April 8 Dateline

Birthdays

1605 - King Philip IV of Spain, King of Spain from 1621 to his death and (as Philip III) King of Portugal from 1621 to 1640. Philip is remembered for his patronage of the arts, including such artists as Diego Velázquez, and his rule over Spain during the Thirty Years' War. By the time of his death, the Spanish Empire had reached approximately 12.2 million square kilometers (4.7 million square miles) in area but in other aspects was in decline, a process to which Philip contributed with his inability to achieve successful domestic and military reform.

1692 - Giuseppe Tartini, Italian violin virtuoso, composer and theorist who helped establish the modern style of violin bowing and formulated principles of musical ornamentation and harmony. (Tartini's famous Violin Sonata in G minor, "Devil's Trill Sonata" Uploaded by La Stravaganze. Accessed April 8, 2014.)

1859 - Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl, German philosopher who established the school of phenomenology. He elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic based on analyses of intentionality. Arguing that transcendental consciousness sets the limits of all possible knowledge, Husserl redefined phenomenology as a transcendental-idealist philosophy arguing that transcendental consciousness sets the limits of all possible knowledge. His thought profoundly influenced 20th-century philosophy, and he remains a notable figure in contemporary philosophy.

1902 - Josef Alois Krips, Austrian conductor and violinist. He was the first to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic and the Salzburg Festival in the postwar period. Krips helped restore the Vienna State Opera and Vienna Philharmonic to their prewar levels. From 1950 to 1954, Krips was principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra then led the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. He made his Covent Garden debut in 1947 and his Metropolitan Opera in 1966. He made his first appearance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the 1968 Berkshire Festival. In 1970, he became conductor of the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. Between 1970 and 1973, he was the principal conductor of the Vienna Symphony. 

 
1911 - Melvin Ellis Calvin, American biochemist known for discovering the Calvin cycle along with Andrew Benson and James Bassham, for which he was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He spent most of his five-decade career at the University of California, Berkeley.

1918 - Betty Ford, (Elizabeth Anne Ford (née Bloomer; formerly Warren), First Lady of the United States from 1974 to 1977 as the wife of President Gerald Ford. She was active in social policy and set a precedent as a politically active presidential spouse. She also served as the Second Lady of the U.S. from 1973 to 1974. Throughout her husband's term in office, she maintained high approval ratings despite opposition from some conservative Republicans who objected to her more moderate and liberal positions on social issues. In addition, she was a passionate supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). 

1929 - Jacques Romain Georges Brel,  Belgian singer, songwriter, actor and director who composed and performed literate, thoughtful, and theatrical songs that generated a large, devoted following—initially in Belgium and France, later throughout the world. He is considered a master of the modern chanson. two of his most popular songs include "Quand on n'a que l'amour" and "Ne me quitte pas". Here are links to his famous song "Ne me quitte pas". (Jacques Brel - Ne Me Quitte Pas. YouTube, uploaded by merkulka. Ne me quitte pas Jacques Brel with French and English subtitles mp4. Uploaded by Renata Borovac. Accessed April 8, 2020. Shirley Bassey sings "If You Go Away". Uploaded by kidm2m. Accessed April 8, 2021.) 

 

1955 - Barbara Kingsolver, American novelist, essayist and poet. She earned degrees in biology and worked a freelance writer before she began writing novels. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo. Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments. Each of her books published since 1993 has been on the New York Times Best Seller list. Kingsolver has received numerous awards, including UK's Orange Prize for Fiction 2010, for The Lacuna, and the National Humanities Medal. She has been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In 2000, Kingsolver established the Bellwether Prize to support "literature of social change".

1963 - Julian Lennon (born John Charles Julian Lennon), English singer, musician, photographer and philanthropist. He is the founder of the White Feather Foundation.  He is the son of The Beatles member John Lennon and his first wife, Cynthia, and was the direct inspiration for three Beatles' songs: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Hey Jude", and "Good Night". His parents divorced in 1968. He has produced a number of albums, beginning with Valotte. He has also held exhibitions of his photography. In 2006, Lennon produced the environmental documentary film Whale Dreamers. He worked on the documentary film Women of the White Buffalo, as one of the executive producers.

1968 - Patricia Arquette,  American actress. She has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. She made her feature film debut as Kristen Parker in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987). Other notable films followed. On TV, she played the character Allison DuBois in the supernatural drama series Medium (2005–2011). She won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2005, from two nominations she received for the role, in addition to three Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations.

Lefties:
None known
 

More birthdays and historical events today, 8 April - On This Day.

 

Historical Events

1341 - Petrarch is crowned poet laureate on the steps of the Capitol of Rome.

1820 - The Venus de Milo is discovered on Melos, an Aegean island. Aphrodite of Milos (Greek, Aphroditē tēs Mēlou), better known as the Venus de Milo, is an ancient Greek statue, one of the most famous Greek sculture works. It was created some time between 130 and 100 BC, believed to depict Aphrodite, which is Venus to the Romans, the Greek goddess of love and beauty. The statue is a marble sculpture, slightly larger than life size at 203 cm (6 ft 8 in) high, with arms and original plinth lost. From an inscription that was on its plinth, the work is thought to be of Alexandros of Antioch, earlier mistakenly attributed to sculptor Praxiteles. Venus de Milo is on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

1876 - Amilcare Ponchielli's opera La Gioconda (includes the famous "Dance of the Hours") is first performed in Milan. The opera is in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli set to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Angelo, Tyrant of Padua, a play in prose by Victor Hugo, dating from 1835. A synopsis can be found in Wiki - here.  Watch the video and enjoy the music! Sorry, there are no English sub-titles.  (Orchestra-Choir-Ballet Ensemble, Ente autonomo regionale, Teatro Massino "V. Bellini", Catania, conducted by Donato Renzetti.)

