Bohuslav Martinů’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 4 (1956) has several special features: the work stands apart from Martinů’s other concertante works by consisting of only two movements, by its title „Incantations“, and by its free form and highly exalted mood, full of fantastic shimmering timbres and eruptive changes. The reviewers’ first response was, however, negative. On one hand, they praised its ingenuity, brilliant instrumentation and imaginative virtuosity; on the other, they dismissed the composition as eclectic and lacking formal homogeneity – their valuation was based on conventional formal and structural criteria.
Minuaria kabylica (Pomel) Dvořáková, a species of the section Polymechana Mattf., is defined in terms of taxonomy and chorology. The taxa Minuartia verna subsp. kabylica (Pomel) Maire et Weiller (= Alsine kabylica Pomel) from Northern Africa, and M. grandiflora (C. Presl) Dvořáková from Sicily are taxonomically identical. The distribution of M. kabylica is limited to the Atlas mountain system in Northern Africa and to the mountains of northern Sicily. The seed coat of M. kabylica is documented by an SEM photograph.
The manuscript presently deposited in Staatsbibliothek Preusischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin under the shelfmark Ms. Lat. quart. 654 allows a reconstruction of ways in which recent theological literature used to be spread in the first half of the fifteenth century. The manuscript that is comprised predominantly of texts aimed against the Hussite teachings belonged to the library of the Carthusian monastery of Salvatorberg near Erfurt. This case study thus uncovers one of the channels by which the polemical tractates were spread during the times of intense literary production provoked by Bohemian heresy. The article is appended by a detailed list of works contained in the manuscript and an edition of previously unpublished text Responsiones facte ad quatuor articulos, which expresses the opinion of Catholic theologians of the first crusade who participated in the debate with the Hussite representatives in the Lesser Town of Prague in July of 1420. and Pavel Soukup.
The Japanese Hossô-monk Jôkei (1155-1213) is one of the better-known contemporaries of the famous Hônen (1133-1212), whose Pure Land School (Jôdo-shû) became so influential in medieval Japanese society. The Tôshôdaiji shaka-nenbutsu ganmon of Jôkei, however, is an interesting example for the often overlooked renaissance of the Japanese Vinaya School (Kairistu-shû) at that time. Being the second in a series of translations of important texts by Jôkei, the present article tries also to discuss this ganmon in the context of Jôkei´s thought.