Today's the Day

[Lat-Literal]

3 February - JP Richardson, Ritchie Valens, and Buddy Holly are killed in a plane crash (1959)

The Day The Music Died:

Clear Lake - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09QnKCc9TXM

Three Stars - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwO8bsMKuyI

AP 1 and 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsvyK9xyHco

[cloughie]

St Blaise's Day - the patron of woolcombers, and before mechanisation made them obsolete, said craftsmen would hold parades to celebrate the feast day: records survive from Suffolk and Norwich of as many as 300 woolcombers who would parade through the streets, in costume, on horseback, and/or with Musical instruments, and an ongoing Mummers' Play-type story, combining events from the life of the saint with the myth of Jason and the Argonauts ("golden fleece", y'see). Rather than a weather-rhyme, St Blaise (or "Blaize" or "Blaze") has a much more useful "blessing" associated with him: he can cure throat ailments - a priest would tie two candles together in the form of a cross, and place them on the neck of the sufferer, and recite the blessing "May the Lord deliver you from all the evils of the throat, and all other harms" - I'm not making this up! Apparently, there is still such an blessing every year at St Etheldreda's Church in Holborn, London. So, if the Ultra Chloraseptic hasn't worked ...

Also today, in 1830, Greece gains independence from the Ottoman Empire; Hector Berlioz conducts the first performance of his Carnaval Romain Ovt; the Fifteenth Amendment granting the vote to all citizens regardless of colour is ratified (1870), and forty-three years later, the Sixteenth Amendment allows the government to charge them all Income Tax (exactly four years to the day before the US breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany); in 1943, the SS Dorchester is sunk by a U-boat - the courage of the four Chaplains on board (aiding the sailors, and giving up their own life jackets so that others could survive) led to this being commemorated as "Four Chaplains Day" in the US; JP Richardson, Ritchie Valens, and Buddy Holly are killed in a plane crash (1959); Harold MacMillan makes his "Winds of Change" speech to the Cape Town Parliament in 1960; and Luna 9 sends the first photographs from the surface of the moon (1966).

Today's birthdays include: Palestrina (1525 - yup, he died the day before his 69th birthday); Gideon Mantell (1790); Felix Mendelssohn (1809); Gertrude Stein (1874); Georg Trakl (1887); Norman Rockwell (1895); Priaulx Rainier (1903); Luigi Dallapiccola (1904); EP Thomson (1924); Paul Auster (1947); Henning Mankell (1948); and Franck Bedrossian (1971).

Last days for: John of Gaunt - yeah, we know, Bbm (1399); Johannes Gutenberg (1468); George Crabbe (1832); John Butler Yeats (1922); Woodrow Wilson (1924); and Frank Oppenheimer (1985).


And the morning schedules for Radio 3 on this day forty years ago (a Saturday):

Aubade: Rossini Thieving Magpie Ovt; Lasceux Symphonie Concertante; Rachmaninoff "Paganini Rhapsody"; pieces by Kreisler; Stravinsky's Circus Polka
Record Review (Tchaik Vln Conc, the BaL; Bach Organ Concerto (after Vivaldi); Parry Songs of Farewell
Robert Meyer Concert: Walton Scapino; Takemitsu Green; Elgar Wand of Youth selection; Mendelssohn Vln Conc; Dulas, Sorcerer's Apprentice

As with many saints there is a Cornish link. St Blaise is in fact the very same as St Blazey.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

February 4th

World Cancer Day - so anyone with a birthday today knows what to wish when they blow out the candles. (Contributions to Cancer charities perhaps a more practical way of commemorating the day.)

It's also St Veronica's Day - the woman who gave her handkerchief to Christ on the way to His execution so that He could wipe the sweat off his face, producing an image on the cloth (once believed that "Veronica" was derived from "vera icon" - "true image"; more likely a "transcription" of "Berenice" or "Berenike").

It's also Feast Monday this year - so Kernowyons will be shifting their attentions from St Blazey to St Ives for the annual beach hurling game between the Uplongs and the Downlongs.

