Today's the Day

[eighthobstruction]

I get really cheesed off by people telling me I "should celebrate".

....,swine...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

January 30th

Execution of Charles I 370 years ago today - regarded as a martyr in the Anglican Church, and celebrated with a Feast Day until 1858. The Society of King Charles the Martyr was immediately founded 44 years later in protest at the removal of the Feast Day; the Society still holds a commemorative service in the Banqueting Hall in London, where the execution took place. (Isn't there a Church of King Charles the Martyr in Tunbridge Wells, too?) A remarkable date - the first time any monarch had been tried and condemned by his own commoner subjects, IIRC - starting a trend that caught on elsewhere in the world.

And also the anniversary of the beheading (etc) of Oliver Cromwell in 1661 - symbolically, twelve years to the day after Charles' death; not to mention two-and-a-half years after Cromwell had himself died.

Antarctica is officially discovered in 1820; the Menai Suspension Bridge opens in 1826, connecting Bangor to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysilio gogogoch (that's not really true, it's actually Porthaethwy - but I can't pronounce "Porthaethwy"); the Hallé Orchestra gives its inaugural concert in 1858 (Overtures by Weber, Auber, Rossini; Beethoven's First Symphony, Weber's Concertstucke and a selection of solo piano works played by the conductor, selections from Il Trovatore - an opera premiered a mere five years earlier - and the Dance of the Sylphs. The orchestra experienced its first financial crisis just three years after it was started.) Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary commits suicide with his lover in Meyerling (1889); Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany (1933); Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated (1948); the Beatles play their last concert on the roof of the Apple Records building; and today in 1972 was "Bloody Sunday" when British troop open fire on demonstrators in London/Derry.

Birthdays today include Livia, the wife of Roman Emperor Augustus (58 BCE); Franklin D Roosevelt (1882); Nikolaus Pevsner (1902); John Profumo (1915); Patrick Heron (1920); Vanessa Redgrave and Boris Spassky (both 1937); and Lynn Harrell (1944).

Last days for three of the Gunpowder Plotters (Everard Digby, John Grant, & Robert Wintour) - the others have another day of life left (1606); Betsy Ross (1836); Francis Poulenc (1963); John Barry (2011);Geraldine McEwan (2015); and Frank Finlay (2016).

And, I'd like to send greetings to any Brazilian Forumistas on Saudade Day.


And, forty years ago today, the Radio 3 morning schedules were:

Overture: (Handel Arminio Ovt, Mendelssohn Piano Concerto in d minor, and Parry's An English Suite)
Morning Concert: (Bach Violin Concerto in a minor, Janequin Le Chant des Oyseaux, Gaspard le Roux Suite in f# minor, and Mozart Violin Concerto in D)
This Week's Composer: Debussy (En blanc el noir, Six épigraphes antiques; Ballet Khamma)
Now and Then: (a mixture of Music "from all periods, but always containing a work broadcast for the first time" - Schubert Quartettsatz; Martinu Fantasy & Toccata; Dvorak Pno 5tet; John Exton (1933 - 2009), Sixth S4tet
A recording of a recital of songs by Virgil Thomson and Elisabeth Lutyens.

[subcontrabass]

Execution of Charles I 370 years ago today - regarded as a martyr in the Anglican Church, and celebrated with a Feast Day until 1858. The Society of King Charles the Martyr was immediately founded 44 years later in protest at the removal of the Feast Day; the Society still holds a commemorative service in the Banqueting Hall in London, where the execution took place. (Isn't there a Church of King Charles the Martyr in Tunbridge Wells, too?) .

There is an extensive list of churches with this dedication here: http://skcm.org/about-s-charles/cult/

[cloughie]

There is an extensive list of churches with this dedication here: http://skcm.org/about-s-charles/cult/

I don’t know if it was the first - it heads the list - the one in Falmouth, I know well. Totally unrelated today is also Croissant Day!

[subcontrabass]

I don’t know if it was the first - it heads the list - the one in Falmouth, I know well. Totally unrelated today is also Croissant Day!

That list appears to be alphabetical. Shelland and Peak Forest are earlier dedications.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Totally unrelated today is also Croissant Day!

