella.


title: Baroque music

text: Arcangelo Corelli is remembered as influential for his achievements on the other side of musical technique—as a violinist who organized violin technique and pedagogy—and in purely instrumental music, particularly his advocacy and development of the concerto grosso. Whereas Lully was ensconced at court, Corelli was one of the first composers to publish widely and have his music performed all over Europe. As with Lully's stylization and organization of the opera, the concerto grosso is built on strong contrasts—sections alternate between those played by the full orchestra, and those played by a smaller group. Fast sections and slow sections were juxtaposed against each other. Numbered among his students is Antonio Vivaldi, who later composed hundreds of works based on the principles in Corelli's trio sonatas and concerti.


title: Baroque music

text: In contrast to these composers, Dieterich Buxtehude was not a creature of court but instead was church musician, holding the posts of organist and Werkmeister at the Marienkirche at Lübeck. His duties as Werkmeister involved acting as the secretary, treasurer, and business manager of the church, while his position as organist included playing for all the main services, sometimes in collaboration with other instrumentalists or vocalists, who were also paid by the church. Entirely outside of his official church duties, he organised and directed a concert series known as the Abendmusiken, which included performances of sacred dramatic works regarded by his contemporaries as the equivalent of operas.


title: Baroque music

text: The work of George Frideric Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach and their contemporaries, including Domenico Scarlatti, Antonio Vivaldi, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Georg Philipp Telemann, and others advanced the Baroque era to its climax.


title: Baroque music

text: A characteristic of the Baroque form was the dance suite. Some dance suites by Bach are called partitas, although this term is also used for other collections of pieces. While the pieces in a dance suite were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were intended for listening, not for accompanying dancers. Composers used a variety of different movements in their dance suites. A dance suite commonly has these movements:


title: Baroque music

text: The four dance types (allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue) make up the majority of 17th-century suites. Later suites interpolate one or more additional dances between the sarabande and gigue:


title: Baroque music

text: There are many other dance forms as well as other pieces that could be included in a suite, such as Polonaise, Loure, Scherzo, Air, etc.


title: Password

text: A password, sometimes called a passcode (for example in Apple devices), is secret data, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm a user's identity. Traditionally, passwords were expected to be memorized, but the large number of password-protected services that a typical individual accesses can make memorization of unique passwords for each service impractical. Using the terminology of the NIST Digital Identity Guidelines, the secret is held by a party called the "claimant" while the party verifying the identity of the claimant is called the "verifier". When the claimant successfully demonstrates knowledge of the password to the verifier through an established authentication protocol, the verifier is able to infer the claimant's identity.


title: Password

text: In general, a password is an arbitrary string of characters including letters, digits, or other symbols. If the permissible characters are constrained to be numeric, the corresponding secret is sometimes called a personal identification number (PIN).


title: Password

text: Despite its name, a password does not need to be an actual word; indeed, a non-word (in the dictionary sense) may be harder to guess, which is a desirable property of passwords. A memorized secret consisting of a sequence of words or other text separated by spaces is sometimes called a passphrase. A passphrase is similar to a password in usage, but the former is generally longer for added security.


title: Password

text: Passwords have been used since ancient times. Sentries would challenge those wishing to enter an area to supply a password or "watchword", and would only allow a person or group to pass if they knew the password. Polybius describes the system for the distribution of watchwords in the Roman military as follows:


title: Password

text: The way in which they secure the passing round of the watchword for the night is as follows: from the tenth maniple of each class of infantry and cavalry, the maniple which is encamped at the lower end of the street, a man is chosen who is relieved from guard duty, and he attends every day at sunset at the tent of the tribune, and receiving from him the watchword—that is a wooden tablet with the word inscribed on it – takes his leave, and on returning to his quarters passes on the watchword and tablet before witnesses to the commander of the next maniple, who in turn passes it to the one next to him. All do the same until it reaches the first maniples, those encamped near the tents of the tribunes. These latter are obliged to deliver the tablet to the tribunes before dark. So that if all those issued are returned, the tribune knows that the watchword has been given to all the maniples, and has passed through all on its way back to him. If any one of them is missing, he makes inquiry at once, as he knows by the marks from what quarter the tablet has not returned, and whoever is responsible for the stoppage meets with the punishment he merits.


title: Password

text: Passwords in military use evolved to include not just a password, but a password and a counterpassword; for example in the opening days of the Battle of Normandy, paratroopers of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division used a password—"flash"—which was presented as a challenge, and answered with the correct response—"thunder". The challenge and response were changed every three days. American paratroopers also famously used a device known as a "cricket" on D-Day in place of a password system as a temporarily unique method of identification; one metallic click given by the device in lieu of a password was to be met by two clicks in reply.


title: Password

text: Passwords have been used with computers since the earliest days of computing. The Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS), an operating system introduced at MIT in 1961, was the first computer system to implement password login. CTSS had a LOGIN command that requested a user password. "After typing PASSWORD, the system turns off the printing mechanism, if possible, so that the user may type in his password with privacy." In the early 1970s, Robert Morris developed a system of storing login passwords in a hashed form as part of the Unix operating system. The system was based on a simulated Hagelin rotor crypto machine, and first appeared in 6th Edition Unix in 1974. A later version of his algorithm, known as crypt(3), used a 12-bit salt and invoked a modified form of the DES algorithm 25 times to reduce the risk of pre-computed dictionary attacks.


title: Password

text: In modern times, user names and passwords are commonly used by people during a log in process that controls access to protected computer operating systems, mobile phones, cable TV decoders, automated teller machines (ATMs), etc. A typical computer user has passwords for many purposes: logging into accounts, retrieving e-mail, accessing applications, databases, networks, web sites, and even reading the morning newspaper online.


title: Password

text: The easier a password is for the owner to remember generally means it will be easier for an attacker to guess. However, passwords that are difficult to remember may also reduce the security of a system because (a) users might need to write down or electronically store the password, (b) users will need frequent password resets and (c) users are more likely to re-use the same password across different accounts. Similarly, the more stringent the password requirements, such as "have a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters and digits" or "change it monthly", the greater the degree to which users will subvert the system. Others argue longer passwords provide more security (e.g., entropy) than shorter passwords with a wide variety of characters.


title: Password

text: In "The Memorability and Security of Passwords", Jeff Yan et al. examine the effect of advice given to users about a good choice of password. They found that passwords based on thinking of a phrase and taking the first letter of each word are just as memorable as naively selected passwords, and just as hard to crack as randomly generated passwords.


title: Password

text: Combining two or more unrelated words and altering some of the letters to special characters or numbers is another good method, but a single dictionary word is not. Having a personally designed algorithm for generating obscure passwords is another good method.


