Biography.

Early life and career.

González was born in Santa Clara, Cuba on May 26, 1919. His family moved to the small village of Encrucijada when he was 6 years old. He took up the piano at age 7 and graduated from the Cienfuegos Conservatory at age 15.  He grew up wanting to be a doctor and studied medicine, thinking music would remain a hobby he could pursue by night. However, he abandoned his studies after four years because music was "in his blood" and also because of all the encouragement he received from people around him. Thus, after graduating from high school, he began playing with groups in Cienfuegos and around the country.

From Havana to Venezuela.

In 1941, González moved to Havana where he played in the charanga of danzonete singer Paulina Álvarez, as well as Orquesta Elósegui and the orchestra of the CMQ radio station. He became friends with important pianists such as René Hernández, Anselmo Sacasas, Jesús López and Facundo Rivero. He joined Arsenio Rodríguez's conjunto in 1943, replacing Adolfo "Panacea" O'Reilly. Rodríguez advised him to "just play your own style, whatever it is, but don't imitate anyone". Although González's first confirmed recordings with Arsenio's conjunto are dated to July 5, 1945, earlier recordings might feature him, since Panacea's last confirmed recording session took place on November 16, 1943; these recordings were all released by RCA Victor.  In 1945, he left the conjunto—and was replaced by Lilí Martínez—to go to Panama with the ensemble Estrellas Negras, comprising mostly ex-Rodríguez musicians. With the Estrellas Negras, González toured most of South America—from Mexico City to Buenos Aires—and, on his return to Cuba, he joined the Conjunto Kubavana directed by Alberto Ruiz. He also performed with the Orquesta Los Hermanos Castro which, at one time, featured Mongo Santamaría.  Between 1948 and the mid-1950s, González played with Ernesto Grenet and Senén Suárez at the Cabaret Tropicana. At the same time, he became a member of René Álvarez y Los Astros and he often played with Orquesta Gris, Orquesta Ideal de Joseíto Valdés, Orquesta Siboney de Armando Pidre, and Los Hermanos Lebatard. In 1954, he backed Rolando Laserie at the Cabaret San Souci.  In the mid-1950s, he toured Venezuela with the charanga Orquesta América del 55. He established himself in Venezuela between 1957 and 1962, in the orchestra directed by Luis Alfonso Larraín. He also briefly resided in Argentina, where he played with tango musicians. By the late 1950s, Rubén González was widely known in Cuba and other parts of Latin America.

Back in Havana.

González returned to Cuba in 1961, joining the famous big band Orquesta Riverside. In 1962, he became the pianist for the Orquesta de Enrique Jorrín, and would continue to play for him for the next 25 years. In 1964, González joined Pucho Escalante's Noneto Cubano de Jazz.  In 1975, he recorded his eponymous solo album backed by members of Jorrín's orchestra; the album was released by Areíto as LD-3582. In 1979, he recorded the album "Los héroes" as part of the Estrellas de Areito all-star ensemble. After Jorrín's death in 1987, González briefly took over the role of bandleader, but retired soon after.

Career revival.

In 1994, Raúl Planas and Radio Progreso announcer Eduardo Rosillo approached González with the idea of recording new versions of ten songs composed by fellow Cuban pianist Lilí Martínez. The resulting album, "Son Inconcluso", featured a full band including bassist Orlando "Cachaíto" López and Arturo "Alambre dulce" Harvey (ex-"tresero" with Conjunto Chappottín), among others, and was released in 1999 by EGREM.  In 1995, Nick Gold (head of World Circuit Records) and Juan de Marcos González (director and tres player of Sierra Maestra) decided to record a series of descarga sessions featuring classic Cuban musicians, including Rubén González on piano, together with African virtuosos Toumani Diabate (kora player) and Djelimady Tounkara (guitarist). By early 1996, the Cuban musicians had already been selected and the African musicians were about to leave for Cuba, but could not travel because of difficulties in obtaining visas. Gold then invited Ry Cooder and his son Joachim to participate in the sessions; Ry would play guitar and Joachim African percussion.  The sessions, all of which featured Rubén González on piano, took place in March 1996 in Havana's EGREM studios. The first set of recordings was meant to revive the 1950s Cuban big band sound. This material yielded the album "A Toda Cuba le Gusta" credited to the Afro-Cuban All Stars and produced by Gold and Juan de Marcos, who also played tres. It again featured Orlando "Cachaíto" López on bass along with vocalists Ibrahim Ferrer, Pío Leyva, Manuel "Puntillita" Licea, Raúl Planas, Félix Baloy and José Antonio "Maceo" Rodríguez. Cooder also played slide guitar on Lilí Martínez's famous son "Alto Songo". In the sleeve notes, Juan de Marcos wrote: "This album is dedicated to Rubén González, genius of Cuban piano".  The second set of recordings were meant to revive the acoustic sound of the 1940s Cuban trova and filin movements. It yielded the critically acclaimed "Buena Vista Social Club" album. Gold was credited as executive producer, Juan de Marcos as A & R consultant and Cooder as producer. Here Rubén González on piano and Cachaíto on bass accompanied singers Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo and Eliades Ochoa. Cooder played guitar on all but one track.  In April 1996, and using left over studio time after the sessions that had produced the previous two albums, the solo album "Introducing...Rubén González" was recorded in just two days, live with no overdubs. All three albums were released on Nick Gold's World Circuit Records in 1997. In early 1998, Wim Wenders filmed a documentary entitled "Buena Vista Social Club", and González and his colleagues became famous worldwide.

Later years and death.

Between 1997 and 2000, González recorded his next album, "Chanchullo", at EGREM Studios in Havana and Angel Recording Studios in London. Some recordings he made in September 1999 at EGREM studios were released by EGREM as "Rubén González and Friends" in 2000. His last public appearances took place in Mexico and Cuba in 2002.  In the morning of December 8, 2003, Rubén González died at his home in Havana after a long illness which had prevented him from walking and eventually led to renal and respiratory problems. He was survived by his wife, Eneida Lima, and is buried in Havana's Cristóbal Colón Cemetery.

Style and legacy.

Rubén González is considered an innovator of the son cubano piano style. The genre's early ensembles ("sextetos" and "septetos") lacked pianos, and these were introduced in the late 1930s by the first three conjuntos: Arsenio Rodríguez's conjunto, Alberto Ruiz's Conjunto Kubavana, and Conjunto Casino. González played in the former two, which made him a pioneer in the genre. Apart from the son, González had a profound knowledge of the danzón and his improvisations are characterized by harmonic subtleties. His style has been described as "romantic and angular", possessing "strong lyricism" with characteristic "swirling arpeggios".  Like his contemporary Peruchín, González was influenced by jazz, particularly by Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, which made him one of the grandfathers of Afro-Cuban jazz. His style has influenced Eddie Palmieri, amongst others.

Rubén González Fontanills (May 26, 1919 – December 8, 2003) was a Cuban pianist. Together with Lilí Martínez and Peruchín he is said to have "forged the style of modern Cuban piano playing in the 1940s".

Rubén González (26. května 1919, Santa Clara, Kuba – 8. prosince 2003, Havana, Kuba) byl kubánský klavírista a hudební skladatel.


Life.

The details of Rameau's life are generally obscure, especially concerning his first forty years, before he moved to Paris for good. He was a secretive man, and even his wife knew nothing of his early life, which explains the scarcity of biographical information available.

Early years, 1683–1732.

Rameau's early years are particularly obscure. He was born on 25 September 1683 in Dijon, and baptised the same day. His father, Jean, worked as an organist in several churches around Dijon, and his mother, Claudine Demartinécourt, was the daughter of a notary. The couple had eleven children (five girls and six boys), of whom Jean-Philippe was the seventh.  Rameau was taught music before he could read or write. He was educated at the Jesuit college at Godrans, but he was not a good pupil and disrupted classes with his singing, later claiming that his passion for opera had begun at the age of twelve. Initially intended for the law, Rameau decided he wanted to be a musician, and his father sent him to Italy, where he stayed for a short while in Milan. On his return, he worked as a violinist in travelling companies and then as an organist in provincial cathedrals before moving to Paris for the first time. Here, in 1706, he published his earliest known compositions: the harpsichord works that make up his first book of "Pièces de Clavecin", which show the influence of his friend Louis Marchand.  In 1709, he moved back to Dijon to take over his father's job as organist in the main church. The contract was for six years, but Rameau left before then and took up similar posts in Lyon and Clermont-Ferrand. During this period, he composed motets for church performance as well as secular cantatas.  In 1722, he returned to Paris for good, and here he published his most important work of music theory, "Traité de l'harmonie" ("Treatise on Harmony"). This soon won him a great reputation, and it was followed in 1726 by his "Nouveau système de musique théorique". In 1724 and 1729 (or 1730), he also published two more collections of harpsichord pieces.  Rameau took his first tentative steps into composing stage music when the writer Alexis Piron asked him to provide songs for his popular comic plays written for the Paris Fairs. Four collaborations followed, beginning with "L'endriague" in 1723; none of the music has survived.  On 25 February 1726 Rameau married the 19-year-old Marie-Louise Mangot, who came from a musical family from Lyon and was a good singer and instrumentalist. The couple would have four children, two boys and two girls, and the marriage is said to have been a happy one.  In spite of his fame as a music theorist, Rameau had trouble finding a post as an organist in Paris.

Later years, 1733–1764.

