Today's the Day

[Edgy 2]

See,they did used to play Howard Ferguson on Radio 3.

[edashtav]

I'm a bit lost by your astonishment, ed - why should the first British performance of an opera by Strauss a mere 13 months after its first German performances be regarded as "late"? Guntram and Feuersnot wouldn't be snapped up by a British company, and the Wilde association would prevent Salome from getting a look in.

Thanks for the Elgar information - what year did he conduct the Feuersnot scene?

I was thinking about Salome first, without registering Wilde's reputation in GB! A pointvwell made, Ferney. As for EE, he programmed the Feuersnot Love Scene in November, 1902.

Dornröschen (Sleeping Beauty) is a 1902 opera by Engelbert Humperdinck that also appeared in EE's prigramme in the form of a Suite. Tchaik and Cowen might have come to mind.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Gosh! I even have an extract from Dornröschen on a CD of Humperdinck orchestral Music conducted by Rickenbecker

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Baden-Powell Day - celebrated by Scouts throughout the world (please note, every joke about "Scouting for Boys" has been made - not that that need necessarily deter Forumistas from repeating them here). If I've understood the Wiki entry correctly ( ) then Girl Guides celebrate the day under the name "World Thinking Day" - which is just asking for trouble!

It's also European Day for the Victims of Crime, established to ensure that laws in member states observe the rights of victims of crimes. Last year, a report commissioned by the Commission reported that, whilst regulations to ensure victim protection have made progress, victims' rights were still under-implemented.

And spare a thought for St Baradates, the 5th Century Syrian hermit who lived in a hut too small for him to stand upright in, and wore a leather apron which allowed only his mouth and nose to be seen. His knowledge was widely respected, and whose advice was much sought-after.

Also today: Jews are expelled from Zurich (1349); Robert II becomes the first Stuart king of Scotland (1371); Native Indians introduce British pilgrims to Popcorn during a Thanksgiving celebration (1630 - there were many more such celebrations for the early settlers than the annual festivities of today); Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is first published in which he comes down firmly on the side of the Copernican heliocentric system, and makes clear that he does not do the fandango (1632); the first Jewish Burial Ground in the New World is established in New Amsterdam (New York - 1856); the House of Lords decrees that authors do not have perpetual copyright (1774); Jews are expelled from the outskirts of Warsaw (1775 - they had been expelled from the city itself 300 years earlier); Spain sells Florida to the United States for $5 million (1821 - about 110 billion in today's money); the 1848 revolutions across Europe begin in Paris; the first Republican Party national convention is held in Pittsburgh (1857); Lady Windermere's Fan opens in London (1892); Aeroplanes are forbidden from flying over the White House and the premiere of The Little Colonel provides the first interracial dance [between Bill Robinson and Shirley Temple] in a Hollywood film (both 1935); Paul Creston's 1st Symphony and RoyHarris' Ballad of a Railroad Man are both premiered in New York (1941); the first three members of the White Rose Resistance movement, Christoph Probst and siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, are beheaded for treason in Stadelheim Prison in Munich, just hours after their trial (1943); the United Arabic League is founded by an alliance between Egypt and Syria (1958); Northern Songs - the Beatles' own publishing company - is founded (1963); the IRA detonates a car bomb outside Aldershot barracks, killing 7 people (1972); Dolly, the world's first successfully cloned mammal, is announced to the world (1997 - she had been born the previous July); Britain's biggest cash robbery takes place at the Securitas Cash Depot in Tunbridge: over £53million in cash is stolen and staff are tied up at gunpoint (2006); and at the 2009 Oscars, Slumdog Millionaire wind Best Picture award, and Heath Ledger is posthumously awarded the Best Supporting Actor statuette.

Birthdays today include: George Washington (1732); Arthur Schopenhauer (1788); Niels Villem Gade (1817); Robert Baden-Powell and Heinrich Hertz (both 1857); York Bowen (1884); Hugo Ball (1886); Pat Sullivan (1887); Olave Baden-Powell (1889 - thirty-two years after her husband); Edna St Vincent Millay (1892); Luis Bunuel (1900); Constance Stokes (1906); John Mills (1908); Kenneth Williams (1926); Bruce Forsyth (1928); Marni Nixon (1930); Sheila Hancock (1933 - agh! her husband died the day before her 69th birthday ); Christine Keeler (1942); Terry Eagleton (1943); Julie Walters (1950); and Nigel Planer (1953).