title: Password

text: However, asking users to remember a password consisting of a "mix of uppercase and lowercase characters" is similar to asking them to remember a sequence of bits: hard to remember, and only a little bit harder to crack (e.g. only 128 times harder to crack for 7-letter passwords, less if the user simply capitalises one of the letters). Asking users to use "both letters and digits" will often lead to easy-to-guess substitutions such as 'E' → '3' and 'I' → '1', substitutions that are well known to attackers. Similarly typing the password one keyboard row higher is a common trick known to attackers.


title: Password

text: In 2013, Google released a list of the most common password types, all of which are considered insecure because they are too easy to guess (especially after researching an individual on social media):


title: Password

text: Traditional advice to memorize passwords and never write them down has become a challenge because of the sheer number of passwords users of computers and the internet are expected to maintain. One survey concluded that the average user has around 100 passwords. To manage the proliferation of passwords, some users employ the same password for multiple accounts, a dangerous practice since a data breach in one account could compromise the rest. Less risky alternatives include the use of password managers, single sign-on systems and simply keeping paper lists of less critical passwords. Such practices can reduce the number of passwords that must be memorized, such as the password manager's master password, to a more manageable number.


title: Password

text: The security of a password-protected system depends on several factors. The overall system must be designed for sound security, with protection against computer viruses, man-in-the-middle attacks and the like. Physical security issues are also a concern, from deterring shoulder surfing to more sophisticated physical threats such as video cameras and keyboard sniffers. Passwords should be chosen so that they are hard for an attacker to guess and hard for an attacker to discover using any of the available automatic attack schemes. See password strength and computer security for more information.


title: Password

text: Nowadays, it is a common practice for computer systems to hide passwords as they are typed. The purpose of this measure is to prevent bystanders from reading the password; however, some argue that this practice may lead to mistakes and stress, encouraging users to choose weak passwords. As an alternative, users should have the option to show or hide passwords as they type them.


title: Password

text: Effective access control provisions may force extreme measures on criminals seeking to acquire a password or biometric token. Less extreme measures include extortion, rubber hose cryptanalysis, and side channel attack.


title: Password

text: Some specific password management issues that must be considered when thinking about, choosing, and handling, a password follow.


title: Password

text: The rate at which an attacker can submit guessed passwords to the system is a key factor in determining system security. Some systems impose a time-out of several seconds after a small number (e.g., three) of failed password entry attempts, also known as throttling. In the absence of other vulnerabilities, such systems can be effectively secure with relatively simple passwords if they have been well chosen and are not easily guessed.


title: Password

text: Many systems store a cryptographic hash of the password. If an attacker gets access to the file of hashed passwords guessing can be done offline, rapidly testing candidate passwords against the true password's hash value. In the example of a web-server, an online attacker can guess only at the rate at which the server will respond, while an off-line attacker (who gains access to the file) can guess at a rate limited only by the hardware on which the attack is running.


title: Password

text: Passwords that are used to generate cryptographic keys (e.g., for disk encryption or Wi-Fi security) can also be subjected to high rate guessing. Lists of common passwords are widely available and can make password attacks very efficient. (See Password cracking.) Security in such situations depends on using passwords or passphrases of adequate complexity, making such an attack computationally infeasible for the attacker. Some systems, such as PGP and Wi-Fi WPA, apply a computation-intensive hash to the password to slow such attacks. See key stretching.


title: Password

text: An alternative to limiting the rate at which an attacker can make guesses on a password is to limit the total number of guesses that can be made. The password can be disabled, requiring a reset, after a small number of consecutive bad guesses (say 5); and the user may be required to change the password after a larger cumulative number of bad guesses (say 30), to prevent an attacker from making an arbitrarily large number of bad guesses by interspersing them between good guesses made by the legitimate password owner. Attackers may conversely use knowledge of this mitigation to implement a denial of service attack against the user by intentionally locking the user out of their own device; this denial of service may open other avenues for the attacker to manipulate the situation to their advantage via social engineering.


title: Password

text: Some computer systems store user passwords as plaintext, against which to compare user logon attempts. If an attacker gains access to such an internal password store, all passwords—and so all user accounts—will be compromised. If some users employ the same password for accounts on different systems, those will be compromised as well.


title: Password

text: More secure systems store each password in a cryptographically protected form, so access to the actual password will still be difficult for a snooper who gains internal access to the system, while validation of user access attempts remains possible. The most secure don't store passwords at all, but a one-way derivation, such as a polynomial, modulus, or an advanced hash function. Roger Needham invented the now-common approach of storing only a "hashed" form of the plaintext password. When a user types in a password on such a system, the password handling software runs through a cryptographic hash algorithm, and if the hash value generated from the user's entry matches the hash stored in the password database, the user is permitted access. The hash value is created by applying a cryptographic hash function to a string consisting of the submitted password and, in many implementations, another value known as a salt. A salt prevents attackers from easily building a list of hash values for common passwords and prevents password cracking efforts from scaling across all users. MD5 and SHA1 are frequently used cryptographic hash functions, but they are not recommended for password hashing unless they are used as part of a larger construction such as in PBKDF2.


title: Password

text: The stored data—sometimes called the "password verifier" or the "password hash"—is often stored in Modular Crypt Format or RFC 2307 hash format, sometimes in the /etc/passwd file or the /etc/shadow file.


title: Password

text: The main storage methods for passwords are plain text, hashed, hashed and salted, and reversibly encrypted. If an attacker gains access to the password file, then if it is stored as plain text, no cracking is necessary. If it is hashed but not salted then it is vulnerable to rainbow table attacks (which are more efficient than cracking). If it is reversibly encrypted then if the attacker gets the decryption key along with the file no cracking is necessary, while if he fails to get the key cracking is not possible. Thus, of the common storage formats for passwords only when passwords have been salted and hashed is cracking both necessary and possible.


title: Password

text: If a cryptographic hash function is well designed, it is computationally infeasible to reverse the function to recover a plaintext password. An attacker can, however, use widely available tools to attempt to guess the passwords. These tools work by hashing possible passwords and comparing the result of each guess to the actual password hashes. If the attacker finds a match, they know that their guess is the actual password for the associated user. Password cracking tools can operate by brute force (i.e. trying every possible combination of characters) or by hashing every word from a list; large lists of possible passwords in many languages are widely available on the Internet. The existence of password cracking tools allows attackers to easily recover poorly chosen passwords. In particular, attackers can quickly recover passwords that are short, dictionary words, simple variations on dictionary words, or that use easily guessable patterns.


title: Password

text: A modified version of the DES algorithm was used as the basis for the password hashing algorithm in early Unix systems. The crypt algorithm used a 12-bit salt value so that each user's hash was unique and iterated the DES algorithm 25 times in order to make the hash function slower, both measures intended to frustrate automated guessing attacks. The user's password was used as a key to encrypt a fixed value. More recent Unix or Unix-like systems (e.g., Linux or the various BSD systems) use more secure password hashing algorithms such as PBKDF2, bcrypt, and scrypt, which have large salts and an adjustable cost or number of iterations.


