Today's the Day

[Richard Tarleton]

Final Days for: Luca Marenzio (1599)

I have two lovely discs of his madrigals, spiritual ones performed by Gli Erranti and the Sixth Book of [secular] Madrigals by La Venexiana.

He was much admired by Dowland, who planned to meet him and travelled to Italy in 1595 with the intention of doing so. John Johnson had died, and Dowland had applied for the vacant post as court lutenist which he hoped to take up on his return to England.

But, en route to Rome to meet Marenzio he was approached by some English Catholic exiles in Florence who hoped to involve him in a plot, panicked and headed for home, writing his famously grovelly letter to Robert Cecil on the way. But the damage was done, and Dowland had to wait until 1606 for his English court appointment.

[Dermot]

Today, we went here

https://clam-cork.business.site

and rather wonderful it was too

Absolutely! A friend and I had great fish and chips there last November. All being well, we will be there again this November on our annual visit to Donny.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

23rd August

The Feast Day of Saint Tydfil, the 5th Century Welsh Christian, daughter of Brychan, (who renamed his kingdom Brycheiniog [modern day Brecon] after himself), martyred by heathens (Celtic Welsh, or Saxon invaders, depending on which version of the story you read) - and so the site of the martyr Tydfil became the foundation of the county town of Merthyr Tydfil.

International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, initiated by UNESCO in 1998, and European Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Stalinism and Nazism - an EU designated day to commemorate the victims of totalitarianism.

Also on This Date: Octavian orders the murders of Cleopatra's sons Caesurion [son of Julius Caesar] and Marcus Antonius Antyllus [son of mark Antony] to leave the way clear for his own adoption of power (30BCE); during the celebrations of the Feast Day of Vulcan, Mount Vesuvius starts grumbling; the first signs of the eruption the next day (79); William Wallace is hanged, drawn, & quartered for high treason against Edward I (the English King to whom he felt he owed no loyalty) in London (1305); George III issues the Proclamation of Rebellion, declaring elements in his American Colonies to be in a state of "open & avowed rebellion", and ordering officials and all loyal subjects of the British Empire "to use their utmost endeavours to withstand and suppress such rebellion" (1775); despite considerable gains, the first significant conflict involving British troops, the Battle of Mons, results in the beginning of the Great Retreat of British & French forces from the advancing German Army (1914); the first mid-air refuelling is accomplished, enabling Captain Lowell Smith to set an endurance flight record of 37 hours in his De Havilland bi-plane (1923); Italian-American anarchists Sacco & Vanzetti are electrocuted following their <ahem> controversial conviction for the murder of two employees of a shoe factory in Massachusetts (1927 - 50 years later, Massachusetts Governor, Michael Dukakis declares their trial & convictions "unfair" and the day is commemorated as Sacco & Vanzetti Memorial Day); Arab citizens in city of Hebron begin a two-day attack on the Jewish Community, resulting in the deaths of at least 65 of them, and the forced evacuation of the others (1929); it's the 80th anniversary of the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, "guaranteeing" peace between the two dictatorships (1939); the beginning of the 5 month-long Battle of Stalingrad - the bloodiest battle in the history of warfare, with around 2million casualties, and the reversal of the Nazi advances in World War 2 (1942); a low-flying American bomber hits a tree in bad weather and crashes into a primary school in Freckleton, Lancashire, killing 61 people - 38 of them children (1944); Howard Hawks' film of Raymond Chandler's novel The Big Sleep is released (1946); delegates of 147 Churches congregate in Amsterdam to form the World Council of Churches (1948); the first ever photograph of the Earth as seen from the Moon is taken by unmanned Lunar Orbiter-1 (1966); hostages are taken in an attempted robbery at the Kreditbanken in central Stockholm (1973 - within days the hostages form bonds with their captors and try to protect them from police attacks, creating the term "Stockholm Syndrome"); around 2 million people form a 420-mile human chain across Estonia, latvia, & Lithuania as a peaceful demonstration for independence from the Soviet Union (1989); Sadam Hussain appears on television with his human shield of hostages (1990 - on the same day, Armenia declares its independence from the Soviet Union); an 18-year-old girl runs through the streets of Vienna, asking passers-by [who ignore her] to phone for police help for her - she is Natascha Kampusch, who had been kidnapped aged 10 and held in a cellar for more than 8 years (2006 - 3,096 days to be exact: the title of her memoir of her ordeal); the skeletons of two children of the murdered Romanov family are uncovered in Yekatarinburg, Russia (2007).

Birthdays Today include: Georges Cuvier (1769); Arnold Toynbee (1852); Moritz Moszkowski (1854); Ernst Krenek (1900); William Primrose (1903); Constant Lambert (1905); Gene Kelly (1912); Harold Truscott (1914); Roy Strong (1935); Keith Moon (1946); Willy Russell (1947); Shaun Ryder (1962); Eliza Carthy (1975);

Final Days for: Jean Molinet (1507); Rudolph Valentino (1926); Adolf Loos (1933); Albert Roussel (1937); Nikolai Roslavets (1944); Oscar Hammerstein II (1950); Irving Fine (1962); Naum Gabo (1977); RD Laing (1989); David Rose (1990); George Walker (2018).