Last days for: Amerigo Vespucci (1512); Josef Benda (1803); Charles Blondin (1897); Hugo Wolf (1903); Leslie Stephen (1904); Ferdinand de Saussure (1913); Stephan Zweig (1942); Kasturba Gandhi (1944); Oskar Kokoschka (1980); Adrian Boult (1983); Efrem Zimbalist (1985); Andy Worhol (1987); Chuck Jones (2002); and Wolfgang Sawalisch (2013).

And the morning schedules for Radio 3 for Saturday, 22nd February, 1969 were:

Weekend in Lancaster i: NPO/Atherton
Record Review: Haydn Symph #94 BaLed by Noel Goodwin; recent choral records reviewed by Robert Henderson
Weekend in Lancaster ii: a guitar recital by John Williams (with an interval talk by Stephen Dodgson on 20th Century guitar Music).

... and, just to demonstrate that all was not completely idyllic in those fond-remembered days, the rest of the day's broadcast (until 6:00pm) was given over to Sport!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

February 23rd

Feast Day of Serenus the Gardener - which sounds lovely, except that he got himself into trouble because he complained about women walking in his garden unattended by a man, so I don't feel quite as much sympathy with his plight as I might otherwise have done.

Nonetheless he met with a brutal ending in 307 CE - and was a victim of the Diocletian Persecution of Christians which had begun on this date four years earlier, when Roman Emperor Diocletian had the church at Nicomedia destroyed and started the most violent and savage persecution of Christians in the history of the Roman Empire; Byzantine Emperor, Justinian I orders the building of the Hagia Sophia in the city now known as Istanbul (532); to today is generally attributed the first publication of the "Gutenberg" Bible, produced using moveable type for the first time (1455); the Cato Street Conspiracy to murder all the Cabinet ministers at a dinner, is foiled by police spies (1820); Halévy's La Juive is premiered in Paris (1835); the Battle of the Alamo begins (1836); Liszt's Les Preludes is premiered in Weimar, and the term "Symphonic Poem" is used for the first time on the programme billing (1854); siblings Charles Martin and Julia Brainerd Hall develop the first aluminium manufacturing process; and the Times publishes the first Classified Ads (both 1886); Emile Zola begins his prison sentence for having written his J'Accuse article the previous month (1898); Cuba leases Guantanamo Bay to the United States "in perpetuity" (1903); the Rotary Club is formed in Chicago (1905); Schönberg's Gurre-lieder is premiered in Vienna, conducted by Franz Schreker (1913); Werner Heisenberg explains his Uncertainty Principal for the first time (1927); Disney's Pinocchio goes on general release (1940); Plutonium is produced and isolated for the first time (1941); the iconic photograph of American troops raising the flag on Mt Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima is taken; and the German city of Pforzheim is destroyed by British bombers (both 1945); the Salk vaccine against Polio is first mass-tested in two schools in Pittsburgh (1954); an attempted coup d'etat in the Spanish parliament fails (1981); Osama Bin Laden proclaims a fatwa against "Jews and Crusaders" (1998); studies published in Science Journal exactly a year ago today suggest that Paleolithic Artwork in Spain - the earliest known European Art - may have been created by Neanderthals, not ("modern"/more recent) humans. And exactly fifty years ago today, the first episode of Kenneth Clarke's Civilisation is broadcast for the first time.

Birthdays include: Balthazar Gerbier (1592); John Blow (1649); Gerog Friederich Haendel (1685); Cesar Ritz (1850); William Schirer (1904); Lejaren Hiller (1924); Régine Crespin (1927); Peter Fonda (1940); and Bernard Cornwell (1944).

Last Days for: Henry Grey (father of Lady Jane, executed for treason, 1554); Georg Muffat (1704); Josua Reynolds (1792); John Keats (1821); John Quincy Adams (1848); Carl Friederich Gauss (1855); Ernest Dowson (1900); Nelly Melba (1931); Edward Elgar (1934); Paul Claudel (1955); Stan Laurel (1965); LS Lowry (1976); Herbert Howells (1983); James Herriot (1995); Ruth Gipps (1999 - 3 days after her 78th birthday); Stanley Matthews (2000); and exactly five years ago, the rather wonderful Alice Herz-sommer (2014).