Now that is a new one on me!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

January 31st

St Wigils' Day - seventh Century Anglo-Saxon priest and hermit, based in Ripon, and father of St Willibrord, (one of) the Patron Saint(s) of the Netherlands. Not many Saints who were fathers of other Saints ...

And today is Street Children's Day in Austria, in honour of John Bosco, a nineteenth Century saint, who did much work with street children in Turin, offering aid instead of punishment, and who died on this day in 1888.

On this day Guy Fawkes, Ambrose Rookwood, and Thomas Wintour were hung, drawn, and quartered in 1606; the first clinic for venereal diseases is opened in London (1747); the US Congress passes the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery - and Robert E Lee is appointed Chief of the Confederate Army (1865); poison gas is used for the first time in WW1 (1915); Trotsky is exiled from the Soviet Union (1929); Sellotape is sold for the first time (1930); prisoners from the Stutthof Concentration Camp are forcibly marched to the Baltic sea, and then murdered (1945); the North Sea floods, causing 1800 deaths in the Netherlands, and 300 on the east coast of the UK (1953); the van Allen Radiation Belt is first detected (1958); Ham the chimpanzee completes a 16-minute flight into space in Mercury 2 (1961 - he lived for another twenty-one years; a happier outcome than that of Laika, the first animal in space, who died during the flight); the Toyota Corolla becomes the best-selling car of all time (so far) in 2012; and this time last year there was a simultaneous incident of a Blue Moon and a total lunar eclipse.

Birthdays include Franz Schubert (1797), Zane Grey (1872), Mario Lanza (1921), Norman Mailer (1923), Jean Simmons (1929), Philip Glass (1937), Derek Jarman (1942), and George Benjamin (1960).

Last days for John Douglas (Marquess of Queensberry, originator of the boxing rules, father of Bosie, and prosecutor of Oscar Wilde, 1900), John Galsworthy (1933), Jean Giraudoux (1944), A A Milne (1956), Sam Goldwyn (1974), and Terry Wogan (2016).


And, in 1989, the morning schedules on Radio 3 today (a Tuesday) were:

Morning Concert: (Liszt Les Preludes, Bartok Suite for Piano, Dvorak Pno 5tet (all of it), Dance of the 7 Veils, and a couple of Brahms' Hungarian Dances
Composer of the Week: Tchaikovsky (including the whole of the first Orchestral Suite)
A Piano recital by Michael Roll
Oboe & Strings: (works by Britten)
BBCSSO in Canada: Edward Harper's Fantasia V, Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto #1, & Mozart's Jupiter

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

February 1st

So, the "New" Year is a twelfth over! And today is St Brigid's Day, one of the trinity of Irish Patron Saints - so here's wishing a hearty and healthy Imbolc to everybody, as well as National Freedom Day (commemorating the abolition of slavery with the signing of the 13th Amendment) for Forumistas in the US.

Also today - Mendelssohn's First Symphony is premiered in Leipzig (1827); the first volume of the Oxford English Dictionary is published for the first time (1884); the first motion picture studio is built for Thomas Edison (1893); a good day for Puccini - Manon Lescaut is premiered on this day in 1893, and three years to the day later, La Boheme is premiered, with Toscanini conducting (1896); Nielsen's Inextinguishable is premiered inin Copenhagen (1916); the Bolshevik government adopts the Gregorian calander for use in Russia (1918); Schönberg's Von Heute auf Morgen is premiered in Frankfurt (1930); Vidkun Quisling is appointed Prime Minister of Norway by the Nazi occupiers (1942); the Foreign Minister of the Norwegian Government in Exile, Trygve Lie is appointed the very first Secretary-General of the United Nations also on this day, exactly four years later; The Beatles' I Want to Hold Your Hand becomes their first Number One; Nguyen Van Lem is filmed being shot in Saigon (1968) - the image of his summary execution becomes an icon for the Vietnam War throughout the world; Ayatollah Khomeni returns to Iran after 15 years' exile in Paris (1979); journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and beheaded by Al-Qaeda terrorists (2002); the Space Shuttle Columbia - the first craft in the Shuttle programme - disintegrates on re-entry, killing all seven astronauts on board (2003); and The Shard opens to the public (2013).

