March 15 Dateline

*Today, March 15, is known on the Roman calendar as the "Ides of March."

 

Birthdays

1835 - Eduard "Edi" Strauss, Austrian composer who, together with brothers Johann Strauss II and Josef Strauss made up the Strauss musical dynasty. He was the son of Johann Strauss I and Maria Anna Streim. The family dominated the Viennese light music world for decades, creating many waltzes and polkas for many Austrian nobility as well as dance-music enthusiasts around Europe. He was affectionately known in his family as 'Edi'. (Eduard Strauss - Carmen-Quadrille (The New Years Celebration From Vienna, 2012. Mariss Jansons conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Accessed March 15, 2017.)

1864 - Johan Halvorsen, Norwegian violinist, composer, and conductor. He conducted performances of over 30 operas and also wrote the incidental music for more than 30 plays. Following his retirement from the theatre he had time to concentrate on the composition of his three symphonies and two well-known Norwegian rhapsodies. Halvorsen's compositions were a development of the national romantic tradition exemplified by Edvard Grieg. Halvorsen married Grieg's niece, and orchestrated some of his piano works, such as a funeral march which was played at Grieg's funeral. Five days after Halvorsen died, Grieg's cousin and widow Nina Grieg also died. His best known works today are the Bojarenes inntogsmarsj (Entry March of the Boyars) and Bergensiana, along with his Passacaglia and Sarabande, duos for violin and viola based on themes by George Frideric Handel. (Halvorsen Passacaglia Duo for Violin and Viola, played by Itzhak Perlman (violin) and Pinchas Zukerman (viola). Accessed March 15, 2020.)

1916 - Harry Haag James, American musician, jazz trumpeter, best known as a trumpet-playing band leader who led a big band in his day. He broke up his band for a short period but shortly after he reorganized and was active again with his band from then until his death in 1983. He was especially known among musicians for his technical proficiency as well as his tone, and was influential on new trumpet players from the late 1930s into the 1940s. He was also an actor in a number of films that usually featured his band.

1918 - Richard David Ellmann, American literary critic and biographer of the Irish writers James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, and William Butler Yeats. He won the U.S. National Book Award for Nonfiction for James Joyce (1959), which is one of the most acclaimed literary biographies of the 20th century. Its 1982 revised edition was similarly recognised with the award of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Ellmann was a liberal humanist, and his academic work focused on the major modernist writers of the twentieth century.

Lefties:
None known

More birthdays and historical events, March 15 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

44 B.C.E. - Julius Caesar is murdered, in Pompey's Theatre, in Rome, on the steps of the Roman Senate by a group of senators who feared he was planning to make himself king of Rome.

1770 - Wolfgang A. Mozart composed his first string quartet (String Quartet No.1 in G major, K.80) in an inn in Lodi, Lombardia, on the 15th of March 1770, at 7 in the evening during a stop on the way to Bologna. (Composed by Mozart in Lodi and the first 3 movements are dated March 15, 1770. The 4th movement was composed in Vienna in 1773. This was the Mozart family's first tour to Italy with his father Leopold in 1769 when the child prodigy was 13 yrs old... the first stop on the southward journey was at Lodi, where Wolfgang completed this first string quartet, K. 80/73f. After a few days in Parma, The Mozarts moved on to Bologna, a "centre for masters, artists and scholars", according to Leopold. Their letter from Count Leopold Anton von Firmian, then the ruling Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg introduced them to Count Pallavicini-Centurioni, a leading patron of the arts, who immediately arranged a concert for the local nobility in his palace. (W.A. Mozart's String Quartet No.1 in G major, K.80/73f performed by the Macedonian Philharmonie String Quartet. Concert on 16.02.2018 in Chamber Hall of Macedonian Philharmonie. Artists: Anna Kondratenko (violin) Bojan Ilkoski (violin) Bojan Taleski (viola) Maria Mihajlovska (violoncello). YouTube, uploaded by Anna Kondratenko. Accessed March 17, 2021.

1807 - Ludwig van Beethoven conducts the first performance of his Symphony No. 4 in Vienna, a concert given for his benefit. Below, Carlos Kleiber conducts Beethoven's Symphony No.4 with Concertgebouw Symphony Orchestra.



1906 - The Rolls-Royce Company is formed. The Silver Ghost is their first successful car. 

 The Silver Ghost

1908 - Maurice Ravel's Rapsodie espagnole premieres in Paris. 

1911 - Alexander Scriabin performs the piano part of his Symphony No. 5 "Prometheus: Poem of Fire," conducted by Koussevitzky in Moscow for its first performance.  Below, pianist Martha Argerich interprets Scriabin's Prometheus... 



1964 - Actors Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor marry after their romance develops during the filming of Cleopatra.

2003 - The World Health Organisation (WHO) declares SARS - believed to have originated in Guangdong Province, China, in November 2002 - becoming a public health emergency.

Video Credit:

 
Martha Argerich plays Scriabin "Prometheus: The Poem of Fire, Op. 60."  YouTube, accessed March 15, 2017.
Carlos Kleiber ~ Beethoven ymphony No.4 in B, Concertgebouw Orchestra. YouTube, Uploaded by GreatPerformers1. Accessed March 15, 2017.


Resources:

1. Asiado, Tel. The World's Movers and Shapers. New Hampshire: Ore Mountain Publishing House (2005)

2. Britannica. www.britannica.com
3. Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 19th Ed. London: Chambers Harrap, 2011
4. Dateline. Sydney: Millennium House, (2006)
5. Grun, Bernard. The Timestables of History, New 3rd Revised Ed. Simon & Schuster/Touchstone (1991)
6. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org

© June 2007. Updated March 15, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.