Today's the Day

[Alison]

Roger Smalley any good as a composer? I see his one movement Symphony is available on YouTube (Proms)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Roger Smalley any good as a composer? I see his one movement Symphony is available on YouTube (Proms)

I only know Pulses - and that from the NMC disc that IIRC some people described as a revision of the original, with some of the sharper edges tamed (or words to similar effect). It's an impressive work, but just not so impressive to make me eager to search out any of his other works in preference to a dozen other composers.

I think I remember the Proms premiere of the Symphony (c1980)- there was a feature in Radio Times (just imagine!) and much was made of a wine glass being played in the work. I recorded the performance onto cassette (long, long gone) - again, not so impressive that I felt any need to hear it again very often.

But it's been a long time ago that I listened to anything of his - even Pulses hasn't been played since ... Oh! More recent than I remembered: 3rd April 2009. Perhaps time overdue for a relisten.

[Alison]

I only know Pulses - and that from the NMC disc that IIRC some people described as a revision of the original, with some of the sharper edges tamed (or words to similar effect). It's an impressive work, but just not so impressive to make me eager to search out any of his other works in preference to a dozen other composers.

I think I remember the Proms premiere of the Symphony (c1980)- there was a feature in Radio Times (just imagine!) and much was made of a wine glass being played in the work. I recorded the performance onto cassette (long, long gone) - again, not so impressive that I felt any need to hear it again very often.

But it's been a long time ago that I listened to anything of his - even Pulses hasn't been played since ... Oh! More recent than I remembered: 3rd April 2009. Perhaps time overdue for a relisten.

I’ll take a listen to the symphony tomorrow. Ted Downes conducting and Cormac Rigbys presentation included.

[edashtav]

I’ll take a listen to the symphony tomorrow. Ted Downes conducting and Cormac Rigbys presentation included.

I admired Smalley's work and have a score of his symphony. His later (Australian) works are frequently based on quotations from 19th century scores. He was a fine pianist and his recordings of sonatas by his composition teacher, John White, are superb. Sadly, he later lost his performing abilities due to Parkinson's disease, and he died aged 72 about 4 years ago.

[Bryn]

I admired Smalley's work and have a score of his symphony. His later (Australian) works are frequently based on quotations from 19th century scores. He was a fine pianist and his recordings of sonatas by his composition teacher, John White, are superb. Sadly, he later lost his performing abilities due to Parkinson's disease, and he died aged 72 about 4 years ago.

I last met with Roger some 21 years ago, at the memorial service for his friend Brian Dennis. Re. Pulses, mentioned by fg, the Scratch Orchestra performed Study for Pulses with him at the Roger Smalley Memorial Concert on 24 April 1970 (the newly deconsecrated St John's, Smith Square).

[edashtav]

I last met with Roger some 21 years ago, at the memorial service for his friend Brian Dennis. Re. Pulses, mentioned by fg, the Scratch Orchestra performed Study for Pulses with him at the Roger Smalley Memorial Concert on 24 April 1970 (the newly deconsecrated St John's, Smith Square).

Surely that premature Memorial Concert was curated by you, Bryn!

[Alison]

Surely that premature Memorial Concert was curated by you, Bryn!

[edashtav]

Two's company, Alison, particularly when the third is struck dumb.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

April 7th

The Feast Day of the Blessed Notker of St Gall - Notker the Stammerer (840 - 912), whose death date was noted yesterday. "Delicate of body, but not of mind; stammering of tongue, but not of intellect, pushing boldly forward in things Divine, a vessel of the Holy Spirit without equal in his time", according to his biographer Ekkehard IV in the early Eleventh Century (Ekkehard was himself taught by another Notker - "the Thick-Lipped", but that's another story). Notker remains important for his Liber Hymnorum begun around 860, a collection of texts arranged to suit the entire Liturgical year, the hymns meant to be sung between readings from the Gospel. Ekkehard mentions that Notker "composed" fifty such texts, as well as collecting others. No Music survives, alas, but the Liber Hymnorum, is still in print (in two volumes at around £120 each, if you're interested). Notker is also believed to be the author of a biography of Charlemagne, which modern scholars apparently regard as concerned more with a good story than with historical accuracy.
We can drink to his memory, as it's National Beer Day (in the US, but why should they have all the fun?!) - but in moderation, of course, as it's World Health Day.

