Today's the Day

[oddoneout]

Wonder how many vegan haggises will have been sacrificed this year?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

January 26th

International Customs Day - something to declare - and the World Customs Organisation has dedicated 2019 to the swift and smooth cross-border movement of goods, people and means of transport, with the slogan “SMART borders for seamless Trade, Travel and Transport."

...

Apologies - I needed a moment there to decide whether to laugh or cry.

And - Republic Day in India, Liberation Day in Uganda, Engineers' Day in Panama, and Australia Day in ...

... because it was on 26th January 1788 that the British First Fleet established the first Australian settlement in Sydney; and exactly twenty years later, the Rum Revolution overturned the rule of the unpopular Governor of New South Wales, William Bligh. (That's the same Captain William Bligh who, nineteen years earlier had been played by Charles Laughton in the "Mutiny on the Bounty".) In 1926, John Logie Baird demonstrates his mechanical television for the first time; in 1980, Israel and Egypt formalise diplomatic relations; in 1992, Boris Yeltsin announces that Russia will cease targetting United Staes with nuclear weapons, and in 1998, Bill Clinton tells the world that he "did not have sexual relations with that woman".

Birthdays today include Maria von Trapp (1905), Stephane Grappelli (1908), Michael Bentine (1922), Paul Newman (1925), Paula Rego (1935), Jacqueline Du Pre (1945), and Gustavo Dudamel (1981).

Last days for Edward Jenner (1823), Theodore Gericault (1824), Lucky Luciano (1962), Edward G Robinson (1973), and Hugh Trevor-Roper (2003).


And today, fifty years ago on R3, the morning (8 o'clock - noon) schedule was:

What's New? ("a weekly programme of recent recordings")
Haydn Piano Trios ("fourth of twelve weekly programmes" - the Oromonte Pno 3o again)
Your Concert Choice ("a request programme of gramophone records")
Music Magazine

(and the afternoon schedules which followed were pretty impressive, too - a programme of three Bach Cantatas (121, 124, 58); then four complete Shostakovich String Quartets (nos 19, 8, 9, & 11), interspersed by a one-act opera by Cimarosa and by a concert given by the BBC Northern, conducted by Horenstein.)

[greenilex]

Meant to celebrate Dudamel, obvs one of my faves...happy birthday in spite of it all, and better times to come.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

January 27th

International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Chosen because today was the date in 1945 that Russian Troops liberated the Extermination Camp at Auschwitz.

I'm spending much of this year re-reading the complete works of Primo Levi (whose centenary falls this year) - his accounts of the conditions of existence in Auschwitz are ... well, "harrowing" doesn't really do it justice.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And it's Mozart's birthday, too (1756) - and Juan Crisostomo Arriaga (1806), Edouard Lalo (1823), Lewis Carroll (1832), Jerome Kern (1885), Brian Rix (1924), Fritz Spiegl (1926), and Jean-Philippe Collard (1948).

Last days for Francis Drake (1596), Hieronymus Praetorius (1629), Bartolomeo Cristofori (1731), Giuseppe Verdi (1901), Eric Kleiber (1956), Friedrich Gulda (2000), John Updike (2009), J D Salinger (2010), and Pete Seeger (2014).

The Siege of Leningrad comes to an end in 1944, as the Nazi troops begin to retreat; Apollo 1 catches fire, killing all three astronauts in 1967; and the Arab Spring begins in Yemen in 2011.

And in 1880, Thomas Edison patents the Incandescent Light Bulb (so-called because that was the effect it had on Joseph Swan, who'd invented it the year before).


On Radio 3 forty years ago today the morning schedule was:

Aubade (Bizet: L'Arlesienne Suite 1; Rodrigo Concierto d'Aranjuez; Shostakovich Ballet Suite 1, and pieces by Bridge, Gershwin arr Grainger, and Noel Coward)
Record Review (with Pierrot Lunaire the BaL)
New Releases: Haydn S4tet in A; Brahms Vier Ernst Gesange;
Live Concert: Schubert Rosamunde, Dvorak New World

[Wychwood]

FHG: Thank you for this thread, and all the research it entails. Those old R3 listings evoke happy memories!

[Bryn]

Today, of course, is Holocaust Memorial Day. While saluting the work of the HMDT, it is somewhat unfortunate that they appear to have restricted attention to the horrors of the 20th and 21st Centuries. Thus the systematic extermination by European colonialists (the British in particular) of very nearly all the indigenous Palawan population of what today is referred to as Tasmania. Let us all remember them and all other people throughout the world who were subjected to similar treatment in recent centuries, in addition to all those mentioned by the HMDT.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

FHG: Thank you for this thread, and all the research it entails. Those old R3 listings evoke happy memories!