It was not until he was approaching 50 that Rameau decided to embark on the operatic career on which his fame as a composer mainly rests. He had already approached writer Antoine Houdar de la Motte for a libretto in 1727, but nothing came of it; he was finally inspired to try his hand at the prestigious genre of "tragédie en musique" after seeing Montéclair's "Jephté" in 1732. Rameau's "Hippolyte et Aricie" premiered at the Académie Royale de Musique on 1 October 1733. It was immediately recognised as the most significant opera to appear in France since the death of Lully, but audiences were split over whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. Some, such as the composer André Campra, were stunned by its originality and wealth of invention; others found its harmonic innovations discordant and saw the work as an attack on the French musical tradition. The two camps, the so-called Lullyistes and the Rameauneurs, fought a pamphlet war over the issue for the rest of the decade.  Just before this time, Rameau had made the acquaintance of the powerful financier Alexandre Le Riche de La Poupelinière, who became his patron until 1753. La Poupelinière's mistress (and later, wife), Thérèse des Hayes, was Rameau's pupil and a great admirer of his music. In 1731, Rameau became the conductor of La Poupelinière's private orchestra, which was of an extremely high quality. He held the post for 22 years; he was succeeded by Johann Stamitz and then Gossec. La Poupelinière's salon enabled Rameau to meet some of the leading cultural figures of the day, including Voltaire, who soon began collaborating with the composer. Their first project, the "tragédie en musique Samson", was abandoned because an opera on a religious theme by Voltaire—a notorious critic of the Church—was likely to be banned by the authorities. Meanwhile, Rameau had introduced his new musical style into the lighter genre of the "opéra-ballet" with the highly successful "Les Indes galantes". It was followed by two "tragédies en musique", "Castor et Pollux" (1737) and "Dardanus" (1739), and another "opéra-ballet, Les fêtes d'Hébé" (also 1739). All these operas of the 1730s are among Rameau's most highly regarded works. However, the composer followed them with six years of silence, in which the only work he produced was a new version of "Dardanus" (1744). The reason for this interval in the composer's creative life is unknown, although it is possible he had a falling-out with the authorities at the Académie royale de la musique.  The year 1745 was a watershed in Rameau's career. He received several commissions from the court for works to celebrate the French victory at the Battle of Fontenoy and the marriage of the Dauphin to Infanta Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain. Rameau produced his most important comic opera, "Platée", as well as two collaborations with Voltaire: the "opéra-ballet Le temple de la gloire" and the "comédie-ballet La princesse de Navarre". They gained Rameau official recognition; he was granted the title "Compositeur du Cabinet du Roi" and given a substantial pension. 1745 also saw the beginning of the bitter enmity between Rameau and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Though best known today as a thinker, Rousseau had ambitions to be a composer. He had written an opera, "Les muses galantes" (inspired by Rameau's "Indes galantes"), but Rameau was unimpressed by this musical tribute. At the end of 1745, Voltaire and Rameau, who were busy on other works, commissioned Rousseau to turn "La Princesse de Navarre" into a new opera, with linking recitative, called "Les fêtes de Ramire". Rousseau then claimed the two had stolen the credit for the words and music he had contributed, though musicologists have been able to identify almost nothing of the piece as Rousseau's work. Nevertheless, the embittered Rousseau nursed a grudge against Rameau for the rest of his life.  Rousseau was a major participant in the second great quarrel that erupted over Rameau's work, the so-called "Querelle des Bouffons" of 1752–54, which pitted French "tragédie en musique" against Italian "opera buffa". This time, Rameau was accused of being out of date and his music too complicated in comparison with the simplicity and "naturalness" of a work like Pergolesi's "La serva padrona". In the mid-1750s, Rameau criticised Rousseau's contributions to the musical articles in the "Encyclopédie", which led to a quarrel with the leading "philosophes" d'Alembert and Diderot. As a result, Jean-François Rameau became a character in Diderot's then-unpublished dialogue, "Le neveu de Rameau" ("Rameau's Nephew").  In 1753, La Poupelinière took a scheming musician, Jeanne-Thérèse Goermans, as his mistress. The daughter of harpsichord maker Jacques Goermans, she went by the name of Madame de Saint-Aubin, and her opportunistic husband pushed her into the arms of the rich financier. She had La Poupelinière engage the services of the Bohemian composer Johann Stamitz, who succeeded Rameau after a breach developed between Rameau and his patron; however, by then, Rameau no longer needed La Poupelinière's financial support and protection.  Rameau pursued his activities as a theorist and composer until his death. He lived with his wife and two of his children in his large suite of rooms in Rue des Bons-Enfants, which he would leave every day, lost in thought, to take a solitary walk in the nearby gardens of the Palais-Royal or the Tuileries. Sometimes he would meet the young writer Chabanon, who noted some of Rameau's disillusioned confidential remarks: ""Day by day, I'm acquiring more good taste, but I no longer have any genius"" and ""The imagination is worn out in my old head; it's not wise at this age wanting to practise arts that are nothing but imagination.""  Rameau composed prolifically in the late 1740s and early 1750s. After that, his rate of productivity dropped off, probably due to old age and ill health, although he was still able to write another comic opera, "Les Paladins", in 1760. This was due to be followed by a final "tragédie en musique, Les Boréades"; but for unknown reasons, the opera was never produced and had to wait until the late 20th century for a proper staging. Rameau died on 12 September 1764 after suffering from a fever, thirteen days before his 81st birthday. At his bedside, he objected to a song sung. His last words were, "What the devil do you mean to sing to me, priest? You are out of tune." He was buried in the church of St. Eustache, Paris on the same day of his death. Although a bronze bust and red marble tombstone were erected in his memory there by the Société de la Compositeurs de Musique in 1883, the exact site of his burial remains unknown to this day.

Rameau's personality.

While the details of his biography are vague and fragmentary, the details of Rameau's personal and family life are almost completely obscure. Rameau's music, so graceful and attractive, completely contradicts the man's public image and what we know of his character as described (or perhaps unfairly caricatured) by Diderot in his satirical novel "Le Neveu de Rameau". Throughout his life, music was his consuming passion. It occupied his entire thinking; Philippe Beaussant calls him a monomaniac. Piron explained that "His heart and soul were in his harpsichord; once he had shut its lid, there was no one home." Physically, Rameau was tall and exceptionally thin, as can be seen by the sketches we have of him, including a famous portrait by Carmontelle. He had a "loud voice." His speech was difficult to understand, just like his handwriting, which was never fluent. As a man, he was secretive, solitary, irritable, proud of his own achievements (more as a theorist than as a composer), brusque with those who contradicted him, and quick to anger. It is difficult to imagine him among the leading wits, including Voltaire (to whom he bears more than a passing physical resemblance), who frequented La Poupelinière's salon; his music was his passport, and it made up for his lack of social graces.  His enemies exaggerated his faults; e.g. his supposed miserliness. In fact, it seems that his thriftiness was the result of long years spent in obscurity (when his income was uncertain and scanty) rather than part of his character, because he could also be generous. He helped his nephew Jean-François when he came to Paris and also helped establish the career of Claude-Bénigne Balbastre in the capital. Furthermore, he gave his daughter Marie-Louise a considerable dowry when she became a Visitandine nun in 1750, and he paid a pension to one of his sisters when she became ill. Financial security came late to him, following the success of his stage works and the grant of a royal pension (a few months before his death, he was also ennobled and made a knight of the Ordre de Saint-Michel). But he did not change his way of life, keeping his worn-out clothes, his single pair of shoes, and his old furniture. After his death, it was discovered that he only possessed one dilapidated single-keyboard harpsichord in his rooms in Rue des Bons-Enfants, yet he also had a bag containing 1691 gold louis.

Music.

General character of Rameau's music.

Rameau's music is characterised by the exceptional technical knowledge of a composer who wanted above all to be renowned as a theorist of the art. Nevertheless, it is not solely addressed to the intelligence, and Rameau himself claimed, "I try to conceal art with art." The paradox of this music was that it was new, using techniques never known before, but it took place within the framework of old-fashioned forms. Rameau appeared revolutionary to the Lullyistes, disturbed by complex harmony of his music; and reactionary to the "philosophes," who only paid attention to its content and who either would not or could not listen to the sound it made. The incomprehension he received from his contemporaries stopped Rameau from repeating such daring experiments as the second Trio des Parques in "Hippolyte et Aricie", which he was forced to remove after a handful of performances because the singers had been either unable or unwilling to render it correctly.

Rameau's musical works.

Rameau's musical works may be divided into four distinct groups, which differ greatly in importance: a few cantatas; a few motets for large chorus; some pieces for solo harpsichord or harpsichord accompanied by other instruments; and, finally, his works for the stage, to which he dedicated the last thirty years of his career almost exclusively. Like most of his contemporaries, Rameau often reused melodies that had been particularly successful, but never without meticulously adapting them; they are not simple transcriptions. Besides, no borrowings have been found from other composers, although his earliest works show the influence of other music. Rameau's reworkings of his own material are numerous; e.g., in "Les Fêtes d'Hébé", we find "L'Entretien des Muses", the Musette, and the Tambourin, taken from the 1724 book of harpsichord pieces, as well as an aria from the cantata "Le Berger Fidèle".

Motets.

For at least 26 years, Rameau was a professional organist in the service of religious institutions, and yet the body of sacred music he composed is exceptionally small and his organ works nonexistent. Judging by the evidence, it was not his favourite field, but rather, simply a way of making reasonable money. Rameau's few religious compositions are nevertheless remarkable and compare favourably to the works of specialists in the area. Only four motets have been attributed to Rameau with any certainty: "Deus noster refugium", "In convertendo", "Quam dilecta", and "Laboravi".

Cantatas.

