Jamu Everton, MU Harus Menang

MANCHESTER - Manchester United kehilangan enam poin dalam tiga laga terakhir Premier League. Itu seiring kekalahan yang diderita United saat bersua Liverpool (0-2) dan Chelsea (0-1. Alhasil, Setan Merah -julukan United- pun merosot ke peringkat ketiga.

United kini terpaut lima poin (25-30) dari Chelsea yang nangkring di pucuk klasemen. Agar gap tidak makin lebar, United tidak punya pilihan selain harus menang saat menjamu Everton di Stadion Old Trafford dini hari nanti (siaran langsung TV One pukul 00.30 WIB).

''Sampai Maret tahun depan tidak ada lagi break agenda internasional. Jadi, boleh dikatakan kompetisi sesungguhnya baru dimulai,'' ungkap pelatih United Sir Alex Ferguson seperti dilansir Sportinglife.

Ferguson menuding break internasional sebagai penyebab United belum menemukan konsistensi permainan. ''Anda tidak akan mendapatkan kondisi tim yang sama setelah break. Belum lagi apabila banyak pemain datang dengan kondisi cedera setelah membela negara masing-masing,'' katanya.

Ya, beberapa penggawa United memang cedera setelah tampil bersama negaranya. Lihat saja cedera punggung yang membekap Rio Ferdinand sejak bulan lalu. Sementara Michael Carrick mengalami cedera engkel setelah membela Inggris pada laga uji coba melawan Brazil di Qatar pekan lalu (14/11).

Daftar itu bertambah dengan cedera paha yang dialami John O'Shea saat membela Republik Irlandia dalam playoff Piala Dunia 2010 melawan Prancis. Beruntung, Nemanja Vidic sudah bisa dimainkan sehingga United tidak sampai kekurangan stok pemain bertahan.

Everton sejatinya juga mengalami situasi sama. Gara-gara break internasional pada tanggal 10 dan 14 Oktober lalu, tim besutan David Moyes itu tidak pernah menang selama bulan itu (tiga kali seri dan sekali kalah). The Toffees -julukan Everton- baru mencicipi kemenangan lagi saat mengalahkan West Ham United 2-1 (8/11).

''Kami sebenarnya sudah kembali dalam trek dua pekan lalu. Tapi, setelah agenda internasional, saya tidak bisa memastikan apakah kami masih bisa mempertahankan soliditas seperti saat mengalahkan West Ham,'' kata Moyes di Sky Sports.

Everton bukan lawan yang secara tradisi mampu menyulitkan United, khususnya di Old Trafford. Dalam 17 kali laga di Premier League, hanya sekali Everton pulang dengan tiga poin.

Sayang, duel dini hari nanti urung menjadi reuni Neville bersaudara. Yakni, Gary Neville di kubu United dan Phil Neville di pihak Everton. Pada saat Phil ada kans dimainkan lagi setelah pulih dari cedera, Gary justru absen karena skors.

''Kondisi saya sudah cukup baik. Tapi, pekan ini baru memasuki pekan kesembilan dari vonis dokter yang menyatakan saya harus absen 12 pekan pascaoperasi lutut,'' tutur Phil kepada Soccernet. (dns/ca)

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Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849)

Frédéric François Chopin (born in Zelazowa Wola, 1810; died in Paris, 1849).

Chopin, Polish pianist and composer. Born in 1810 in Poland (Zelazowa Wola) and perhaps the greatest composer for piano ever. One can ask just about any person, musically interested or not, to name a piano composer and a majority will come up with the name Chopin.

Chopin grew up on the countryside outside of Warsaw as the only son among three children, he being the second oldest. The family was not rich but neither poor and music was always present as both parents were musically gifted. It is told that Chopin's mother was a decent piano player and his father could bring out spellbinding melodies. Altogether, with the exception of the tragic death his youngest sister at the age of 14, Chopin's childhood seems solid and happy.

As an infant, Chopin's parents were worried that he did not like music, as he easily started crying when music was played. However, it is now believed that the reason was rather the opposite - that music affected Chopin greatly even in very young years.

Chopin began seriously to play the piano at the age of 5, taught by his older sister Ludwika. His talent was immediately apparent, and the services of a piano teacher were subsequently enlisted in order to support his practise. This piano teacher was Zywny - a generous man and friend to the family. He was not a teacher of the strict disciplinary kind, which disciplined schooled teacher which - in the case of a briliant student like Chopin - only proved to be an advantage. At the age of 7, Chopin was already somewhat famous in Warsaw and made his first appearance for the Russian prince just before he turned 8. The very same year, Chopin's first compositions were published in a local Warsaw newspaper. Chopin was a highly dedicated student. It is even said that he - at the early age of 7 - slept by his own free will with wine-corks between his fingers in order to achieve a wider grip. He knew his destiny.

Chopin's abilities developed greatly during his young years and he was soon recognized a child prodigy - widly known not only in Poland but also by the Russians for whom he gave several recitals.

