Birthdays of the Great

[Tony Halstead]

The perfectly legitimate reasons why it winds up VH ( and myself) are that
1) this is a 'performance' section of the boards
and
2) it litters the board with obsolete, preposterous, know-all and effete (thanks, Caliban) spellings.

[mercia]

amazing that people find it so difficult to avoid certain threads
I find it so easy

on the subject of obsessive tidiness and "everything in it's right place", there seem to be several threads on the performance board which are irrelevant to performance

[Ariosto]

The perfectly legitimate reasons why it winds up VH ( and myself) is that
1) this is a 'performance' section of the boards
and
2) it litters the board with obsolete, preposterous, know-all and effete ( thanks, Caliban) spellings.

Waldhorn, the spellings apart, you could say that many of the people that Syd talks about were performers, so maybe this is an appropriate platform?

I have to add that I find some of WH's cryptic comments highly enertaining too, and often with some relevence to some of Syd's statements.

I think Syd is having a great time and that he might find it hard to dis-entangle his tongue from his cheek!!

[amateur51]

Am I missing something? When someone on these boards uses the effete, incorrect spelling 'quartette' or 'quintette', are signals being sent, coded confidences exchanged, private jokes savoured?

I infer that it's designed as a send-up of some here whose views are seen as quaint and old-fashioned.

Or does Mr Grew merely need to ask his physician for a revision of the daily dose of tablettes?

Most tastefully done, Spiffy old bean

[Sydney Grew]

Jacob Blumenthal was born at Hamburgh on this day one hundred and eighty-two years ago. He first studied under F. W. Grund there, and then under C. M. von Bocklet and Sechter in Vienna. His perfect proficiency in piano-forte playing was attained under Herz at the Conservatoire in Paris, which he entered in 1846.

In 1848 he took up residence in London, where he became personal pianist to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and a very fashionable teacher. As composer he is known for a large number of brilliant, effective, and pretty piano-forte pieces, and for many songs, some of which, such as "The Message," have become widely and justly popular. His numerous song-albums are sincere in expression and artistic in style.

Besides his London residence, Blumenthal had a house at Montreux, where after a long and always productive life he expired in 1908.

A much larger picture of a much younger Jacob Blumenthal may be viewed here.

[Nick Armstrong]

effete, incorrect

It is the orthography favoured by Wilde, one of our greatest writers.

Je repose ma valise.

Still if it winds ventihorn up, it can't be all bad.

[mercia]

wikipedia seems to call him Jacques Blumenthal (and says he died in Chelsea)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Blumenthal

[Nick Armstrong]

Jacob Blumenthal

The absence of quartettes and quintettes from his oeuvre seems very remisse

[Tapiola]

In-dubitably so, Cali-banne.

[amateur51]

As our Host-esse has declined to limit the thread to musical people, might I draw members' attention to the 80th birthday today of one of the finest cricketers and one of the most courageous and decent of men, Basil D'Oliveira, whose selection for the 1968 MCC touring party to South Africa set in motion events which resulted decades later in the downfall and dismantlement of the apartheid regime, truly a human stain.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46885000/jpg/_46885811_basil766.jpg

[vinteuil]

amateur: I am so surprised you didn't also mention St Ann Widdecombe...

... surprised too that Mgr Grew has not deigned to alert us to Charles Ferdinand Lenepveu.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lenepveu

What do we know of his grand opera, Velleda, performed at Covent Garden, for example? I think we should be told!

[Tapiola]

... surprised too that Mgr Grew has not deigned to alert us to Charles Ferdinand Lenepveu.

Aah, but M. Lenepveu seems not to have been a Leipsicische homosex-ualist...

[amateur51]

amateur: I am so surprised you didn't also mention St Ann Widdecombe...

... surprised too that Mgr Grew has not deigned to alert us to Charles Ferdinand Lenepveu.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lenepveu

What do we know of his grand opera, Velleda, performed at Covent Garden, for example? I think we should be told!

Saint Ann of Widdecombe, the well-known facultative Catholic & ballroom danseuse??

[Curalach]

Saint Ann of Widdecombe, the well-known facultative Catholic & ballroom danseuse??

Should that not be dansette, in the spirit of this thread?

[mercia]

Lenepveu

that looks like it ought to be an anagram of flat-tyre, or something
(what is the French for flat-tyre?)