Today's the Day

[cloughie]

St Scholastica's Day - the early Sixth Century Italian saint, sister of St Benedict. She had a love of learning and intellectual dispute, especially with her brother - and the story has it that she was so dismayed that her brother had to leave during one of these discussions, that she prayed for - and was granted - a heavy storm that prevented his leaving. She is thus associated with both education and storms, and her followers would invoke her name to prevent or ease storms - curious, then, that today is also the feast day of St Paul's Shipwreck.

A storm of a different type was caused in Oxford on this day in 1354 - students, objecting to the low quality of wine that they were served in a local tavern, expressed their opinion by breaking a tankard over the landlord's head. Unfortunately, said landlord was also the town's mayor, and, in revenge, he assembled a posse of friiends and a fight ensued - that lasted for two (or three, or "several" - sources aren't agreed on this point) days, the townspeople emerging victorious, damaging University property and killing sixty-three of the students. Edward III was not pleased with the townsfolk: he withdrew privileges from the town, took legal authority on University matters from the town and gave it to the University itself, and ordered an annual church service of repentence very 10th February, and ordered an annual payment of 63 pence (a penny per student) - a situation that continued until 1825.

Also on this date, the Siege of Baghdad ends with Hulagu Khan's Mongol forces bringing to an end the Golden Age of Islam (1258); Robert I ("the Bruce") murders John Comyn, Edward I's appointee as Lord Guardian of Scotland, beginning the Second War of Scottish Independence (1306); Mary, Queen of Scots' second husband (and the father of her son, James VI/I) is strangled after an explosion at his home (1567 - three months later, Mary marries the man generally believed to have engineered the assassination); Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are married (1840); Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony is premiered in Moscow (1878); Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann is premiered in Paris (1881); Krenek's Jonny Spielt Auf is premiered in Leipzig; Puss Gets the Boot, the first Tom & Jerry cartoon, is premiered (1940); Roy Lichtenstein has his first solo exhibition (1962); IBM computer Deep Blue beats Gary Kasparov in a game of chess (1996 - Kasparov easily wins the following table tennis match, however); and the first collision of two artificial satellites occurs, creating a huge amount of space debris (2009).

Birthdays include: Charles Lamb (1775); Samuel Plimsoll (1824); Adelina Patti (1843); Fanny Kaplan and Boris Pasternak (both 1890); Jimmy Durante (1893); Harold MacMillan (1894); Bertolt Brecht (1898); Lon Chaney jnr (1906); Larry Adler (1914); Leontyne Price (1927); Jerry Goldsmith (1929); Roberta Flack (1937); Barbara Kolb (1939); Michael Apted (1941); and Keeley Hawes (1976).

Last days for: William IX, "the Troubador" (1127); William Dugdale (1686); Montesquieu (1755); Alexander Pushkin (1837); Wilhelm Röntgen (923); Edgar Wallace (1932); Laura Ingalls Wilder (1957 - three days after her 90th birthday); Grace Williams (1977); Arthur Miller (2005); and Stuart McPhaill Hall (the sociologist, not ...) and Shirley Temple (both 2014).


And, on Monday, 10th February, 1969, the Radio 3 morning schedules were:

Overture (gramophone records)
Morning Concert (BBC Welsh Orch, conducted by John Carew)
This Week's Composer: Mozart (Symph #26, BPO/Böhm; Pno Conc 24, Curzon/LSO/Kertesz
The Master Pianists (7/14 programmes; Ernst Dohnanyi)
Music Making - BBC West of England Chorus

Seeing the birthday list shows how time clicks on - Roberta Flack, 82 - beautiful voice and what a pianist and musician!

[greenilex]

How best to celebrate Brecht’s birthday? Which Weill song, do you think?

[edashtav]

How best to celebrate Brecht’s birthday? Which Weill song, do you think?

Alabama Song sung by Lotte Lenya:

http://youtu.be/6orDcL0zt34

[cloughie]

Alabama Song sung by Lotte Lenya:

http://youtu.be/6orDcL0zt34

Not The Doors? Actually I’ll settle for the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble Kleine Dreigroschenmusik.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

How best to celebrate Brecht’s birthday? Which Weill song, do you think?

"On a Tree by a Willow" from The Mikado.


(Verfremdungseffekt.)

[greenilex]

Would be good to have a BB quote about Gilbert and Sullivan..

But really it has to be transatlantic, doesn’t it? Alien schmalien?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Would be good to have a BB quote about Gilbert and Sullivan..
But really it has to be transatlantic, doesn’t it? Alien schmalien?

No quotation, and antipodean rather than transatlantic, but apparently BB "was a great admirer of G&S", "toyed with the idea of doing his own version of HMS Pianfore", and made deliberate reference to Nanki-Poo in the near-hanging of Azdak in The Caucasian Chalk Circle - none of which I knew when I posted my "Tit-Willow" suggestion, and which I only found out from this article (penultimate paragraph):

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/sep/18/bertolt-brecht-arturo-ui-revival

... and, yes, I did check to ensure that it didn't appear on 1st April!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

February 11th

Caedmon's Day - celebrating the earliest-known English poet whose name we know; he might not have been born English, but Brythonic - and he might even not have existed, but the story goes (as told by Bede in the Ecclesiastical History) that Caedmon was a young lay brother (often denoting illiterate memebrs of a community) at Streonæshalch (Whitby) Abbey in the Seventh Century, who left an evening's feasting by the monks, because he did not know how to join in the singing. That night, he dreamt that he was asked to sing a song about the creation of the world - and, when he woke the next morning, he could remember what he'd sung in the dream, and added extra verses; the beginning of a lifetime composing religious verses, often after having been given just fragments of clerical text. The only verse of his that we have is Caedmon's Hymn, the earliest surviving poem from Christian England, which Bede also translated into Latin so that its virtues could be appreciated by clerics and scholars in Europe.

