Today's the Day

[Richard Tarleton]

Napoleon reintroduces slavery in the French colonies (1802 - it had been abolished by the Revolutionary Council eight years earlier)

There was a bloody war on Saint Domingue (Haiti) between the French and the native population, led by Toussaint L'Ouverture, himself a black freeman and former slave owner. The French army which went out to deal with the island was led by General Leclerc who was married to Napoleon's promiscuous sister Pauline. Like many of his army Leclerc died of yellow fever (those who didn't mostly died of malaria).

Toussaint L'Ouverture (1743)

..., the "Black Spartacus", was captured, treacherously, by Leclerc, after peace terms had been agreed, and was sent back to France, where he died of pneumonia in a cold damp prison in the Jura Mountains in 1803. The French even used an improvised gas chamber, a ship filled with volcanic sulphur in which 400 prisoners died before the ship was scuttled.

Pauline, who had gone out to her Saint Domingue with her husband, was a "less than desolate widow"; she was rapidly remarried to a Borghese whom she thought an imbecile, and continued to be wildly unfaithful [Andrew Roberts, Napoleon the Great]. Canova made a plaster cast of one of her breasts, which may be seen in the Museo Napoleonica in Rome.

[vinteuil]

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Toussaint l'Ouverture (1743)

TO TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE *

Toussaint, the most unhappy Man of Men!
Whether the rural Milk-maid by her Cow
Sing in thy hearing, or thou liest now
Alone in some deep dungeon's earless den; -
O miserable chieftain! where and when
Wilt thou find patience? Yet die not; do thou
Wear rather in thy bonds a chearful brow:
Though fallen Thyself, never to rise again,
Live, and take comfort. Thou hast left behind
Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies;
There's not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and Man's unconquerable mind.

Wm: Wordsworth [1770 - 1850]

* composed August 1802 ; published in the Morning Post February 1803.





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[vinteuil]

Pauline, who had gone out to her Saint Domingue with her husband, was a "less than desolate widow"; she was rapidly remarried to a Borghese whom she thought an imbecile, and continued to be wildly unfaithful [Andrew Roberts, Napoleon the Great]. Canova made a plaster cast of one of her breasts, which may be seen in the Museo Napoleonica in Rome.

... here is the Canova statue of her :

https://www.theartpostblog.com/en/pauline-bonaparte/

There is a half-size replica of this by Canova's student Adamo Tadolini in the entrance hallway of the British Embassy in Paris : before it was acquired by Wellington in 1814 the building had been Pauline Borghese's residence.

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[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

May 21st

World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, initiated by the UN in response to the Taliban's destruction of the 1500-year-old statues of the Buddha in the Banyam valley, Afghanistan, the holiday is intended to provide "an opportunity to help communities understand the value of cultural diversity and learn how to live together in harmony."

