Lamiaceae: Major genera and species: Also Mediterranean is lavender (Lavandula officinalis), with fragrant blue to lavender flowers in leafless spikes. Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis) was once used as a curative herb.

Lamiaceae: Major genera and species: Also Mediterranean is lavender (Lavandula officinalis), with fragrant blue to lavender flowers in leafless spikes. Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis) was once used as a curative herb.

lavender: English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), French lavender (L. stoechas), and woolly lavender (L. lanata) are among the most widely cultivated species.

Johann Kaspar Lavater was a Swiss writer, Protestant pastor, and founder of physiognomics, an antirational, religious, and literary movement. Lavater served as pastor of St. Peter’s Church in Zürich. In 1799 he was deported to Basel for a time because of his protest against the violence of the

tree mallow, (Lavatera arborea), biennial, herbaceous plant, of the hibiscus, or mallow, family (Malvaceae), native to Europe. It grows 1.2–3 metres (4–10 feet) tall and bears downy, lobed leaves 10–25 cm (4–10 inches) long. Purplish-red flowers about 5 cm (2 inches) wide are borne in profuse,

la volta, 16th-century leaping and turning dance for couples, originating in Italy and popular at French and German court balls until about 1750. Performed with a notoriously intimate embrace, it became respectable, but never completely dignified, after Queen Elizabeth I of England danced it with

construction: Improvements in building services: …Bramah invented the metal valve-type water closet as early as 1778, and other early lavatories, sinks, and bathtubs were of metal also; lead, copper, and zinc were all tried. The metal fixtures proved difficult to clean, however, and in England during the 1870s Thomas Twyford developed the first large one-piece…

Marie Laveau was the Vodou queen of New Orleans. Laveau’s powers reportedly included healing the sick, extending altruistic gifts to the poor, and overseeing spiritual rites. There is some confusion regarding Laveau’s year of birth. Some documents indicate that she was born in 1794, while other

Toussaint Louverture: Rise to power: …decisive: the governor of Saint-Domingue, Étienne Laveaux, made Toussaint lieutenant governor; the British suffered severe reverses; and the Spaniards were expelled.

Marie Laveau was the Vodou queen of New Orleans. Laveau’s powers reportedly included healing the sick, extending altruistic gifts to the poor, and overseeing spiritual rites. There is some confusion regarding Laveau’s year of birth. Some documents indicate that she was born in 1794, while other

Louis Lavelle was a French philosopher recognized as a forerunner of the psychometaphysic movement, which teaches that self-actualization and ultimate freedom develop from seeking one’s “inward” being and relating it to the Absolute. Much of his thought drew upon the writings of Nicolas Malebranche

lavender, (genus Lavandula), genus of about 30 species of plants in the mint family (Lamiaceae), native to countries bordering the Mediterranean. Lavender species are common in herb gardens for their fragrant leaves and attractive flowers. The plants are widely cultivated for their essential oils,

lavender: Essential oil: Lavender oil, or lavender flower oil, is obtained by distillation of the flowers and is used chiefly in fine perfumes and cosmetics. It is a colourless or yellow liquid, the fragrant constituents of which are linalyl acetate, linalool, pinene, limonene, geraniol, and cineole. Lavender water,…

The Lavender Hill Mob, British comedy film, released in 1951, highlighted by a much-praised performance by Alec Guinness. Henry Holland (played by Guinness) is a meek British bank clerk from Lavender Hill, a street in South London, who has masterminded a meticulous plan to steal gold bullion from

lavender: Essential oil: Lavender oil, or lavender flower oil, is obtained by distillation of the flowers and is used chiefly in fine perfumes and cosmetics. It is a colourless or yellow liquid, the fragrant constituents of which are linalyl acetate, linalool, pinene, limonene, geraniol, and cineole. Lavender water,…

lavender: Essential oil: Lavender water, a solution of the essential oil in alcohol with other added scents, is used in a variety of toilette preparations.