The cantata was a highly successful genre in the early 18th century. The French cantata, which should not be confused with the Italian or the German cantata, was "invented" in 1706 by the poet Jean-Baptiste Rousseau and soon taken up by many famous composers of the day, such as Montéclair, Campra, and Clérambault. Cantatas were Rameau's first contact with dramatic music. The modest forces the cantata required meant it was a genre within the reach of a composer who was still unknown. Musicologists can only guess at the dates of Rameau's six surviving cantatas, and the names of the librettists are unknown.

Instrumental music.

Along with François Couperin, Rameau was a master of the 18th-century French school of harpsichord music, and both made a break with the style of the first generation of harpsichordists whose compositions adhered to the relatively fixed dance-suite mold, which had reached its apogee in the first decade of the 18th century and successive collections of pieces by Louis Marchand, Gaspard Le Roux, Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, Jean-François Dandrieu, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Charles Dieupart and Nicolas Siret. Rameau and Couperin had different styles, and it seems they did not know one another: Couperin was one of the official court musicians; Rameau, fifteen years his junior, achieved fame only after Couperin's death.  Rameau published his first book of harpsichord pieces in 1706. (Cf. Couperin, who waited until 1713 before publishing his first "Ordres.") Rameau's music includes pieces in the pure tradition of the French suite: imitative ("Le rappel des oiseaux," "La poule") and characterful ("Les tendres plaintes," "L'entretien des Muses"). But there are also works of pure virtuosity that resemble Scarlatti ("Les tourbillons," "Les trois mains") as well as pieces that reveal the experiments of a theorist and musical innovator ("L'enharmonique," "Les Cyclopes"), which had a marked influence on Daquin, Royer and Jacques Duphly. Rameau's suites are grouped in the traditional way, by key.  Rameau's second and third collections appeared in 1724 and 1727. After these he composed only one piece for the harpsichord, the eight-minute "La Dauphine" of 1747, while the very short "Les petits marteaux" (c. 1750) has also been attributed to him.  During his semiretirement (1740 to 1744) he wrote the "Pièces de clavecin en concert" (1741), which some musicologists consider the pinnacle of French Baroque chamber music. Adopting a formula successfully employed by Mondonville a few years earlier, Rameau fashioned these pieces differently from trio sonatas in that the harpsichord is not simply there as basso continuo to accompany melody instruments (violin, flute, viol) but as equal partner in "concert" with them. Rameau claimed that this music would be equally satisfying played on the harpsichord alone, but the claim is not wholly convincing because he took the trouble to transcribe five of them himself, those where the lack of other instruments would show the least.

Opera.

After 1733 Rameau dedicated himself mostly to opera. On a strictly musical level, 18th-century French Baroque opera is richer and more varied than contemporary Italian opera, especially in the place given to choruses and dances but also in the musical continuity that arises from the respective relationships between the arias and the recitatives. Another essential difference: whereas Italian opera gave a starring role to female sopranos and castrati, French opera had no use for the latter. The Italian opera of Rameau's day (opera seria, opera buffa) was essentially divided into musical sections (da capo arias, duets, trios, etc.) and sections that were spoken or almost spoken ("recitativo secco"). It was during the latter that the action progressed while the audience waited for the next aria; on the other hand, the text of the arias was almost entirely buried beneath music whose chief aim was to show off the virtuosity of the singer. Nothing of the kind is to be found in French opera of the day; since Lully, the text had to remain comprehensible—limiting certain techniques such as the vocalise, which was reserved for special words such as'("glory") or'("victory"). A subtle equilibrium existed between the more and the less musical parts: melodic recitative on the one hand and arias that were often closer to arioso on the other, alongside virtuoso "ariettes" in the Italian style. This form of continuous music prefigures Wagnerian drama even more than does the "reform" opera of Gluck.  Five essential components may be discerned in Rameau's operatic scores: Rameau was the greatest ballet composer of all times. The genius of his creation rests on one hand on his perfect artistic permeation by folk-dance types, on the other hand on the constant preservation of living contact with the practical requirements of the ballet stage, which prevented an estrangement between the expression of the body from the spirit of absolute music. During the first part of his operatic career (1733–1739), Rameau wrote his great masterpieces destined for the Académie royale de musique: three "tragédies en musique" and two "opéra-ballets" that still form the core of his repertoire. After the interval of 1740 to 1744, he became the official court musician, and for the most part, composed pieces intended to entertain, with plenty of dance music emphasising sensuality and an idealised pastoral atmosphere. In his last years, Rameau returned to a renewed version of his early style in "Les Paladins" and "Les Boréades".  His "Zoroastre" was first performed in 1749. According to one of Rameau's admirers, Cuthbert Girdlestone, this opera has a distinctive place in his works: "The profane passions of hatred and jealousy are rendered more intensely [than in his other works] and with a strong sense of reality."

Rameau and his librettists.

Unlike Lully, who collaborated with Philippe Quinault on almost all his operas, Rameau rarely worked with the same librettist twice. He was highly demanding and bad-tempered, unable to maintain longstanding partnerships with his librettists, with the exception of Louis de Cahusac, who collaborated with him on several operas, including "Les fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour" (1747), "Zaïs" (1748), "Naïs" (1749), "Zoroastre" (1749; revised 1756), "La naissance d'Osiris" (1754), and "Anacréon" (the first of Rameau's operas by that name, 1754). He is also credited with writing the libretto of Rameau's final work, "Les Boréades" (c. 1763).  Many Rameau specialists have regretted that the collaboration with Houdar de la Motte never took place, and that the "Samson" project with Voltaire came to nothing because the librettists Rameau did work with were second-rate. He made his acquaintance of most of them at La Poupelinière's salon, at the Société du Caveau, or at the house of the Comte de Livry, all meeting places for leading cultural figures of the day.  Not one of his librettists managed to produce a libretto on the same artistic level as Rameau's music: the plots were often overly complex or unconvincing. But this was standard for the genre, and is probably part of its charm. The versification, too, was mediocre, and Rameau often had to have the libretto modified and rewrite the music after the premiere because of the ensuing criticism. This is why we have two versions of "Castor et Pollux" (1737 and 1754) and three of "Dardanus" (1739, 1744, and 1760).

Reputation and influence.

By the end of his life, Rameau's music had come under attack in France from theorists who favoured Italian models. However, foreign composers working in the Italian tradition were increasingly looking towards Rameau as a way of reforming their own leading operatic genre, "opera seria". Tommaso Traetta produced two operas setting translations of Rameau libretti that show the French composer's influence, "Ippolito ed Aricia" (1759) and "I Tintaridi" (based on "Castor et Pollux", 1760). Traetta had been advised by Count Francesco Algarotti, a leading proponent of reform according to French models; Algarotti was a major influence on the most important "reformist" composer, Christoph Willibald Gluck. Gluck's three Italian reform operas of the 1760s—"Orfeo ed Euridice", "Alceste", and "Paride ed Elena"—reveal a knowledge of Rameau's works. For instance, both "Orfeo" and the 1737 version of "Castor et Pollux" open with the funeral of one of the leading characters who later comes back to life. Many of the operatic reforms advocated in the preface to Gluck's "Alceste" were already present in Rameau's works. Rameau had used accompanied recitatives, and the overtures in his later operas reflected the action to come, so when Gluck arrived in Paris in 1774 to produce a series of six French operas, he could be seen as continuing in the tradition of Rameau. Nevertheless, while Gluck's popularity survived the French Revolution, Rameau's did not. By the end of the 18th century, his operas had vanished from the repertoire.  For most of the 19th century, Rameau's music remained unplayed, known only by reputation. Hector Berlioz investigated "Castor et Pollux" and particularly admired the aria "Tristes apprêts," but "whereas the modern listener readily perceives the common ground with Berlioz' music, he himself was more conscious of the gap which separated them." French humiliation in the Franco-Prussian War brought about a change in Rameau's fortunes. As Rameau biographer J. Malignon wrote, "...the German victory over France in 1870–71 was the grand occasion for digging up great heroes from the French past. Rameau, like so many others, was flung into the enemy's face to bolster our courage and our faith in the national destiny of France." In 1894, composer Vincent d'Indy founded the Schola Cantorum to promote French national music; the society put on several revivals of works by Rameau. Among the audience was Claude Debussy, who especially cherished "Castor et Pollux", revived in 1903: "Gluck's genius was deeply rooted in Rameau's works... a detailed comparison allows us to affirm that Gluck could replace Rameau on the French stage only by assimilating the latter's beautiful works and making them his own." Camille Saint-Saëns (by editing and publishing the "Pièces" in 1895) and Paul Dukas were two other important French musicians who gave practical championship to Rameau's music in their day, but interest in Rameau petered out again, and it was not until the late 20th century that a serious effort was made to revive his works. Over half of Rameau's operas have now been recorded, in particular by conductors such as John Eliot Gardiner, William Christie, and Marc Minkowski.

Theoretical works.

"Treatise on Harmony", 1722.

Rameau's 1722 "Treatise on Harmony" initiated a revolution in music theory. Rameau posited the discovery of the "fundamental law" or what he referred to as the "fundamental bass" of all Western music. Heavily influenced by new Cartesian modes of thought and analysis, Rameau's methodology incorporated mathematics, commentary, analysis and a didacticism that was specifically intended to illuminate, scientifically, the structure and principles of music. With careful deductive reasoning, he attempted to derive universal harmonic principles from natural causes. Previous treatises on harmony had been purely practical; Rameau embraced the new philosophical rationalism, quickly rising to prominence in France as the "Isaac Newton of Music." His fame subsequently spread throughout all Europe, and his "Treatise" became the definitive authority on music theory, forming the foundation for instruction in western music that persists to this day.

List of works.

RCT numbering refers to "Rameau Catalogue Thématique" established by Sylvie Bouissou and Denis Herlin.

Operas and stage works.