And, on the morning of the same Sunday that Civilisation first appeared on the TV screens, the R3 schedules were:

What's New?: "a weekly programme of recent records"
Haydn Piano Trios: the Oromonte Piano Trio play Trios H30, H4, H13, H29
Your Concert Choice: recordings
Music Magazine
Bach: W-TC, Book 2, Nos 1 - 7

[edashtav]

Gosh! I even have an extract from Dornröschen on a CD of Humperdinck orchestral Music conducted by Rickenbecker

So do I.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

February 24th

In Roman times, Feb 24th (the sixth day before the Kalends of March) was used as the Leap Year Day, and the "day" lasted for 48 hours.

Feast Day of Aethelbehrt, King of Kent and Bretwalda ("Chief Briton") in the late 6th - early 7th Century. Married to Bertha, daughter of the King of the Franks, it might be her influence that prompted Pope Gregory I ("Gregory the Great", the "Gregorian Chant" chap) to send St Augustine to Britain to reconvert the people to Christianity. Even if not, Aethelbehrt was the first Christian English King, following Augustine's arrival, and it was he who gave to the Church land in Canterbury, upon which the Cathedral was eventually built. He also set down a series of laws, detailing the fines and punishments for breaking these: the earliest legal documents written in English.

And it's National Artists' Day in Thailand, where the work of the foremost figures in country's the Arts and cultural life are celebrated. Every year, 10 Artists (writers, painters, Musicians, puppeteers etc) are awarded a monthly salary of £300 for life, health benefits, £400 towards funeral costs, and £3000 for a biography to be written about them.

Also on this date: Francis of Assissi is inspired by hearing a sermon to devote his life to poverty (1208); the first battle in the First War of Scottish Independence is fought at Roslin (1303); Gregory 13th issues the Papal Bull Inter Gravissimas, initiating the Gregorian Calendar (1582); Monteverdi's "The Fable of Orpheus told in Music" is premiered in Mantua (1607); Handel's Rinaldo premieres in London (1711); the Supreme Court of the United States establish the principle of Judicial Review, under which courts may revoke Government actions that contravene the American Constitution (1803); overenthusiastic crowds at a triple public execution are crushed to death (1807); Richard Brinsley Sheridan's Drury Lane Theatre in London burns down, leaving him penniless (1809); following days of riots in Paris, King Louis-Philippe abdicates and the Second Republic is declared in France (1848); the world's first perforated stamp, the Penny Red goes on sale (1854 - America's first perforated stamps go on sale three years later to the day); Andrew Johnson becomes the first President of the United States to be impeached (1868); Ibsen's play Peer Gynt, together with Grieg's incidental Music, is premiered in Christiana (Oslo, 1876); the Zimmerman Telegraph, in which Germany offers rewards to Mexico if it will declare War on the United States, is handed over to the US ambassador to Britain (1917); a coalition of German right-wing groups takes the overall name The National Socialist German Workers' Party; and Nancy Astor becomes the first woman MP to speak in the House of Commons (both 1920); the name "The Flying Scotsman" is officially adopted after the service has been running for 62 years (1924); Roy Harris' 3rd Symphony is premiered in Boston (1939); a rumoured attack by Japanese aircraft on Los Angeles leads to hours of anti-aircraft firings overnight - it's a false alarm (1942); Juan Peron is elected President of Argentina (1946); the film of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is released at a Royal Premiere (1969); Berg's Lulu, with its Third Act completed by Friederich Cerha is premiered in Paris (1979); Charles & Diana's engagement is announced, "whatever 'love' means" (1981); Elton Joh is knighted (1998); Fidel Castro retires as President of Cuba after 32 years in that office, and nearly 50 as leader of the country (2008); and the Space Shuttle Discovery launches for its last flight after 34 years in service (2011).

Birthdays today include: Joseph Banks (1743); Samuel Wesley (1766); Wilhelm Grimm (1786); Lydia Becker (1827); Arrigo Boito (1842); George Moore (1852); Richard Hamilton (1922); Michel Legrand (1932); Renata Scotto (1934); Denis Law (1940); Dennis Waterman (1948); and Steve Jobs (1955).

Last Days for: Sebald Nachtigal (one of the actual Mastersingers of Nuremberg, 1518); Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1704); Friederich Ernst Benda (1785); Henry Cavendish (1810); Etienne-Louis Malus (1812); Andre Messager (1929); Bobby Moore (1993); and Leo Ornstein (2002).