title: Password

text: A poorly designed hash function can make attacks feasible even if a strong password is chosen. See LM hash for a widely deployed and insecure example.


title: Password

text: Passwords are vulnerable to interception (i.e., "snooping") while being transmitted to the authenticating machine or person. If the password is carried as electrical signals on unsecured physical wiring between the user access point and the central system controlling the password database, it is subject to snooping by wiretapping methods. If it is carried as packeted data over the Internet, anyone able to watch the packets containing the logon information can snoop with a very low probability of detection.


title: Password

text: Email is sometimes used to distribute passwords but this is generally an insecure method. Since most email is sent as plaintext, a message containing a password is readable without effort during transport by any eavesdropper. Further, the message will be stored as plaintext on at least two computers: the sender's and the recipient's. If it passes through intermediate systems during its travels, it will probably be stored on there as well, at least for some time, and may be copied to backup, cache or history files on any of these systems.


title: Password

text: Using client-side encryption will only protect transmission from the mail handling system server to the client machine. Previous or subsequent relays of the email will not be protected and the email will probably be stored on multiple computers, certainly on the originating and receiving computers, most often in clear text.


title: Password

text: The risk of interception of passwords sent over the Internet can be reduced by, among other approaches, using cryptographic protection. The most widely used is the Transport Layer Security (TLS, previously called SSL) feature built into most current Internet browsers. Most browsers alert the user of a TLS/SSL-protected exchange with a server by displaying a closed lock icon, or some other sign, when TLS is in use. There are several other techniques in use; see cryptography.


title: Password

text: Unfortunately, there is a conflict between stored hashed-passwords and hash-based challenge–response authentication; the latter requires a client to prove to a server that they know what the shared secret (i.e., password) is, and to do this, the server must be able to obtain the shared secret from its stored form. On many systems (including Unix-type systems) doing remote authentication, the shared secret usually becomes the hashed form and has the serious limitation of exposing passwords to offline guessing attacks. In addition, when the hash is used as a shared secret, an attacker does not need the original password to authenticate remotely; they only need the hash.


title: Password

text: Rather than transmitting a password, or transmitting the hash of the password, password-authenticated key agreement systems can perform a zero-knowledge password proof, which proves knowledge of the password without exposing it.


title: Password

text: Moving a step further, augmented systems for password-authenticated key agreement (e.g., AMP, B-SPEKE, PAK-Z, SRP-6) avoid both the conflict and limitation of hash-based methods. An augmented system allows a client to prove knowledge of the password to a server, where the server knows only a (not exactly) hashed password, and where the un-hashed password is required to gain access.


title: Password

text: Usually, a system must provide a way to change a password, either because a user believes the current password has been (or might have been) compromised, or as a precautionary measure. If a new password is passed to the system in unencrypted form, security can be lost (e.g., via wiretapping) before the new password can even be installed in the password database and if the new password is given to a compromised employee, little is gained. Some websites include the user-selected password in an unencrypted confirmation e-mail message, with the obvious increased vulnerability.


title: Password

text: Identity management systems are increasingly used to automate the issuance of replacements for lost passwords, a feature called self-service password reset. The user's identity is verified by asking questions and comparing the answers to ones previously stored (i.e., when the account was opened).


title: Password

text: Some password reset questions ask for personal information that could be found on social media, such as mother's maiden name. As a result, some security experts recommend either making up one's own questions or giving false answers.


title: Password

text: "Password aging" is a feature of some operating systems which forces users to change passwords frequently (e.g., quarterly, monthly or even more often). Such policies usually provoke user protest and foot-dragging at best and hostility at worst. There is often an increase in the number of people who note down the password and leave it where it can easily be found, as well as help desk calls to reset a forgotten password. Users may use simpler passwords or develop variation patterns on a consistent theme to keep their passwords memorable. Because of these issues, there is some debate as to whether password aging is effective. Changing a password will not prevent abuse in most cases, since the abuse would often be immediately noticeable. However, if someone may have had access to the password through some means, such as sharing a computer or breaching a different site, changing the password limits the window for abuse.


title: Password

text: Allotting separate passwords to each user of a system is preferable to having a single password shared by legitimate users of the system, certainly from a security viewpoint. This is partly because users are more willing to tell another person (who may not be authorized) a shared password than one exclusively for their use. Single passwords are also much less convenient to change because many people need to be told at the same time, and they make removal of a particular user's access more difficult, as for instance on graduation or resignation. Separate logins are also often used for accountability, for example to know who changed a piece of data.


title: Password

text: Some of the more stringent policy enforcement measures can pose a risk of alienating users, possibly decreasing security as a result.


title: Password

text: It is common practice amongst computer users to reuse the same password on multiple sites. This presents a substantial security risk, because an attacker needs to only compromise a single site in order to gain access to other sites the victim uses. This problem is exacerbated by also reusing usernames, and by websites requiring email logins, as it makes it easier for an attacker to track a single user across multiple sites. Password reuse can be avoided or minimized by using mnemonic techniques, writing passwords down on paper, or using a password manager.


title: Password

text: It has been argued by Redmond researchers Dinei Florencio and Cormac Herley, together with Paul C. van Oorschot of Carleton University, Canada, that password reuse is inevitable, and that users should reuse passwords for low-security websites (which contain little personal data and no financial information, for example) and instead focus their efforts on remembering long, complex passwords for a few important accounts, such as bank accounts. Similar arguments were made by Forbes in not change passwords as often as many "experts" advise, due to the same limitations in human memory.


title: Password

text: Historically, many security experts asked people to memorize their passwords: "Never write down a password". More recently, many security experts such as Bruce Schneier recommend that people use passwords that are too complicated to memorize, write them down on paper, and keep them in a wallet.


title: Password

text: Password manager software can also store passwords relatively safely, in an encrypted file sealed with a single master password.


title: Password

text: According to a survey by the University of London, one in ten people are now leaving their passwords in their wills to pass on this important information when they die. One-third of people, according to the poll, agree that their password-protected data is important enough to pass on in their will.


title: Password

text: Multi-factor authentication schemes combine passwords (as "knowledge factors") with one or more other means of authentication, to make authentication more secure and less vulnerable to compromised passwords. For example, a simple two-factor login might send a text message, e-mail, automated phone call, or similar alert whenever a login attempt is made, possibly supplying a code that must be entered in addition to a password. More sophisticated factors include such things as hardware tokens and biometric security.


title: Password

text: Most organizations specify a password policy that sets requirements for the composition and usage of passwords, typically dictating minimum length, required categories (e.g., upper and lower case, numbers, and special characters), prohibited elements (e.g., use of one's own name, date of birth, address, telephone number). Some governments have national authentication frameworks that define requirements for user authentication to government services, including requirements for passwords.