It's also Inventors' Day in the US, and the UN's International Day of Women and Gorls in Science.

On this date, Henry VIII becomes recognised as the Head of the Church in England (1534); Mozart premieres his d minor Piano Concerto, K466 at the Mehlgrube Casino in Vienna (1785); University College, London, the first entirely secular University in England, accepting students regardless of religious background, is founded (1826); Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment is premiered at the Paris Opera-Comique (1840); Verdi's I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata is premiered at La Scala, Milan (1843); Bernadette Soubirous reports her first vision of the Virgin Mary in Lourdes (1858); Suppé's Boccaccio is premiered in Vienna (1879); the three completed movements of Bruckner's Ninth Symphony are premiered (in a heavily edited arrangement by the conductor) by the Vienna Concert Club Orchestra conducted by Ferdinand Löwe (1903); the Lateran Treaty establishes the Vatican City as an independent state (1929); in 1938, the BBC broadcasts the world's first Science Fiction television show: a performance of an adaptation of Karel Capek's R.U.R. - "Rossum's Universal Roboys"; the play that introduced the word "robot"; the Seabed Arms Control Treaty is signed by 87 countries, banning nuclear weapons tests on the ocean floor of international waters (1971); Iran becomes an Islamic Theocracy under Ayatollah Khomeni (1979); Nelson Mandela is released from prison after 27 years in captivity (1990); US Vice-President Dick Chaney mistakes 78-year-old Harry Whittington for a quail, and shoots him (2006); and Hosni Mubarak resigns as President of Egypt after 18 days of public demonstartions - he had held the office for thirty years (2011).

Birthdays today include: Henry VIII's mother, Elizabeth of York (1466); Henry Fox Talbot (1800); Thomas Edison (1847); Rudolf Firkusny (1912); Leslie Nielsen (1926); Dennis Skinner (1932); Mary Quant (1934); Gene Vincent (1935); Burt Reynolds (1936); Sheryl Crow (1962); and Jennifer Aniston is 50 today.

Last Days for: Elizabeth of York, mother of Henry VIII (yup - she died on her 37th birthday, after a post partum infection in 1503); Rene Descartes (1650); Elizabeth Siddal (1862); Leon Foucault (1868); Franz Schmidt (1939); Sergei Eisenstein (1948); Ernest Jones (1958); Sylvia Plath (1963); Roger Vadim (2000); and Whitney Houston (2012).

And the morning schedules for Sunday, 11th February, 1979 were:

Sunday Overture: Bernstein Candide Ovt (!); Songs by Quilter and Warlock; Delius 2 Aquarelles (conducted by Britten); Tchaikovskt 3rd Piano Conc.
Bach & Handel: 4 P&Fs from W-TC, Book 1; two complete Handel Concerti Grossi from Op 6
Your Concert Choice: Elgar Intro & Allegro (Barbirolli); Beethoven Vars on La ci Darem; an aria from Don Carlos; Grilles' Piano Sonata; d'Indy Suite dans le style Ancien; Butterworth Banks of Green Willow.
Music Weekly (features on Bernd Alois Zimmermann; new Flute Techniques; Christorpher Hogwood reviewed Oliver Neighbour's book on Byrd's keyboard and consort Music)
From the Proms: Mahler #2 (LPO/Haitink).

[edashtav]

Is there a typo in your source: would the composer of the piano sonata be Charles Griffes, ferney?

[Petrushka]

From the Proms: Mahler #2 (LPO/Haitink).

I was present at that Prom (Aug 14 1978) and remember the repeat broadcast well. Alas, my recording of that repeat on cassette bit the dust long ago.

[greenilex]

Caedmon’s dream is a typical poetic experience..something “given” in a half-waking state and ascribed to an external Muse.

[Richard Tarleton]

Ernest Jones (1958)

I've regaled the forum before with my tale of being introduced to Mrs Ernest Jones, circa 1968, at a student production of Marta, thus considerably boosting my "Six Degrees of Separation" count

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Is there a typo in your source: would the composer if the piano sonata be Charles Griffes, ferney?

- that makes more sense. (There was another gitch on that Genome page, with the Beethoven Variations described as being performed by "members of the Dresden Staatskapelle".) And, with Clive Lythgoe the performer, it would have been from this recording:

[cloughie]

Caedmon’s dream is a typical poetic experience..something “given” in a half-waking state and ascribed to an external Muse.

Anyone remember the Caedmon record label I had an EP with three Keats odes read by Ralph Richardson. Autumn, Greek Urn and Endymion.

[greenilex]

Would love to hear RR reading On a Grecian Urn...