Also on this Date: the Treaty of Troyes is signed between Henry V of England, and Charles VI of France, agreeing that, on Charles' death, Henry and his heirs would inherit the French Crown; a minor volcanic eruption causes a side of Mont Unzen in Japan to collapse, creating a megatsunami that kills 15,000 people (1792); William Hobson proclaims all of New Zealand to be under British sovereignty, and sends troops to persuade English settlers proclaiming a Republic that his idea is a much better one (1840); Slavery is abolished in Colombia (1851); a group of Provencal writers form Félibridge to prote the Provencal language and culture (1854); the town of Lawrence in Kansas, founded by anti-slavery activists from massachusetts, is burnt to the grund by a mob led by the County Sherrif (1856); Russian Troops seize land in the North Caucasus, home of Islamic Circassian people, when they refuse to convert to Christianity, the Tsar orders their expulsion from the area (1864 - the day is commemorated as Circassian Day of Mourning); the French Army enter Paris, beginning the week of destruction of the Paris Commune (1871); Leoncavallo's Pagliacci is premiered at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan, with Toscanini conducting (1892); the Manchester Ship Canal is formally opened by Queen Victoria (1894); FIFA is founded in Paris (1904); the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is established (1917); Busoni's opera Doktor Faustus [completed by Philipp Jarnach] is premiered at the Saxon State Opera House, Dresden, conducted by Fritz Busch (1925); Prokofiev's ballet The Prodigal Son is premiered at the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre in Paris, conducted by the composer (1929); Soviet research station North Pole-1 becomes the first such facility to operate on polar drift ice (1937); a plutonium core at the Los Alamos laboratory goes supercritical [somebody presses the worng button], releasing radiation that led to the deaths of scientists Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin (1946); the Ninth Street Art Exhibition of Contemporary American Art opens (1951 - bringing the work of Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Philip Guston and many others to public attention); Styne and Sondheim's Gypsy premieres at the Broadway Theatre starring Ethel Merman and Jack Klugman (1959); Leontyne Price becomes the first African-American to sing as Prima Donna at La Scala Milan (1960 - she sings Aida); an Australian geologist vandalises Michelangelo's Pieta in St Peter's Basilica in Rome, breaking off one of the Virgin's arm, damaging the nose and eyelid(1972); riots break out in San Francisco following the lenient sentencing of the murderer of Harvey Milk [the first openly gay elected official in the US] and George Moscone (1979); Bob Marley is given a State Funeral in Jamaica (1961); Birtwistle's The Mask of Orpheus is premiered at English National Opera, conducted by Elgar Howarth (1986); former Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi is murdered by a suicide bomber (1991 - 26 other people, and the bomber are also killed); Taubira Law, named after the French Minister of Justice, is introduced, declaring Slavery as a crime against humanity, and denouncing the Atlantic Slave Trade (2001); the World Citizens Association gives its World Citizen Award to Stanislav Petrov (2004 - twenty-one years earlier, he had guessed that the signals reporting incoming American nuclear missiles was the result of a fault in the detecting instruments; had he followed hi orders and reported the readings, Soviet Nuclear weapons would have been launched against the West and ... well, I doubt I'd be writing this); last surviving Tea Clipper, Cutty Sark is badly damaged by fire (2007); and Barnum & Bailey Circus closes down after over 146 years of performances (2017)

Birthdays Today include: Albrecht Durer (1471); Alexander Pope (1688); Elizabeth Fry (1780); Mary Anning (1799); Joseph Parry (1841); Louis Renault (1843); Henri Rosseau (1844); Willem Einthoven (1860); Hans Berger (1873); John McLaughlin (1898); Fats Waller (1904); Gina Bachauer (1913); Harold Robbins (1916); Raymond Burr (1917); Dorothy Hewett (1923); Kay Kendall (1927); Robert Sherlaw Johnson (1932); Maurice André (1933); Jocasta Innes (1934); Heinz Holliger (1939); Leo Sayer (1948); Rosalind Plowright (1949); Noel Fielding (1973);

Final Days for: John Rainolds (1607); Hieronymus Fabricius (1619 - the day after his 82nd birthday); Christopher Smart (1771); Franz von Suppé (1895); Klaus Mann (1949); Kenneth Clark (1983); Barbara Cartland and John Gielgud (both 2000);



And the Radio 3 Schedules for the morning of Monday, 21st May, 1979 were:

Overture: Bridge Dance Rhapsody; Grieg In Autumn; Copland Billy the Kid Suite
Morning Concert: BBC Concert Orch/Ashley Lawrence - Dvorak Symphonic Variations; Berwald Symphony in Eb
Composer of the Week: Glinka (Songs and Instrumental works)
Talking About Music with Antony Hopkins
Bach Violin Sonatas (first of four programmes; including BWV 1014 & 1015)
Midday Concert: BBCSSO/Rattle (Rossini Semiramide Ovt; Dvorak Golden Spinning Wheel; Mahler Symphony #4 [with Yvonne Kelly] - with an interval talk about Mahler's use of Tempo)

[Padraig]

Birthdays Today Fats Waller (1904)

That was the year my father was born. Whilst Fats Waller recorded 12th Street Rag with his band, my dad played it, in the forties, more in this style:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnFWgQT0bZQ

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Darn! The first time I've been caught out by a Google Doodle - Willem Einthoven added to the list of birthdays.

[gurnemanz]

Albrecht Dürer (greatest ever German artist?), 548 today, deserves to have his umlaut and single r. (Nice hat)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

May 26th

The Feast Day of St Augustine of Canterbury, the "apostle to the English" sent by Pope Gregory I (he to whom the standardization of Plainchant used to be attributed) to convert the pagan English to Christianity. Correspondance between Gregory and Augustine features significantly in Bede's Ecclesiastical History, with not always the flattering of Augustine that Bede intended (but perhaps that's just my reading). Gregory was helped by Kentish King (and, indeed, King of Kent) Aethelberht, who had married a Christian, and who invited the Pope to send someone over to explain the doctrines of the religion to him - hence Augustine's arrival on the Isle of Thanet, and Canterbury's status as the first (chronologically and in terms of importance) Christian Seat in England.