And the Radio 3 Schedules for the morning of Saturday, 23rd August, 1969 were:

The Saturday Concert: "Ten characteristic keys; eight great composers. Last in a series of four programmes." ("Haydn in Bb; Beethoven in A")
According to the Genome, the News & Weather was presented by Bruno Walter & the Columbia SO!
Jazz Record Requests presented by Steve Race.

... and then seven and a quarter hours of cricket.

[vinteuil]

Howard Hawks' film of Raymond Chandler's novel The Big Sleep is released (1946)...

... a marvellous film. Wiki reminds us : "The Big Sleep is known for its convoluted plot. During filming, allegedly neither the director nor the screenwriters knew whether chauffeur Owen Taylor was murdered or had killed himself. They sent a cable to Chandler, who told a friend in a later letter: "They sent me a wire ... asking me, and dammit I didn't know either"."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Sleep_(1946_film)

.

[Richard Tarleton]

Birthdays today...after reading today's Times...no.1 niece would doubtless like me to point out that Tori Amos is 56 today (said niece never knowingly misses a Tori Amos gig)

[un barbu]

Italian-American anarchists Sacco & Vanzetti are electrocuted following their <ahem> controversial conviction for the murder of two employees of a shoe factory in Massachusetts (1927 - 50 years later, Massachusetts Governor, Michael Dukakis declares their trial & convictions "unfair" and the day is commemorated as Sacco & Vanzetti Memorial Day);

"So here's to you, Nicola & Bart".....As fans of Joan Baez will remember.

[Joseph K]

Happy birthday Wayne Shorter.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

27th August

The Feast Day of Saint Decuman, the 7th Centuery Celtic Saint, born in Rhoscrowther, Pembrokeshire, and who travelled to Somerset - reputedly using his cloak as a raft, and with only a cow as his "companion" - to become a hermit, living off the produce of the cow, and tending to the sick. One of the locals, "a certain man more venomous than an asp, more poisonous than the adder....", wasn't impressed and attacked Decuman, cutting off his head with an axe. The saint, picked up his head, washed it, and replaced it - thereafter, the locals help him build a church. (Well, you would, wouldn't you!)

And of Saint Máel Ruba, the Irish-born evangelist to Scotland - who had fewer worries about tying his tie too tightly, and whose demise used to be attributed to Viking Invaders, except that his death occurred more than 60 years before the first recorded Viking raids.

Also on This Date: Kett's Rebellion - an uprising by Norfolk villagers against wealthy landowners enacting enclosures - is suppressed by the Earl of Warwick at the Battle of Dussindale (1549); Catholic fanatic Pierre Barriere fails in his attempt to murder Protestant King Henry IV of France (1593); the first known theatrical performance in the new World, a play called The Bare and the Cubb, receives the first documented poor critical review (1665 - the review is so critical that the performers are arrested, and charged with "performing a very bad play" - the magistrate dismissed the charges after seeing the prisoners perform the play in the courthouse [not so difficult - it was also the hall in which the performances had also been held] and fines the critic, Edward Martin, for wasting the court's time); Irish Republicans, aided by French Revolutionary troops, defeat a British force three times larger at the Battle of Connaught (1798); the world's first commercially successful oil well is drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania (1859); at the height of the eruption of Krakatoa [west of Java] results in the loss of 70% of the island and surrounding archipelago (1883 - the enitre population of the island of Sebesi is killed, and 1,000 of the inhabitants of Sumatra, many from the "rain" of hot ash from the eruption - air waves created by the eruption encircle the globe several times, and were still detectable five days later); the auditorium of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York is destroyed in a fire (1892); the 38 minute Anglo-Zanzibar War is fought (1896 - for the 500 soldiers killed, the fact that this is the shortest war in history is probably of little significance); Fauré's "lyrical tragedy" Prométhée is premiered at the open-air arena at Béziers by 800 performers conducted by Charles Eustace, to an audience of 10.000 people (1900); disgruntled Catholic priest, Laurence M Lesches decides to disprove his superiors' opinion that he is arrogant and emotionally unstable by shooting the RC Bishop of Winona, Minnesota (1915); 15 nations sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact, making War illegal (1928 - eventually 61 nations sign the pact, but, as WIKI understates it, it "did not live up to all of its aims"); Copland's El Salon Mexico is premiered by the Mexico SO conducted by Carlos Chavez (1937); the Nazis begin a 2-day massacre of over 14,000 people, most of them Jews, in the Ukrainian city of Sarny (1942); the Luftwaffe destroys the Crete village of Vorizia in an aerial bombing attack (1943); the first Guiness Book of Records is published (1955 - a prototype had been privately distributed to 1,000 people the year before); Calder Hall in Cumbria becomes the world's first commercial nuclear power station when it is connected to the National Grid (1956); Mariner-2, the world's first robotic space probe to complete an investigation of another planet, is launched on its mission to Venus (1962); Walt Disney's Mary Poppins is released (1964); Francis Chichester begins his single-handed circumnavigation of the world in his ketch, Gipsy Moth IV (1966); Louis Mountbatten is murdered by an IRA bomb on his fishing boat Shadow V (1979 - two teenaged crew members are also killed in the explosion, and his son-in-law's mother dies from her injuries the next day - also on 27th, the IRA also mount their largest guerilla attack on British Army soldiers in Warrenpoint, County Down: 18 soldiers are killed and 6 seriously injured in the attack); Moldova declares itself a Republic, independent of the Soviet Union (1991 - on the same day that the independence of Latvia, Lithuania, & Estonia is formally recognised by the European Community); Mars and Earth are at their closest for 60,000 years (2003 - a mere 34,646,418 miles apart); three days of violent skirmishes between the military junta of Myanmar and ethnic minorities in the Kokang region (2009); The Shepherd's Crown, Terry Pratchett's last completed novel, is published, 5 months after the euthor's death (2015).

