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Initially published by La Chevardière in 1774, Op. 20 acquired the name “Sun” from a sunburst image on the title page of Hummel's 1779 edition. Despite resemblances to Opp. 9 and 17, the new quartets break fresh ground in matters of cyclic profile, opus design, and sonority, and they exceed their predecessors in musical wit, technical sophistication, expressive range, and formal variety. Memorable novelties include instances of metrical dissonance, tonal derailment, and dense chromaticism as well as passages that feature the cello as a tenor-range soloist. With two quartets cast in minor keys, there are new perspectives on minor-key discourse; and the incorporation of three technically exacting fugal finales points to a new concept of cyclic profile, with the finale now a focus of cyclic culmination.

This chapter narrates how the New York Express derailed as it neared the Big Sister Creek bridge just east of Angola at 3:11 P.M. The train ran over the frog connected to the main line, and passengers in the coach cars did not see the plume of grit rise into the air behind the rear wheels. James Mahar rushed down the track bed, running as fast as he could in the wake of the train, and witnessed the rear car rise and then drop, followed by a plume of gravel and ice. Mahar knew that a derailment was about to happen as he watched the back of the train, which seemed to increase speed as it pulled away. The rear truck of the last car was certainly off the rail, but the train was still moving.

This book revisits what came to be known as the Angola Horror, when the New York Express derailed in an upstate New York village on December 18, 1867, claiming the lives of approximately fifty people. It recounts what happened that day, and the days that followed, at Angola. It also examines why the New York Express derailment, ranked as one of the worst railroad accidents in American history, continues to occupy a powerful place in the American mind. This prologue discusses the role played by the day's newspapers and the oft-sensationalistic journalists in turning the scenes at Angola into indelible images and phrases. It also considers why the Angola Horror commanded enormous public attention; the wreck, for example, spoke directly to the ways in which Americans of the period viewed the railroads.

This chapter recounts how the New York Express's last two cars fell into the icy gorge below the Big Sister Creek bridge. Running after the train, James Mahar did not stop to look at what had occurred at the site of the derailment. The frog's curved iron pieces had struck a wheel on the left-hand side of the back truck, throwing the truck off kilter. Passengers on the train could not see what was happening on the rails. How strongly they felt the concussion of the derailment depended on where they sat. The cars of the express then began to shudder as they rolled along the track. Robert J. Dickson, an engineer working for the Buffalo and Erie Railroad, decided to jump from the moving train, which had already traveled 1,230 feet with derailed back wheels.

This chapter recounts how the New York Express's derailment, which caused its last two cars to fall into the icy gorge below the Big Sister Creek bridge, turned into a horrific disaster. The Toledo car, crushed into three feet of wood and metal, landed nearly upright against the embankment on the bridge's northern side. The live coals dumped around the car's interior turned some parts of the wreckage into flames, which began to spread, moving over bodies, bags, and debris. As the victims' bodies contorted in the fiery car, they also charred. As the fire crackled, sounds of human suffering emanated from the car. It was a scene of “horrors…piled upon horrors.” This chapter describes the rescue efforts initiated by residents of Angola, including Henry Bundy and Josiah Southwick, to help the injured passengers of the train wreck.

This chapter discusses the first reports of the New York Express disaster at Angola that were carried by different newspapers on December 19 and 20, 1867. Men and women learned about the facts of the accident that had happened the previous afternoon from the morning dailies. Newspaper headlines trumpeted the derailment with exclamations and adjectives. News accounts were filled with descriptions of the scenes in the Big Sister Creek bridge, focusing on the inferno in the last car, the search for survivors, and the efforts of Angolan villagers to aid the injured. Journalists played a leading role in painting the disaster as the Angola Horror. This chapter considers the inaccuracies in the news reports about the Angola wreck as well as the challenges faced by Buffalo's daily newspapers in describing its aftermath.

This chapter focuses on the coroners' inquests held from late December 1867 to early January 1868 to determine the cause of the New York Express derailment. Coroner J. I. Richards appointed an inquest jury to investigate the circumstances of the wreck, which included taking testimony from eyewitnesses to the disaster and others involved with the New York Express and Buffalo and Erie Railroad. Basing its evidence mainly on the testimony of expert witnesses who were also Buffalo and Erie's employees, the jury exonerated the company in total. This chapter discusses the inquest proceedings and the public's reaction to the jury's verdict.