It's also National Sorry Day in Australia, acknowledging the historic abuse of the indigenous Australian peoples by European settlers (particularly the "Stolen Generation" of the 20th Century, in which Government policy felt obliged to take children away from their families to raise them as "white" Australians). No official comment on the current situation, in which the unemployment rate for Aboriginal Australians is three times greater than that for white Australians.

And National Paper Airplane Day in the United States.

Also on this Date: Edmund I [grandson of Alfred the Great] is killed as he celebrates a St Augustine's Day feast - the story is that he was killed by a thief he had exiled, but the more likely cause was a political assassination by his rivals (946); William of Ockham and two of his followers escape from Avignon, fearing that the Pope will have them executed (1328 - a close shave); English Colonialists trap 700 Pequot people inside their wooden fortress and set fire to it, shooting dead any who try to get out (1637 - one of the English leaders stated "sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents... We had sufficient light from the Word of God for our proceedings"); Alse Young becomes the first person in America to be executed for witchcraft (1647); Great Jubilee Day is held in the town of Trumball, Connecticut to celebrate the end of fighting in the American War of Independence (1783 - the first of the type of celebration later memorialised in Ives' Decoration Day); the Peloponnesian Senate is formed as a provisional assembly of the Greek rebels fighting the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence (1821); President Jackson survives a Vote of Impeachment - by one vote (1868); the first Dow Jones Index is published (1896 - at that time called the Dow Jones Industrial Average); Bram Stoker's Dracula is first published (1897); the new Vauxhall Bridge, spanning Vauxhall and Pimlico, opens (1906 - at a cost of over £46million in today's values); following the discovery of a large oil Field in the Iranian [then "Persian"] city of Masjed Soleyman, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company is founded, beginning the Oil trade in the Middle East (1908); Stravinsky's opera The Nightingale is premiered by the Ballets Russes at the Palais Garnier in Paris, conducted by Monteux (1914); the short-lived Democratic Republic of Georgia is established (1918 - it is crushed by the Red Army invasion two years and nine months later; the date is also chosen for the first post-Soviet electyions in Georgia in 1992); the first 24-hour Le Mans endurance race begins (1923); at around 6:00pm, Independent Unionist Member of the Northern Ireland Commons, Tommy Henderson begins a speech on the annual Appropriation Bill (1936 - he finishes just before 4:00am the next day; his colleagues are obliged to sit through the whole thing); the House Committee on Un-American Activities is established to investigate suspected subversive behaviour by Fascist and Communist sympathisers in the United States (1938 - it is headed by Martin Dies jnr, and is referred to as "the Dies Committee"); as the garrison at Calais is surrendered, the Dunkirk Evacuation campaign to get British troops stranded in Northern France back to safety begins (1940); Christian Wirth, one of the most psychotically enthusiatic officers of the Nazi extermination policy is killed by Yugoslav partisans whilst on an official visit to Fiume [now Rijeka, Croatia] (1944); the first two-thirds of Stockhausen's Kontra-Punkte is premiered at the ISCM Festival in Cologne by 10 members of the WDRSO conducted by Scherchen (1953); Ligeti's Nouvelles Aventures is premiered in Hamburg, directed by Andrzej Markowski (1966); Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is released in the UK (1967); Iceland changes from driving on the left to the right (1968 - the changeover occurs at 6:00am precisely, which must have meant some interesting lane changes for early morning drivers); the Pakistan Army murders at least 78 Hindu citizens in the village of Burunga [in North-East Bangladesh] in the Bangladesh War of Independence (1971); at the first Strategic Arms Limitations Talks, Nixon and Brezhnev sign the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, suspending production of Intercontinntal Ballistic Missiles, and the use of Anti-Ballistic Defence systems (1972); Tippett's Third Piano Sonata is premiered by Paul Crossley (1973); the European Flag is raised for the first time on the European Commission building (1986); Algierian journalist Tahar Djaout is violently attacked by Islamist terrorists for his support of secularism and because [according to his attackers] he "wielded a fearsome pen that could have an effect on Islamic sectors" (1993 - he dies from his injuries a week later, at the age of 39); and, this time last year, the results of the Referendum on Abortion in the Republic of Ireland shows that 64% of the population support legalisation.

