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[Creeperopolis]

Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion is a 1944 triptych painted by the Irish-born British artist Francis Bacon. The canvasses are based on the Eumenides—or Furies—of Aeschylus's Oresteia, and depict three writhing anthropomorphic creatures set against a flat burnt orange background. It was executed in oil paint and pastel on Sundeala fibre board and completed within two weeks. The triptych summarises themes explored in Bacon's previous work, including his examination of Picasso's biomorphs and his interpretations of the crucifixion and the Greek Furies. Bacon did not[1] realise his original intention to paint a large crucifixion scene and place the figures at the foot of the cross.[2]

The Three Studies are generally considered Bacon's first mature piece;[3] he regarded his works before the triptych as irrelevant, and throughout his life tried to suppress their appearance on the art market. When the painting was first exhibited in 1945 it caused a sensation and established him as one of the foremost post-war painters. Remarking on the cultural significance of Three Studies, the critic John Russell observed in 1971 that "there was painting in England before the Three Studies, and painting after them, and no one ... can confuse the two".[4]

[Creeperopolis]

Apollo 6 (April 4, 1968), also known as AS-502, was the third and final uncrewed flight in the United States' Apollo program and the second test of the Saturn V launch vehicle. It qualified the Saturn V for use on crewed missions, and it was used beginning with Apollo 8 in December 1968.

Apollo 6 was intended to demonstrate the ability of the Saturn V's third stage, the S-IVB, to propel itself and the Apollo spacecraft to lunar distances. Its components began arriving at the Kennedy Space Center in early 1967. Testing proceeded slowly, often delayed by testing of the Saturn V intended for Apollo 4—the inaugural launch of the Saturn V. After that uncrewed mission launched in November 1967, there were fewer delays, but enough so that the flight was postponed from March to April 1968.

The flight plan called for, following trans-lunar injection, a direct return abort using the service module's main engine with a flight time totaling about 10 hours, but vibrations damaged some of the Rocketdyne J-2 engines in the second and third stages by rupturing internal fuel lines causing a second-stage engine to shut down early. An additional second-stage engine also shut down early due to cross-wiring with the engine that had shut down. The vehicle's onboard guidance system compensated by burning the second and third stages longer, although the resulting parking orbit was more elliptical than planned. The damaged third-stage engine failed to restart for trans-lunar injection. Flight controllers elected to repeat the flight profile of the previous Apollo 4 test, achieving a high orbit and high-speed return. Despite the engine failures, the flight provided NASA with enough confidence to use the Saturn V for crewed launches; a potential third uncrewed flight was cancelled.

[Creeperopolis]

The Easter Oratorio (Latin: Oratorium Festo Paschali; German: Oster-Oratorium),[1] BWV 249,[a] is an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach.[2] He wrote an autograph score in Leipzig in 1738 under this title, matching his Christmas Oratorio and Ascension Oratorio. Bach had already composed the work in 1725, when he used most of its music for two compositions, the congratulatory Shepherd Cantata, BWV 249a (BWV 249.1), and a church cantata for Easter Sunday, Kommt, gehet und eilet ('Come, go and hurry'), BWV 249.3, that later became the oratorio. The two 1725 works, premiered a few weeks apart, are both musical dramas involving characters: in the secular cantata two shepherds and two shepherdesses, and in the Easter cantata four Biblical figures from the Easter narratives in the Gospel of Luke and other Evangelists. In the oratorio, Bach assigned the music to voice parts instead.

Bach performed the Shepherd Cantata on 23 February 1725 for his patron Christian, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels. Its text was written by Picander, in his first documented collaboration with Bach. Picander may also have adapted his text for the Easter cantata that Bach first performed on Easter Sunday, 1 April 1725, in both a morning service at the Nikolaikirche and a vespers service at the Thomaskirche.

In 1738, Bach revised the Easter cantata as the Easter Oratorio, BWV 249.4. He wrote an autograph manuscript of the score with the title Oratorium Festo Paschali (Easter Oratorio), making only minor changes to text and music. This version is also known as Kommt, eilet und laufet ('Come, hasten and run'). Uniquely among Bach's oratorios, it features no original Biblical text, no Evangelist narrator, and no chorale.

The work is structured in eleven movements. Two contrasting instrumental movements are followed by a duet for tenor and bass, assigned in the cantata to two disciples running to the tomb of Jesus, where they meet two women who followed Jesus (soprano and alto). The middle movements are alternating recitatives in conversation, and arias of contemplation. The final movement is a chorus of thanksgiving. The music is scored for a festive Baroque instrumental ensemble of three trumpets, timpani, a variety of wind instruments, strings and continuo. In the 1740s, Bach again revised the work (BWV 249.5), which he seems to have regarded highly, arranging the third movement partly for choir. He performed the oratorio once more in 1749, the year before his death.

Early Bach scholars, beginning with his biographer Philipp Spitta, were critical of the Easter Oratorio because of its libretto and its character as a musical drama. When the relation to the Shepherd Cantata was discovered in 1940, criticism of the parody music was added. In more recent studies, Christoph Wolff evaluates it as a skillful transformation "from theatrical into devotional music",[3] and Markus Rathey sees the oratorio as a sequel to the St John Passion, "continuing the dramatic narrative but also its theological and musical interpretation".[4]