“Learning Agility, Resilience, and Successful Derailment” discusses the practices that individuals and organizations can adopt to increase their short-term resilience in crisis, their long-term resilience capacity, and their ability to successfully navigate derailment. Short-term resilience practices include problem framing and identification, building a fence to focus energy, managing emotions, drawing on social networks, and promoting healthy practices. Long-term resilience strategies include envisioning possible futures, practicing bricolage, cue and reinforcer management, deepening social support, and reflection. Last, strategies to successfully navigate derailment are reviewed, including the key practices and lessons that allow a leader to grow from the experience. Throughout, the relationships between learning agility, resilience, and derailment are examined, including promising directions for future research.

The purpose of this chapter is to present a model that demonstrates how executive coaching can help a leader who is at risk of derailing. The authors examine the leadership derailment literature and take a particular stand on how the stressors of leadership contribute to derailment. The authors present a conceptual framework for executive coaching, known as the AIIR Method, that can serve as a lifeline to struggling leaders, helping them to become more effective and thus increasing the likelihood that they will achieve their respective organizational mandates. By breaking down the conceptual aspects of the AIIR Method, the authors demonstrate how each phase of the coaching process provides a leader with clarity, which activates behavior change that can be sustained over time. The chapter shows how this model is commonly applied through a case study and concludes with a focus on future research and investigation of this important topic.

Robert and Joyce Hogan introduced the concept of the dark side of personality to identify common counterproductive dispositions associated with ineffective leadership and career derailment. Dark-side traits are more complex and complicated than the bright-side traits assessed by most personality inventories. This chapter is about untangling the risks and rewards of the dark side for those who conduct executive assessments for (1) hiring, promotion, and succession planning as well as (2) leadership development and executive coaching. First, a brief history of the origins of the dark-side concept is reviewed. Next, distinctions are made between bright-side traits, dark-side traits, and personality disorders. Then a paradox is identified and addressed: Dark-side derailers are associated with both upside potential for effective leadership and downside risks for ineffective leadership. Finally, practical implications are provided with recommendations for executive selection and development.

The most consequential question in human affairs is, “Who should lead?” Effective leadership, arising from a leader’s strengths and competencies and known as the bright side, is instrumental to team and organizational success. But leadership is not by definition good or moral. Examples abound of abusive, tyrannical, or even destructive leadership in organizations and societies. This suggests that leaders are not always able to balance their personal shortcomings, judgment deficiencies, or counterproductive tendencies—the dark side—with the demands of organizational leadership. This chapter introduces the nature, prevalence, and moral and economic implications of the dark side. The authors then provide an overview of the book’s four sections: defining and measuring the dark side; discussing why it matters to individuals, teams, and organizations; sharing how talent-management professionals and psychologists can minimize bad leadership; and explaining the hidden benefits of dark-side personalities and leadership behaviors.

This chapter summarizes the authors’ view of how the relatively recent interest in the dark side of personality has influenced leadership research. Conventional wisdom of leadership researchers has always been that the corporate elite is a race of heroes. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first section provides some context and background for the subsequent discussion of leadership and the dark side of personality. The second section describes how the authors arrived at the notion of “the dark side of personality” and its impact on leadership. The third section summarizes the lessons that have been learned about these topics over the years. The chapter concludes with some final observations.

Why do leaders, in the eyes of their organizations, not live up to their full career potential? Over five decades of derailment research has focused on the answer to this question. Studies on derailment, a metaphor for a train coming off the track, have examined leaders’ maladaptive behaviors, dark-side personality characteristics, and dynamics that result in considerable damage to individuals and organizations. This chapter provides an historical overview of leader derailment from the 1960s to today and presents the role of dark-side personality traits in explaining derailed leaders’ behaviors. Comparisons of successful leaders to derailed leaders and the processes of derailment are discussed to better understand the full array of factors that can lead to leader derailment. The chapter closes by identifying the costs of derailment to leaders, coworkers, and organizations.

Mythology was of great interest to Mann and allusions to well-known myths appear in many guises across his works. It is also of interest in terms of narrative time. This chapter takes a selection of works in which Mann toys—to varying degrees of subtlety—with mythic tales, and explores the way in which nods to well-known mythological tales affect the subjective flow of time. I explore the different models presented in Felix Krull, Blood of the Walsungs, and Doctor Faustus, and compare these to Günter Grass’s The Tin Drum, a work that engages closely with Mann’s writing. This analysis illustrates the temporally stagnating effect of mythological repetition—at the level of both plot and story—as well as the instability caused by divergence from expectation.