title: Password

text: Many websites enforce standard rules such as minimum and maximum length, but also frequently include composition rules such as featuring at least one capital letter and at least one number/symbol. These latter, more specific rules were largely based on a 2003 report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), authored by Bill Burr. It originally proposed the practice of using numbers, obscure characters and capital letters and updating regularly. In a 2017 "Wall Street Journal" article, Burr reported he regrets these proposals and made a mistake when he recommended them.


title: Password

text: According to a 2017 rewrite of this NIST report, many websites have rules that actually have the opposite effect on the security of their users. This includes complex composition rules as well as forced password changes after certain periods of time. While these rules have long been widespread, they have also long been seen as annoying and ineffective by both users and cyber-security experts. The NIST recommends people use longer phrases as passwords (and advises websites to raise the maximum password length) instead of hard-to-remember passwords with "illusory complexity" such as "pA55w+rd". A user prevented from using the password "password" may simply choose "Password1" if required to include a number and uppercase letter. Combined with forced periodic password changes, this can lead to passwords that are difficult to remember but easy to crack.


title: Password

text: Paul Grassi, one of the 2017 NIST report's authors, further elaborated: "Everyone knows that an exclamation point is a 1, or an I, or the last character of a password. $ is an S or a 5. If we use these well-known tricks, we aren’t fooling any adversary. We are simply fooling the database that stores passwords into thinking the user did something good."


title: Password

text: Pieris Tsokkis and Eliana Stavrou were able to identify some bad password construction strategies through their research and development of a password generator tool. They came up with eight categories of password construction strategies based on exposed password lists, password cracking tools, and online reports citing the most used passwords. These categories include user-related information, keyboard combinations and patterns, placement strategy, word processing, substitution, capitalization, append dates, and a combination of the previous categories


title: Password

text: Attempting to crack passwords by trying as many possibilities as time and money permit is a brute force attack. A related method, rather more efficient in most cases, is a dictionary attack. In a dictionary attack, all words in one or more dictionaries are tested. Lists of common passwords are also typically tested.


title: Password

text: Password strength is the likelihood that a password cannot be guessed or discovered, and varies with the attack algorithm used. Cryptologists and computer scientists often refer to the strength or 'hardness' in terms of entropy.


title: Password

text: Passwords easily discovered are termed "weak" or "vulnerable"; passwords very difficult or impossible to discover are considered "strong". There are several programs available for password attack (or even auditing and recovery by systems personnel) such as L0phtCrack, John the Ripper, and Cain; some of which use password design vulnerabilities (as found in the Microsoft LANManager system) to increase efficiency. These programs are sometimes used by system administrators to detect weak passwords proposed by users.


title: Password

text: Studies of production computer systems have consistently shown that a large fraction of all user-chosen passwords are readily guessed automatically. For example, Columbia University found 22% of user passwords could be recovered with little effort. According to Bruce Schneier, examining data from a 2006 phishing attack, 55% of MySpace passwords would be crackable in 8 hours using a commercially available Password Recovery Toolkit capable of testing 200,000 passwords per second in 2006. He also reported that the single most common password was "password1", confirming yet again the general lack of informed care in choosing passwords among users. (He nevertheless maintained, based on these data, that the general quality of passwords has improved over the years—for example, average length was up to eight characters from under seven in previous surveys, and less than 4% were dictionary words.)


title: Password

text: The numerous ways in which permanent or semi-permanent passwords can be compromised has prompted the development of other techniques. Unfortunately, some are inadequate in practice, and in any case few have become universally available for users seeking a more secure alternative. A 2012 paper examines why passwords have proved so hard to supplant (despite numerous predictions that they would soon be a thing of the past); in examining thirty representative proposed replacements with respect to security, usability and deployability they conclude "none even retains the full set of benefits that legacy passwords already provide."


title: Password

text: "The password is dead" is a recurring idea in computer security. The reasons given often include reference to the usability as well as security problems of passwords. It often accompanies arguments that the replacement of passwords by a more secure means of authentication is both necessary and imminent. This claim has been made by numerous people at least since 2004.


title: Password

text: Alternatives to passwords include biometrics, two-factor authentication or single sign-on, Microsoft's Cardspace, the Higgins project, the Liberty Alliance, NSTIC, the FIDO Alliance and various Identity 2.0 proposals.


title: Password

text: However, in spite of these predictions and efforts to replace them passwords are still the dominant form of authentication on the web. In "The Persistence of Passwords," Cormac Herley and Paul van Oorschot suggest that every effort should be made to end the "spectacularly incorrect assumption" that passwords are dead.


title: Password

text: They argue that "no other single technology matches their combination of cost, immediacy and convenience" and that "passwords are themselves the best fit for many of the scenarios in which they are currently used."


title: Password

text: Following this, Bonneau et al. systematically compared web passwords to 35 competing authentication schemes in terms of their usability, deployability, and security. Their analysis shows that most schemes do better than passwords on security, some schemes do better and some worse with respect to usability, while "every" scheme does worse than passwords on deployability. The authors conclude with the following observation: "Marginal gains are often not sufficient to reach the activation energy necessary to overcome significant transition costs, which may provide the best explanation of why we are likely to live considerably longer before seeing the funeral procession for passwords arrive at the cemetery."