Thanks, Wychwood - glad to evoke the memories. And, for me part of the point, too, is that they are memories - not just nostalgic fantasies of a golden age that never really existed. The standard of daytime programming from the seventies and eighties that I thought I'd remembered I actually had remembered quite accurately: I'd still be as glued to R3 now as I was then if this was the programming that was on offer. As it isn't, I'm not.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

January 28th

The feast day of St Thomas Aquinas - a philosopher and reputed levitator.

The Diet of Worms begins (1521); Horace Walpole coins the word "serendipity" (1754); Pride & Prejudice is first published (1813); the Siege of Paris brings an end to the Franco-Prussian War (1871); the first speeding fine of 1s is imposed on Mr Walter Arnold, who was driving at 8mph in a 6mph limit(1896); the name "Pakistan" is adopted by Indian Muslims seeking an independent state (1933); the Flag of Canada is adopted (1965); and the Challenger Space Shuttle explodes, killing all seven astronauts (1986).

Birthdays of Henry VII, the first Tudor King (1457); John Baskerville (1706, no doubt christened in a font); Collette (1873); Arthur Rubinstein (1887); Jackson Pollock (1912); Harry Corbett (Sooty, not Steptoe - 1918); Ronnie Scott (1927); Acker Bilk and Claus Oldenburg (1929); John Tavener (1944); and Nicolas Sarkozy is 64 today.

Last days for Charlemagne (814), Henry VIII (1547); Augusta Holmes (1903); Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov (1935); W B Yeats (1929); Reynaldo Hahn (1947); Joseph Brodsky (1996); and co-creator of Superman, Jerry Siegel (also 1996).


And the morning schedules on Radio 3 on Saturday, January 28th, 1989:

Morning Concert: (Works by Offenbach, Aguado, Handel, Rossini, Sarasate, Brahms, and Rimsky-Korsakoff)
The Week Ahead: a quarter-hour programme highlighting attractions in the coming week
Ulster Orchestra: Field Piano Concerto #1; Clementi Symphony #3
Saturday Review: presented by Richard Osborne ("Symphony of Psalms" the BaL; recent releases of works by Bartok and Dvorak, and an interview with Yo Yo Ma.

[cloughie]

Thanks, Wychwood - glad to evoke the memories. And, for me part of the point, too, is that they are memories - not just nostalgic fantasies of a golden age that never really existed. The standard of daytime programming from the seventies and eighties that I thought I'd remembered I actually had remembered quite accurately: I'd still be as glued to R3 now as I was then if this was the programming that was on offer. As it isn't, I'm not.

Me too. Maybe the current R3 powers that be should take note and return the station to its roots!

[Edgy 2]

Thanks, Wychwood - glad to evoke the memories. And, for me part of the point, too, is that they are memories - not just nostalgic fantasies of a golden age that never really existed. The standard of daytime programming from the seventies and eighties that I thought I'd remembered I actually had remembered quite accurately: I'd still be as glued to R3 now as I was then if this was the programming that was on offer. As it isn't, I'm not.

Me too. Maybe the current R3 powers that be should take note and return the station to its roots!

[french frank]

John Baskerville (1706, no doubt christened in a font)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

January 29th

St Gildas' Day - the 6th Century British Monk who wrote The Ruin of Briton, a history in which he blames the devastation of the native Britons by the invading Saxons on the Britons' abandoning the Christianity that the Roman invaders had brought to the island.

The first Lifeboat is tested on the River Tyne (1790); Queen Victoria initiates the Victoria Cross medal (1856); Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven is first published (1845); Karl Benz patents the first petrol-driven motor (1886)

Birthdays today include Emanuel Swedenborg (1688); Thomas Paine (1737); Anton Chekhov (1860); Frederick Delius (1862); Romain Rolland (1866); Havergal Brian (1876); W C Fields (1880); Oprah Winfrey (1954) - and Germaine Greer is 80 today.

Last days for Louis Racine (1763); Edward Lear (1888); Fritz Kreisler (1962); Robert Frost (1963); Janet Frame (2004) and Milton Babbitt (2011).


And fifty years ago today (a Wednesday), the morning schedules from & o'clock until Noon were:

Overture: ("gramophone records")
Your Midweek Choice: ("a request programme of records")
This Week's Composer: (Mendelssohn - including complete performances of the Capriccio Brilliant and the First Symphony)
Orchestral Concert: ("gramophone records")
Organ Recital: (given by Howard Fletcher)
Music Making: (the Juilliard S4tet, Charles Rosen, Monique Haas, Gerard Souzay, Dalton Baldwin, and Ion Voicu)

[cloughie]

According to Radio Cornwall today is Curmudgeon Day. Anyone on these boards who in any way feels they feel they meet the requirements should celebrate. Though if they do someone will presumably grump about it!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

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