Today's birthdays include Victor Herbert (1859); Clara Butt (1872); Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874); John Ford (1894); Stanley Matthews (1915); Muriel Spark (1918); Peter Sallis (1921); Renata Tebaldi (1922); Boris Yeltsin (1931); Fritjof Capra (1939); Terry Jones (1942); and Elisabeth Sladen (1946).

Last days for Maria Theresia von Paradis (1824); Mary Shelley (1851); William Sterndale Bennet (1875); Piet Mondrian (1944); Buster Keaton (1966); Werner Heisenberg (I think) (1976);Peter Racine Fricker (1990); Gian Carlo Menotti (2007); and Lucas Foss (2009).


And, on Thursday, 1st February, 1979, the Radio 3 Morning schedules were:

Overture: Mendelssohn, Ruy Blas Ovt; Bach Italian Concerto; Villa-Lobos, Bachianas Brasileiras #5; Reger Ballet Suite op 130
Morning Concert: Bizet, L'Arlesienne Suite #2; Scharwenka, 2nd Piano Concerto*
Rural Rhymes
This Week's Composer: Debussy (Incidental Music to Le martyre de Saint Sebastien
Music Group of London: Quintets by Rawsthorne, Fibich, and Hugh Wood
Romantic Songs by Donizetti, Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, & Robert Schumann
Liszt Chamber Orchestra: Haydn Midi Symphony (early electronic Music?) & Mozart Pno Conc #15

(* - I can actually remember listening to this as it was being broadcast! After breakfast in my Hall of Residence, getting ready to walk in to University. )

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

St Brigid/Bridget/Brighid/Bride used to be (?still is?) celebrated in Ireland by children going from house-to-house, not to demand treats with menaces, but by presenting straw doll effigies of the Saint, which would be displayed in the house to protect the inhabitants from evil in the coming year. St Bride's in Fleet Street, London ("spiritual home of the media", it claims on its website - and if anyone needs to do a lot of praying ... ) is just one of the many churches named after the saint, as were many wells believed to have sacred properties ... and it isn't her fault that a prison built upon the site of one of these "Bridewells" became popular slang for prisons in general. (It wasn't even meant to be a prison; Henry VIII originally meant it as a palace; it was his son who gave it to the City of London Council to be used "for the housing of homeless children and the correction of disorderly women".)

But, whilst dew collected first thing on the morning of February 1st was supposed to be particularly good for the complexion, there doesn't seem to be one of those irritating weather rhymes ("If you see a tree then this'll/Tell you it will probably drizzle" sort-of thing) associated with her name day.

[vinteuil]

.

... 1 February is Candlemas Eve, and thus the last day of Christmas - the final day for taking down all the decorations. I like Herrick's pome on the subject :


Ceremonies for Candlemasse Eve

Down with the Rosemary and Bayes,
Down with the Misleto ;
In stead of Holly, now up-raise
The greener Box (for show).

The Holly hitherto did sway ;
Let Box now domineere ;
Untill the dancing Easter-day,
Or Easters Eve appeare.

Then youthfull Box which now hath grace
Your houses to renew ;
Grown old, surrender must his place
Unto the crisped Yew.

When Yew is out, then Birch comes in,
And many flowers beside ;
Both of a fresh, and fragrant kinne
To honour Whitsontide.

Green Rushes, then, and sweetest Bents,
With cooler Oken boughs ;
Come in for comely ornaments
To re-adorn the house.
Thus times do shift ; each thing his turne do's hold ;
New things succeed, as former things grow old .

Robert Herrick [1591-1674]

[cloughie]

Beatles first No1? Was that in Norway, it was their fourth here!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Beatles first No1? Was that in Norway, it was their fourth here!

Yes - I was surprised by that; and as I discovered the "fact" from WIKI, I should've known better and checked the facts - but it was getting late, it had been a hard ... and I was getting lazy, so it went on.

[anotherbob]

Yes - I was surprised by that; and as I discovered the "fact" from WIKI, I should've known better and checked the facts - but it was getting late, it had been a hard ... and I was getting lazy, so it went on.

It was their first U.S. number 1.

[cloughie]

It was their first U.S. number 1.

That was the kind of thinking that left Please Please Me off Beatles 1

[Lat-Literal]

We all know what day tomorrow is.

We all know what day tomorrow is.

We all know what day tomorrow is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3BWaRkJ58M