While Zywny brought him the most fundamental piano practise and encouraged his innative power to compose, Chopin soon needed a more skilled teacher to advance further. He was therefore directed to Josef Elsner. Elsner played a very important role in Chopin's development as a composer, and his influence on the musical world scene was highly valuable. It was at the Conservatory, studying under Elsner, that Chopin got in contact with, for example, John Field's Nocturnes, Bach's preludes and fugues, Clementi, Mozart, Beethoven etc. Elsner should be thanked for not trying to shape Chopin's unusual technique and ideas into a mainstream form of pianism, but rather letting the young genius explore all possibilities and forms of music through his own inventive abilities.

After the studies, Chopin went to Vienna, where he was recognised as a decent pianist with some nicely written compositions, but altogether, it was not the success he had hoped for. Thus, he went back to Warsaw and, subsequently, set his course for Paris.

In Paris, Chopin did not immediately achieve success. It took a couple of hard years of composing and performing before he had worked himself into the highest society where he gave lessons for royalties and could receive the highest gage for his compositions. Chopin became extremely famous and as one example, on the question of who was the best pianist of Kalkbrenner or Liszt, the joking answer, but with an underlying seriousness, was Chopin. So highly was he thought of not only as a composer or teacher but also as a pianist.

Chopin is often compared with people and especially with Liszt but it is a most irrelevant comparison. The very different characters played on different arenas and while the truly romantic Liszt toured as a virtuoso, spellbinding his audience with his extra ordinary capabilities and gave himself totally into the new world of free love, Chopin was composing, mostly Saloon music, gave piano lessons and was the noble gentleman of the old school.

Chopin was never to return to Poland again and made very few trips outside France, mainly because of his weak health. Among the most famous is the disastrous trip to Mallorca which almost got him killed and the trip to Scotland which was equally bad for his health.

Chopin was diagnosed with Tuberculosis early in his life and it is a wonder that he even reached the age of 39 before the disease finally took his life in 1849, after about 15 years of struggle. At this young age, Chopin had composed an amazing amount of works from a wide range of piano genres.

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Antonin Dvorak (1841 - 1904)

Antonín Dvorak was born on September 8, 1841 in Nelahozeves, near Prague where he spent most of his life. His father was a butcher, innkeeper, and professional player of the zither (string instrument, mainly used in folk music). Dvorak's parents recognized his musical talent early, and he received his earliest musical education at the village school which he entered in 1847.

Dvorak studied with Antonin Liehmann and at the Prague Organ School (1857-1859). As he was a capable viola player, Dvorak joined the band that became the nucleus of the new Provisional Theatre orchestra, conducted from 1866 by Smetana. Private teaching and mainly composing occupied him from 1873 and forward and he won the Austrian State Stipendium three times (1874, 1876-1877), gaining the attention of Brahms, who secured the publisher Simrock for some of his works in 1878. Foreign performances multiplied, notably of the Slavonic Dances, the Sixth Symphony and the Stabat mater, and with them further commissions. These were particularly well received in England and Dvorak wrote The Spectre's Bride (1884) and the Requiem Mass (1890) for Birmingham, the Seventh Symphony for the Philharmonic Society (1885) and St. Ludmilla for Leeds (1886), besides receiving an honorary doctorate from Cambridge.

Dvorak visited Russia in 1890, continued to launch new works in Prague and London and began teaching at the Prague Conservatory in 1891 (where Joseph Suk was among his most gifted pupils). Before leaving for the USA he toured Bohemia playing the new Dumky Trio. As director of the National Conservatory in New York (1892-1895) he taught composition, meanwhile producing the wellknown Ninth Symphony ("From the New World"), the String Quartet in F, the String Quintet in E-flat and the Cello Concerto. Financial strain and family ties took him back to Prague, where he began to write symphonic poems and finally had his efforts at dramatic music rewarded with the success of the fairytale opera Rusalka (1901). The recipient of honours and awards from all sides, he remained a modest man of simple tastes, loyal to his Czech nationality.

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Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827)

Beethoven was born at 515 Bongasse in Bonn to Johann van Beethoven (1740–1792) and Magdalena Keverich van Beethoven (1744–1787). Beethoven was baptized on December 17, but his family and later teacher Johann Albrechtsberger celebrated his birthday on December 16.

Beethoven's first music teacher was his father, a musician in the Electoral court at Bonn who was apparently a harsh and unpredictable instructor. Johann would often come home from a bar in the middle of the night and pull young Ludwig out of bed to play for him and his friend. Beethoven's talent was recognized at a very early age and his first important teacher was Christian Gottlob Neefe. In 1787 young Beethoven traveled to Vienna for the first time, where he may have met and played for Mozart. There exist disputable information that Mozart himself commented upon hearing young Ludwig play; "That boy's music will force the world to listen to him". He had to return home because his mother was dying of tuberculosis. Beethoven's mother died when he was 16, and for several years he was responsible for raising his two younger brothers because of his father's worsening alcoholism. He took very much responsibility for his younger siblings and even went to his father's employer and demanded that half of the salary was to be paid out to him only. His father went furious but the employer took young Ludwig's party, proving the strength and courage of the boy.