And, for citizens of California and Missouri, it's Rosa Parkes Day, celebrating the birthday of the woman whose defiance of Racist bus segregation laws (and her subsequent arrest) in 1955, fuelled the wider momentum of the Civil Rights movement. (In Ohio, the day is commemorated on 1st December - the day of her arrest.)

Also on this date, George Washington is elected as the first President of the United States; the Yalts Conference begins in 1945; and Mark Zuckerberg establishes Facebook (2004).

Birthdays today include Constance Markievicz (the UK's first woman MP; 1868); Fernand Leger (1881); Reinhold Rudenberg (pioneer of electron microscopy, 1883); Nigel Bruce (1895); Jacques Prevert (1900); Charles Lindbergh (1902); Hylda Baker (1905); Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Clyde Tombaugh (1906); Erich Leinsdorf (1912); Rosa Parkes (1913); Norman Wisdom (1915); Betty Friedan (1921); Russell Hoban (1925); Martti Talvela (1935); Alice Cooper (1948); and Dara O'Briain (1972)

Last days for Josef Myslivecek (1781); Alex Harvey (1982); Karen Carpenter (1983)' Liberace (1987); Patricia Highsmith (1995); Iannis Xenakis (2001); and Betty Friedan (2006 - yup, she died on her 85th birthday).


And on 4th February, 1989 (a Saturday) the morning schedules were:

Morning Concert: Bantock Pierrot; Cowell Saturday Night; Rimsky-Korsakoff May Night Ovt; Delius Brigg Fair; and short pieces by Chopin, Kreisler, and Bartok.
The Week on 3: previews of programmes to be broadcast
Mozart: Piano Sonata K311; Quintet for Piano & Winds (with a certian Mr Anthony Halstead mong the players - I wonder whatever happened to him?)
Saturday Review: presented by Richard Osborne (Cosi fan Tutte the BaL; a review of Slatkin's recording of Elgar's The Kingdom; and complete broadcasts of Glazunov's Saxophone Concerto, and his The Sea Ovt

(I suspect that the genome has a blip in its DNA - the two Mozart works are cited as lasting a total of four hours, whilst the whole of Record Review takes only 30 minutes!)

[edashtav]

I'm glad you mentioned Erich Leinsdorf, Ferney, as I think he produced some fine performances and discs, but he is rarely mentioned in despatches these days. His recordings of Gunter Schuller's Klee Studies and Igor's Agon with the BSO were revelatory when first issued and remain my goto performances.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm glad you mentioned Erich Leinsdorf, Ferney, as I think he produced some fine performances and discs, but he is rarely mentioned in despatches these days. His recordings of Gunter Schuller's Klee Studies and Igor's Agon with the BSO were revelatory when first issued and remain my goto performances.

Indeed - some of us have Leinsdorf at the top of our list of "unjustly neglected conductors".

Do you know his writings, ed? The two sets of autobiography are great fun, but The Composer's Advocate is a more serious book, full of insights into the minutiae of scores, and how these affect the performance of the entire work. Trouble is, these are almost always followed by little biographical asides ("when I pointed this out to the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, they all came to me after the rehearsal to tell me that no other conductor had ever pointed this out and it was such a revelation to them" sort-of thing - Well, as they say, nobody became a professional conductor by being a shrinking violet.)

[gurnemanz]

I'm glad you mentioned Erich Leinsdorf, Ferney, as I think he produced some fine performances and discs, but he is rarely mentioned in despatches these days. His recordings of Gunter Schuller's Klee Studies and Igor's Agon with the BSO were revelatory when first issued and remain my goto performances.

I'll mention him:

Leinsdorf conducted one of the the more memorable Proms I have attended. As a student I stood a few feet away in the arena for this one in 1971. Strong memories of Ida Haendel in a red dress in the Brahms Concerto.

His recommendable Walküre with Jon Vickers, Gré Brouwenstijn, David Ward, George London and Birgit Nilsson tends to get eclipsed by Solti.

