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Birthdays
1494 - Hans Sachs, German Burgher, meistersinger, composer, master shoemaker, and poet who was outstanding for his popularity, output, and aesthetic and religious influence. He surpassed all his contemporaries in artistic power; for there was nowhere in which he did not try his hand, no interest of the time which did not find an echo in his writings. He is considered the greatest poetical genius that had appeared in Germany since the Minnesingers. Richard Wagner made him the principal in his opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. (Image: Hans Sachs' Reflection and David Song. Sachs ponders about last day's riot, while David tries to gain his attention. Music: Overture and beginning of the first scene of the third act of the music drama "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" Composer: Richard Wagner Orchestra: Herbert von Karajan with the Staatskapelle Dresden. Uploaded by Arthur Carmonario. Accessed November 5, 2016.)
1887 - Paul Wittgenstein, Austrian-American concert pianist notable for commissioning new piano concerti for the left hand alone, following the amputation of his right arm during the First World War. He devised novel techniques, including pedal and hand-movement combinations, that allowed him to play chords previously regarded as impossible for a five-fingered pianist. He was an older brother of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. (Wittgenstein plays Ravel, Piano Concerto For the Left Hand (Solo Excerpts). YouTube, uploaded by Eoin Alllen. Accessed Novembr 5, 2018.)
1913 - Vivien Leigh (born Vivian Mary Hartley), styled as Lady Olivier after 1947), British stage and film actress. She won two Academy Awards for Best Actress, for her definitive performances as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she had also played on stage in London's West End in 1949. She also won a Tony Award for her work in the Broadway musical version of Tovarich.
1940 - Elke Sommer (born Elke Baronin von Schletz), German actress, entertainer and artist who starred in many Hollywood films. After the 1990s, Sommer concentrated more on painting than on acting. As an actress, she had worked in countries learning the languages (she speaks seven languages) and storing up images which she has subsequently expressed on canvas. Her artwork shows a strong Marc Chagall influence. In 2001, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to her. As of early May 2017, Frau Baronin (Baroness) von Sommer was living in Los Angeles, California.
1941 - Art Garfunkel, American musician and singer, poet, and actor. He is best known for his partnership with Paul Simon in the folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel. Highlights of his solo music career include a top 10 hit, three top 20 hits, six top 40 hits, 14 Adult Contemporary top 30 singles, five Adult Contemporary number ones, two UK number ones and a People's Choice Award. Through his solo and collaborative work, Garfunkel has earned eight Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1990, he and Simon were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2008, Garfunkel was ranked 86th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. (The Sound of Silence from the famous Duo: Simon and Garfunkel).
1943 - Sam Shepard Rogers III, American actor, author and playwright, screenwriter, and director. He won ten Obie Awards for writing and directing. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. Shepard received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in the 1983 film The Right Stuff. He received the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009. Shepard's plays are known for their bleak, poetic, surrealist elements, black comedy, and rootless characters living on the outskirts of American society.
1954 - Geoffrey Peter Bede Hawkshaw Tozer, Australian classical pianist and composer. A child prodigy, he composed an opera at the age of eight and became the youngest recipient of a Churchill Fellowship award at 13. His career included worldwide tours, where he performed the Yellow River Concerto to an estimated audience of 80 million people. Tozer had more than 100 concertos in his repertoire, including those of Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Medtner, Rachmaninoff, Bartók, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Gerhard. Tozer recorded for the Chandos label. Regarded as a "superb recitalist", he had the ability to
improvise, transpose "instantly" and reduce an orchestral score to a
piano score at sight. Tozer won numerous awards and much recognition worldwide. (Geoffrey Tozer - Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No 2 with own cadenza (1987 Canberra)-LP transfer. YouTube, uploaded by Oceania Classics. Accessed May 20, 2023)
Leftie:
Pianist Paul Wittgenstein
More birthdays and historical events, November 5 - On This Day
Historical Events
1605 - The Gunpowder Plot is foiled when Guy Fawkes is discovered in a cellar below the English Houses of Parliament lighting a long fuse, set to explode as King James I opens Parliament. Fawkes is executed later.
1846 - Robert Schumann's Symphony No.2 is first performed and conducted by Felix Mendelssohn in Leipzig.