And the Radio 3 morning schedules for Saturday, 24th February, 1979 were:

Aubade: Pachelbel, Franck, Stanford, Ireland, & German.
Record Review: Stephen Dodgson on the Trout 5tet; Christopher Headington on recent records of piano Music; Philip Bergman answers listeners' HiFi queries.
Record Release: Pascal Rogé plays Brahms; Krystian Zimerman plays Chopin
Robert Mayer Children's Concert: Dvorak, Mozart, Stravinsky, & Haydn; Northern Sinfonia/Christopher Seaman

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

February 25th

On this date, wall-builder Roman Emperor Hadrian adopts Antoninus Pius, announcing him as his successor as Roman Emperor, and, indeed, Wall-Builder (138); Pope Pius V excommunicates Elizabeth I (1570); Albrecht von Wallenstein (as in Schiller's play, Smetana's Symphonic Poem, and d'Indy's Symphonic triptych) is assassinated (1634); the first ever US Cabinet meeting is held at George Washington's house (1793); the last invasion of Britain, in Fishguard, ends with the surrender of the invading troops, reputedly cowed by Jemima Niclas and other local Welsh women who attacked them with pitchforks (1797); Samuel Colt receives a patent for his invention of the revolving cylander pistol (1836); Schumann's Konzertstuck for 4 Horns, is premiered in Leipzig (1850); Hiram Rhodes Revels is sworn in as the first African-American member of the US Congress (1870); Tchaikovsky's Maid of Orleans is premiered in St Petersburg (1881); JM Synge's Riders to the Sea is first performed in Dublin (1904); Tblisi, the Ukrainean capital, is occupied by the Red Army (1921); Adolf Hitler becomes a German citizen (1932); the first Anderson Bomb Shelter is assembled in Islington (1939); a General Strike in protest against Nazi atrocities against Jewish citizens is held in occupied Amsterdam (1941); the Communist Party takes control of the Czechoslovak Gobernment (1948); Bernstein(et al)'s Wonderful Town is premiered on Broadway (1953); Khrushchev delivers his On the Cult of Personality and its Consequences to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1956); Buddy Holly re-records his song That'll Be the Day with his new backing band, The Crickets - whose name appears on the record label, but not Holly's because of a clause in his contract with DECCA, who had recorded his previous version with The Three Tunes (1957); the Ha My Massacre by South Vietnamese troops against unarmed villagers (1968); Sondheim's A Little Night Music premieres on Braodway (1973); "Open Government", the first episode of Yes, Minister is broadcast (1980); Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda (although not her shoe collection) flee the Philippines after 20 years as dictator, following mass popular uprisings - Corrie Aquino takes over as President (1986); the Warsaw Pact is declared disbanded (1991); Baruch Goldstein shoots dead 29 Palestinian worshippers and injures 125 more at the Mosque of Abraham in Hebron - he is himself overpowered and beaten to death by other worshippers (1994); Cedric Larry Ford shoots dead three people and injures fourteen others in Kansas - he is himself shot dead by police (2016); and, this time a year ago, Chi*a ba*s the letter "N" - for four days.

Birthdays include: August Renoir (1841); Enrico Caruso (1873); Myra Hess (1890); Jim Backus and Gert Frobe (both 1913); John Arlott (1914); [John] Anthony Burgess [Wilson](1917); Tom Courtenay (1937); David Puttnam (1941); George Harrison (1943); Neil Jordan (1950); and Ed Balls and Jonathan Freedland (both 1967).

Last Days for: Dafydd ap Llwelyn (1246); Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (1601); Alessandro Stradella (1682); Christopher Wren (1723); Thomas Moore (1852); Anton Arensky (1906); John Tenniel (1914 - three days before his 95th birthday); Mark Rothko (1970); Tennessee Williams (1983); and Bill Paxton (2017).

And the Radio 3 morning schedules for Sunday, 25th February, 1979 were:

Bach & Handel: 6 P&Fs from Book 1, W-TC; and Op 6, #s 2 & 3
Your Concert Choice: Brahms Serenade #2; Beethoven Op 110 (played by Myra Hess); Paganini Vln Conc #2.
Music Weekly: Beethoven & the Nobility (Martin Cooper); The Instrument makers (Robert paxman & Richard Merewether on The Horn).
From the Proms '78: Berg Vln Concerto; Mahler Das Lied von der Erde - Accardo/Minton/Winkler/BBCSO/Boulez

