Byzantine Blackwood convention Byzantine Blackwood convention Byzantine Blackwood is a bidding in the game of bridge. Devised by Jack Marx, it is a complex version of the (by which a four notrump (4NT) asks about 's holdings). Its premise is that both aces and kings may safely be shown in response to a Blackwood-type 4NT enquiry; provided that such kings are in well-defined "key" or "half-key" suits, there being no more than two such suits. The name was chosen to express the idea that Byzantine Blackwood is a development from Roman Blackwood, by analogy with the Byzantine Empire and the Roman Empire; rather
F-A-E Sonata F-A-E Sonata The F-A-E Sonata, a four-movement work for violin and piano, is a collaborative musical work by three composers: Robert Schumann, the young Johannes Brahms, and Schumann's pupil Albert Dietrich. It was composed in Düsseldorf in October 1853. The sonata was Schumann's idea as a gift and tribute to violinist Joseph Joachim, whom the three composers had recently befriended. Joachim had adopted the Romantic German phrase ""Frei aber einsam"" ("free but lonely") as his personal motto. The composition's movements are all based on the musical notes F-A-E, the motto's initials, as a musical cryptogram. Schumann assigned each movement to