George Borrow: …memorable passages in his masterpiece, Lavengro (1851). Between 1815 and 1818 he attended grammar school at Norwich, and it was here that he began to acquire a smattering of many languages. An attempt to apprentice him to the law proved unsuccessful, and early in 1824 he decided to try his…

laver, (genus Porphyra), genus of 60–70 species of marine red algae (family Bangiaceae). Laver grows near the high-water mark of the intertidal zone in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It grows best in cold nitrogen-rich water. Laver is harvested, dried, and used as food in greater

Rod Laver is an Australian tennis player, the second male player in the history of the game (after Don Budge in 1938) to win the four major singles championships—Australian, French, British (Wimbledon), and U.S.—in one year (1962) and the first to repeat this Grand Slam (1969). Laver is considered

Rod Laver is an Australian tennis player, the second male player in the history of the game (after Don Budge in 1938) to win the four major singles championships—Australian, French, British (Wimbledon), and U.S.—in one year (1962) and the first to repeat this Grand Slam (1969). Laver is considered

Marseille: Industry: …building of an outport at Lavéra capable of receiving large oil tankers. This trend was accelerated from the late 1960s with the opening of the Fos port-industrial complex and with the addition of more petrochemical plants as well as steelworks. The majority of these installations use raw materials that enter…

English setter, breed of sporting dog that has served as a gun dog in England for more than 400 years and has been bred in its present form since about 1825. It is sometimes called the Llewellin setter or the Laverack setter for the developers of two strains of the breed. Like the other setters, it

Alphonse Laveran was a French physician, pathologist, and parasitologist who discovered the parasite that causes human malaria. For this and later work on protozoal diseases he received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1907. Educated at the Strasbourg faculty of medicine, he served as

Alphonse Laveran was a French physician, pathologist, and parasitologist who discovered the parasite that causes human malaria. For this and later work on protozoal diseases he received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1907. Educated at the Strasbourg faculty of medicine, he served as

American Broadcasting Company: Focus on television: (Happy Days [1974–84], Laverne and Shirley [1976–83], and Three’s Company [1977–84]) and sexually charged dramatic series (Charlie’s Angels [1976–81], The Love Boat [1977– 86], and Fantasy Island [1978–84]), Silverman rapidly elevated ABC to the coveted number one slot. Perhaps to counteract criticism of its lowbrow entertainment

Anton LaVey was an American author and counterculture figure who founded the Church of Satan. Many details of LaVey’s early life are disputed or unknown. Soon after he was born, his family moved to the San Francisco Bay area. According to some accounts, he left high school to join a circus. He

Anton LaVey was an American author and counterculture figure who founded the Church of Satan. Many details of LaVey’s early life are disputed or unknown. Soon after he was born, his family moved to the San Francisco Bay area. According to some accounts, he left high school to join a circus. He

bat: Activity patterns: …flying fox (Pteropus samoensis), the yellow-winged bat (Lavia frons), and the greater sac-winged bat Saccopteryx bilineata, may forage actively during the day, but little is yet known of their special adaptations.

Charles Lavigerie was a cardinal and archbishop of Algiers and Carthage (now Tunis, Tunisia) whose dream to convert Africa to Christianity prompted him to found the Society of Missionaries of Africa, popularly known as the White Fathers. He was ordained a priest in 1849 after studies at

Charles Lavigerie was a cardinal and archbishop of Algiers and Carthage (now Tunis, Tunisia) whose dream to convert Africa to Christianity prompted him to found the Society of Missionaries of Africa, popularly known as the White Fathers. He was ordained a priest in 1849 after studies at

Avril Lavigne is a Canadian singer and songwriter who achieved great success as a teenager. She is known for a grungy pop-rock sound. Lavigne grew up in Napanee, Ontario. Her natural singing ability was evident by age two, and she began singing at church and at local events. Christian tunes and

cryptology: Early cryptographic systems and applications: …a compilation of ciphers by Gabriele de Lavinde of Parma, who served Pope Clement VII. This manual, now in the Vatican archives, contains a set of keys for 24 correspondents and embraces symbols for letters, nulls, and several two-character code equivalents for words and names. The first brief code vocabularies,…

Turnus: …is the favourite suitor of Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus, eponymous king of the Latins. When Latinus engages Lavinia to marry Aeneas instead, the goddess Juno, who hates the Trojans, drives Turnus mad. He leads his people in a war against Aeneas and the Trojans. After many acts of courage…