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: The Cat in the Hat (also known as Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat) is a 2003 American fantasy comedy film directed by Bo Welch in his directorial debut and written by Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer. Loosely based on Dr. Seuss's 1957 book of the same name, it was the second and final live-action feature-length Dr. Seuss adaptation after "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (2000). The film stars Mike Myers in the title role with Alec Baldwin, Kelly Preston, Dakota Fanning, Spencer Breslin, Amy Hill and Sean Hayes in supporting roles.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: Production on the film began in 1997 with Tim Allen originally cast in the title role. After Allen dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with "The Santa Clause 2", the role went to Myers. Filming took place in California and lasted three months from late 2002 to early 2003. As with the previous Dr. Seuss adaptation, many new characters and subplots were added to the story to bring it up to feature-length.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: The film was released in theaters on November 21, 2003 in the United States by Universal Pictures and internationally by DreamWorks Pictures, and was a financial failure, only grossing $133.9 million against a budget of $109 million and was panned by critics. Seuss's widow, Audrey Geisel, was critical of the film and decided not to allow any further live-action adaptations of her husband's works, resulting in the cancellation of a sequel based on "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back". All Dr. Seuss film adaptations have since been produced using computer animation.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: In March 2012, an animated remake was announced by Universal and Illumination but never came to fruition. In 2018, Warner Bros. Pictures via Warner Animation Group announced an animated reboot was again in development.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: Conrad and Sally Walden live in Anville with their single mother Joan, who works for neat-freak Hank Humberfloob as a real estate agent and is dating their next-door neighbor Larry Quinn. One day, Joan leaves her children at home with lethargic babysitter Mrs. Kwan while she goes to the office, forbidding them to enter the living room which is being kept pristine for an office party she is hosting that night.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: After Mrs. Kwan falls asleep, Sally and Conrad meet The Cat in the Hat, an anthropomorphic talking cat with a red-and-white striped top hat and a large red bow tie who wants to teach them how to have fun but the family's pet fish doesn't want the Cat around while Joan is away. In the process, the Cat leaves a trail of destruction throughout the house (such as jumping on the couch, baking gross cupcakes that explode, and even ruining Joan's dress by cleaning the wall with it) and releases two troublemakers, named Thing 1 and Thing 2, from a crate which he locks and forbids Conrad to tamper with, explaining that it is a portal to his world. He tells the Things to clean Joan's dress but they instead trash the house as they only do the opposite of what they're told. Despite the Cat's warning, Conrad picks the lock on the crate, which grabs on to the collar of the family dog Nevins, who the Things subsequently throw out the window. While they search for Nevins, the trio find themselves at a birthday party for Sally's former friend Denise. The Cat hides by pretending to be a piñata and is subsequently beaten by the kids.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: Meanwhile, Larry is revealed to be an unemployed slob in debt, posing to be a successful businessman in order to marry Joan for her money and to get rid of Conrad by sending him to military school. While the trio spy on Nevins, they subsequently see Larry kidnapping him which forces them to follow them into the city with the Cat's super-powered car. Upon discovering Larry going into Joan's office, the Cat (disguised as a hippie) tricks him into handing Nevins over to them & they escape with the lock. Larry attempts chase but loses them at a party. Upon discovering an anxious Larry riding with Joan, Conrad has the Things stall them by posing as police officers so they can get home first. Larry however, sees them drive past in his car so he races after them on the Things' police motorcycle.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: When the trio return to the house with the lock, Larry cuts them off and orders them inside the house, where he sneezes uncontrollably due to his allergy to the Cat, who takes the advantage and scares him away, only for them to find out that the house has been transformed into "The Mother of All Messes", with Larry falling into a gooey abyss. The trio ride on Mrs. Kwan and navigate through the surreal house to find the crate and lock it, whereupon the house returns to its normal proportions but immediately collapses. In a heated argument, the kids discover that the Cat planned the whole day and angrily order him to leave.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: Conrad resigns himself to facing the consequences when Joan comes home with Sally sharing the blame, but the Cat returns with a cleaning invention and fixes the house. The trio subsequently reconcile, and the Cat departs just as Joan arrives. Larry, covered in goo, comes in, thinking he has busted the kids, but when Joan sees the clean house, she doesn't believe his story and dumps him much to his dismay. After the successful party, Joan spends quality time with her kids by jumping on the couch with them, while the Cat and Things 1 and 2 walk off into the sunset.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: DreamWorks Pictures acquired the film rights to the original Dr. Seuss book in 1997. However, production did not officially start until after the 2000 Christmas/comedy film "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", by Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment, both of whom also joined to finance, distribute and produce the film with DreamWorks, and based on another Dr. Seuss book of the same name, became a commercial success. Brian Grazer, the producer of "The Grinch", stated: "Because we grew up with these books, and because they have such universal themes and the illustrations ignite such fantasy in your mind as a child—the aggregation of all those feelings—it leaves an indelible, positive memory. And so when I realized I had a chance to convert first "The Grinch" and then, "The Cat in the Hat", into movies, I was willing to do anything to bring them to the screen." Grazer then contacted Bo Welch over the phone with the offer to direct the film, and he accepted. When production began, songs written by Randy Newman were dropped because they were deemed inferior; Newman's cousin, David, instead composed the score for the film. Although Welch and a publicist for Myers denied it, several people said Myers had considerable input into the film's direction by telling some of the cast (namely co-stars Baldwin and Preston) how to perform their scenes.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: Tim Allen was initially considered for the role of the Cat. The script was initially based on a version of the original book's story conceived by Allen, who admitted that as a child he was afraid of Seuss' "mischievous feline babysitter"; "My dream is to give it the edge that scared me," stated Allen. However, the studio did not commission a screenplay until late February 2001, when Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer (best known for being writers on the television series "Seinfeld") were hired by the studio to rewrite the film (replacing the original draft of the film that was written by Eric Roth a few years prior), so the film would not be ready to shoot before the deadline. By this point, Allen was also committed to shooting Disney's "The Santa Clause 2", which was also delayed because Allen wanted a script rewrite. Due to scheduling conflicts with that film, he dropped out of the role. As a result, in March 2002 the role of the Cat was given to Mike Myers, whom Grazer had an argument with regarding a proposed film adaptation of Myers' "Saturday Night Live" sketch "Sprockets", which Myers cancelled in June 2000 after being dissatisfied with his own script for it. Myers stated in an interview that he was a long-time fan of the original Dr. Seuss book, and that it was the first book he ever read. Myers was obligated to appear in the film as a result of a settlement related to the "Sprockets" film's cancellation.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: Originally, Rick Baker was set to be the prosthetic makeup designer for the film after his previous experience with "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", but due to conflicts with the studio and production team, particularly with Myers' behavior (showing up late to meetings and refusing to come to makeup tests punctually) and the complex challenge of designing the character’s makeup, he left the project and was replaced by Steve Johnson, one of his earliest apprentices. The Cat costume was made of angora and human hair and was fitted with a cooling system. To keep Myers cool during the outdoor shoots, a portable air conditioner was available that connected a hose to the suit between shots, while the tail and ears were battery-operated. Danielle Chuchran and Brittany Oaks, who portrayed Thing 1 and Thing 2, respectively, wore a prosthetic face mask and wig designed by Johnson as well. The Fish was considered somewhat of a unique character for Rhythm and Hues Studios (responsible for the visual effects and animation in films such as "Mouse Hunt", "Cats & Dogs", "" and "Scooby-Doo"), in that the character had no shoulders, hips or legs, so all of the physical performance had to emit from the eyes, head and fin motion. Sean Hayes, who provided the voice for the Fish, found the role significantly different from his usual on-camera jobs; he did not know how the final animation would look, resulting in all of his voice work taking place alone in a sound booth.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: Prior to filming, giant props for the film were stolen from the set; the local police found the props vandalized with graffiti in a shopping mall car park in Pomona, California. Despite this, no arrests had been made and filming was to start the next week. Principal photography took place mostly in California from October 2002 to January 2003. The neighborhood and the town center was filmed in a rural valley near Simi Valley, where 24 houses (each 26 feet square and 52 feet tall) were constructed. The downtown area outdoor shots were filmed along a Pomona street where a number of antique and gift shops are located. The community decided not to redecorate after filming ended, so the surreal paint scheme and some of the signage could still be seen today as it appears in the film. Because of so much smog in the area, the sky had to be digitally replaced with the cartoon-like sky and colors of the background had to be digitally fixed. Mike Myers was unaware that a piece of the house would fall behind him near the end of the film during his scenes with Spencer Breslin and Dakota Fanning. His reaction was real and left unscripted in the final film.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: According to co-star Amy Hill, Myers was difficult to work with on set, refusing to talk to anyone on the production (other than his assistants and director Welch) and isolating himself from the cast and crew during breaks in filming. She also noted that there would be retakes of scenes because Welch, who was a first-time director, let Myers decide whether they were good enough or not. In addition, Hill stated that Myers had an assistant who held chocolates in a Tupperware, and whenever Myers needed a piece of chocolate, his assistant would come over and give him one.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: Grazer's frequent collaborator, David Newman scored the film, The soundtrack was released on November 18, 2003. Originally, Marc Shaiman was going to compose the score for the film, but due to Newman already being chosen for the film score, Shaiman instead wrote the film's songs with Scott Wittman. The soundtrack also features a song by Smash Mouth ("Getting Better"), which makes it the third Mike Myers-starring film in a row to feature a song by Smash Mouth after "Shrek" and "Austin Powers in Goldmember". The trailer for the film uses a version of "Hey! Pachuco!" by the Royal Crown Revue. The soundtrack also includes two songs performed by Myers, who plays the Cat. Newman's score won a BMI Film Music Award.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: "The Cat in the Hat" was released on VHS and DVD on March 16, 2004. The DVD features 13 deleted scenes, 36 outtakes, 13 featurettes, a "Dance with the Cat" tutorial to teach children how to do a Cat in the Hat dance, and an audio commentary with director Bo Welch and actor Alec Baldwin. On February 7, 2012, the film was released on Blu-ray.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: "The Cat in the Hat" opened theatrically on November 21, 2003 and grossed $38.3 million in its opening weekend, ranking first in the North American box office ahead of "Brother Bear", "Elf" and "". The film ended its theatrical run on March 18, 2004, having grossed $101.1 million domestically and $32.8 million overseas for a worldwide total of $133.9 million.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 10% based on 164 reviews and an average rating of 3.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Filled with double entendres and potty humor, this "Cat" falls flat." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 19 out of 100 based on reviews from 37 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" gave the film one star, stating: ""Cat", another overblown Hollywood raid on Dr. Seuss, has a draw on Mike Myers, who inexplicably plays the Cat by mimicking Bert Lahr in "The Wizard of Oz"." Roger Ebert of "The Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film two out of four stars. Although he praised the production design, he considered the film to be "all effects and stunts and CGI and prosthetics, with no room for lightness and joy". Ebert and co-host Richard Roeper gave the film "Two Thumbs Down" on their weekly movie review program. Roeper said of Myers' performance that "maybe a part of him was realizing as the movie was being made that a live-action version of "The Cat in the Hat" just wasn't a great idea." Ebert compared the film unfavorably to "How the Grinch Stole Christmas": "If there is one thing I've learned from these two movies, it's that we don't want to see Jim Carrey as a Grinch, and we don't want to see Mike Myers as a cat. These are talented comedians, let's see them do their stuff, don't bury them under a ton of technology."


