Her family called her "Nannerl." She was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's sister. Whether her birthday is the 30th or 31st of July, 1751, I'm talking about Maria Anna "Nannerl" Mozart, the older sister of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Nannerl and Wolfgang were the only two of their parents' seven children to survive. Their father, Leopold Mozart, encouraged his children's musical talent.
From letters of Wolfgang Mozart to his sister, it's apparent that like her younger sibling, she also wrote music. Wolfgang praised her compositions as shown in his letters to her. Unfortunately, none of her work survives. Nannerl was an underdeveloped composer, whose talents might have shone if not for the social climate of the time.
The Mozart Children: Wolfgang and Nannerl
When they were young, Wolfgang and Nannerl were very close — they made up a secret language and invented a kingdom all their own where they were king and queen. But as Nannerl grew older, she was expected to end her musical career and get married as dictated during those times. Their father poured all his energies building up the musical career for his son, who at the young age of three already showed enormous talent and genius.
Whistle Down the Wind is a 1961 British crime film directed by Bryan Forbes, and adapted by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Mary Hayley Bell. The film stars her daughter, Hayley Mills, who was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress and an Academy Juvenile Award for Walt Disney's Pollyanna (1960).
Blurb
After a confusing exchange with a strange man (Alan Bates) the Bostock children find hiding in their family barn, Kathy Bostock (Hayley Mills) and her young siblings jump to the conclusion that the man -- in reality an escaped killer -- is none other than Jesus Christ. Excitement erupts as word spreads among the children in their small farming community in northwest England. Adult skepticism abounds, until their father (Bernard Lee) catches wind of the tale and begins to investigate.
In 2005, the British Film Institute included it in their list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14.
Genre:
Drama
Original Language:English
Runtime:
The Plot
The plot follows the lives of three Lancashire farm children who discover a bearded fugitive (the Man/Arthur Blakey) hiding in their barn and mistake him for Jesus Christ. They come to this conclusion because of their Sunday School stories and Blakey's shocked exclamation of 'Jesus Christ!' when the eldest child accidentally discovers him. Blakey—initially confused about why the three Bostock children are eager to protect him from adult discovery—makes no attempt to correct their mistake, especially when he discovers the eldest child, Kathy, is
determined to keep him hidden from the local police, despite the posters circulating in the nearby town that reveal he is wanted for murder.
Most of the children in the community eventually find out that Blakey/'Jesus' is living in the Bostocks' barn, complicating Kathy's task. When the secret finally reaches Mr. Bostock (Kathy's father), the police are called in to apprehend the criminal.
The children of the village, now in on the secret, converge on the barn. Convinced that she has failed Jesus, Kathy sneaks behind the barn and apologizes to Blakey for being unable to protect him. He forgives her and, after much prompting from her, promises she will see him again. Resigned to his fate, Blakey tosses his handgun out of the barn door and surrenders to the police.
Once Blakey is taken away and the crowd disperses, Kathy is approached by two very young children who ask to see Jesus. She tells them that they missed him this time, but he will be back one day.
Production (Briefly)
The novel was published in 1959. Mary Hayley Bell (Lady Mills) based her novel of the three children on her own children, including Hayley Mills. The novel was turned into a stage play prior film rights were bought by Bryan Forbes and Richard Attenborough, who had moved into film production. They were friends of Hayley's parents (Sir John Mills and Mary Bell) and secured Hayley Mills to play the lead. She had just made Pollyanna for Disney.
The film contrasts the children's innocent faith with the pragmatic and suspicious adults in the town. It is heavy in allegory as many of the characters and events parallel those found in historical
Christian literature. In one scene, a child is mocked and beaten into denying he had seen Jesus. After the boy's third denial, a train whistle is heard (representing Peter's denial in Luke 22). The strains of 'We Three Kings'
can be discerned in the score as Kathy, her brother and sister march with the food 'gifts' they have acquired for the man in the 'stable'. They are spotted and followed by a group of country children (shepherds). The early core of children who are in on the secret number a dozen and are specifically called the Disciples in the film credits.
The secret comes out at the end of a children's party (Last Supper). When apprehended, Blakey is immediately frisked by police; his arms outstretched at his sides, a clear reference to the Crucifixion.
Alan Bates, in his first starring film role, played the man in the barn. Local schoolchildren from the Lancashire villages around Burnley and Clitheroe were used as extras; children from Chatburn Primary School played the 'disciples'. The theme music by Malcolm Arnold became a classic.