Incidental music for "opéras comiques".

Music mostly lost.

References.

Notes  Sources

External links.

Sheet music

Jean-Philippe Rameau (; – ) was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the 18th century. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François Couperin.

Jean-Philippe Rameau (25. září 1683, Dijon, Francie – 12. září 1764, Paříž, Francie) byl jeden z nejdůležitějších francouzských skladatelů a teoretiků hudby barokní éry. Byl nástupcem slavného Jeana-Baptisty Lullyho jako dominantní skladatel francouzské opery, a několikrát byl napadán zastánci italské operní školy (intelektuální debata, tzv. „válka šašků“ v roce 1752). Jeho přínosem světu opery bylo zavedení přizpůsobivosti, dramatičnosti a výraznosti, na což později navázal svým dílem Gluck. Dalším příjemným oživením byla pestrost jeho meziher vkládaných do oper.


History.

The name "Cotonou" means "by the river of death" in the Fon language. At the beginning of the 19th century, Cotonou (then spelled "Kutonou") was a small fishing village, and is thought to have been formally founded by King Ghezo of Dahomey in 1830. It grew as a centre for the slave trade, and later palm oil and cotton. In 1851 the French Second Republic made a treaty with King Ghezo that allowed them to establish a trading post at Cotonou. During the reign of King Glele (1858–89), the territory was ceded to the Second French Empire by a treaty signed in 1878. In 1883, the French Navy occupied the city to prevent British conquest of the area. After Glele's death in 1889, King Béhanzin unsuccessfully tried to challenge the treaty. The town grew rapidly following the building of the harbour in 1908.

Geography.

Cotonou is on the coastal strip between Lake Nokoué and the Atlantic Ocean. The city is cut in two by a canal, the lagoon of Cotonou, dug by the French in 1855. Three bridges are in this area. The Ouémé River flows into the Atlantic Ocean at Cotonou.  The city has established transportation infrastructure including air, sea, river (to Porto Novo), and land routes that facilitate trade with its neighbors Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Togo.  Coastal erosion has been noted for several decades. It worsened in 1961 following construction of the Nangbeto Dam and deep-water port of Cotonou. A pilot project funded by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) revealed that in 40 years, the coast to the east of Cotonou had retreated by 400 meters. This erosion has led many people to leave their homes along the coast.

Climate.

Under Köppen's climate classification, Cotonou features a tropical wet and dry climate, alternating with two rainy seasons (April–July and September–October, 800 to of rain per year) and two dry seasons. In December and January, the city is affected by harmattan winds. Temperatures are relatively constant throughout the year, with the average high temperatures hovering around, and average low temperatures at around.

Demographics.

French is the official language of Benin. Other languages spoken in Cotonou include Fon, Aja and Yoruba.

Transport.

The Autonomous Port of Cotonou is one of the largest in West Africa. The city is connected to Parakou in the north by the Benin-Niger railway. Cotonou International Airport provides service to the capitals of the region and to France, as well as the major cities of Benin: Parakou, Kandi, Natitingou, Djougou, and Savé. There are road connections to neighboring countries: Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Togo. A prevalent mode of transport in the city is the motorcycle-taxi, known locally as zémidjan.  In 2015 a suburban passenger railway line was being developed between Cotonou and Pahou.

Economy.

Important manufactured goods include palm oil, brewing, textiles, and cement. Motor vehicles and bicycles are assembled, and there are sawmills in the city. Petroleum products, bauxite, and iron are major exports. There are offshore platforms drilling for oil. The city is a centre for the automotive trade, with European brands being sold from vast open-air parking lots. In the past, Citroën assembled cars (for instance, the Citroën 2CV and Ami 8) locally.  By 2012, piracy in the Gulf of Guinea had significantly decreased trade at the port of Cotonou.  In the Missebo area is a textile market of African prints mainly handled by Indian wholesalers and retailers.

Places of worship.

Among the places of worship, Christian churches are predominant: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cotonou (Catholic Church), Protestant Methodist Church in Benin (World Methodist Council), Baptist Church of Benin (Baptist World Alliance), Living Faith Church Worldwide, Redeemed Christian Church of God, Assemblies of God. There are also Muslim mosques.

Education.

The city has a campus of the University of Science and Technology of Benin (Université des sciences et technologies du Bénin) and a campus of the African University of Technology and Management (Université africaine de technologie et de management). It also hosts one of the most prestigious private universities in Africa, Institut Superieur de Communication d’Organisation et de Management, Iscom University Benin.

Media.

The Office de Radiodiffusion et Télévision du Bénin (ORTB) — the national television and radio operator — is based in Cotonou.

Cotonou (; ) is the largest city and economic centre of Benin. Its official population count was 761,137 inhabitants in 2006; however, some estimates indicate its population to be as high as 2.4 million. The population in 1960 was only 70,000. The urban area continues to expand, notably toward the west. The city lies in the southeast of the country, between the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Nokoué.

Cotonou je největší město a ekonomicky nejvýznamnější město v Beninu (hlavním městem je Porto Novo). Jedná se o nejdůležitější přístav země, v roce 2012 zde žilo 779,314 obyvatel, okolní aglomeraci však podle odhadů obývá přes 1,2 miliónů obyvatel. V roce 1960 mělo město přitom pouze 70 000 obyvatel. Ve městě sídlí také vláda. Zeměpisné souřadnice jsou 6°22' severní šířky a 2°26' východní délky.


Early life.

Max Wertheimer was born on April 15, 1880 in Prague, then part of the Bohemian Austria-Hungary. Max was born to Wilhelm and Rosa Wertheimer, second to his brother Walter. Wilhelm Wertheimer was a successful educator, as well as financier. Rosa Wilhelm, born Rosa Zwicker, had a rich classical education. The Wertheimers were active in the Jewish community in which they lived. The Wertheimer household was extremely intellectual, therefore Max received education from both his parents; he engaged in political and educational discussions at home, as well as taking piano and violin lessons. After he received one of Baruch Spinoza's books as a gift, he developed an interest towards philosophy. He felt that he and Spinoza shared a culture and common traits.  Max began his formal education at age five, at a private elementary school maintained by the Piarist order of the Roman Catholic Church. It was not uncommon at this time for Jewish children in central Europe to receive educations from the Catholic Church. At age ten, Max graduated from the Piarist Grammar School and enrolled in the Royal Imperial New City German State High School where he could expect to obtain a degree that would qualify him for admittance to a University. Due to the diverse courses offered by the University, Max began to contemplate his future, and realized his deep fascination with philosophy. Max first started studying law at Charles University, where he also explored other fields such as philosophy, music, physiology, and psychology. After a year, Max left and enrolled in University of Berlin where he shifted his study to philosophy. At Berlin, Max was able to work in the company of notable figures such as Carl Stumpf, Friederich Schumann, Georg Elias Müller, and Erich von Hornbostel. Later on in 1903 he got his PhD from the University of Würzburg. There he completed research on the lie detector.

Later life.

Max Wertheimer began his academic career at an institute in Frankfurt, later to become the University of Frankfurt. Max left Frankfurt from 1916 to 1929 to pursue a job at the Berlin Psychological Institute but returned to Frankfurt in 1929 as a full professor, where he stayed until 1933. In 1923, while teaching in Berlin, Wertheimer married Anna Caro (called Anni), a physician's daughter, with whom he had four children: Rudolf (who died in infancy, 1924), Valentin (1925-1978), Michael (born 1927) and Lise (born 1928, Lisbeth Rosa). Max and Anna Wertheimer divorced in 1942.  Wertheimer represented his country in World War I as a captain in the army. After coming back from the war he gave lectures and pursued his research on perception and gestalt in the University of Berlin until 1933. But in 1933, dramatic changes in Germany's regime encouraged or convinced Wertheimer to leave Germany; he heard Hitler's declarations on the media and he felt his Jewish roots were not going to be tolerated or accepted by the government directed by Adolf Hitler. So before Hitler rose to power, the Wertheimer family joined the other German emigres and moved to the United States. The Wertheimers' emigration was arranged through the U.S. consulate in Prague, and he and his wife and their children arrived in New York harbor on September 13, 1933. The family became citizens as well; that's why Max Wertheimer is referred to as a German-American psychologist.  Along with his move to America, Max accepted a professional position at age fifty-three in New York City at the New School for Social Research. The New School was only fourteen years-old when Max got the chance to teach various courses there. Max remained at the New School for the last decade of his life. He remained in touch with his European colleagues, many of whom had also emigrated to America. Koffka was teaching at Smith College; Köhler at Swarthmore College; and Lewin at Cornell University and the University of Iowa. Although in declining health, he continued to work on his research of problem-solving, what he preferred to call "productive thinking." He completed his only book, "Productive Thinking" on the subject in late September 1943. Max died of a heart attack just three weeks after the completion of his book at his home in New Rochelle, New York. Wertheimer is interred in Beechwoods Cemetery, also in New Rochelle. Max is father of Michael Wertheimer, a successful psychologist.

Phi phenomenon.

Max Wertheimer began the formal founding of Gestalt psychology in 1910 as he began experiments on the phi phenomenon. He published these experiments in a paper titled "Experimental Studies on the Perception of Movement". The phi phenomenon is apparent movement caused by alternating light positions. Wertheimer illustrated this phenomenon on an apparatus he built that utilized two discrete lights on different locations. Although the lights are stationary, flashing the lights at succeeding time intervals causes the retina to perceive the light as moving. Wertheimer worked with partners Koffka and Köhler to collect data which ultimately led to their launch of the Gestalt movement. Their findings further demonstrated that the quality of the whole is different from the sum of the parts. The explanation of the phi phenomena was that movement is perceived because the eye itself moves in response to the successive flashes of light. The movement an observer experiences is based on feedback from the moving eye. The researchers maintained that human perception is prone to such illusions and they speculated that it is more meaningful to connect close-together events than to keep them artificially separate.