Beethoven moved to Vienna in 1792, where he studied for a time with Joseph Haydn in lieu of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who had died the previous year. He received additional instruction from Johan Georg Albrechtsburger (Vienna's preeminent counterpoint instructor) and Antonio Salieri. Beethoven immediately established a reputation as a piano virtuoso. His first works with opus numbers, the three piano trios, appeared in 1795. He settled into the career pattern he would follow for the remainder of his life: rather than working for the church or a noble court (as most composers before him had done), he supported himself through a combination of annual stipends or single gifts from members of the aristocracy, income from public performances, concerts, and lessons, and sales of his works.

In the Early period, he is seen as emulating his great predecessors Haydn and Mozart while concurrently exploring new directions and gradually expanding the scope and ambition of his work. Some important pieces from the Early period are the first and second symphonies, the first six string quartets, the first two piano concertos, and the first twenty piano sonatas, including the famous Pathétique and Moonlight.

The Middle period began shortly after Beethoven's personal crisis centering around deafness. The period is noted for large-scale works expressing heroism and struggle; these include many of the most famous works of classical music. Middle period works include six symphonies (Nos. 3–8), the last three piano concertos, triple concerto and his only violin concerto, five string quartets (Nos. 7–11), the next seven piano sonatas including the Waldstein, and Appassionata, and his only opera, Fidelio.

Beethoven's Late period began around 1816 and lasted until Beethoven's death in 1827. The Late works are greatly admired for and characterized by their intellectual depth, intense and highly personal expression, and experimentation with forms (for example, the Quartet in C Sharp Minor has seven movements, while most famously his Ninth Symphony adds choral forces to the orchestra in the last movement). This period includes the Missa Solemnis, the last five string quartets and the last five piano sonatas.

Considering the depth and extent of Beethoven's artistic explorations, as well as the composer's success in making himself comprehensible to the widest possible audience, the Austrian-born British musician and writer Hans Keller pronounced Beethoven "humanity's greatest mind altogether".

Beethoven's personal life was troubled. Around age 28, he started to become deaf, which led him to contemplate suicide (see the 1802 Heiligenstadt Testament). He was attracted to unattainable (married or aristocratic) women but he never married. His only uncontested love affair with a known woman began in 1805 with Josephine von Brunswick; most scholars think it ended by 1807 because she could not marry a commoner without losing her children. In 1812 he wrote a long love letter to a woman only identified therein as the "Immortal Beloved." Several candidates have been suggested, but none has won universal support. Some scholars believe his period of low productivity from about 1812 to 1816 was caused by depression resulting from Beethoven's realization that he would never marry. He didn't publish anything during this period, but he released an enormous amount of material in 1816.

Beethoven quarrelled, often bitterly, with his relatives and others (including a painful and public custody battle over his nephew Karl); he frequently treated other people badly. He moved often and had strange personal habits, such as wearing dirty clothing even as he washed compulsively. Nonetheless, he had a close and devoted circle of friends his entire life.

Many listeners perceive an echo of Beethoven's life in his music, which often depicts struggle followed by triumph. This description is often applied to Beethoven's creation of masterpieces in the face of his severe personal difficulties. His last musical sketches belong to the composition of a string quintet in C Major [1].

Beethoven was often in poor health. According to one of his letters, his abdominal problems began while he was still in Bonn and thus can be dated to before 1792. In 1826 his health took a drastic turn for the worse. The autopsy report indicates serious problems with his liver, gall bladder, spleen, and pancreas. There is no general agreement on the exact cause of death. Modern research on a lock of Beethoven's hair cut from his head the day after he died and a piece of his skull taken from his grave in 1863, both now at the Beethoven Center in San Jose, California [2], show that lead poisoning could well have contributed to his ill-health and ultimately to his death. The source (or sources) of the lead poisoning is unknown, but may have been fish, lead compounds used to sweeten wines, pewter drinking vessels or long sessions in mineral baths. It is unlikely that lead poisoning was the cause of his deafness, which several researchers think was caused by Paget's disease, cochlear otosclerosis, or an autoimmune disorder such as systemic lupus erythematosus, although recent studies have shown that some lead poison victims have suffered from hearing loss as well. The hair analyses did not detect mercury, which is consistent with the view that Beethoven did not have syphilis (syphilis was treated with mercury compounds at the time). The absence of drug metabolites suggests Beethoven avoided opiate painkillers.

Beethoven died on 26 March 1827, after a long illness, in the midst of a fierce thunderstorm, and legend has it that the dying man shook his fists in defiance of the heavens. He was buried in the Währinger cemetery. Twenty months later, the body of Franz Schubert was buried next to Beethoven's. In 1888, both Schubert's and Beethoven's graves were moved to the Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery), where they can now be found next to those of Johann Strauss I and Johannes Brahms.

For more information about Beethoven, read the book "Beethoven: the Man and the Artist" present at the "Publications Menu" at this site.


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