On this day...

[haydnguy]

Originally Posted by Florestan

It is also, I have now learned, the birthday of the esteemed English baroque composer Dr William Boyce

Dr Boyce is, in fact, a member of this forum, though we have not heard from him for several months. I can only surmise that the gout has carried him off again.

Definitely a distinguished looking chap I must say.

[Despina41]

Today Clara Schumann was born... as Clara Wieck, of course.

[haydnguy]

Also on this day, Arnold Schoenberg was born....

Here is a clip from youtube that Hilary Hahn just posted about Schoenberg and his music:


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6yd248Y4Cw"]YouTube - Schoenberg Bday, Laurie from Violinist.com - second part[/ame]

[Florestan]

Originally Posted by Despina41

Today Clara Schumann was born... as Clara Wieck, of course.

[Herzeleide]

Originally Posted by haydnguy

Also on this day, Arnold Schoenberg was born....

Here is a clip from youtube that Hilary Hahn just posted about Schoenberg and his music:


YouTube - Schoenberg Bday, Laurie from Violinist.com - second part

Ahh lovely.

[Philidor]

On today's date in 1925, Vincent Youman's musical, "No, No Nanette" opened on Broadway. The show had premiered in Detroit on April 21, 1924, and then had gone on to enjoy successful productions in Chicago and London before reaching New York City.

So popular were some of the tunes from "No, No Nanette" that they even reached the Soviet Union, although occasionally something was lost in the translation: for example, in Russia, the musical's popular foxtrot "Tea for Two" was called the "Tahiti Trot."

Late in 1927, on a dare from the conductor Nikolai Malko, the 21-year old Soviet composer Dimtri Shostakovich orchestrated this tune in just one hour. Malko was so pleased with the result, that he performed the orchestration the following year, and Shostakovich, who had a soft spot for musicals and operettas, incorporated the "Tahiti Trot" into his new ballet "The Age of Gold."

Just three years later, however, Soviet authorities decided the foxtrot was just one more vestige of Western decadence, and Shostakovich quickly moved to disassociate himself from anything remotely connected to Broadway. His name even appeared on an open letter suggesting that "only after thorough and widespread educational work on the class essence of light music will we succeed in liquidating it from Soviet society."

[Florestan]

Originally Posted by Philidor

So popular were some of the tunes from "No, No Nanette" that they even reached the Soviet Union, although occasionally something was lost in the translation: for example, in Russia, the musical's popular foxtrot "Tea for Two" was called the "Tahiti Trot."

I'm surprised it didn't end up with an icepick in its head.

[Philidor]

On today's date in the year 1179, in the German convent of Ruppertsberg near Bingen, an 81-year-old abbess named Hildegard breathed her last. The 12th century was a time of great accomplishments in art, religion, and human thought, a kind of medieval Renaissance, and Hildegard von Bingen was one of the most remarkable women of that remarkable time.

She recorded the precise moment when her life became a part of that reawakening:

"When I was 42 years and seven months old," she writes, "a burning light of tremendous brightness coming from heaven poured into my entire mind, like a flame that does not burn but enkindles. All at once I was able to taste of the understanding of books -- the Psalter, the Evangelists, and the Books of the Old and New Testaments."

Hildegard von Bingen expressed her new awareness in music, and soon became famous throughout Europe as a major religious visionary and writer. She is one of the earliest Western composers we know by name, and left as her legacy a large body of highly original music.

Largely forgotten for centuries by all but medieval specialists, in the late 20th century some recordings of Hildegard's music sparked renewed interest in her life and music, and her very old music seemed destined to resonate in a very new age.

[Florestan]

Strangely enough, I was only last night reading Patrick Leigh Fermor's very beautiful account of spending Christmas in Bingen in 1933 (in A Time of Gifts). Brought a tear to my eye, it did.

Hildegard was a truly unique and astonishingly clever, gifted and energetic person. I am completely overawed by her.

[Florestan]

Originally Posted by Philidor

"When I was 42 years and seven months old," she writes, "a burning light of tremendous brightness coming from heaven poured into my entire mind, like a flame that does not burn but enkindles. All at once I was able to taste of the understanding of books -- the Psalter, the Evangelists, and the Books of the Old and New Testaments."

Drat - if I were to have been likewise visited with divine inspiration, it would have happened in June.