Productive thinking.

As a Gestalt theorist, Max Wertheimer was interested in perception, but additionally interested in thought. Max published his ideas in his book "Productive Thinking" (1945) before his death in 1943. Wertheimer was interested in making a distinction between reproductive thinking and productive thinking. Reproductive thinking is associated with repetition, conditioning, habits or familiar intellectual territory. Productive thinking is the product of new ideas and breakthroughs. Productive thinking is insight-based reasoning. Wertheimer argued that only insightful reasoning could bring true understanding of conceptual problems and relationships. Wertheimer encouraged training in traditional logic. He believed traditional logic stimulated thinking. However, he believed that logic alone did not give rise to productive thinking. He believed creativity was also crucial to engage in positive thinking. In "Productive Thinking," similar to his lectures, Wertheimer used concrete examples to illustrate his principles. Wertheimer used these illustrations to demonstrate the transition from S1, a state where nothing really seems to make sense, to S2, where everything seems clear and the concept grasped. He points out in "Productive Thinking" that solving a problem by blind obedience to rules prevents real understanding of the problems. He believes that this blind obedience forestalls a person from uncovering the solution. Max Wertheimer's ideas of productive thinking are of continuing relevance in modern ideas of schemas, plans, and knowledge structures today.

Gestalt theory.

Wertheimer developed his Gestalt theory in 1910 while he was on board a train from Vienna for a vacation in Germany's Rhineland. Gestalt, in the closest English definition of the term, is translated potentially as configuration, form, holistic, structure, and pattern. According to Gestalt psychology, perception is a whole. In this sense, perception can shape vision and the other senses. In addition, the theory also maintained that the whole is not only greater than its components but also different from those components. By 1920, Wertheimer added the position that the properties of any parts are governed by the structural laws of the whole. Later efforts to discover such laws had limited success. Wertheimer's work on gestalt psychology with his colleagues at The New School was seen as an opposition and alternative to the behavioral approach to psychology.  Wertheimer started the cognitive school of psychology. His ideas also challenged structuralism and atomism, in that he and other gestalt psychologists were more concerned about the whole rather than small structures or fragments of an object.

Max Wertheimer (April 15, 1880 – October 12, 1943) was an Austro-Hungarian-born psychologist who was one of the three founders of Gestalt psychology, along with Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler. He is known for his book, "Productive Thinking", and for conceiving the phi phenomenon as part of his work in Gestalt psychology.

Max Wertheimer (15. dubna 1880, Praha-Josefov - 12. října 1943, New Rochelle, New York) byl spolu s Kurtem Koffkou a Wolfgangem Köhlerem jeden ze zakladatelů tvarové psychologie (Gestaltpsychologie).


Skewes's numbers.

John Edensor Littlewood, who was Skewes's research supervisor, had proved in that there is such a number (and so, a first such number); and indeed found that the sign of the difference formula_4 changes infinitely often. All numerical evidence then available seemed to suggest that formula_5 was always less than formula_6. Littlewood's proof did not, however, exhibit a concrete such number formula_1.  In, without assuming the Riemann hypothesis, Skewes proved that there must exist a value of formula_1 below  Skewes's task was to make Littlewood's existence proof effective: exhibiting some concrete upper bound for the first sign change. According to Georg Kreisel, this was at the time not considered obvious even in principle.

More recent estimates.

These upper bounds have since been reduced considerably by using large scale computer calculations of zeros of the Riemann zeta function. The first estimate for the actual value of a crossover point was given by, who showed that somewhere between formula_13 and formula_14 there are more than formula_15 consecutive integers formula_1 with formula_17. Without assuming the Riemann hypothesis, proved an upper bound of formula_18. A better estimate was formula_19 discovered by, who showed there are at least formula_20 consecutive integers somewhere near this value where formula_2 and suggested that there are probably at least formula_22. Bays and Hudson found a few much smaller values of formula_1 where formula_5 gets close to formula_6; the possibility that there are crossover points near these values does not seem to have been definitely ruled out yet, though computer calculations suggest they are unlikely to exist. gave a small improvement and correction to the result of Bays and Hudson. found a smaller interval for a crossing, which was slightly improved by. The same source shows that there exists a number formula_1 violating formula_9 below formula_28. This can be reduced to formula_29, assuming the Riemann hypothesis. gave formula_30.  Rigorously, proved that there are no crossover points below formula_31, improved by to formula_32, by to formula_33, by to formula_34, and by to formula_35.  There is no explicit value formula_1 known for certain to have the property formula_2 though computer calculations suggest some explicit numbers that are quite likely to satisfy this.  Even though the natural density of the positive integers for which formula_17 does not exist, showed that the logarithmic density of these positive integers does exist and is positive. showed that this proportion is about 0.00000026, which is surprisingly large given how far one has to go to find the first example.

Riemann's formula.

Riemann gave an explicit formula for formula_5, whose leading terms are (ignoring some subtle convergence questions)  where the sum is over all formula_41 in the set of non-trivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function.  The largest error term in the approximation formula_42 (if the Riemann hypothesis is true) is negative formula_43, showing that formula_6 is usually larger than formula_5. The other terms above are somewhat smaller, and moreover tend to have different, seemingly random complex arguments, so mostly cancel out. Occasionally however, several of the larger ones might happen to have roughly the same complex argument, in which case they will reinforce each other instead of cancelling and will overwhelm the term formula_43.  The reason why the Skewes number is so large is that these smaller terms are quite a "lot" smaller than the leading error term, mainly because the first complex zero of the zeta function has quite a large imaginary part, so a large number (several hundred) of them need to have roughly the same argument in order to overwhelm the dominant term. The chance of formula_47 random complex numbers having roughly the same argument is about 1 in formula_48. This explains why formula_5 is sometimes larger than formula_50 and also why it is rare for this to happen. It also shows why finding places where this happens depends on large scale calculations of millions of high precision zeros of the Riemann zeta function.  The argument above is not a proof, as it assumes the zeros of the Riemann zeta function are random, which is not true. Roughly speaking, Littlewood's proof consists of Dirichlet's approximation theorem to show that sometimes many terms have about the same argument. In the event that the Riemann hypothesis is false, the argument is much simpler, essentially because the terms formula_51 for zeros violating the Riemann hypothesis (with real part greater than ) are eventually larger than formula_52.  The reason for the term formula_53 is that, roughly speaking, formula_54 actually counts powers of primes, rather than the primes themselves, with formula_55 weighted by formula_56. The term formula_53 is roughly analogous to a second-order correction accounting for squares of primes.

Equivalent for prime k-tuples.

An equivalent definition of Skewes' number exists for prime k-tuples (). Let formula_58 denote a prime k+1-tuple, formula_59 the number of primes formula_60 below formula_1 such that formula_62 are all prime, let formula_63 and let formula_64 denote its Hardy-Littlewood constant (see first Hardy-Littlewood conjecture). Then the first prime formula_60 that violates the Hardy-Littlewood inequality for the k+1-tuple formula_66, i.e., the first prime formula_60 such that (if such a prime exists) is the "Skewes number for formula_66".  The table below shows the currently known Skewes numbers for prime k-tuples:  The Skewes number (if it exists) for sexy primes formula_70 is still unknown.

In number theory, Skewes's number is any of several large numbers used by the South African mathematician Stanley Skewes as upper bounds for the smallest natural number formula_1 for which where is the prime-counting function and is the logarithmic integral function. There is a crossing near formula_3 It is not known whether it is the smallest.

První a druhé Skewesovo číslo jsou jedněmi z největších čísel, která byla použita v matematice. Jsou pojmenována po jihoafrickém matematikovi Stanleym Skewesovi, který je poprvé použil. Obě Skewesova čísla byla ve své době nejmenšími známými horními odhady pro řešení dvou souvisejících problémů teorie čísel. První Skewesovo číslo bývá často nazýváno jen Skewesovo číslo.


Bid process.

The hosting of the event was contested by bids from France and West Germany. The French bid was unanimously selected by the UEFA Executive Committee at a meeting on 10 December 1981.

Tournament summary.

Group matches.

The opening game of tournament featured France and Denmark. The sides played out a very close encounter until Michel Platini's goal on 78 minutes gave the hosts a 1–0 victory. The opening game also saw a premature end to the tournament for Danish midfielder Allan Simonsen, who suffered a broken leg. Platini then scored hat-tricks against both Belgium and Yugoslavia as the French recorded maximum points in Group 1. Denmark took second place in the group with victories over Belgium and Yugoslavia, while Belgium finished third with two points. Yugoslavia, despite going out with no points, gave the hosts a fright in their last group game when they took a 1–0 lead into half-time and then reduced France's 3–1 lead to one goal six minutes from time. The games in Group 1 were unusually high-scoring, and featured 23 goals over the six matches.  Group 2 provided fewer goals, but produced a huge surprise as West Germany failed to qualify for the semi-finals after a 1–0 defeat in their last match to Spain with a late goal by Antonio Maceda, and a late Portugal win against Romania that sent the holders out.

Semi-finals and final.