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: Leonard Maltin gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four in his "Movie Guide": "Brightly colored adaptation of the beloved rhyming book for young children is a betrayal of everything Dr. Seuss ever stood for, injecting potty humor and adult (wink-wink) jokes into a mixture of heavy-handed slapstick and silliness." Maltin also said that the film's official title which included "Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat" was "an official insult".


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: Todd McCarthy of "Variety" praised the film as "attractively designed, energetically performed and, above all, blessedly concise."


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: Alec Baldwin was disappointed with the film and addressed complaints the film received because of its dissimilarity to the source material. He expressed a belief that a film is "an idea about something" and that because Dr. Seuss' work is so unique, making a feature-length film out of one of his stories would entail taking liberties and making broad interpretations.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: On the day of the film's release, Myers stated in an interview that he expected a sequel where the kids meet the Cat again. A sequel based on the original book's sequel "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back" was in development just over a month before the film's release, with Myers and Welch to return to their duties as actor and director, respectively. Following the film's poor reception however, Seuss's widow, Audrey Geisel, decided not to allow any subsequent live-action adaptations of her late husband's works, resulting in the scrapping of the sequel.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: In March 2012, a computer-animated "Cat in the Hat" film remake was announced by Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment following the success of "The Lorax", with Rob Lieber set to write the script, Chris Meledandri to produce the film and Geisel to executive-produce it, but it never came to fruition.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: On January 24, 2018, it was announced that Warner Animation Group picked up the rights for the animated "Cat in the Hat" film as part of a creative partnership with Seuss Enterprises.


title: The Cat in the Hat (film)

text: A platform game based on the film was published by Vivendi Universal Games for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Game Boy Advance on November 5, 2003, and Microsoft Windows on November 9, 2003, shortly before the film's theatrical release.


title: Piña colada

text: The piña colada (; , "pineapple", and , "strained") is a cocktail made with rum, cream of coconut or coconut milk, and pineapple juice, usually served either blended or shaken with ice. It may be garnished with either a pineapple wedge, maraschino cherry, or both.


title: Piña colada

text: The name "piña colada" (Spanish) literally means "strained pineapple", a reference to the freshly pressed and strained pineapple juice used in the drink's preparation.


title: Piña colada

text: The earliest known story states that in the 19th century, Puerto Rican pirate Roberto Cofresí, to boost his crew's morale, gave them a beverage or cocktail that contained coconut, pineapple and white rum. This was what would be later known as the famous piña colada. With his death in 1825, the recipe for the piña colada was lost. Historian Haydée Reichard disputes this version of the story.


title: Piña colada

text: In 1950, "The New York Times" reported that "Drinks in the West Indies range from Martinique's famous rum punch to Cuba's pina colada (rum, pineapple and coconut milk)."


title: Piña colada

text: The Caribe Hilton Hotel claims Ramón "Monchito" Marrero created the Piña Colada in 1954 while a bartender at the hotel. According to this account, Marrero finally settled upon the recipe for the Piña Colada, which he felt captured the true nature and essence of Puerto Rico. The hotel was presented with a proclamation in 2004 by Puerto Rico Governor Sila M. Calderón celebrating the drink's 50th anniversary.


title: Piña colada

text: Barrachina, a restaurant in Puerto Rico, says that "a traditional Spanish bartender Don Ramon Portas Mingot in 1963 created what became the world's famous drink: the Piña Colada."