Titus Andronicus: …supposed to marry Titus’s daughter Lavinia; however, when his brother Bassianus runs away with her instead, Saturninus marries Tamora. Saturninus and Tamora then plot revenge against Titus. Lavinia is raped and mutilated by Tamora’s sadistic sons Demetrius and Chiron, who cut off her hands and cut out her tongue so…

Lavinium, an ancient town of Latium (modern Pratica di Mare, Italy), 19 miles (30 kilometers) south of Rome, regarded as the religious centre of the early Latin peoples. Roman tradition maintained that it had been founded by Aeneas and his followers from Troy and named after his wife, Lavinia. Here

Lop Buri, town, south-central Thailand, north of Bangkok. Lop Buri is a rice-collecting centre situated on the Lop Buri River and on the country’s main north-south highway and railway. Founded as Lavo in the 5th–7th century, it was incorporated into the Khmer empire of Angkor in the 10th or 11th

Willie Colón: …collaboration with Puerto Rican vocalist Hector Lavoe, a partnership that would endure through the mid-1970s and yield numerous hit songs, including “I Wish I Had a Watermelon” (1969) and “La murga” (c. 1970).

Antoine Lavoisier was a prominent French chemist and leading figure in the 18th-century chemical revolution who developed an experimentally based theory of the chemical reactivity of oxygen and coauthored the modern system for naming chemical substances. Having also served as a leading financier

Antoine Lavoisier was a prominent French chemist and leading figure in the 18th-century chemical revolution who developed an experimentally based theory of the chemical reactivity of oxygen and coauthored the modern system for naming chemical substances. Having also served as a leading financier

la volta, 16th-century leaping and turning dance for couples, originating in Italy and popular at French and German court balls until about 1750. Performed with a notoriously intimate embrace, it became respectable, but never completely dignified, after Queen Elizabeth I of England danced it with

David Ben-Gurion: …implications of the 1954 “Lavon Affair,” involving Israeli-inspired sabotage of U.S. and British property in Egypt. The affair led Ben-Gurion in 1965 to leave Mapai with a number of his supporters and to found a small opposition party, Rafi, at the head of which he fought, with little success,…

Pinhas Lavon was an Israeli politician who held a number of government posts and was accused in 1954 of involvement in a plot to discredit Egypt by secretly attacking U.S. facilities in that country. Although he was cleared of all charges, the “Lavon Affair,” as it came to be known, effectively

Pinhas Lavon was an Israeli politician who held a number of government posts and was accused in 1954 of involvement in a plot to discredit Egypt by secretly attacking U.S. facilities in that country. Although he was cleared of all charges, the “Lavon Affair,” as it came to be known, effectively

Cesare Pavese: …lyric poetry, Lavorare stanca (1936; Hard Labor, 1976), followed his release from prison. An initial novella, Paesi tuoi (1941; The Harvesters, 1961), recalled, as many of his works do, the sacred places of childhood. Between 1943 and 1945 he lived with partisans of the anti-Fascist Resistance in the hills of…

Ignazio Silone: …the party’s paper in Trieste, Il Lavoratore (“The Worker”). He devoted all his time to foreign missions and underground organization for the party until the Fascists drove him into exile. In 1929–30 he was involved in internal debates over changes within the Communist Party, namely Stalin’s efforts to push the…

Italian Socialist Party, former Italian political party, one of the first Italian parties with a national scope and a modern democratic organization. It was founded in 1892 in Genoa as the Italian Workers’ Party (Partito dei Lavoratori Italiani) and formally adopted the name Italian Socialist Party

Eastern Orthodoxy: Origin of the Muscovite patriarchate: …the modern period, the famous Academy of Kiev. Modelled after the Latin seminaries of Poland, with instruction given in Latin, this school served as the theological training centre for almost the entire Russian high clergy in the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1686 Ukraine was finally reunited with Muscovy, and…

history of Latin America: The sugar age: …depended on cane growers called lavradores to produce cane for the mill. Under various kinds of leasing arrangements, the lavradores used their own African slave crews to cultivate the land, grow the cane, and transport it to the mill. Some of the cane growers were from mill-owning families, while others…