The first semi-final between France and Portugal is often considered one of the best matches in the history of the European Championship. Jean-François Domergue opened the scoring for France but Portugal equalised through Rui Jordão on 74 minutes. The game went to extra time and Jordão scored again in the 98th minute to give the Portuguese a shock lead, but the French rallied and Domergue equalised with six minutes left. Then, in the dying moments of the match and with a penalty shoot-out looming, Platini scored his eighth goal of the championship to give France a memorable 3–2 victory.  The other semi-final between Spain and Denmark saw two evenly matched sides draw 1–1 after extra time, as Søren Lerby's goal after only seven minutes was cancelled out by Maceda’s strike an hour later. The match went to a penalty shoot-out, and Spain converted all five of their penalties to win 5–4 and reach the final for the first time since 1964.  The final was played to a capacity crowd at the Parc des Princes in Paris. Just before the hour mark, Platini scored from a free-kick to put France ahead following a mistake by Spanish goalkeeper Luis Arconada. France were reduced to ten players when Yvon Le Roux was sent off, but Spain were unable to equalise, and Bruno Bellone's goal in injury time made the final score 2–0. France had won their first major championship in world football.

Organisation.

Tournament format.

After trying out several formats, UEFA finally developed for the 1984 tournament the format that would serve for all subsequent eight-team European Championships. The eight qualified teams were split into two groups of four that played a round-robin schedule. The top two teams of each group advanced to semi-finals (reintroduced after being absent from the 1980 tournament) and the winners advanced to the final. The third place play-off, widely perceived as an unnecessary chore, was dropped. As usual at the time, a win was credited with two points only, teams on equal points were ranked by goal difference instead of head-to-head results, and the sudden-death rule in extra time did not apply.  Fixtures were scheduled according to an innovative rotation schedule in which each team played its three first-round matches in three different stadia. Host France, for instance, played in Paris, Nantes, and Saint-Étienne. This formula had the advantage of exposing residents of a given city to more teams but implied multiple and sometimes costly trips from town to town for fans who wanted to follow their side. In subsequent championships, the organisers reverted to conventional schedules in which teams played in one or two cities only.

Overall impressions.

Very few hooligan-related incidents were recorded throughout the tournament. Only one minor instance of fan trouble was recorded, in Strasbourg around the West Germany vs. Portugal match. The small group of German hooligans responsible for the incidents was arrested and deported back to West Germany on the same day using a new law specially passed by the French Parliament ahead of the Euro. Overall, the organisation was flawless, a feat that established France's credentials as a host nation and eventually helped it win the right to stage the 1998 FIFA World Cup.  The entire competition was marked by exceptionally fine weather which, along with the high quality of play throughout the tournament (a welcome change from the 1980 European Championship) and the absence of hooligans, contributed to a very positive and enjoyable experience for teams and fans alike.

Mascot.

The official mascot of this European Championship was Peno, a rooster, representing the emblem of the host nation, France. It has the number 84 on the left side of its chest and its outfit is the same as the French national team, blue shirt, white shorts and red socks.

Venues.

France's winning bid to host the Euro was based on seven stadia. The 48,000-seat Parc des Princes in Paris was the venue for the opening match and the final. Built in 1972, it was still state-of-the-art in 1984 and needed minor improvements only. Marseille's Stade Vélodrome was expanded to 55,000 seats to host one semi-final and some group matches, becoming France's largest stadium on the occasion. Stade de Gerland in Lyon, the venue for the other semi-final and some group matches as well, was thoroughly renovated and expanded to 40,000. Stade Geoffroy-Guichard in Saint-Étienne and Stade Félix-Bollaert in Lens were the other existing stadia that hosted group matches and were expanded to 53,000 and 49,000, respectively. Lastly, two all-new stadia were built to host group matches (and subsequently provided worthy home grounds for the traditionally strong local club teams): Stade de la Beaujoire in Nantes (53,000) was built on an entirely new site while Stade de la Meinau in Strasbourg was rebuilt from the ground up on the site of the old stadium into a modern 40,000-seat arena.

Squads.

Each national team had to submit a squad of 20 players.

Group stage.

The teams finishing in the top two positions in each of the two groups progress to the semi-finals, while the bottom two teams in each group were eliminated from the tournament.  "All times are local, CEST ()."

Tiebreakers.

If two or more teams finished level on points after completion of the group matches, the following tie-breakers were used to determine the final ranking:

Knockout stage.

In the knockout phase, extra time and a penalty shoot-out were used to decide the winner if necessary.  For the first time at a European Championship, there was no third place play-off.  "All times are local, CEST ()."

The 1984 UEFA European Football Championship final tournament was held in France from 12 to 27 June 1984. It was the seventh European Football Championship, a competition held every four years and endorsed by UEFA.

Mistrovství Evropy ve fotbale 1984 se konalo ve Francii. Dalo by se bez špetky nadsázky nazvat jako galapředstavení Michela Platiniho. Kapitán "galského kohouta" dovedl mužstvo k metě nejvyšší jednak svými režisérskými schopnostmi, jednak skvostnou ofenzivní formou – devět gólů v pěti zápasech se zařadilo mezi rekordy ME, které steží kdy někdo překoná. Kromě technickými finesami prošpikované hry Francouzů uchvátili publikum bezstarostným fotbalem Dánové. K postupu do finále jim v penaltovém rozstřelu proti Španělům chybělo kousek štěstí. Dalo by se klidně říci, že "umřeli na krásu".


Bid process.

On 16 December 1988, Sweden was chosen over Spain to host the event, following a decision made by the UEFA Executive Committee. Spain was at a disadvantage as they had already been chosen to host the EXPO 1992 in Seville and the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona.

Summary.

Seven of the eight teams had to qualify for the final stage; Sweden qualified automatically as hosts of the event. The Soviet Union qualified for the finals shortly before the break-up of the country, and took part in the tournament under the banner of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), before the former Soviet republics formed their own national teams after the competition. The CIS team represented the following ex-Soviet republics: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, and Tajikistan. Four out of 15 ex-republics were not members of the CIS: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania did not send their players; Georgia was not a member of the CIS at the time, but Georgian Kakhaber Tskhadadze was a part of the squad.  Originally, Yugoslavia qualified for the final stage and were to participate as FR Yugoslavia, but due to the Yugoslav wars, the team was disqualified and their qualifying group's runner-up, Denmark, took part in the championship. They shocked the continent when Peter Schmeichel saved Marco van Basten's penalty in the semi-final penalty shoot-out against the Netherlands, thus defeating the defending European champions. The shock was compounded when Denmark went on to defeat the reigning world champions Germany 2–0 to win the European title.

Squads.

Match ball.

Adidas Etrusco Unico was used as the official match ball of the tournament. The ball was previously used in the 1990 FIFA World Cup.

Group stage.

Tiebreakers.

Knockout stage.

In the knockout phase, extra time and a penalty shoot-out were used to decide the winner if necessary.  As with every tournament since UEFA Euro 1984, there was no third place play-off.  "All times are local, CEST ()."

Marketing.

Slogan and theme song.

"Small is Beautiful" was the official slogan of the contest. The official anthem of the tournament was "More Than a Game", performed by Towe Jaarnek and Peter Jöback.

Logo and identity.

It was the last tournament to use the UEFA plus flag logo, and the last before the tournament came to be known as "Euro" (it is known as "Euro 1992" only retrospectively). It was also the first major football competition in which the players had their names printed on their backs, at around the time that it was becoming a trend in club football across Europe.

Mascot.

The official mascot of the competition was a rabbit named Rabbit, dressed in a Swedish football jersey, and wearing head and wristbands while playing with a ball.

The 1992 UEFA European Football Championship was hosted by Sweden between 10 and 26 June 1992. It was the ninth European Football Championship, which is held every four years and supported by UEFA.

Mistrovství Evropy ve fotbale 1992 bylo deváté v pořadí, finálový turnaj se odehrál ve Švédsku. Na něj postoupilo 7 vítězů kvalifikačních skupin, spolu s domácími se ho tak zúčastnilo 8 týmů, což bylo naposled v historii (od příštího mistrovství v Anglii jich už bylo 16).


Bid process.

At the time of the bidding process, it had not yet been confirmed that 16 teams would be participating. Instead, the bids were largely prepared as if hosting an eight-team tournament, meaning only four venues were due to be required. All candidates had to submit their plans by 10 December 1991.  The hosting of the event was contested by five bids: Austria, England, Greece, the Netherlands and Portugal. The English bid was selected by the UEFA Executive Committee at a meeting in Lisbon on 5 May 1992. In the year preceding the decision, the English FA had dropped plans to also bid for the 1998 World Cup in order to gain the support of other UEFA members who were planning to bid for that event.

Summary.

Group matches.

The hosts, England, drew 1–1 with Switzerland in the opening match of Group A when Alan Shearer's 23rd-minute goal was cancelled out by a late Kubilay Türkyilmaz penalty kick. England defeated rivals Scotland 2–0 in their next game, and then produced one of their finest performances ever with a 4–1 win over the Netherlands. Patrick Kluivert's late goal for the Netherlands secured his team second place in the group and ensured that Scotland would exit another major competition on tie-breaking criteria.  Group B had Western European France and Spain, along with Balkan World Cup participants Romania and Bulgaria. France and Spain dominated the group, with France avenging Bulgaria for the 1994 qualification debacle, and World Cup quarter-finalists Romania going home, with no points and only one goal scored.  Groups C and D saw the Czech Republic and Croatia, whose national teams had only recently come into existence, qualify for the knockout stage. The Czechs lost to Germany, the eventual group winners, in their opener, but then defeated Italy and drew with Russia. Italy's defeat meant they had to beat Germany in their final game to progress, but the World Cup finalists could only manage a 0–0 draw and were eliminated. In Group D, Croatia qualified for the quarter-finals, with wins over Turkey (1–0) and Denmark (3–0). The loss to the Croats ultimately sent the Danes, the surprise champions of 1992, home. Turkey became the first team since the introduction of a group stage to be eliminated without gaining a point or scoring a goal.  The other three quarter-finalists were Portugal (whose "Golden Generation" was competing at its first major tournament), Spain, and a France team featuring a young Zinedine Zidane.