Birthdays Today include: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770); Charles Gates Dawes (1865); Charles Rolls (1877); Eric Coates & Rebecca Clarke (both 1886); Man Ray (1890); Leon Theremin (1896); CS Forester (1899); Herbert Menges (1902); Norah Lofts (1904); Don Bradman & Lyndon B Johnson (both 1908); Lester Young (1909); George Brecht (1926); Ira Levin (1929); Antonia Fraser (1932); Michael Holroyd (1935); Alice Coltrane (1937); Ann Murray (1949); ... and Ann Murray is 70, Jeanette Winterson 60, & Reece Shearsmith 50 today.

Final Days for: Josquin des Prez (1521); Titian (1576); Tomás Luis de Victoria (1611); Lope de Vega (1635); Kusumoto Ine (1903); Cesare Pavese (1950); Gracie Allen (1964); Le Corbusier (1965); Brian Epstein (1967); Ivy Compton-Burnett & Erika Mann (both 1969); Sandy Wilson (2014).


... and the Radio 3 Schedules for the Morning of Wednesday, 27th August, 1969 were:

Overture: including Telemann's 4tet for 2 Flutes, Recorder, & Continuo
Your Midweek Choice: "gramophone record requests"
This Week's Composer: Bach (Sinfonia [from Cantata BWV 209]; Magnificat in D )
Haydn Pno 3os: in A, H XV 18; & in Eb minor, H XV 31 (the Oromonte Trio, 8th of 12 programmes)
Historic Organs: Michel Chapuis plays Music by French composers on the organ of Poitiers Cathedral.
Edinburgh International Festival: recital by the Bartok S4tet (with interval selection of Harpsichord Music by Seixas, Soler, and Blasco de Nebra, played by Luciano Sgrizzi).

[vinteuil]

... Catholic fanatic Pierre Barriere fails in his attempt to murder Protestant King Henry IV of France (1593); .

... a pedant worries : this attempt was 27 August 1593.

But - Henri became a catholic on 25 July 1593 ("Paris vaut bien une Messe"). So he was no longer a protestant.

Henri became king on 27 February 1594. So he wasn't yet a king.


.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... a pedant worries : this attempt was 27 August 1593.
But - Henri became a catholic on 25 July 1593 ("Paris vaut bien une Messe"). So he was no longer a protestant.
Henri became king on 27 February 1594. So he wasn't yet a king.

You're right, of course, so an end to the worrying. Accordin' to WIKI [] Henry's reign as King of France began in 1589, but the Catholic League wouldn't permit his Coronation until he gave in and publicly renounced his Protestant beliefs: a state of affairs that seems to have created little satisfaction - some Catholics, like Barriére (and Chatel and Ravaillac) doubted his sincerity, and some Protestants regarded him as a traitor to his religious beliefs.

[vinteuil]

You're right, of course, so an end to the worrying. Accordin' to WIKI [] Henry's reign as King of France began in 1589, but the Catholic League wouldn't permit his Coronation until he gave in and publicly renounced his Protestant beliefs: a state of affairs that seems to have created little satisfaction - some Catholics, like Barriére (and Chatel and Ravaillac) doubted his sincerity, and some Protestants regarded him as a traitor to his religious beliefs.

... thank you for that background. It 'makes sense', if such a phrase can encompass all those bonkers belief systems and mad behaviours. Chatel was nineteen when he was punished by having his hand burned off with molten sulphur, lead, and wax, before being led away to be dismembered. Ravaillac of course succeeded where Barrière and Chatel had failed, and so "he was taken to the Place de Grève in Paris and was tortured one last time before being pulled apart by four horses, a method of execution reserved for regicides. "Before being drawn and quartered... he was scalded with burning sulphur, molten lead and boiling oil and resin, his flesh then being torn by pincers." Following his execution, Ravaillac's parents were forced into exile, and the rest of his family was ordered never to use the name "Ravaillac" again... " (thanks, wiki.)

.

[Richard Tarleton]

Krakatoa [west of Java]

As opposed to... (in the geographically challenged film)

[cloughie]

As opposed to... (in the geographically challenged film)

I always think it sounds like a painful foot injury!

[johncorrigan]

I always think it sounds like a painful foot injury!

Perhaps it could be digitally remastered, cloughie.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I always think it sounds like a painful foot injury!

Or a painting by Stubbs?