Frederic Chopin and Louis Moreau Gottschalk Essay

Frederic Chopin and Louis Moreau Gottschalk - Essay Example Gottschalk was considered to be the first widely recognized American composer in Europe (George, M.R., 1987, Starr, S., 2000) Chopin and Gottschalk both composed and played Romantic period music though their music is quite different. The musical works of Beethoven, Mozart, and Hadyn educated Chopin. Much of Chopin's music was considered to resemble Bach and Mozart. An obvious example of this being Chopin's 24 preludes in which all 24 of the keys mirror Bach's 48 preludes and fugues. The song-like melodies of his Nocturnes, which feature a gentle and flowing bass, are very much written in the style of Italian bel canto opera (Kennedy, M., 2004). Those that came before him also influenced Gottschalk, but he was not inspired by what today are considered classical composers. His time spent in South America and the Caribbean. His early days in New Orleans influenced much of his music in that he utilized much of the rhythmic variations that are characteristic of South American and Afro-American music. His works The Banjo, Grotesque Fantasie and Souvenir de Porto Rico were non-traditional pieces based on traditional Caribbean and South American pieces from unknown composers. He was very forth coming on any of his "quotations" and always acknowledged any borrowing from unknown work. He also did compose traditional, salon music. These pieces particularly The Dying Poet were very popular but ultimately considered inferior to his more ethnic pieces (Lowens, I., 2008). As Gottschalk's music was mainly untraditional and nationalistic, Chopin's was based more on tradition. However Chopin's polonaises were written to celebrate Polish culture and tradition and in this sense his music was nationalistic. He produced compositions of his nationality (George, M.R. 1987). Some of Gottschalk's early pieces La Bananier and Bamboula were based from music Gottschalk experienced in his youth in New Orleans (Starr, S., 2000). But the purpose of this nationalistic music is quite different. Chopin's polonaises were written to celebrate Polish culture and Gottschalk's pieces have an American influence but were not written to celebrate American culture. Gottschalk did eventually write some pieces during the Civil war celebrating the patriotic spirit (he supported the north), entitled The Union, and he was considered a patriot but his music did not inspire the nationalistic pride that Chopin's evoked. Both composers mainly wrote music for the piano. Gottschalk's pieces were written for two and four hands thought he did compose a few works for orchestra, opera, ballet and a programmatic symphony, A Night in the Tropics. Chopin frowned upon programmatic music and any musical scene painting. He maintained a classical purity and discretion in his music that resembles much of the music written before his lifetime. He also wrote primarily for the piano whether as a solo instrument or as an accompiament. His works include sonatas, interludes, nocturnes, preludes and etudes (Lowens, I., 2008, Michalowski, K., 2008). One of the largest differences between these two composers is not their compositions but their playing styles. Chopin required strict attendance on rhythm and the legato style or connection of two notes. He was very attentive to technique and playing a piece as it was written. All of his melodies are written out with no room for improvisation. Pianists can find Chopin's music challenging to play as he documented the all-rhythmic

Discuss the maintenance of altruism in the social amoeba Dictyostelium Essay

Discuss the maintenance of altruism in the social amoeba Dictyostelium doscoideum - Essay Example The separation of cheaters reduces the occurrence of cheating by the high genetic relatedness selection of cheaters according to the Kin-selection theory. In the social amoeba Dictyostelium Doscoideum which occurs in soil samples, the relatedness in natural groups is high enough to prevent the spread of destructive social cheaters. High relatedness can control a mutant that would otherwise at low relatedness destroy cooperation. The importance of relatedness is however challenged by the life cycle of social amoeba in the selection to prevent cheating. The altruism of amoeba is featured in the death of some amoeba to ensure the survival of the majority. When the bacterial source of food of amoeba that are naturally solitary organisms is depleted, they aggregate themselves to form a multicellular fruiting body where 25% of the cells die to form a stem that raises the remaining cells high enough for dispersal (Gilbert et al, 2007). The mixture of different clones creates the opportunity for cheaters and co-operators to form the group where they can cheat each other, for example in avoiding creating the stalk. Gilbert et al (2007) used mechanisms such as the estimation of relatedness in nature, searching for cheater mutants in nature and the examination of the cheating advantage of the fbxA . The relatedness is high in the co-operative groups of Dictyostelium Doscoideum since the organism forms fruiting bodies more often with organisms of the same kin. Fruiting bodies that were observed 92% were found to be of one clone (Gilbert et al, 2007). The high level of relatedness reduced the opportunity of cheaters gaining by avoiding forming the stalk which would be costly to the survival of the cells. The socially disruptive cheating mutant fbxA which cheats in chimeras was found to produce little or no spores on its own and hence it would be disastrous if allowed to spread. It would spread at low relatedness to reduce co-operation in the normal fruiting of cells and red uce the formation of spores which could result in extinction. Similarly, the mutant dimAÂ ­? is a social defector that fails to react to the signals to become part of the sterile stalk. The pleiotropic effect due to high relatedness of cells which occurs late during their development discourages cheating hence the dimAÂ ­? is usually unsuccessful. According to Khare et al (2009), some of the mechanisms that can be used to restrain cheating behaviour in nature include lowering the fitness of the cheater by intrinsic selection, pleiotropy of the cheater gene, the high genetic relatedness in natural populations, discrimination on the basis of kin as well as the evolution of the resistance to cheating. This is applied by a population of mutations that are able to resist cheating but this evolution is disadvantageous since it could result in new cheating strategies that could result in the demise of co-operation in these populations. In the research to find out whether it was possible to yield mutants that could resist cheating and still remain co-operative, Khare et al (2009) mixed different mutated cells and allowed them to develop into fruiting bodies and spores. They found that in a natural population of Dictyostelium Doscoideum the wild type allele was replaced during the development of the cells by a mutation that were predicted to be resistant to cheating. They also mixed wild type cells and mutant cells with cheater cells in a ratio 1:1 to