Birthdays Today include: John Churchill (1650); Mamie Smith (1883); Al Jolson (1886); Eugene Goossens (1893); George Formby jnr and Vlado Perlemuter (both 1904); John Wayne (1907); Robert Morley (1908); Matt Busby (1909); Jay Silverheels (1912); Peter Cushing (1913); Peggy Lee (1920); Inge Borkh (1921); Roy Dotrice (1923); Alec McCowen (1925); Miles Davis (1926); Jack Kevorkian (1928); Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, Teresa Stratas, and William Bolcom (all 1938); Herb Trimpe (1939); John Maxwell Geddes (1941); Mick Ronson (1946); Alan Hollinghurst (1954); Howard Goodall (1958); Simon Armitage (1963); Helena Bonham Carter (1966); ... and Jeremy Corbyn awaits the results of the EU elections on his 70th birthday.

Final Days for: Bede (735, "I have not lived in such a way that I am ashamed to continue life among you, but I do not fear to die, because we have a uniquely good God"); Francesco Berni (1536); Sebastian Münster (1552); Samuel Pepys (1703); Capel Loft (1824); Georges Gilles de la Tourette (1904 - wonder what his last words were); Victor Herbert (1924); Martin Heidegger (1976); Paul Sacher (1999); Sydney Pollack (2008);


And the Radio 3 schedules for the morning of Monday, 26th May, 1969 were:

Overture ("gramophone records")
BBC Beethoven Competition for Duos and Trios; "fifth of a weekly series".
Antony Hopkins Talking About Music
Vivaldi and Haydn ("gramophone records")

Followed by five-and-a-half hours of cricket!

[vinteuil]

The Feast Day of St Augustine of Canterbury, the "apostle to the English" sent by Pope Gregory I (he to whom the standardization of Plainchant used to be attributed) to convert the pagan English to Christianity. Correspondance between Gregory and Augustine features significantly in Bede's Ecclesiastical History, with not always the flattering of Augustine that Bede intended (but perhaps that's just my reading). Gregory was helped by Kentish King (and, indeed, King of Kent) Aethelberht, who had married a Christian, and who invited the Pope to send someone over to explain the doctrines of the religion to him - hence Augustine's arrival on the Isle of Thanet, and Canterbury's status as the first (chronologically and in terms of importance) Christian Seat in England.

... in the words of Sellars & Yeatman : "Noticing some fair-haired children in the slave market one morning, Pope Gregory, the memorable pope, said (in Latin), 'What are those?' and on being told that they were Angels, made the memorable joke – ' Non Angli, sed Angeli ' (' not Angels, but Anglicans ') and commanded one of his saints called St Augustine to go and convert the rest."

[Richard Tarleton]

Jay Silverheels (1912)

(ear pressed to the ground) - "Two days, maybe three"...

Long before we had a TV (mid 1950s) I used to go next door in naval quarters to watch The Lone Ranger, Champion the Wonder Horse and the Cisco Kid with neighbours who did....(not just me, having TV was something back then....)

PS....in the recent (beautifully shot) film, starring Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp, we learn that Ke-mo sah-bee in Comanche actually means "Wrong brother"... (you have to see the film )

[french frank]

(ear pressed to the ground) - "Two days, maybe three"...

Long before we had a TV (mid 1950s) I used to go next door in naval quarters to watch The Lone Ranger, Champion the Wonder Horse and the Cisco Kid with neighbours who did....(not just me, having TV was something back then....)

PS....in the recent (beautifully shot) film, starring Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp, we learn that Ke-mo sah-bee in Comanche actually means "Wrong brother"... (you have to see the film )

Just what I was going to mention Hi-ho, Silver! The Lone Ranger and Tonto!

[Padraig]

Just what I was going to mention Hi-ho, Silver! The Lone Ranger and Tonto!

So it's true. It is impossible to mention the Lone Ranger without thinking of The Thieving Magpie.

[gurnemanz]

Just what I was going to mention Hi-ho, Silver! The Lone Ranger and Tonto!

My (half-hearted) attempts to learn Spanish via a smart phone app revealed to me the other day that "tonto" means "stupid". As far as I remember, about 60 years later, Tonto was quite a clever chap, eg by listening to the ground he could hear horses coming.

[vinteuil]

Jay Silverheels (1912)

... "Did you know Jay Silverheel's real name was Smith ? I guarantee this as a perfect conversation stopper."


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