Bulgaria: The arts of Bulgaria: …scenes of his native country; Tsanko Lavrenov, a noted graphic artist and art critic who also painted scenes of old Bulgarian towns; Zlatyo Boyadjiev, noted for his village portraits; and Ilya Petrov, who painted scenes and themes from Bulgarian history. After World War II, Socialist Realism dominated Bulgarian artistic circles.…

Laurium, industrial town, Attica (Modern Greek: Attikí) periféreia (region), on the Aegean Sea, famous in antiquity for its silver mines. Its port, sheltered by Makrónisos island, imports coal, loads ore, and handles coastal and insular shipping. The mines may have been worked as early as 1000 bce,

Pyotr Lavrov was a Russian Socialist philosopher whose sociological thought provided a theoretical foundation for the activities of various Russian revolutionary organizations during the second half of the 19th century. A member of a landed family, he graduated from an artillery school in St.

Leonid Lavrovsky was a Russian dancer, choreographer, teacher, and Bolshoi Ballet director. He studied ballet in St. Petersburg and soon was dancing leading roles with the Kirov Ballet (now called the Mariinsky Ballet), of which he became artistic director in 1938. During 1944–56 and 1960–64 he was

Leonid Lavrovsky was a Russian dancer, choreographer, teacher, and Bolshoi Ballet director. He studied ballet in St. Petersburg and soon was dancing leading roles with the Kirov Ballet (now called the Mariinsky Ballet), of which he became artistic director in 1938. During 1944–56 and 1960–64 he was

bazooka: …abandoned bazookas in favour of light antitank weapons, or LAWs, such as the M72, a one-shot disposable weapon that weighed 5 pounds (2.3 kg) fully loaded yet could launch its rocket with reasonable accuracy out to 350 yards (320 metres).

law, the discipline and profession concerned with the customs, practices, and rules of conduct of a community that are recognized as binding by the community. Enforcement of the body of rules is through a controlling authority. The law is treated in a number of articles. For a description of legal

philosophy of science: Difficulties: …the notion of a scientific law. Laws are generalizations about a range of natural phenomena, sometimes universal (“Any two bodies attract one another with a force that is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely as the square of the distance between them”) and sometimes statistical (“The chance…

Torah, in Judaism, in the broadest sense, the substance of divine revelation to Israel, the Jewish people: God’s revealed teaching or guidance for humankind. The meaning of “Torah” is often restricted to signify the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), also called the Law (or the

Law & Order, longest-running law-enforcement series in American television. The show aired on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) network from 1990 to 2010 and enjoyed strong ratings throughout its run. It won the 1997 Emmy Award for best drama series. The hour-long Law & Order was set in New

Vincent D’Onofrio: …central character, Detective Goren, in Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Mariska Hargitay: , Law & Order, and Law & Order: Organized Crime. From 2004 to 2011 Hargitay was nominated each year for an Emmy Award for best lead actress, winning the award in 2006.

Ellen Burstyn: …her guest appearance (2008) on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and for her supporting role (2012) in the miniseries Political Animals. In 2014 she played a crazed matriarch in a television adaptation of the melodramatic thriller Flowers in the Attic (1979), by V.C. Andrews, and two years later she…

Television in the United States: Prime time in the new century: …Order: Criminal Intent (NBC/USA, 2001–11), Law & Order: Trial by Jury (NBC, 2005–2006), and Law & Order: Los Angeles (NBC, 2010–11). The medical serial ER (NBC, 1994–2009) remained a hit, but it was eventually displaced in the top 10 by a new medical serial, Grey’s Anatomy (ABC, begun 2005). The…

Jamie Foxx: …prodigy, and in the thriller Law Abiding Citizen. He subsequently gave supporting performances in the comedies Valentine’s Day (2010), Due Date (2010), and Horrible Bosses (2011). He lent his voice to a canary in the computer-animated children’s comedies Rio (2011) and Rio 2 (2014).

John Sturges: Bad, Magnificent, and Great: In his next project, The Law and Jake Wade (1958), an outlaw (Widmark) forces an old friend (Robert Taylor) to lead him to the money they stole during a bank heist.

