Today's the Day

[Petrushka]

Pet, have you spotted this?

Here they are, with their magnificent version of Stenka Razin....

Her interesting Wiki entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Durham

Thank you, Richard. What a voice! Brings back an entire era just hearing her in this.

[Richard Tarleton]

the last pair of Great Auks - which had been incubating an egg - is killed (1844 - the birds were so rare that mueums had been paying large prices for undamaged corpses to stuff and put on display, thus ensuring extinction; this final pair is captured and strangled - the egg crushed underfoot)

An episode of The Goodies dealt with the extinction of the dodo - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodonuts - sadly the BBC has blocked it on YouTube for copyright reasons.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Here they are, with their magnificent version of Stenka Razin....

Always reminds me, too, of Berlioz' Les Franc Juges Overture.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

July 4th

The Aphelion - the date this year when the Earth is at its furthest from the sun.

And some sort of public holiday in the United States, I believe,

Also on this Date: a supernova is first observed in Chinese and Arabian records (1054 - it is visible for the next two years, in the early months even during daylight: the Crab Nebula is what's left of it); Oliver Cromwell's selected "Barebones Parliament" meets for the first time (1653); the Orangetown Resolutions are adopted in the American colonies, expressing loyalty and support to their King, but pointing out that quite a few of the recent laws imposed on the colonies weren't really the done thing (1774); the American Colonists decide that loyalty and support for the British King wasn't doing them any favors and they declare Independence (1776 - a mishearing of "we want to get rid of you" is what led to the spellings of "color", "favor", etc); the Grand Junction Railway, then the longest stretch of railway in the world, opens (1837 - it connects Liverpool to Birmingham); Henry David Thoreau moves into a log cabin by the river Walden in Concord, Massachusetts, where he begins a two-year life of self-sufficiency, supported by his friends (1845); Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass is first published (1855); the Anglo-Zulu War comes to an end with the capture and destruction of the Zulu capital of Ulundi by British troops (1879); Western Samoa has two July 4ths, as the International Date Line is changed (1892); race riots break out across the US as black boxer Jack Johnson knocks out white boxer Jim Jeffries (1910); 35 professors and academic staff at the University of Lwow are murdered by the Nazi occupiers (1941 - on the same day, the Nazis set fire to the Great Choral Synagogue in Riga, Latvia killing 20 Jews seeking refuge there); the Siege of Sevastapol in the Crimea ends as the city falls to German, Italian, and Romanian troops (1942); Polish soldiers, police officers, and civilians in the city of Kielce violently attack the city's surviving Jewish community, killing 42 of them, and injuring another 40 (1946 - that date isn't a typo); the Indian Independence Bill is presented in the House of Commons, proposing the independence of both India and the creation of new country, Pakistan (1947); Marilyn Sheppard is found bludgeoned to death in her bedroom (1954 - her husband, Dr Sam Sheppard is arrested for her murder after biased media coverage against him and police incompetence); the Beatles fail to show up at an event organised by Imelda Marcos in Manilla - she is not very happy (1966 - it's Philippine Independence [from the USA] Day on this date, too); Israeli troops raid Entebbe Airport, freeing all but 4 of the 106 passengers held hostage by Palestinian terrorists on board an Air France Airbus (1976); 74-year-old former Gestapo operative Klaus Barbie is convicted of crimes against humanity during the Second World War (1987 - "the Butcher of Lyon" dies of cancer in prison over five years later); the Mars Pathfinder probe lands on the surface of Mars (1997); the Deep Impact space probe collides with comet Tempel-1 (2005 - it's meant to); CERN announces that the Large Hadron Collider has uncovered particles which have the expected properties of the Higgs Bosun (2012).

It's also supposed to be the day of The Golden Afternoon, when Charles Lutwidge Dodgson invented the story that would become Alice in Wonderland to the three Liddell sisters whilst on a rowing trip on the river Thames in Oxford. Weather records for that date in that area would suggest that "The Grey and Soggy Afternoon" would be more accurate,

Birthdays Today include: Jean-Pierre Blanchard (1753); George Everest (1790); Nathanial Hawthorne (1804); Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807); Stephen Foster (1826); Hermann cohen (1842); Henrietta Swann Leavitt (1868); Maximillian Steinberg & Rube Goldberg (both 1883); Gertrude Lawrence (1898); Flor Peeters (1903); Angela Baddeley (1904); Lionel Trilling (1905); Neil Simon & Gina Lollobrigida (both 1927); Colin Welland (1934); Jean-Pierre Leguay (1939); Adam Hart-Davis (1943); Pam Shriver (1962); Ronni Ancona (1968); ... and Eve Marie Saint is 95 today.