title: Piña colada

text: As recounted by his friends in José L. Díaz de Villegas's book, the original Monchito recipe was to pour 85 grams of cream of coconut, 170 grams of pineapple juice and 43 grams of white rum into a blender or shaker with crushed ice, blend or shake very well until smooth, then pour into chilled glass and garnish with pineapple wedge and/or a maraschino cherry.


title: Piña colada

text: Mix with crushed ice in blender until smooth, then pour into a chilled glass, garnish and serve. Alternately, the three main components can simply be added to a cocktail glass with ice cubes.


title: Piña colada

text: Freeze pineapple juice before use. In a blender, combine cream of coconut, frozen pineapple juice, heavy cream and rum. Pour in a desired 12-ounce container and use a cherry and fresh pineapple for a garnish.


title: Piña colada

text: Different proportions of the core ingredients, as well as different types of rum, may all be used in the piña colada. Frozen piña coladas are also served. Other named variations include:


title: Piña colada

text: The band 10cc refer to the drink in the song "Dreadlock Holiday" (it is styled on the lyric sheet as "Sinking pena calarta")


title: Piña colada

text: Steely Dan refer to a piña colada in the lyrics of their 1975 song "Bad Sneakers," from their album "Katy Lied": "Bad sneakers and a piña colada, my friend."


title: Piña colada

text: The cocktail gained worldwide fame after Rupert Holmes released his 1979 song "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)", which became a popular hit around the world.


title: Piña colada

text: Jazz and flugelhorn player Chuck Mangione likewise released a tune titled "Piña Colada" on his 1979 album "Fun and Games".


title: Layla

text: "Layla" is a song written by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon, originally recorded by Derek and the Dominos, as the thirteenth track from their only studio album, "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs" (1970). Its contrasting movements were composed separately by Clapton and Gordon. The piano part has also been controversially credited to Rita Coolidge, Gordon's girlfriend at the time.


title: Layla

text: The song was inspired by a love story that originated in 7th-century Arabia and later formed the basis of "The Story of Layla and Majnun" by the 12th-century Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi, a copy of which Ian Dallas had given to Clapton. The book moved Clapton profoundly, because it was the tale of a young man who fell hopelessly in love with a beautiful young girl, went crazy and so could not marry her. The song was further inspired by Clapton's secret love for Pattie Boyd, the wife of his friend and fellow musician George Harrison. After Harrison and Boyd divorced, Clapton and Boyd eventually married.


title: Layla

text: "Layla" has since its release experienced great critical and popular acclaim, and is often hailed as being among the greatest rock songs of all time. Two versions have achieved chart success, the first in 1972 and the second 20 years later as an acoustic "Unplugged" performance by Clapton. In 2004, "Layla" was ranked number 27 on "Rolling Stone"s list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and the acoustic version won the 1993 Grammy Award for Best Rock Song.


title: Layla

text: In 1966, Beatles guitarist George Harrison married Pattie Boyd, a model he met two years before during the filming of "A Hard Day's Night". During the late 1960s, Clapton and Harrison became close friends. Clapton contributed uncredited (although openly acknowledged) guitar work on Harrison's song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on the Beatles' self-titled double album (also known as the White Album), and Harrison co-wrote and played guitar on Cream's "Badge" from "Goodbye". However, between his tenures in Cream and Blind Faith, Clapton fell in love with Boyd.


title: Layla

text: The title of "Layla" was inspired by the story of "Layla and Majnun", which Clapton had been told by his friend Ian Dallas, who was in the process of converting to Islam. Nizami's tale, about a moon princess who was married off by her father to a man she did not love, resulting in Majnun's madness, struck a deep chord with Clapton.


title: Layla

text: Boyd divorced Harrison in 1977 and married Clapton in 1979 during a concert stop in Tucson, Arizona. Harrison was not bitter about the divorce and attended Clapton's wedding party with his former bandmates Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney. During their relationship, Clapton wrote another love ballad for Boyd, "Wonderful Tonight" (1977). Clapton and Boyd divorced in 1989.


title: Layla

text: After the break-up of Cream, Clapton tried his hand with several groups, including Blind Faith and the husband-and-wife duo Delaney & Bonnie. In the spring of 1970, he was told that some members of Delaney & Bonnie's back-up band, including bassist Carl Radle, drummer Jim Gordon and keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, were leaving the group. Seizing the opportunity, Clapton formed a new group with Whitlock, Radle and Gordon. Naming themselves Derek and the Dominos, the band "made our bones", according to Clapton, while backing Harrison on his first post-Beatles solo album, "All Things Must Pass".


title: Layla

text: During the recording of the "Layla" album, Duane Allman joined Clapton's fledgling band as a guest. Clapton and Allman, already mutual fans, were introduced by Tom Dowd at an Allman Brothers concert on 26 August 1970. The two hit it off well and soon became good friends. Dowd said of their guitar-playing chemistry: "There had to be some sort of telepathy going on because I've never seen spontaneous inspiration happen at that rate and level. One of them would play something, and the other reacted instantaneously. Never once did either of them have to say, 'Could you play that again, please?' It was like two hands in a glove. And they got tremendously off on playing with each other." Dowd was already famous for a variety of work and had worked with Clapton in his Cream days (Clapton once called him "the ideal recording man"); his work on the album would be another achievement. For the making of his biographical film "Tom Dowd & the Language of Music", he remixed the original master tapes of "Layla", saying, "There are my principles, in one form or another."


title: Layla

text: Clapton originally wrote "Layla" as a ballad, with lyrics describing his unrequited love for Boyd, but the song became a "rocker" when, according to Clapton, Allman composed the song's signature riff. With the band assembled and Dowd producing, "Layla" was recorded in its rock form. The recording of the first section consisted of sixteen tracks of which six were guitar tracks: a rhythm part by Clapton, three tracks of harmonies played by Clapton (the main power chord riff on both channels and two harmonies against that main riff, one on the left channel and one on the right channel), a track of solos by Allman (fretted solos with bent notes during the verses and a slide solo during the outro), and one track with both Allman and Clapton playing duplicate solos (the 7-note "signature" riff doubled in two octaves and the 12-note "signature" riff doubled in unison). According to Clapton, Allman played the first seven notes of the 12-note "signature" riff fretted and the last five notes on slide in standard tuning. Each player used one input of the same two-input Fender Champ amplifier.


title: Layla

text: Shortly afterwards, Clapton returned to the studio, where he heard Jim Gordon playing a piano piece he had composed separately. Impressed by the piece, Clapton convinced Gordon to allow it to be used as part of the song. Though only Gordon has been credited with this part, according to Whitlock, "Jim took that piano melody from his ex-girlfriend Rita Coolidge. I know because in the D&B days I lived in John Garfield's old house in the Hollywood Hills and there was a guest house with an upright piano in it. Rita and Jim were up there in the guest house and invited me to join in on writing this song with them called 'Time' ... Her sister Priscilla wound up recording it with Booker T. Jones ... Jim took the melody from Rita's song and didn't give her credit for writing it. Her boyfriend ripped her off." "Time" ended up on the 1973 album "Chronicles" by Booker T. and Priscilla Jones. Whitlock's story was echoed by Coolidge herself in her 2016 autobiography. The claim is also substantiated in Graham Nash's 2014 autobiography "Wild Tales".