Poland: Poland in the 21st century: …fell to the centre-right party Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość; PiS), with its founders, identical twins Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński, attaining the posts of president (2005) and prime minister (2006), respectively. In 2007 the PiS abandoned its coalition partners—the scandal-plagued Self-Defense Party and the League of Polish Families—and called…

C. Northcote Parkinson: …to meet income,” detailed in The Law and the Profits (1960).

conflict of laws: The nature of conflicts law: …(1980), commonly known as the Rome Convention, which applied in the member states of the European Union (EU) and whose interpretation lay within the scope of the European Court of Justice upon reference from national courts. The EU possesses lawmaking powers that enable it to establish uniform rules of substantive…

Rudolf von Jhering: …the 20th century was his Law As a Means to an End, 2 vol. (1877–83; originally in German), which maintained that the purpose of law was the protection of individual and societal interests by coordinating them and thus minimizing occasions for conflict. Where conflict was unavoidable, he assigned greater weight…

law code, a more or less systematic and comprehensive written statement of laws. Law codes were compiled by the most ancient peoples. The oldest extant evidence for a code is tablets from the ancient archives of the city of Ebla (now at Tell Mardikh, Syria), which date to about 2400 bc. The best

crime: Common law: In addition, the Law Commission, also a permanent body, was established in 1965 with the goal of continually reviewing the entire law, not just the criminal law. In 1981 the commission undertook a new attempt at codification of the criminal law, and a draft code was published in…

court, a person or body of persons having judicial authority to hear and resolve disputes in civil, criminal, ecclesiastical, or military cases. The word court, which originally meant simply an enclosed place, also denotes the chamber, hall, building, or other place where judicial proceedings are

Royal Courts of Justice, in London, complex of courtrooms, halls, and offices concerned primarily with civil (noncriminal) litigation. It lies in the Greater London borough of Westminster, on the boundary with the City of London. Within its confines are held sessions of the Court of Appeal, the

Wilkes Land: A local ice cap, the Law Dome, is partially attached to the ice sheet and has been heavily studied by Australian glaciologists.

Nürnberg Laws: ” The other, the Gesetz zum Schutze des Deutschen Blutes und der Deutschen Ehre (“Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour”), usually called simply the Blutschutzgesetz (“Blood Protection Law”), forbade marriage or sexual relations between Jews and “citizens of German or kindred blood.” These measures were…

John Arbuthnot: …1727 under the composite title Law is a Bottom-less Pit; or, The History of John Bull, and it established and popularized for the first time the character who was to become the permanent symbol of England in cartoon and literature. An edition by A.W. Bower and R.A. Erickson was published…

law merchant, during the Middle Ages, the body of customary rules and principles relating to merchants and mercantile transactions and adopted by traders themselves for the purpose of regulating their dealings. Initially, it was administered for the most part in special quasi-judicial courts, such

Brooks Adams: In 1895 he published his Law of Civilization and Decay, in which he expounded his theory of history. It held that the centre of trade had consistently followed a westward movement from the ancient crossroads in the East to Constantinople, Venice, Amsterdam, and finally to London, in accord with a…

conservation law, in physics, a principle that states that a certain physical property (i.e., a measurable quantity) does not change in the course of time within an isolated physical system. In classical physics, laws of this type govern energy, momentum, angular momentum, mass, and electric

law of cosines, Generalization of the Pythagorean theorem relating the lengths of the sides of any triangle. If a, b, and c are the lengths of the sides and C is the angle opposite side c, then c2 = a2 + b2 − 2ab cos

Pedro Almodóvar: …La ley del deseo (1987; Law of Desire), deal with the intersection between violence and sexual desire. A dizzying farce called Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (1988; Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) won international acclaim, including an Academy Award nomination for best foreign-language film.…

The law of diminishing returns says that, if you keep increasing one factor in the production of goods (such as your workforce) while keeping all other factors the same, you’ll reach a point beyond which additional increases will result in a progressive decline in output. In other words, there’s a

Sarah Polley: …star in John Greyson’s cryptic The Law of Enclosures (2000).