 

 

April 7 Dateline

Birthdays

1770 - William Wordsworth, English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads (1798). Wordsworth's magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a Romantic, epic semi-autobiographical poem of his early years chronicling the "growth of a poet's mind" that he revised and expanded a number of times... establishing his deep love for the “beauteous forms” of the natural world. It was posthumously titled and published by his wife in the year of his death, before which it was generally known as "the poem to Coleridge". Wordsworth was Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850.

1860 - W.K. Kellogg (Will Keith Kellogg), American industrialist in food manufacturing. Cereal Maker, best known as the founder of the Kellogg Company, which to this day produces a wide variety of popular breakfast cereals. He was a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and practiced vegetarianism as a dietary principle taught by his church. Later, he founded the Kellogg Arabian Ranch and made it into a renowned establishment for the breeding of Arabian horses. Kellogg started the Kellogg Foundation in 1934 with $66 million in Kellogg company stock and investments, a donation that would be worth over a billion dollars in today's economy. He continued to be a major philanthropist throughout his life.

1908 - Percy Faith, Canadian conductor, arranger of popular music, bandleader, orchestrator nd composer, known for his lush arrangements of pop and Christmas standards. He became a naturalised American citizen in 1945. Often credited with popularizing the "easy listening" or "mood music" format, Percy Faith became a staple of American popular music in the 1950s and continued well into the 1960s. Though his professional orchestra-leading career began at the height of the swing era, Faith refined and rethought orchestration techniques, including use of large string sections, to soften and fill out the brass-dominated popular music of the 1940s. (Percy Faith Orchestra Plays: The Greatest Hits of all Time. Uploaded by Oldies but Goodies. Accessed April 7, 2015. Percy Faith & His Orchestra - Christmas Album. Uploaded by Santa Klaws. Accessed April 7, 2017.)

1915 - Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan), American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills. She was a successful concert performer with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Due to personal struggles with drug abuse and an altered voice, her final recordings were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. She won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously, for Best Historical Album. She was also inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.

1920 - Ravi Shankar KBE (born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury), Indian sitar virtuoso and composer. He became the world's best-known exponent of North Indian classical music, in the second half of the 20th century, and influenced many other musicians throughout the world. Shankar was awarded India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1999.

1939 - Francis Ford Coppola, American film director, producer and screenwriter. He was a central figure in the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and is widely considered to be one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. His accolades include five Academy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Palmes d'Or, and a British Academy Film Award. After directing The Rain People, Coppola co-wrote Patton, earning the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay along with Edmund H. North. Coppola's reputation as a filmmaker was cemented with the release of The Godfather. The film revolutionized movie-making in the gangster genre. The Godfather won three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay (shared with Mario Puzo). The Godfather Part II, which followed in 1974, became the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Highly regarded by critics, the film brought Coppola three more Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture, and made him the second director (after Billy Wilder) to be so honored three times for the same film.

1964 - Russell Crowe, A New Zealand citizen, but has lived most of his life in Australia. Actor, film producer, director, and musician. Crowe came to international attention for his role as the Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the epic historical film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which Crowe won an Academy Award, a Broadcast Film Critics Association Award, an Empire Award, and a London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Leading Actor, along with ten other nominations in the same category. Crowe's other award-winning performances include portrayals of tobacco firm whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand in the drama film The Insider and John F. Nash in the biopic A Beautiful Mind.

Lefties:
None known
 

More birthdays and historical events today, 7 April - On This Day.

 

 

Features:

William Wordsworth's most famous poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" read by Jeremy Irons. Uploaded by noxdl from YouTube, accessed April 4, 2017.  This poem is also known as "Daffodils." It was inspired by an event on 15 April 1802, in which Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy came across a "long belt" of daffodils. It was first published in 1807 in Poems in Two Volumes, and revised in 1815.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud  
By William Wordsworth 

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/william-wordsworth-i-wandered-lonely-cloud-lyrics.html

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/william-wordsworth-i-wandered-lonely-cloud-lyrics.html

wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

Courtesy: Poetry Foundation.

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/william-wordsworth-i-wandered-lonely-cloud-lyrics.html

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils

Historical Events

1805 - Ludwig van Beethoven, German composer, conducts the first public performance of his Symphony No.3 in E Flat Major known as the "Eroica Symphony", in Vienna.  Listen to a video of LvB's Symphony No.3 conducted by Herbert von Karajan, with London Philharmonia Orchestra.




1824 -  The Missa solemnis in D major, Op. 123, is performed on April 7, in St. Petersburg, Russia, under the auspices of Beethoven's patron Prince Nikolai Galitzin. It is a solemn mass composed by Ludwig van Beethoven from 1819 to 1823. An incomplete performance was given in Vienna on May 7, 1824, when the Kyrie, Credo, and Agnus Dei were conducted by the composer.

 
1906 - Italy's Mount Vesuvius erupts, killing more than a hundred people and losing a height of 353 feet or 107 meters.