Quarter-finals and semi-finals.

The knockout stage was characterised by negative, defensive play; as a result, only nine goals were scored in the seven games and four of the matches were decided on penalties. The first quarter-final between the hosts and Spain ended goalless, after Spain had two goals disallowed and two claims for a penalty denied. The English progressed 4–2 on spot kicks. France and Netherlands also played out a 0–0 draw, with France winning the penalty shootout 5–4. Jürgen Klinsmann opened the scoring for Germany in their match against Croatia. A goal from Davor Šuker evened the score after 51 minutes, before Matthias Sammer of Germany scored eight minutes later, and the game ended 2–1 to Germany. Czech Republic progressed after beating Portugal 1–0.  The first semi-final, featuring France and Czech Republic, resulted in another 0–0 draw and penalties. Reynald Pedros was the one player to miss in the shootout, as Czech Republic won the penalty shoot-out 6–5. The other semi-final was a repeat of the 1990 World Cup semi-final between Germany and England. Alan Shearer headed in after three minutes to give his side the lead, but Stefan Kuntz evened the score less than 15 minutes later, and the score remained 1–1 after 90 minutes. In extra time, Paul Gascoigne came very close to scoring a golden goal, but fractionally missed a cross from Shearer in front of the empty goal, Darren Anderton hit the post, and Kuntz had a goal disallowed for pushing. Neither team was able to find a second goal. In penalties, both sides scored their first five kicks, but in the sixth round, Gareth Southgate had his penalty saved, allowing Andreas Möller to score the winning goal.

Final match.

The final saw the Czech Republic hoping to repeat Euro 1976 when Czechoslovakia defeated West Germany; the Germans were aiming to win their third European Championship. Patrik Berger scored from a penalty in 59th minute to put the Czechs ahead. German substitute Oliver Bierhoff scored in the 73rd minute to make it 1–1. Five minutes into extra time, Bierhoff's shot was mishandled by Czech goalkeeper Kouba and the ball ended up in the back of the net for the first golden goal in the history of the competition. Germany were European champions again, but for the first time as a unified country.

Qualification.

On 30 November 1992, UEFA formally decided to expand the tournament to sixteen teams. UEFA cited the increased number of international teams following the recent break up of the Soviet Union and of Yugoslavia – rising from 33 UEFA members in 1988 to 48 by 1994 – as a driving factor behind the expansion. Forty-seven teams ultimately entered to compete for the fifteen remaining places in the finals, alongside hosts England.  The draw for the qualifying competition took place in Manchester on 22 January 1994. The teams were divided into eight groups, each containing either six or five teams. The qualifying process began in April 1994 and concluded in December 1995. At the conclusion of the qualifying group stage in November 1995, the eight group winners qualified automatically, along with the six highest ranked second placed teams. The remaining two second placed teams – The Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland – contested a one-off play-off match in England to decide the final qualifier.

Qualified teams.

With the extended format, three teams were able to qualify for their first European Championship: Bulgaria, Switzerland and Turkey. Croatia, the Czech Republic and Russia competed for the first time in their own right since the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union (though the Russian team is considered by FIFA to be the direct descendant of the Soviet Union and CIS teams that had appeared in six past tournaments and the Czech team is the descendant of the Czechoslovakia team). Seven of the eight participants at the previous tournament in 1992 were again present, with only Sweden – despite also having finished third in the World Cup two years earlier – missing out.  The following sixteen teams qualified for the finals:

Final draw.

The draw for the final tournament took place on 17 December 1995 at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham. Only four teams were seeded: England (as hosts), Denmark (as holders), Spain and Germany. The remaining twelve teams were all unseeded and could be drawn in any group.  In the draw procedure, the unseeded teams were drawn one-by-one and placed consecutively into four groups labeled I to IV. The first four were placed in position 4 of each group, the next four in position 3, and the last 4 in position 2. Next the four seeded teams were drawn and placed consecutively into position 1 of the groups. While it was decreed in advance that England's group (labeled as III) would be Group A, the remaining three groups then consecutively (from I, II, to IV) had a letter drawn to decide the name of their group, and therefore determine what venues they would play at. The balls were drawn by UEFA figures Gerhard Aigner and Lennart Johansson.  The draw resulted in the following groups:

Venues.

Since the implementation of the Taylor Report in 1990, following the 1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster, England now had enough all-seater stadia of sufficient capacity to hold an expanded tournament due to the necessary stadium refurbishment by its leading clubs. The stadium capacities listed in the table are for the time of the tournament.

Squads.

Each national team had to submit a squad of 22 players, three of whom must be goalkeepers.

Finals format.

To accommodate the expansion from an 8-team finals tournament to 16 teams, the format was changed from that used in 1992 with the addition of two extra groups in the group stage, and an extra round in the knockout phases. The four groups (A to D) still contained four teams each, with the top two from each group still going through to the knockout phase. 8 teams then went into the new quarter-finals, ahead of the usual semi-finals and final, with 8 teams going out at the group stage. The format is exactly the one which was applied to the 1962, 1966 and 1970 World Cups, except for the absence of a third place play-off.

Match ball.

A custom version of the Adidas Questra, the "Questra Europa", was the official match ball of the championships. The design of the ball included a reworking of the England badge, and was the first coloured ball in a major football tournament.

Match officials.

Match officials are listed in the two collapsed tables below.

Group stage.

The teams finishing in the top two positions in each of the four groups progress to the quarter-finals, while the bottom two teams in each group were eliminated from the tournament. For the first time at a European Championship three points were awarded for a win, with one for a draw and a none for a defeat.  "All times are local, BST ()."

Tiebreakers.

If two or more teams finished level on points after completion of the group matches, the following tie-breakers were used to determine the final ranking:

Knockout stage.

The knockout stage was a single-elimination tournament with each round eliminating the losers. Any game that was undecided by the end of the regular 90 minutes, was followed by up to thirty minutes of extra time. For the first time in a major football competition, the golden goal system was applied, whereby the first team to score during the extra time would become the winner. If no goal was scored there would be a penalty shoot-out to determine the winner. For the first time the final was won by a golden goal.  As with every tournament since UEFA Euro 1984, there was no third place play-off.  "All times are local, BST ()."  Alan Shearer was awarded the Golden Boot award, after scoring five goals in the group stage and in the semi-finals against Germany.

Marketing.

Slogan and theme songs.

The competition slogan was Football Comes Home reflecting that the sport's rules were first standardised in the United Kingdom. UEFA President Lennart Johansson had said that the organisation had felt it time to bring the event "back to the motherland of football".  The slogan was incorporated into the competition's most popular song: "Three Lions" recorded by comedians David Baddiel and Frank Skinner with Britpop band the Lightning Seeds. Baddiel and Skinner were then strongly connected with football owing to their BBC show "Fantasy Football League". Released as a single, the song topped the UK Singles Chart for a total of two weeks. It was promoted by a video featuring the England squad.  The song was prominently sung by England fans during all their games, and was also chanted by the German team upon parading the trophy in Berlin after the tournament. It was even referenced by future Prime Minister Tony Blair in an address at the 1996 Labour Party Conference with the line: ""Seventeen years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming, Labour's coming home"."  "Three Lions" was the official song of the England team, and is the song most strongly connected with the tournament, however the official song of the tournament was "We're in This Together" by Simply Red. The song was performed at the tournament's opening ceremony.

Merchandise and mascots.

The British Royal Mint issued a commemorative £2 coin in 1996, which featured a representation of a football, "1996" in the centre, and 16 small rings representing the 16 competing teams. Further special coins were only issued in the Isle of Man and Gibraltar.  The official mascot, 'Goaliath', was designed in a similar fashion to the original World Cup mascot from the 1966 World Cup. Goaliath comprised a lion, the image on the English team crest, dressed in an England football strip and football boots whilst holding a football under his right arm.

Controversies.

Terrorist attack.

A terrorist attack took place in Manchester on 15 June, one day before the group stage match between Germany and Russia was due to take place in the same city. The detonation of a van bomb in the city centre injured 212 people and caused an estimated £700 million worth of damage. Four days after the blast, the Provisional Irish Republican Army issued a statement in which it claimed responsibility, but regretted causing injury to civilians.  The Manchester bombing was the first and so far only major terrorist attack in the host city of an ongoing UEFA European Championship. The scheduled match at Old Trafford on the day following the bombing went ahead as planned after the stadium had been heavily guarded overnight and carefully searched; the game, in which Germany defeated Russia 3–0, was watched by a near capacity crowd of 50,700.

Disorder.

After England's defeat to Germany in the semi-finals, a large-scale riot took place in Trafalgar Square and the surrounding area. Further outbreaks of trouble occurred in the streets of several other towns. The police, German-made cars were targeted, with damage also caused to various other properties. A Russian student was stabbed in Brighton after attackers mistook him for being German.  Despite this outbreak, the tournament overall was free of hooliganism, helping rehabilitate England's reputation after their fans' conduct during the previous decades. UEFA's awarding of the tournament to England was in itself a further step in bringing the country back fully into the international fold, coming soon after their decision in 1990 to re-admit English clubs back into UEFA competitions after the indefinite ban issued to them following the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985.

The 1996 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 96, was the 10th UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial football tournament contested by European nations and organised by UEFA. It took place in England from 8 to 30 June 1996. It was the first European Championship to feature 16 finalists, following UEFA's decision to expand the tournament from eight teams.

