Happy birthday.............

[Guest]

Sir John Barbirolli (114) and Maria Callas(90). I thought that someone would have beaten me to this.
What a great pair.
I will always be thankful that the BBC broadcast their 1953 Aida from Covent Garden, and that Testament issued the CDs of the broadcast.

I never managed to see Callas live, but I did see a dozen or so JB concerts, which live in the memory quite vividly, especially the LSO London concert with Elizabeth Schwarzkopf singing the Vier Letzte Lieder and JB conducting a mighty Heldenleben in 1969.

[BBMmk2]

One conductor I wished I seen live!

[Gordon]

Sir John was born in Southampton Row just North of the present junction with the Theobald's Road. He went to St Clement Dane's school at the bottom of Kingsway but when he was a lad going to school it was a building site so he would have watched Kingsway Hall being built. It'll be the Hall's 101st birthday on Friday.

[Karafan]

Sir John was born in Southampton Row just North of the present junction with the Theobald's Road. He went to St Clement Dane's school at the bottom of Kingsway but when he was a lad going to school it was a building site so he would have watched Kingsway Hall being built. It'll be the Hall's 101st birthday on Friday.

Thanks for the note, Gordon. Dear old KH, of fond memory!

[Nimrod]

Well done Slarty for recognising that December 2nd was a birthday for (at least) two great artists! The BBC seems to have only got one on their radar and they played an aria of Callas. How sensible would it have been to play some of that Aida thus recognising both JB and Callas? You and I might have thought that, but not the controllers of Radio 3. They even played several pieces of music that JB recorded, but all were performed by other artists!
How I envy you being there at that September 1969 concert with the LSO! I was fortunate to see JB around 10 times but only once in the RFH, mind you that was for In the South and Bruckner 8th! I was even holding the score of Alassio, that JB used in that concert, a week last Saturday, some 43 years after seeing it on the rostrum.
Nimrod

[Roehre]

Happy 130th Birthday to Anton (von) Webern, born Dec 3rd 1883

[richardfinegold]

Happy 130th Birthday to Anton (von) Webern, born Dec 3rd 1883

Someone should compose a Birthday diddy in his honor; the requirement is that it can't be longer than 3 bars.

[Gordon]

Someone should compose a Birthday diddy in his honor; the requirement is that it can't be longer than 3 bars.

But each bar must have 12 tones in it so that it "spells" Anton3121883 using a number/letter table look up ie A=1, B=2 etc wrapping back after L=12 so N=14=2mod12, O=13=3mod12 and T=20=8mod12 to make: 128323121883. Second bar repeats backwards and third takes odd notes first followed by even. Numbers then give a 3 bar "tune" starting from 1 = A440 [A for Anton], 2 a semitone up etc. Sounds nothing like Happy Birthday!!

Repeat optional at the end of the last bar. Also optional is to use a bell ringing sequence of choice to change order of notes, 12^12 bars or 12TeraBars in all!!