Also on this date: Atilla the Hun sacks the city of Metz (451); Justinian I issues the first version of the Code of Justinian - a set of laws to be followed throughout the Empire (529); Holy Roman Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I, becomes "Lady of the English" (1141 - they didn't know what to call her: a "Queen" was a King's wife, and a "woman king", ruling in her own right, just wasn't the done thing); Bach's Passio secundum Joannem is "premiered" in St Nicholas' Church in Leipzig (1724); the metric system of weights and measures is defined and adopted in France (1795); Beethoven's Eroica Symphony is given its first public performance at the Theatre an der Wien in Vienna (1805 - the work is advertised as being "in D# major"); the first friction matches are sold in the shop of their inventor, John Walker (1827); Mount Vesuvius erupts and devastates the city of Naples (1906); brain surgeon K Winfield Ney performs the first brain tumour operation using local anaesthetic (1923 - the patient is called Henry A Brown, who chats to the surgeons throughout the operation; the local anaesthetic is cocaine); Violet Gibson attempts to assassinate Benito Mussolini (1926 - her first shot hits his nose, the second misfires, and she is attacked by the crowd before she can attempt a third - in a rare incident of clemency, Mussolini has her deported back to Britain without charge; she spends the remaining 30 years of her life in St Andrew's Hospital in Northampton); the first long-distance public television signal, carried by telephone cable, is broadcast (1927 - the signal is an image of US secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover); Beer with a strength of up to 3.2% is allowwed on sale in the US - the first legal consumable alcohol sales since prohibition (1933 - on the same day in Germany, the Nazis introduce the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service", preventing Jews "and other politically unreliable" citizens from employment in the Civil Service and other roles in public life); Italy begins its invasion of Albania (1939 - five days later, King Zog abdicates); Booker T Washington becomes the first black person to feature on a US postage stamp (1940); Syria officially achieves independence from France (1946); the World Health Organization is is established (1948); Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific is premiered at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway, orchestrated by Gertrude Ritmann and Robert Russell Bennett (1948 - without the cartwheel intended to be performed by Mary Martin at the end of I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy - during a rehearsal she has spun off the stage, into the orchestra pit and knocked Ritmann unconcious); Spain cedes its protectorate of Morocco (1956 - well, most of it: the coastal cities of Ceuta and Melila remain Spanish); Presbyterian minister Bruce W Klunder is crushed to death by a bulldozer as he protests against the construction of a school being built in a segragated housing scheme in Cleveland (1964 - a "riot" ensues, and the school itself is demolished in 2013); Henze's Der Junge Lord is premiered at the Deutsches Oper Berlin, conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi (1965); Request For Comment 1 Host Software is written - subsequently used as symbolising the beginning of the Internet (1969); Soviet nuclear-powered submarine K-278 Komsomolets sinks after an on-board fire, killing the 42 crew (1989); the Rwandan Genocide begins with the killings of Tutsi (and moderate Hutu) civilians in the city of Kigali, quickly spreading to other Rwandan cities and villages (1994); Russian paramilitaries murder up to 300 citizens of the town of Samashki during the First Chechen War (1995); the World Trade Organization rules in favour of the US ending a six-year Banana trade dispute with the EU [who had extended favourable terms to banana-producing former European colonies, to the detriment of US-controlled Latin American banana producers] (1999); the Mars Odyssey space probe is launched to orbit the planet and investigate its geology using spectrometry and thermal imaging (2001 - that's why it was called "Odyssey"); Baghdad falls to US troops (2003); former Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori [he of the "of course you don't have to do what I say, but you'll notice I have a tank pointing at you" school of leadership - see April 5th] is sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment for ordering kidnappings and murders of his political opponents (2009); a 26-foot long Python is discovered on a construction site in Malaysia - the longest so far ever captured (2016); and a failed asylum-seeker from Uzbekistan drives a truck into a crowd in Stockholm, killing five people and seriously injuring 14 others (2017).

Birthdays Today include: Francis Xavier (1506); Tobias Stimmer (1539); Nicola Sala (1713); Charles Burney (1726); Domenico Dragonetti (1763); William Wordsworth (1770); WK Kellogg (1860); Gustav Landauer (1870); Gino Severini (1883); Robert Casadesus (1899); Percy Faith (1908); Billie Holiday (1915); Ravi Shankar (1920); Babatunde Olatunji (1927); James Garner and Alan J Pakula (both 1928); Andrew Sachs (1930); Ian Richardson (1934); Peter Fluck (1941); Werner Schroeter (1945); John Oates (1948); Janis Ian (1951); Karen Tanaka (1961); Russell Crowe (1964); Leif Ove Andsnes (1970); Tim Peake (1972); ... and Francis Ford Coppola is (and David Frost would have been) 80 today.

Final Days for: El Greco (1614); Dick Turpin (1739); Toussaint Louverture (1804); William Godwin (1836); Anton Diabelli (1858); Karl Theodor Ernst von Siebold (1885); PT Barnum (1891); Alexander Bogdanov (1928); Henry Ford (1947); Irma Ravinale (2013); John Shirley Quirk (2014); ... and, possibly, Jesus of Nazareth (c30-33: approximate dates calculated according to coincidences of Jewish Festivals and reigns of Herod and Pontius Pilate - and depending on a definition of "final day", of course).


And the Radio 3 schedules for the morning of Saturday, 7th April, 1979 were:

Aubade: Coates Miniature Suite; Rubbra Meditazioni sopra "Coeurs Désolés"; Clive Richardson Beachcomber; Francaix Divertissement for bassoon and string quintet; Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto #2.
Record Review: Haydn's Creation, BaL-ed by Trevor Harvey; new orchestral records reviewed by Edward Greenfield.
New Releases: Clementi Symphony No 4 in D; Stravinsky Firebird Suite.
A Respighi Song Recital: Tre Canti all'antica; Notte; Deita silvane
Robin Ray: "presents for your pleasure a weekly selection of popular classics, in performances chosen from over 75 years of gramophone recordings".

[greenilex]

Wordsworth did go off somewhat in later life, but for sheer joy in youth he is hard to beat. wish these were daffs

[french frank]

Wordsworth did go off somewhat in later life, but for sheer joy in youth he is hard to beat. wish these were daffs

(Clearly tropical daffs - I'll see how small I can make them)

:daff2: :daff2: :daff2:

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[french frank]

Oh, dear, the capital's been taken. Looks like it'll be April 12th then

[edashtav]

Karen Tanaka (b. 1961): I recall late one evening after a concert at the ISCM Festival in Manchester, 1998, guiding this charming Japanese composer towards her hotel after both of us had stumbled into a deprived area of the city. The atmosphere was heavy with the smoke from fires lighted by the roadside and the those existing in what seemed like a slum clearance site were agressive and demanding. I've always felt guilty for not 'going the final mile' with Karen because the last train to my destination was about to leave Manchester Victoria.

[cloughie]

THERE WILL BE NO DEAL WITH THE DALEKS - WE WILL EXTERMINATE THE EU!