Mistrovství Evropy ve fotbale 1996 bylo desátým fotbalovým mistrovstvím Evropského kontinentu a probíhalo od 8. do 30. června 1996 v Anglii, která bývá považována za kolébku fotbalu. Turnaje se poprvé zúčastnilo šestnáct družstev včetně česká reprezentace. Mistrem Evropy se stal výběr Německa, který ve finále porazil Česko 2:1 v prodloužení. Pro českou reprezentaci je stříbrná medaile z ME 1996 dosud nejlepším výsledkem v mezinárodních soutěžích od rozdělení Československa.


History.

The quickstep evolved in the 1920s from a combination of the foxtrot, Charleston, shag, peabody, and one-step. The dance is English in origin and was standardized in 1927. While it evolved from the foxtrot, the quickstep now is quite separate. Unlike the modern foxtrot, the leader often closes his feet, and syncopated steps are regular occurrences (as was the case in early foxtrot). Three characteristic dance figures of the quickstep are the chassés, where the feet are brought together, the quarter turns, and the lock step.  This dance gradually evolved into a very dynamic one with much movement on the dance floor, with many advanced patterns including hops, runs, quick steps with much momentum, and rotation. The tempo of quickstep dance is rather brisk, as it was developed to ragtime era jazz music, which is fast-paced when compared to other dance music.  By the end of the 20th century the complexity of quickstep as done by advanced dancers had increased, with the extensive use of syncopated steps with eighth note durations. While in older times quickstep patterns were counted with "quick" (one beat) and "slow" (two beats) steps, many advanced patterns today are cued with split beats, such as "quick-and-quick-and-quick, quick, slow", with there being further steps on the 'and's.

Style.

The quickstep is elegant like the foxtrot and should be smooth and glamorous. The dancers should appear to be very light on their feet. It is very energetic and form-intensive. The quickstep is danced to 4/4 music of 48-52 measures per minute.

Syllabus.

The two International Style syllabi of ISTD and IDTA for quickstep differ very little.  The American Style dance competition program does not include quickstep, but a limited version of the dance is taught and danced socially in some American dance venues.

The quickstep is a light-hearted dance of the standard ballroom dances. The movement of the dance is fast and powerfully flowing and sprinkled with syncopations. The upbeat melodies that quickstep is danced to make it suitable for both formal and informal events. Quickstep was developed in the 1920s in New York City and was first danced by Caribbean and African dancers. Its origins are in combination of slow foxtrot combined with the Charleston, a dance which was one of the precursors to what today is called swing dancing.

Quickstep je jedním ze standardních tanců nazývaný také rychlý foxtrot. Historii quickstepu můžeme sledovat již od roku 1924. Quickstep je ve čtyřčtvrťovém taktu, v tempu 50-52 taktů za minutu. Základním pohybem jsou tzv. čtvrtotáčky, tančené v uzavřeném, těsném držení pro standardní tance.


Life before racing.

Born in Milan, Paletti was an Italian junior karate champion at thirteen, and made it to the national alpine skiing youth selection. Only at 19 did he choose to pursue a career in motorsports.

Racing before Formula One.

In 1978 Paletti entered nine races in Formula Super Ford and in his inaugural race he led for 18 laps. Although he did not win during the first season, he took two second places, and finished third in the overall championship. During the end of his first season he also made his Formula 3 debut in the Italian Championship with a March-Toyota. In 1979, Paletti entered a full F3 championship season, but his best placings were two fifth-place finishes. Later the same year he competed in a few Formula 2 races for the first time with the team ran by Mike Earle. His best result was at Misano, where he finished eighth.  For the 1981 European F2 championship season Earle severed his collaboration with March to start Onyx. Paletti tested extensively during the winter and the effort paid off during the opening rounds of the season, as he qualified 10th in the first race at Silverstone, before finishing second behind Mike Thackwell. He retired in the second round at Hockenheim, but set the fastest lap of the race, and his good form continued in round three at Thruxton, where he finished third, this time behind Roberto Guerrero. At that point, he was joint second in the championship with Stefan Johansson, trailing Thackwell by three points. But from then, his results declined, and he finished tenth in the championship.

Formula One career.

Although still on a learning curve in the lower class racing, Paletti decided to join the uncompetitive team Osella in 1982. He admitted that Formula One struck him with a little bit of fear, but his sponsor, Pioneer, wanted him to move up and Paletti did not want to miss his opportunity. His teammate was the experienced Frenchman driver Jean-Pierre Jarier. He travelled with a personal medical adviser who was monitoring his blood pressure and heartbeat with small sensors attached to his body during testing and practice sessions. His diet was constantly adapted to the results. Few Formula One drivers took this professional approach seriously at the time.  Making his first attempt during the South African Grand Prix in January 1982, Jarier managed to haul his Osella to qualify in the last position on the grid but Paletti was almost two seconds slower, failing to qualify.  For the second round of the season, at the Jacarepaguá circuit near Rio de Janeiro, the venue for the Brazilian Grand Prix, Paletti had to prequalify on Friday morning, but a wheel fell off the Osella after a suspension failure and again he did not make the grid.  The next round of the championship was the US GP West at the street circuit of Long Beach. Jarier found the right set-up for the Osella and managed to put the car in the top ten during qualifying. Paletti was a massive three and a half seconds slower and failed to qualify again.  For the fourth Grand Prix of the season, at Imola on 25 April, amidst a war between the FISA and FOCA, only 14 cars loyal to the organisation started the race. Paletti had managed to beat the ATS of Eliseo Salazar and was supposed to start from the back of the grid. However, on Sunday afternoon Paletti's Osella failed to fire up for the warm-up lap and by the time he had left the pits the other cars were already lining up for the start. As a result, the moment he crossed the starting line he was already 49 seconds behind. He never got close to the rest of the field and after seven laps he had to park his car due to another suspension failure.  At Zolder Paletti failed to prequalify on Friday, getting more and more disappointed with the Osella. The new chassis, which was to be introduced at Monaco, gave some promise, but still Paletti knew that qualifying for Monaco was virtually impossible with only twenty entries allowed to start in the narrow streets of the principality. There was only one new monocoque for Jarier and the new rear suspension was delayed. Once again, Paletti failed to prequalify.  On his seventh Grand Prix, in Detroit, Paletti was much closer to Jarier's pace and, although the gap was still over a second, he qualified right behind his teammate. However, during the warm-up session Paletti lost a wheel at the beginning. The mechanics tried to repair the car in time for the race and, while there still was the possibility of starting the race in the spare car, that option went up in smoke as well, after Jarier's fire extinguisher had gone off accidentally. Jarier took the spare car. This meant it would be a race against time for Paletti's mechanics to set up the car and they were still busy when the rest of the field progressed to the grid. But just as the work was finished, with Paletti ready to get in the car, news broke that Jarier had hit the wall, damaged his car and was on his way back to the pits. So Paletti's car was ready for Jarier to jump in and start the race from the pit lane, leaving Paletti behind as a spectator once more.

Death.

Paletti qualified for the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday 13 June 1982, the first time he would start successfully in a full line-up. At the start, the lights took an unusually long time to turn to green. During this time, Didier Pironi, who had the pole position, stalled the engine of his Ferrari. Pironi lifted his hand to signal the problem just as the lights switched to green, which was too late to abort the start. The other cars swerved across the track, trying to squeeze past Pironi's stationary car. Raul Boesel just clipped the back left of the Ferrari, spinning his March into the path of Eliseo Salazar and Jochen Mass. Salazar, Boesel and Mass suffered minor impacts but it looked as if everyone had passed the Ferrari without serious consequences. However, Paletti could not react in time and slammed into the rear of the stranded Ferrari at 180 km/h (around 110 mph), catapulting it into the path of Geoff Lees. The Osella's nose was crushed in severely.  Due to the force of the severe impact, Paletti sustained heavy chest injuries and was lying unconscious in his car, wedged against the steering wheel. Sid Watkins, the FIA's head doctor, was on the scene to stabilise and assist Paletti. As Watkins climbed over the wreckage of the Osella, the petrol from the fuel tank ignited, enveloping the car in a wall of fire. When the fire was finally put out, the injured Paletti was without a pulse. It took the rescue workers 25 minutes to cut him out safely from his wrecked car, as the sparks caused by the cutting equipment threatened to re-ignite the petrol on the track. He was flown by a medical helicopter to the Royal Victoria Hospital, where he died soon after arriving. His mother was watching from the stands, where they were to celebrate his 24th birthday later that week. Paletti suffered a torn aorta as well as fractures to both legs. According to track doctor Dr. Jacques Bouchard his pupils were already dilated when medical personnel arrived and that the extended extraction time made no difference to his chances of survival.  Paletti was the second fatality in Formula One that year. Five weeks earlier, Gilles Villeneuve had a fatal crash during qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder. Paletti was the last driver to be killed at a Grand Prix meeting until the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, which saw the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger during qualifying and triple world champion Ayrton Senna during the Grand Prix itself. In 1986 Elio de Angelis was killed during testing at Circuit Paul Ricard three days after the 1986 Monaco Grand Prix.  In tribute to Paletti, the racetrack at Varano de' Melegari, in the province of Parma (northern Italy) is now called the Autodromo Riccardo Paletti. There is also a side altar in the Church of Santa Maria al Carrobiolo, Monza dedicated to his memory, in the Chapel of the Crucifix.  His body is buried in the Cimitero Maggiore di Milano.

Riccardo Paletti (15 June 1958 – 13 June 1982) was an Italian motor racing driver. Paletti was killed when he crashed on the start grid in his second Formula One start.

Riccardo Paletti (15. června 1958 Milán – 13. června 1982 Montréal) byl italský sportovec, karatista, automobilový závodník a pilot F1.