[edashtav]

No, ferney, I hadn't realised that Erich had written 'stuff' : I must chase a copy or two. Ta!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

No, ferney, I hadn't realised that Erich had written 'stuff' : I must chase a copy or two. Ta!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Composers-Advocate-Radical-Orthodoxy-Musicians/dp/0300028873

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Erich-Leinsdorf-Music/dp/157467028X

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cadenza-Musical-Career-Erich-Leinsdorf/dp/0395244013

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

His recommendable Walküre with Jon Vickers, Gré Brouwenstijn, David Ward, George London and Birgit Nilsson tends to get eclipsed by Solti.

Yes - small moons tend to obscure great suns.

[edashtav]

I'll mention him:

Leinsdorf conducted one of the the more memorable Proms I have attended. As a student I stood a few feet away in the arena for this one in 1971. Strong memories of Ida Haendel in a red dress in the Brahms Concerto.
[…]
.

Strong vocal team for the Stravinsky; I like the 'full' version of Pulcinella. I recall that it was Ida Haendal who introduced me to the Brahms in Bournemouth many moons ago. Her 'virile' tone suited the work, but am I being fair to your 'Lady in Red' by using such a sexist term, gurnemanz?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

February 5th

Chinese New Year - and porcine felicitations to all Forumistas. According to the myth, the Pig was the last guest to arrive at the Jade Emperor's gathering (either because he overslept, or because a wolf had blown his house down, and he had to repair it - the latter sounding like a made-up excuse for the former to this ex-teacher's mind). Whichever, the Pig is a symbol of wealth, and are accredited with a "beautiful personality".

And today is St Agatha's Day - fittingly, following yesterday, she is the patrness saint of breast cancer sufferers ... as well as bell-founders and bakers ... and of Mount Etna?!

Also on this date, the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg opens to the public (1852); Verdi's Otello is premiered in Milan (1887); Leo Baekeland creates Bakelite; the first synthetic plastic (1909 - just 110 years ago); the United Artists film company is formed, the Artists involved being Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks (snr), Mary Pickford, and D W Griffith (1919); the Royal Observatory at Greenwich starts to broadcast the "pips" every hour on the hour (1924); Franco becomes Caudillo ("leader/duce/fuhrer") of Spain (1939); the US Air Force lose a hydrogen bomb somewhere off the coast of Savannah, Georgia (1958 - it's still out there, somewhere!); Apollo 14 lands on the moon (1971); the Third Punic War comes to an end as the mayors of Rome and Carthage sign a treaty of friendship (1985 - the War had begun in 149 BC); and in 2000, Russian troops murder surrendering Chechen militants in Grozny.

Birthdays include Robert Peel (1788); Ole Bull (1810); Andre Citroen (1878); Grazyna Bacewicz (1909); Jussi Bjorling (1911); William S Burroughs (1914); Luc Ferrari (1929); B S Johnson (1933); Alex Harvey (1935 - yup another one who died the day before his birthday); Michael Mann (1943); Sven-Goran Eriksson (1948); and Michael Sheen is 50 today.

Last Days for Jean Gilles (1705); Thomas Carlyle (1881); Lou-Andreas Salome (1937); Marianne Moore (1972); and Maharishi Maresh Yogi (2008).


And the moring schedules for Monday, 5th February, 1979 were:

Overture: two works - Nielsen's Helios Ovt (correctly introduced, I have no doubt!) and Beethoven's Piano Concerto #1
Morning Concert: Haydn Symphony #99; Kodaly "Peacock" Variations;
This Week's Composer: William Boyce
Talking About Music (Anthony Hopkins)
Now & Then: Haydn Variations in f minor; Stiles' S4tet; Schurmann Leotaurus (both 1st broadcast performances); Haydn S4tet in C Op 33 #3
BBCSSO: Dvorak Golden Spinning Wheel; Berlioz Les Nuits d'Ete; Britten Sinfonia da Requiem

[Pulcinella]

And it's MY birthday.

[greenilex]

Does that make Third Punic the longest running war in history?

I hope someone gave the mayors a nice gold medal each...

[greenilex]

A very happy day to you, Pulcinella.

When Apollo 14 landed I was somewhat distracted by the end of my second pregnancy. I do remember it, but very foggily and with hands firmly clasped over my belly. Said baby is now deputy head of an excellent London primary school...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And it's MY birthday.

Many Happy Returns, Pulcie!