Gerrard Winstanley: The Law of Freedom in a Platform (1652), his sketch of a communist society, was dedicated to Oliver Cromwell. Winstanley believed that the English Civil War had been fought against the king, landlords, lawyers, and all who bought and sold, these being enemies of the…

law of inertia, postulate in physics that, if a body is at rest or moving at a constant speed in a straight line, it will remain at rest or keep moving in a straight line at constant speed unless it is acted upon by a force. The law of inertia was first formulated by Galileo Galilei for horizontal

law of large numbers, in statistics, the theorem that, as the number of identically distributed, randomly generated variables increases, their sample mean (average) approaches their theoretical mean. The law of large numbers was first proved by the Swiss mathematician Jakob Bernoulli in 1713. He

insurgency: Briggs in The Law of Nations (1952) described the traditional point of view as follows:

John Locke: Oxford: The resulting Essays on the Law of Nature (first published in 1954) constitutes an early statement of his philosophical views, many of which he retained more or less unchanged for the rest of his life. Of these probably the two most important were, first, his commitment to…

Michael Thomas Sadler: …Macaulay, who had criticized Sadler’s Law of Population (1830), a massive treatise attacking the pessimistic theories of the economist-demographer Thomas Robert Malthus.

Frederick Edwin Smith, 1st earl of Birkenhead: His greatest accomplishments were the Law of Property Act (1922) and subsequent real-property statutes (1925) that replaced a convoluted, largely medieval system of land law. Although enacted after he left office (October 24, 1922), the County Courts Act (1924) and the Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolidation) Act (1925), which reformed…

heredity: Discovery and rediscovery of Mendel’s laws: …first law of Mendel, the law of segregation of unit genes. Equal numbers of gametes, ovules, or pollen grains are formed that contain the genes R and r. Now, if the gametes unite at random, then the F2 generation should contain about 14 white-flowered and 34 purple-flowered plants. The white-flowered

law of sines, Principle of trigonometry stating that the lengths of the sides of any triangle are proportional to the sines of the opposite angles. That is, when a, b, and c are the sides and A, B, and C are the opposite

Law of the Sea, branch of international law concerned with public order at sea. Much of this law is codified in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, signed Dec. 10, 1982. The convention, described as a “constitution for the oceans,” represents an attempt to codify international law

Serbia: Economy of Serbia: …socialism, was codified in the Law on Associated Labour of 1976. Each Yugoslav worker belonged to a Basic Organization of Associated Labour (BOAL) that was based on the precise role played by the worker in the production process. The BOALs elected representatives to workers’ councils, which in turn created management…

Mongolia: Daily life and social customs: ” In the Law on Culture, adopted in April 1996, the legislature decided to revert to the earlier practice of keeping family trees and using clan names, and regulations for this were issued in January 1997. Clan names are now recorded on identity cards and other official documents…

law report, in common law, published record of a judicial decision that is cited by lawyers and judges for their use as precedent in subsequent cases. The report of a decision ordinarily contains the title of the case, a statement of the facts giving rise to the litigation, and its history in the

solicitor: …organization of solicitors was the Law Society, a voluntary group, incorporated by Parliament. The society’s Regulation Board, which had extensive authority in setting and enforcing standards for solicitors, was replaced by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) in 2007. See also Inns of Court.

Austria: Ausgleich of 1867: …May 1867 the diet approved Law XII, legalizing what became known as the Ausgleich (“Compromise”). This was a compromise between the Hungarian nation and the dynasty, not between Hungary and the rest of the empire, and it is symptomatic of the Hungarian attitude that led Hungarians to refer to Franz…

Bonar Law was the prime minister of Great Britain from October 23, 1922, to May 20, 1923, the first holder of that office to come from a British overseas possession. He was the leader of the Conservative Party during the periods 1911–21 and 1922–23. The son of a Presbyterian minister of Ulster

ark, (“holy ark”), in Jewish synagogues, an ornate cabinet that enshrines the sacred Torah scrolls used for public worship. Because it symbolizes the Holy of Holies of the ancient Temple of Jerusalem, it is the holiest place in the synagogue and the focal point of prayer. The ark is reached by

Bernard Cardinal Law was an American prelate who was head (1984–2002) of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Boston before he resigned in disgrace after it was revealed that he had protected sexually abusive priests for years. Law’s father was a U.S. Army colonel and his mother a concert pianist. He