The Casting and Crew of Whistle Down the Wind
Stars: Hayley Mills (Kathy Bostock), Alan Bates (The Man), Bernard Lee (Mr. Bostock), Norman Bird (Eddie), Elsie Wagstaff (Auntie Dorothy), Diane Holgate (Nan Bostock), Ronald Hines (Thurstow), Gerald Sim (Detective), Diane Clare (Sunday School Teacher), John Arnatt (Superintendent Teesdale), Hamilton Dyce (The Vicar), Howard Douglas (The Vet)
Bryan Forbes - Director
Richard Attenborough - Producer
Keith Waterhouse, Willis Hall - Screenwriter
Mary Hayley Bell - Writer
Malcolm Arnold - Music
Max Benedict - Film Editing
Arthur Ibbetson - Cinematographer
Production company was Beaver Pictures, distributed by J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors.
Release date: July 20, 1961 (London)
Musical Adaptations
In 1984, rock group Toto used the plot of the film for their music video 'Stranger in Town'. The song is on their album Isolation.
In the late 1980s, Russell Labey and Richard Taylor adapted the film into a musical of the same name for the National Youth Music Theatre.
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman later created a more commercial adaptation. Highlight songs from their musical version are 'Vaults of Heaven', 'Whistle Down the Wind', and 'No Matter What', which became a very successful Boyzone hit.
(Video: Whistle Down the Wind in Bryan Forbes 1961 Film, Part 1/2, Part 2/2, starring Hayley Mills & Alan Bates. YouTube, uploaded by Miirdza. Accessed February 17, 2019.) Music: the folksong "Donna, Donna, Donna" violin & piano.
Film Reception
The film had its World Premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square on July 20, 1961. It played there for 3 weeks, ending its run on August 9, three days after it began its general release in the London area.
The film was favourably reviewed upon its original release, including praise from The New York Times. The film was nominated for four BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) awards:
Best British Actress, Hayley Mills
Best British Film, Bryan Forbes
Best British Screenplay, Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall
Best Film from any Source, Bryan Forbes
By September 1961 Rank were reporting the film was "exceeding expectations" commercially. The film was the 8th most popular film at the UK box office in 1961. Others popular at the time included Swiss Family Robinson, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Carry on Regardless, The Rebel and The Long and the Short and the Tall.
By 1971, it had earned a profit of over £240,000. Bryan Forbes later
said it was the most popular and profitable film he ever made.
In 2005, the British Film Institute included it in their list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14.
Image Credit:
Whistle Down the Wind Poster. From en.Wikipedia.org. Note for fair use: The poster is derived from a digital capture (photo/scan) of the Film Poster (creator
of this digital version is irrelevant as the copyright in all equivalent
images is still held by the same party). Copyright held by the film
company or the artist. Claimed as fair use regardless. Accessed July 23, 2023.
Sir Edmund Hillary (July 20, 1919 - January 10, 2008), Mount Everest conqueror and considered greatest hero of New Zealand.
Explorer and mountaineer Sir Edmund Percival Hillary was an explorer and mountaineer famous for his conquest of Mount Everest. Hillary was the first man to climb Everest with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953. The feat was never repeated again by the pair. He was also a humanitarian who gave much to education and many more charitable causes.
Electrical and Computer Engineer, Management Specialist
Jay Wright Forrester is born on July 14, 1918, in Anselmo, Nebraska. He is best known as the founder of System Dynamics, which deals with the simulation of interactions between objects in dynamic systems. Forrester is an American electrical and computer engineer, systems scientist and was a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
System dynamics, of which he is a pioneer, is an approach to understanding the behaviour of complex systems over time. Significantly, it deals with internal feedback loops and time delays that affect the behaviour of the entire system, elements that help describe how seemingly simple systems display non-linearity.
Christoph W. Gluck was an older contemporary of Mozart. In August 1782 a special performance of Mozart's Entfuhrung, which Gluck, an older contemporary of Mozart was anxious to hear, was arranged for. It delighted Gluck immensely and he invited Mozart to dinner. The following year (1783), Gluck went to Mozart's concert (March 23) and Mozart improvised variations on a theme from La Rencontre imprevue.
My primary source about Gluck is one by Alfred Einstein simply titled Gluck published by McGraw-Hill. I like this paragraph from the backcover: "It is not easy to say whether Gluck was international or German, Italian, or French, for he was an opera composer," writes Einstein of this study of the life and music of C. W. Gluck (1714-1787); yet the career of Gluck does epitomize the internationalism prevailing in the arts of his time.
Her family called her "Nannerl." She was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's sister. Whether her birthday is the 30th or 31st of July, 1751, I'm talking about Maria Anna "Nannerl" Mozart, the older sister of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Nannerl and Wolfgang were the only two of their parents' seven children to survive. Their father, Leopold Mozart, encouraged his children's musical talent.