Final Days for: Ecgberht (673); Philippe de Monte (1603); William Byrd (1623); Samuel Richardson (1761); Richard Cosway (1821); John Adams & Thomas Jefferson (1826 - so the 2nd & 3rd Presidents of the USA both died on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the declaration of Independence: Adams' last words are reprted to have been "At least Jefferson still lives", not knowing that his friend had predeceased him by a couple of hours. James Monroe, 5th President, also died on this date in 1831 - anyone else got their fingers crossed?); François-René de Chateaubriand (1848); Marie Curie (1934);Georgette Heyer (1974); Paul-Gilbert Langevin & Flor Peeters (both 1986 - the latter on his 86th birthday); Astor Piazzolla (1992); John Zachary Young (1997); Barry White (2003); Charles Wheeler (2008); Allen Klein (2009); Eric Sykes (2012); Bernie Nolan (2013).


And the Radio 3 Schedules for the morning of Friday, 4th July, 1969 were:

Overture: "gramophone records" (no works specified, but included pieces for S4tet and solo guitar)
Morning Concert: "gramophone records"
This Week's Composer: Mozart (incl Cosi Ovt, & Pno Conc #9)
British Concertos (no works detailed, but played by solo viola Herbert Downes with the NPO/Leppard)
Music Making: works for 'cello & keyboard [Ludwig Holscher & Basil Smallman] and Pinao Duets played by Richard Rodney Bennett & Malcolm Williamson
Midday Concert: BBCNSO/Matheson with soloist Robert Sherlaw Johnson [no work/s specified, but with the soloist, it prbably wasn't the Tchaikovsky Bb minor)

[Padraig]

The Aphelion - the date this year when the Earth is at its furthest from the sun.

And some sort of public holiday in the United States, I believe,

... he added coyly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-7XWhyvIpE

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

- and then there's always:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8S1aGY80Us

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Henry David Thoreau moves into a log cabin by the river Walden in Concord, Massachusetts, where he begins a two-year life of self-sufficiency, supported by his friends (1845);

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8_r7B0k9SI

[Richard Tarleton]

Always reminds me, too, of Berlioz' Les Franc Juges Overture.

Hmm, not sure I get this - there's a sort of up-tempo version of the tune, or something remotely like it, about 5 minutes in??

The Seekers' song was apparently written for them by Tom Springfield, Dusty's brother, to the tune of the Russian folk song.

PS the original is about the eponymous Cossack chief tossing his comely Persian bride into the Volga, to prove he still had his mind on the job, so it was well due a re-write.

Now, with one swift mighty motion
He has raised his bride on high
And has cast her where the waters
Of the Volga roll and sigh.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Hmm, not sure I get this - there's a sort of up-tempo version of the tune, or something remotely like it, about 5 minutes in??

That's the chappie! I confess that it was hearing the Berlioz for the first time that reminded me of The Seekers rather than the "proper" other way round - one of those "associations" my imagination seems to do on "autopilot": (the first time I heard the Second theme of the Notturno from Borodin's 2nd S4tet I was reminded of Ron Goodwin's theme to the Margaret Rutherford Miss Marple films. Just me, it seems!

[LezLee]

Happy birthday yesterday to Nathanial Hawthorne, mention of whom always reminds me of going with his great-niece to see Buddy Holly in Liverpool in 1959. Of no interest at all to anyone else of course!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

- and speaking of Hawthorne:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0I146yLajk

[cloughie]

Hmm, not sure I get this - there's a sort of up-tempo version of the tune, or something remotely like it, about 5 minutes in??

The Seekers' song was apparently written for them by Tom Springfield, Dusty's brother, to the tune of the Russian folk song.

PS the original is about the eponymous Cossack chief tossing his comely Persian bride into the Volga, to prove he still had his mind on the job, so it was well due a re-write.

Now, with one swift mighty motion
He has raised his bride on high
And has cast her where the waters
Of the Volga roll and sigh.

I’m sure that Athol Guy would have been up to the job if given the correct costume!

[Padraig]

Happy birthday yesterday to Nathanial Hawthorne, mention of whom always reminds me of going with his great-niece to see Buddy Holly in Liverpool in 1959. Of no interest at all to anyone else of course!

Yes, it is. Mention of 1959, Buddy Holly, has different memories for me.

[LezLee]

Sorry, I meant 1958 of course.

[Padraig]

Sorry, I meant 1958 of course.

Even better.