Birthdays of the Great

[Ventilhorn]

Well it is just a feeling . . . "solo" in the O.E.D. is marked with two vertical lines, indicating that it is still felt to be a foreign (specifically Italian) word, whereas the suffix "-ist" while deriving ultimately from the Greek has in English a much longer history of use in the formation of agent-nouns.

The O.E.D. cites some examples of similar modern formations which verge upon the absurd: "balloonist, billiardist, bimetallist, ’celloist, cocainist, cyclist, fetishist, footballist, hammerist, selfist, truthist, great aukist, physical forcist, red tapist, second adventist, etc." You will understand therefore why I am equally uncomfortable with "cellist"!

Nor may I add does the word "soloize" exist!

But you won't find the word "homosexualist" in any dictionary, so why do you persist in using it?

VH

[Sydney Grew]

Untrue. It is there in the O.E.D. I use it because it is more refined than "gay." Could we stick to Thibaud and the other birthdays please?

[3rd Viennese School]

Sibelious's birthday is always on the same day of the week as my birthday!

My claim to fame.

3VS

[Ariosto]

Ventilhorn - I send you a friendly invitation to have a go at me on the "Brahms oh Brahms" thread as I've broken one of your sacrosanct rules!!

I followed a score during a public concert, so I know I must be one of your favourite plonkers (I'm not sure if "plonkers" is in the O.E.D.)

But perhaps Syd should be congratulated for starting an interesting thread!?! I for one appreciated the stuff about famous fiddlers.

How about you?

[ahinton]

Jenny Lind
Edwin Fischer (not that I'm aware that he actually composed anything)
and, most fortunately and appropriately (I'd like to think!)
Karol Szymanowski

[vinteuil]

I use it because it is more refined than "gay."

I think many of us are beffled by the Grevian sense of "refined" (which I personally pronounce, "refained"...).

In what sense - on what planet - does the word "homo-sex-ual-ist" have a more refained acceptance than seriously good expressions like 'paederast', 'acting as a somdomite' [sic], or - a word that I might have thort wd have a had a particular period appeal to Mgr Grew, 'invert'... ? As far as I recall, 'homosexualist' was the favoured phraseology of Private Eye - and I don't think they were using it in a particularly kindly way...

[MrGongGong]

Mozart
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (oops)
Lewis Carroll
Nick Mason
Tricky
Elmore James

all sadly overshadowed by it also being Holocaust Memorial Day (which is , of course, hugely significant !) and so every Birthday i go downstairs switch on the radio
to hear John Humphries reminding us all of the evil that men do.................... a bit hard to whoop it up after that then

[3rd Viennese School]

Well, I've cheated and Googled it. Not only Gloria Estafan but Pachelbel and Leonard Slatkin!

3VS

[mercia]

Travel by aeroplane must always be a gamble must it not

indeed it must, likewise conveyance by motor-charabanc or Hansom cab (in our experience)
we notice that Ginette Neveu also died in an Air France Lockheed Constellation (still clutching her Stradivarius)

[Ventilhorn]

Ventilhorn - I send you a friendly invitation to have a go at me on the "Brahms oh Brahms" thread as I've broken one of your sacrosanct rules!!

I followed a score during a public concert, so I know I must be one of your favourite plonkers (I'm not sure if "plonkers" is in the O.E.D.)

Ariosto,

Well since you are known to be a professional musician, it must be assumed that you are capable of reading a score, so there is no one-upmanship to be gained by demonstrating the fact to others. Far from being a plonker, you cannot even be regarded as a poser.

Presumably there was a perfectly good reason why you wanted to check with the score on this occasion?

VH

PS I can read a full score with no difficulty, but I'm damned if I can follow a piano part.

[Ariosto]

Ariosto,

Well since you are known to be a professional musician, it must be assumed that you are capable of reading a score, so there is no one-upmanship to be gained by demonstrating the fact to others. Far from being a plonker, you cannot even be regarded as a poser.

Presumably there was a perfectly good reason why you wanted to check with the score on this occasion?

VH

PS I can read a full score with no difficulty, but I'm damned if I can follow a piano part.

Please excuse my little jokes.

I really wanted to particularly follow the piano part with the violin part above, in the Brahms A major, to see how the parts worked together, how difficult the ensemble might be, and how difficult the violin part might be. I was pleased that mostly I felt it very performable, although the piano part is certainly quite difficult, confirmed by my boss who was also following the music. Neither of us knew that particular sonata that well. She has performed the other two (G major and D minor).

I rarely have problems with piano parts - but full Mahler scores can get a bit hairy at times, although mostly I only get lost for a bar or two, mainly when it jumps from a fiull page to a half page, or back again. I sometimes get a bit confused with the instruments that transpose - as the notes on the score are not the same as I'm hearing - but I'm sure you will find that perfectly easy, as you are, as a horn player - and a wizz at transposing.

Sitting in the front row in the balacony at the Wigmore, at the end in the corner, I'm sure no one knew what we were up to, and I was extremely discreet turning the pages. Unlike a cello colleague once who (after we had a coaching session with the Allegri Quartet) sat in the front row right by the cellist with the score of the Britten quartet they were about to perform. The Allegri cellist, Bruni Giriana (I hope that's the correct spelling) said, "Heavens, he's got the damned score with him as well!!"

[Tony Halstead]

Wrong 'Bruno'...
It was Bruno Schrecker when the Allegri Quartet was in its heyday.
I was lucky enough to have played ( and broadcast) the Mozart Quintet K407 with them when the leader was Hugh Maguire and the (wonderful) viola player Patrick Ireland.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Incidentally does anyone on here share their birthdate with any famous composers?

For the "Glorious 12th" so beloved of our native grouse I've found only Heinrich Biber and Maurice Greene.

Still, could have been worse I suppose...(??).

[Sydney Grew]

. . . we notice that Ginette Neveu also died in an Air France Lockheed Constellation (still clutching her Stradivarius)

Yes indeed - most unfortunate - lightning striking twice and all that.

To-day three hundred and thirty years ago, in 1681, Johann Mattheson was born in Hamburgh. He is said to have resolved to publish a work for every year of his life, and this aim he more than accomplished, for when he expired at eighty-three, his printed works amounted to eighty-eight. Jolly old Schönberg achieved a very similar record did he not.

The 1904 edition of Grove's Dictionary tells us that "None of his compositions have [sic] survived." But this may simply mean that none of his compositions was by that time ever performed, because the most recent edition of Grove's retails a quite different story: "The best part of his music was assumed to have been destroyed in the Hamburgh City Library in 1944, but this was not actually the case since in 1998 much of it was returned to Hamburgh from Armenia."

[Tapiola]

He is said to have resolved to publish a work for every year of his life, and this aim he more than accomplished, for when he expired at eighty-three, his printed works amounted to eighty-eight. Jolly old Schönberg achieved a very similar record did he not.

No he didn't. Opus 50c (unfinished) is Schoenberg's last published work. He lived to be 76.

Perhaps your comparison has been clouded by the Schoenberg entry in Lebrecht's ludicrous "Companion to 20th Century Music"?