title: Layla

text: "Layla"'s second movement (the "Piano Exit") was recorded roughly a week after the first, with Gordon playing his piano part, Clapton playing acoustic guitar and slide guitar, and Allman playing electric and bottleneck slide guitar. After Dowd spliced the two movements together, "Layla" was complete.


title: Layla

text: Due to the circumstances of its composition, "Layla" is defined by two movements, each marked by a riff. The first movement, which was recorded in the key of D minor for choruses and C-sharp minor for verses, is centred around the "signature riff", a guitar piece using hammer-ons, pull-offs and power chords. The first section contains the overdub-heavy slide guitar solo, played by Allman. By placing his slide at points beyond the end of the fretboard, Allman was able to play notes at a higher pitch than could be played with standard technique. Dowd referred to this as "notes that aren't on the instrument."


title: Layla

text: The second movement is commonly referred to as the "Piano Exit". Originally played in C major, the tape speed of the coda was increased slightly during mixing. The resulting pitch is somewhere between C and C sharp. The piano interlude at the end of the song is augmented by an acoustic guitar, and is also the accompaniment to the outro-solo. The same melody is also played on Allman's slide guitar an octave higher. Gordon does not improvise or deviate from the piano part; Clapton and Allman are the ones who improvise the melody. The song ends with Allman playing his signature high-pitched "bird call" on his slide guitar. This portion is featured prominently in the film "Goodfellas".


title: Layla

text: Pattie Boyd later reflected: "I think that he was amazingly raw at the time ... He's such an incredible musician that he's able to put his emotions into music in such a way that the audience can feel it instinctively. It goes right through you."


title: Layla

text: "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs" opened to lacklustre sales as the Derek and the Dominos album never actually reached the music charts in the United Kingdom, possibly in part because Clapton's name was found only on the back cover. In addition, the song's length proved prohibitive for radio airplay. As a result, a shortened version of the song, consisting of the first 2:43 of Part I, was released as a single in March 1971 by Atco Records in the United States. The version peaked at number 51 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 singles chart. When "Layla" was re-released on the 1972 compilations "The History of Eric Clapton" and Duane Allman's "An Anthology" and then released the full 7:10 version (including the "Piano Exit" that formed Part II) as a single, it charted at number seven in the United Kingdom and reached number 10 in the United States. With good sales figures, the "Billboard" magazine was able to rank the Rock single as the 60th best-selling song in 1972.


title: Layla

text: In 1982, "Layla" was re-released as a single in the United Kingdom, and peaked at number four. This time the whole seven-minute single charted, containing the trailing two-thirds which is instrumental only. Critical opinion since has been overwhelmingly positive. Dave Marsh, in "The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll", wrote that "there are few moments in the repertoire of recorded rock where a singer or writer has reached so deeply into himself that the effect of hearing them is akin to witnessing a murder or a suicide... to me 'Layla' is the greatest of them." Marsh listed "Layla" at number 156 in his "The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made".


title: Layla

text: In May 1980, "Layla" was covered by the London Symphony Orchestra, but without the lyrics, being recorded at EMI Studio One, Abbey Road, London. A similar version has been performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. On 20 September 1983, a benefit show called the ARMS Charity Concert for Multiple Sclerosis at the Royal Albert Hall in London featured a jam with Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page performing "Layla". Clapton, Beck, and Page were the Yardbirds' successive lead guitarists from 1963 to 1968.


title: Layla

text: In 2003, the Allman Brothers Band began playing the song in concert. Warren Haynes sang the vocal, Gregg Allman played the piano part, and Derek Trucks played Duane Allman's guitar parts during the coda. The performances were seen as a tribute not only to Allman, but also to producer Tom Dowd, who had died the previous year. Eric Clapton recorded yet a third version. "Layla" appears as track seven on "". Personnel on this version include Wynton Marsalis (vocals, trumpet), Eric Clapton (vocals, guitar), Victor Goines (clarinet), Marcus Printup (trumpet), Chris Crenshaw (trombone, vocals), Don Vappie (banjo), Chris Stainton (keyboards), Dan Nimmer (piano), Carlos Henriquez (bass), and Ali Jackson (drums).


title: Layla

text: In 1992, Clapton was invited to play for the "MTV Unplugged" series. On 16 January 1992, he recorded an acoustic album, accompanied by a concert film, at the Bray Studios in Bray, Berkshire. Although the production team and Clapton's staff liked the recordings, Clapton did not want to release either the album or the concert film. Finally, Clapton agreed to release the album in a limited edition. When "Unplugged" sold out, Clapton gave Warner Bros. and Reprise Records the permission to delete the limited album production. For the album, Clapton decided to record both new material like "Lonely Stranger" and old songs he grew up with such as "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" or enjoyed listening to or had written as an adult, like "San Francisco Bay Blues" and "Layla". Clapton, who plays acoustic guitar and sings on the live track, was backed by Andy Fairweather Low who played acoustic rhythm guitar, Nathan East on acoustic bass guitar and background vocals, Ray Cooper on percussion, Steve Ferrone on drums, Katie Kissoon and Tessa Niles on background vocals as well as Chuck Leavell on piano. Pianist Chuck Leavell recalled that recording the acoustic version of "Layla" felt natural to him and liked that the band was given some space to play during the body of the song and not just during the reprise like it is on the original recording. "It gave us a chance to interpret the song in our way and it did work out well and it gave it a rebirth I think.", Leavell said. The acoustic version of "Layla" was produced by Russ Titelman.


title: Layla

text: Clapton recorded the acoustic version of "Layla" on a C.F. Martin & Co. steel-string acoustic guitar in OOO-42 style from 1939 which was hand built in Nazareth, Pennsylvania (No. OOO-42/73234). Clapton called this guitar one of the finest instruments he has ever used and called its sound "incredible". The auction house Christie's noted, "the guitar became one of the most enduring images of recent music history" being a part of the "Unplugged" album cover. Christie's expert for the musical department Kerry Keane called the instrument "in the hands of Eric Clapton singly responsible for the repolarization of playing acoustic guitar today". When Keane played the guitar, he also remarked an "amazing" sound as the acoustic guitar seems to have a "wonderfully balanced tone [which is] loud and sweet at the same time with an incredible bass note." The vintage instrument was estimated to sell for between $60,000 and $80,000 but was in the end sold for $791,500.