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

February 26th

This was the date in 1616 that the Church delivered its verdict after the trial of Galileo, in which he was ordered to desist from declaring that the earth moved for him; the Bank of England issues the first £1 bank note (1797); Napoleon escaped from the Isle of Elba (1815); Gustav Mahler conducts the premiere of the complete Sixth Symphony of Bruckner in his (Mahler's) own "edition" (1899); the first colour film, A Visit to the Seaside is given its first public showing in London (1909); the first national Strike by Coals Miners, demanding a minimum wage begins - it lasts for over a month, before the Government passed the Coal Mines Act, capitulating to the workers' demands (1912); the Original Dixieland Jass Band records the first Jazz recording, (1917); President Wilson declares the Grand Canyon to be a National Park (1919 - and exactly ten years to the date later, President Coolidge does the same for Grand Teton in Wyoming); Adolf Hitler's trial for his part in leading the failed Munich Beer Hall Putsch begins (1924); Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals is given its first public performance in Paris, after the composer's death and against his wishes (1925); contravening the Versailles Treaty, Hitler orders the re-formation of the Luftwaffe, to be led by Goering; and RADAR is first demonstrated by Robert Watson-Watt; and Bizet's Symphony in C is given its first public performance in Basel, conducted by Weingartner, eighty years after it was written (all 1935); Auden & Isherwood's play The Ascent of F6 is premiered in London, with Music by Britten (1937); Republican Congresswoman, Ruth Thompson introduces legislation to outlaw the mailing of "obscene, lewd, lascivious or filthy phonograph records" - she wasn't keen on Rock 'n' Roll (1954); Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes meet for the first time at a party in Cambridge (1956); Egypt and Israel establish diplomatic relations (1980); Robert Penn Warren becomes the first US Poet Laureate (1986); the Sandanistas lose the Nicaraguan General Election and hand power over to their opponents (1990); and, at the 84th Academy Awards, The Artist becomes the first silent film since 1927 to win an Oscar - five of them, in fact (2011).

That's three posthumous premieres all sharing the same date.

Birthdays today include: Christopher Marlowe (1564); Anton Reicha (1770); Victor Hugo (1802); Franz Strauss (1822); Levi Strauss (no relation - different jean pool - 1829); Buffulo Bill (1846); John Harvey Kellogg (1852); Nadezhda Khrupskaya (1861); Frank Bridge (1879); Andrei Zhdanov (1896); Tex Avery (1908); Fanny Craddock (1909); Witold Rowicki (1914); George malcolm (1917); Fats Domino and Ariel Sharon (both 1928); Johnny Cash (1932); Colin Bell (1946); Sandy Shaw (1947); Steve Bell (1951); Andreas Maislinger (1955); and Emma Kirkby is 70 today.

Last Days for: Giuseppe Tartini (1770); Harry Lauder (1950); Karl Jaspers (1969); Robert Aikman and Howard Hanson (both 1981); Bill Hicks (1994); Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1996); Jef Raskin (2005); Wendy Richard (2009); Richard Carpenter (2012); and Marie-Claire Alain (2013).

And the Radio 3 morning schedules for Sunday, 26th February, 1989 were:

Peter Hurford playing Bach BWVs 546, 578, and 538
Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting Liadov, Musorgsky, and Tchaik #5
Your Concert Choice: Pergolesi Stabat Mater; Mozart Pno Conc #24; Glazunov From the Middle Ages; Brahms Alto Rhapsody
Music Weekly: articles on Webern the conductor (Michael Hall); Schubert & the Dance (Mischa Donat); and David Byars on Cypriano Potter.
BBCSSO conducted by Gunther Bauer-Schenk: Hans Abrahamsen Nacht und Trompetten; Copland Old American Songs (sets 1 & 2); Haydn, Symphony #97

[Pabmusic]

... Levi Strauss (no relation - different jean pool - 1829) ...

I really don't know how I've missed these - I see I have some catching-up to do.

[greenilex]

Steve Bell is the greatest

If lives

If only

[cloughie]

Steve Bell is the greatest

Who?

[vinteuil]

Who?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Bell_(cartoonist)

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If..._(comic)

.

[cloughie]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Bell_(cartoonist)
.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If..._(comic)

.

Thanks, I probably know more abotr Kafka, which is not that much. I know more about David Bowie but never completely impressed by him!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thanks, I probably know more abotr Kafka, which is not that much. I know more about David Bowie but never completely impressed by him!

Ruthless political caricaturist, possibly most famous for his images of John Major with his underpants worn over his trousers:



... and very generous with his venom: