January 31 Dateline

Birthdays

1797 - Franz Peter Schubert, Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works (mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a large body of piano and chamber music. His major works include the Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 (Trout Quintet), the Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759 (Unfinished Symphony), the ”Great” Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944, the three last piano sonatas (D. 958–960), the opera Fierrabras (D. 796), the incidental music to the play Rosamunde (D. 797), and the song cycles Die schöne Müllerin (D. 795) and Winterreise (D. 911).

1841 - Michael Maybrick,  English composer and singer, best known under his pseudonym Stephen Adams as the composer of "The Holy City" (Words by Frederic Weatherly), one of the most popular religious songs in English. (Charlotte Church sings "The Holy City" (Live From Jerusalem 2001). YouTube. Accessed January 31, 2023. Strictly speaking, it is not a Christmas carol, nevertheless it is  popularly sung on Christmas, and looking at the lyrics,  there is a rich biblical content worth meditating on Christmas, the birth of Jesus, the Messiah. 
 

1902 - Tallulah Brockman Bankhead, (d. December 12, 1968), American actress. She was a member of the Brockman Bankhead family, a prominent Alabama political family; her grandfather and uncle were U.S. Senators and her father served as an 11-term member of Congress, the final two as Speaker of the House of Representatives. Tallulah's support of liberal causes such as civil rights broke with the tendency of the Southern Democrats to support a more typically aligned agenda, and she often opposed her own family publicly. Primarily an actress of the stage, Bankhead did have one hit film—Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat, also a brief but successful career on radio and appearances on television.

1921 - Mario Lanza (born Alfredo Arnold Cocozza), American tenor of Italian ancestry, and an actor and Hollywood film star of the late 1940s and the 1950s, who starred in the film "The Great Caruso." His film début for MGM was in That Midnight Kiss. A year later, in The Toast of New Orleans, his featured popular song "Be My Love" became his first million-selling hit. In 1951, he played the role of tenor Enrico Caruso, his idol, in the biopic The Great Caruso, which produced another million-seller with "The Loveliest Night of the Year" (a song which used the melody of Sobre las Olas). The Great Caruso was the top-grossing film that year. The title song of his next film, Because You're Mine, was his final million-selling hit song. The song went on to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. After recording the soundtrack for his next film, The Student Prince, he embarked upon a protracted battle with studio head Dore Schary arising from artistic differences with director Curtis Bernhardt, and was eventually dismissed by MGM. His singing inspired the then young Luciano Pavarotti. (Mario Lanza sings "I'll Walk with God" uploaded by EdmundStAustell, and "Serenade" uploaded by MegaMusiclover1234, both songs from "The Student Prince". Accessed January 31, 2019.)

1921 - Carol Elaine Channing, American actress, singer, dancer, and comedian, known for starring in Broadway and film musicals. Her characters had a fervent expressiveness and an easily identifiable voice, whether singing or for comedic effect. Channing was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1981 and received a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award in 1995. She released her autobiography Just Lucky I Guess in 2002, and Larger Than Life was released in 2012, a documentary film about her career.

1923 - Norman Kingsley Mailer, American writer, essayist, playwright, filmmaker, journalist, and actor. American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film-maker and actor. Mailer had 11 best-selling books, at least one in each of the seven decades after World War II—more than any other post-war American writer. His novel The Naked and the Dead was published in 1948 and brought him early and wide renown. His 1968 nonfiction novel Armies of the Night won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction as well as the National Book Award. His best-known work is considered to be The Executioner's Song, the 1979 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Mailer is considered an innovator of "creative non-fiction" or "New Journalism", along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe, a genre which uses the style and devices of literary fiction in fact-based journalism.

1937 - Philip Glass, American composer and pianist, widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. His work has been associated with minimalism, being built up from repetitive phrases and shifting layers. Glass founded the Philip Glass Ensemble, with which he still performs on keyboards. He has written operas and musical theatre works, twelve symphonies, eleven concertos, eight string quartets and various other chamber music, and film scores. Three of his film scores have been nominated for Academy Awards.  (Soundtrack of the film 'The Hours' that Glass composed, arranged for the piano by Michael Riesman and Nico Muhly.)

1937 - Suzanne Pleshette, American theatre film, television and voice actress. Pleshette started her career in the theatre and began appearing in films in the late 1950s and later appeared in prominent films such as Rome Adventure and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. She later appeared in various television productions, often in guest roles, and played Emily Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show from 1972 until 1978, receiving several Emmy Award nominations for her work. She continued acting until 2004, which was four years before her death at age 70.

1938 - Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands (Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard), member of the Dutch royal house who reigned as Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until her abdication in 2013, in favour of her eldest son, Willem-Alexander. Beatrix is the eldest daughter of Queen Juliana and her husband, Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld. Upon her mother's accession in 1948, she became heir presumptive.

1959 - Anthony LaPaglia, Australian actor. He played the role of Joe in the coming-of-age comedy Empire Records and John in the film Autumn in New York, as well as FBI agent Jack Malone on the American TV series Without a Trace, for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – TV Series Drama. He appeared in eight episodes of Frasier as Daphne Moon's alcoholic brother Simon. LaPaglia starred in the Australian films Looking for Alibrandi, Holding the Man, Lantana and Balibo. For the latter two films he won AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in 2001 and 2009. 

Leftie:
None known

More birthdays and historical events, January 31 - On This Day


Featured: 

 

To honour composer Franz Schubert's birthday anniversary, I share his beautiful Four Impromptus, D 899 interpreted by pianist Alfred Brendel. (Franz Schubert Four Impromptus, D 899, Op 90. No 1 in C minor. No 2 in E-flat major. No 3 in G-flat major. No 4 in A-flat major.) YouTube, uploaded by Classical Vault 1. Accessed January 31, 2021. 

 

 

For reflective meditation, I'd like to share an all-time personal favourite: Schubert's Impromptu Op. 90 No. 3, with an endeared hymn, "In the Garden" performed by Priscilla Manion. In the Garden Hymn with Franz Schubert Impromptu: Op. 90 No. 3. YouTube, uploaded by Mirror of My Soul Ministries.  Accessed January 31, 2016. 

 

 

January 30 Dateline

Birthdays

1697 -  Johann Joachim Quantz, German flutist and composer. (J.J. Quantz. Flutehistory.com. Johann Joachim Quantz Flute Concertos. Upoaded by HarpsichordM. Accessed January 30, 2019.)

1882 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt or FDR, 32nd U.S. President ("The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." - F.D. Roosevelt), American Politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. A member of the Democratic Party, he won a record four presidential elections and became a central figure in world events during the first half of the 20th century. Roosevelt directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. As a dominant leader of his party, he built the New Deal Coalition, which defined modern liberalism in the United States throughout the middle third of the 20th century. His third and fourth terms were dominated by World War II, which ended shortly after he died in office.

1937 - Vanessa Redgrave, CBE,  English actress and activist, recipient of the Triple Crown of Acting, inducted to the American Theatre Hall of Fame, and received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2010. She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in the Shakespearean comedy As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since starred in more than 35 productions in London's West End and on Broadway, winning the 1984 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Revival for The Aspern Papers, and the 2003 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for the revival of Long Day's Journey into Night. She made her film debut with the medical drama Behind the Mask (1958), and rose to prominence with the satire Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966), which garnered her first of her six Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress for the holocaust drama Julia (1977). Her other nominations were for Isadora (1968), Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), The Bostonians (1984), and Howards End (1992). She is the daughter of Sir Michael Redgrave and Lady Redgrave (the actress Rachel Kempson).

1941 - Paul Albert Anka, OC, Canadian-American singer, songwriter and actor. Anka became famous with hit songs like "Diana", "Lonely Boy", "Put Your Head on My Shoulder", and "(You're) Having My Baby". He wrote such well-known music as the theme for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and one of Tom Jones's biggest hits, "She's a Lady". He also wrote the English lyrics to Claude François and Jacques Revaux's music for Frank Sinatra's signature song, "My Way", which has been recorded by many, including Elvis Presley. Two songs he co-wrote with Michael Jackson, "This Is It" (originally titled "I Never Heard") and "Love Never Felt So Good" became posthumous hits for Jackson.
 

1941 - Dick Cheney (Richard Bruce Cheney), Former U.S. Vice-President, American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under George W. Bush. He has been cited as the most powerful vice president in American history. He is also one of the most unpopular politicians in the history of the U.S., holding an approval rating of just 13% at the time of leaving office. He played a leading behind-the-scenes role in the George W. Bush administration's response to the September 11 attacks and coordination of the Global War on Terrorism. He was an early proponent of invading Iraq, alleging that the Saddam Hussein regime possessed a weapons of mass destruction program (no active WMDs were in Iraq) and the Hussein regime had an operational relationship with Al-Qaeda (even though there was scant credible evidence of such a relationship at the time).

1951 - Phil Collins, LVO, (Philip David Charles Collins), English musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer, best known as the drummer/singer of the Genesis band and for his solo career. Collins scored three UK and seven US number-one singles in his solo career. He had more US Top 40 singles than any other artist during the 1980s. His most successful singles from the period include "In the Air Tonight", "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)", "One More Night", "Sussudio", "Take Me Home", "Two Hearts", "A Groovy Kind of Love" (featured in the film Buster), "I Wish It Would Rain Down", and "Another Day in Paradise".

Leftie:
Singer Phil Collins

More birthdays and historical events, January 30 - On This Day


Featured:

 

Opera North’s acclaimed concert staging of Wagner’s Ring cycle, filmed in Leeds, UK, June 2016. Accessed December 1, 2022.

 


Notes on Wagner's Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), WWV 86B. (Wiki)

The story of Die Walküre is based on the Norse mythhology told in the Volsunga Saga and the Poetic Edda. In this version the Volsung twins Sieglinde and Siegmund, separated in childhood, meet and fall in love. This union angers the gods who demand that Siegmund must die. Sieglinde and the couple's unborn child are saved by the defiant actions of Wotan's Valkyrie daughter Brünnhilde, who as a result faces the gods' retribution. 

Die Walküre is the second of the four music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, (English: The Ring of the Nibelung). It was performed, as a single opera, at the National Theatre Munich on 26 June 1870, and received its first performance as part of the Ring cycle at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 14 August 1876.

As the Ring cycle was conceived by Wagner in reverse order of performance, Die Walküre was the penultimate of the four texts to be written, although Wagner composed the music in the proper sequence. The text was completed by July 1852, and the music by March 1856. In his composition Wagner largely followed the principles related to the form of musical drama which he had set out in his 1851 essay Opera and Drama under which the music would interpret the text emotionally, reflecting the feelings and moods behind the work, by using a system of recurring leitmotifs to represent people, ideas and situations rather than the conventional operatic units of arias, ensembles, and choruses. Wagner showed greater flexibility in the application of these principles, particularly in Act 3 when the Valkyrie maidens engage in regular ensemble singing.

As with Das Rheingold, Wagner wished to defer any performance of the new work until it could be shown in the context of the completed cycle, but the 1870 Munich premiere was arranged at the insistance of his patron, King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Die Walküre has achieved some popularity as a stand-alone work, and continues to be performed independently from its role in the tetralogy.

Historical Events

1595 - William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is first performed.

1847 - Yerba Buena, California, is renamed San Francisco.

January 29 Dateline

Birthdays

1737 - Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain, February 9, 1737 [O.S. January 29, 1736]),  English-born American political theorist & activist, philosopher, and revolutionary. He authored Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and helped inspire the patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era ideals of transnational human rights. 

 

 1860 - Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Russian playwright and short-story writer considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. As a playwright he produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his literary career: "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress."  Chekhov renounced the theatre after the reception of The Seagull in 1896, but the play was revived to acclaim in 1898 by Konstantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre, which subsequently also produced Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and premiered his last two plays, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. (Anton Chekhov Documentary Film. Uploaded by MrShurayev. accessed January 29, 2020. Interesting Reading: Anton Chekhov: where to start with his literature. By Diána Vonnák. The Calvert Journal. Accessed January 29, 2021.)

1862 - Frederick (Theodore Albert) Delius, CH, originally Fritz Delius, English composer. Born to a prosperous mercantile family, he was sent to Florida, US, in 1884 to manage an orange plantation. After two years he returned to Europe. Influenced by African-American music during his short stay in Florida, he began composing. After a brief period of musical study in Germany, he embarked on a full-time career as a composer in Paris and in nearby Grez-sur-Loing, where he and his wife Jelka lived for the rest of their lives, except during the First World War. After 1918, Delius became paralysed and blind, but completed some late compositions with the aid of his amanuensis, Eric Fenby.  (Delius - Summer Evening. Royal Scottish Orchestra - David Lloyd Jones. Impressionist painter John Lavery's sequence of paintings shows. Uploaded by Jane Anne Strutt. Accessed January 29, 2018. Delius - Walk to the Paradise Garden. Uploaded by Thomas Turner. Accessed January 29, 2020. Walk to the Paradise Garden, London Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli. Works by John Atkinson Grimshaw.)

1874 - John D. Rockefeller Jr., American financier and philanthropist, and only son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. He was often known as “Junior”, to distinguish him from his father. From early adulthood, he was interested in philanthropy and business ethics. But in 1913, a bitter strike in the Colorado Fuel and Iron company, part-owned by him, had provoked an attack by the National Guard, causing casualties. His action in visiting the miners and their families in person, to resolve their grievances, did much to present a more humanized image of the Rockefellers, marking a new departure in industrial relations generally. He was involved in the development of the vast office complex in midtown Manhattan known as the Rockefeller Center, making him one of the largest real estate holders in the city. Towards the end of his life, he was famous for his philanthropy, donating over $500 million to a wide variety of different causes, notably in educational establishments.

1880 - W.C. Fields (William Claude Dukenfield), American comedian, actor, juggler, and writer. Fields' comic persona was a misanthropic and hard-drinking egotist, who remained a sympathetic character despite his supposed contempt for children and dogs. His show business career began in vaudeville, where he was a silent juggler. He gradually incorporated comedy into his act and was a featured comedian in the Ziegfeld Follies. He became a star in the Broadway musical comedy Poppy, in which he played a colorful small-time con man. Among his recognizable trademarks were his raspy drawl and grandiloquent vocabulary. The characterization he portrayed in films and on radio was so strong it was generally identified with Fields himself.

1915 - Victor John Mature, American stage, film, and television actor who was known for his dark hair and smile. His best known film roles include One Million B.C., My Darling Clementine, Kiss of Death, Samson and Delilah, and The Robe. He also appeared in many musicals opposite such stars as Rita Hayworth and Betty Grable.

1918 - John Forsythe, American stage, film producer and television actor, drama teacher and philanthropist. He appeared as a guest on several talk and variety shows and as a panelist on numerous game shows. His 60-year acting career began in films in 1943. He signed up with Warner Bros. at age 25 as a minor contract player, but he starred in The Captive City (1952) and co-starred opposite Loretta Young in It Happens Every Thursday (1953), Edmund Gwenn and Shirley MacLaine in The Trouble With Harry, and Olivia De Havilland in The Ambassador's Daughter.

1931 - Leslie Bricusse, British composer, lyricist, and playwright who worked in the musicals and wrote theme music for films. He was best known for writing the music and lyrics for the films Doctor Dolittle, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Scrooge, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, the songs "Goldfinger", "You Only Live Twice", "Can You Read My Mind (Love Theme)" (with John Williams) from Superman and "Le Jazz Hot!" with Henry Mancini from Victor/Victoria. Pure Imagination: The World of Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, devised and directed by Bruce Kimmel, opened at the Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, California, on 7 December 2013. In 2015, it went to the St James Theatre, London.

1934 - Noel Harrison (born Noel John Christopher Harrison), English singer, actor, and Olympic skier, who had a hit singing "The Windmills of Your Mind" in 1968, and was a member of the British Olympic skiing team in the 1950s. He was the son of the actor Rex Harrison. (The Windmills of Your Mind. YouTube, uploaded by Noel Harrisonfan. Accessed January 29, 2018.)

1939 - Germaine Greer, Australian writer, regarded as one of the major voices of the radical feminist movement in the latter half of the 20th century. Specializing in English and women's literature, she has held academic positions in England at the University of Warwick and Newnham College, Cambridge, and in the United States at the University of Tulsa. Based in the UK since 1964, she has divided her time since the 1990s between Queensland, Australia and her home in Essex, England. Greer's ideas have created controversy ever since her first book, The Female Eunuch. The book offered a systematic deconstruction of ideas such as womanhood and femininity, arguing that women are forced to assume submissive roles in society to fulfill male fantasies of what being a woman entails. Her work since then has focused on literature, feminism and the environment. Greer is a liberation (or radical) rather than equality feminist. Her goal is not equality with men, which she sees as assimilation and "agreeing to live the lives of unfree men". She argues instead that liberation is about asserting difference and "insisting on it as a condition of self-definition and self-determination".

1940 - Katharine Juliet Ross, American film, stage, and TV actress. Her accolades include one Academy Award nomination, one BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. Ross made her film debut in the Civil War-themed drama Shenandoah. She was cast in Curtis Harrington's Games, a thriller co-starring James Caan and Simone Signoret. At Signoret's recommendation, Ross was cast as Elaine Robinson in Mike Nichols' comedy-drama The Graduate, which saw her receive significant critical acclaim, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, a BAFTA nomination, and Golden Globe win for New Star of the Year. She garnered further acclaim for her roles in two 1969 western films: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, for both of which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress. 

1942 - Claudine Longet, French-American Singer, Actress, Dancer, and Recording Artist popular during the 1960s and 1970s.  Longet was married to American singer and television entertainer Andy Williams from 1961 until 1975. She has maintained a private profile since 1977, following her conviction for negligent homicide in connection with the death of her boyfriend, former Olympic skier Spider Sabich.

1945 - Tom William Selleck, American actor and film producer. His breakout role was playing private investigator Thomas Magnum in the TV series Magnum, P.I.. Since 2010, Selleck has co-starred as New York City Police Commissioner Frank Reagan in the series Blue Bloods, and the show has been renewed for its eleventh season in 2020–2021. He has portrayed troubled small-town police chief Jesse Stone in nine made-for-TV movies based on the Robert B. Parker novels. In films, Selleck has played bachelor architect Peter Mitchell in Three Men and a Baby and its sequel. He also had a lead role in the television western movie The Sacketts, based on two of Louis L'Amour's books. Selleck is a California Army National Guard veteran, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association (NRA), an endorser in advertisements for National Review magazine, and co-founder of the Character Counts! organization.

 
1954 - Oprah Winfrey (born Orpah Gail Winfrey), American talk-show host, TV producer, publisher, author, actress, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and ran in national syndication for 25 years from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she was the richest African American of the 20th century and North America's first black multi-billionaire, and she has been ranked the greatest black philanthropist in American history. By 2007, she was sometimes ranked as the most influential woman in the world. In 2013, Winfrey was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama and honorary doctorate degrees from Duke and Harvard. In 2008, she formed her own network, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). Winfrey has won many accolades which includes 18 Daytime Emmy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Chairman's Award, 2 Primetime Emmy Awards, including the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award, a Tony Award, a Peabody Award and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, awarded by the Academy Awards and two additional Academy Award nominations.

Lefties:
Actor W.C. Fields
Author Germaine Greer
Media mogul Oprah Winfrey

More birthdays and historical events, January 29 - On This Day

Historical Events

1781 - Wolfgang Mozart's opera Idomeneo is first staged, in Munich.



1856 - Queen Victoria signs a Royal Warrant to create the highest award for valour - the Victoria Cross.

January 28 Dateline

Birthdays

1457 - Henry VII, the Father of the Tudor house produces Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, is born in Pembroke, Wales. His eldest son, Arthur dies in 1502, allowing Henry VIII to become king.

1884 - Auguste Antoine Piccard, Swiss physicist, inventor and explorer, twin brother of Jean Felix Piccard. August is known for his record-breaking helium-filled balloon flights, with which he studied the Earth's upper atmosphere. Auguste was also known for his invention of the first bathyscaphe, FNRS-2, with which he made a number of unmanned dives in 1948 to explore the ocean's depths.His brother Jean Felix is also a notable figure in the annals of science and exploration, as are a number of their relatives, including Jacques Piccard, Bertrand Piccard, Jeannette Piccard and Don Piccard.

1884 - Jean Felix Piccard, Swiss-born American chemist and explorer, aeronaut and balloonist, engineer, professor and high-altitude balloonist. Twin brother of August Piccard. He invented clustered high-altitude balloons, and with his wife Jeannette, the plastic balloon. Piccard's inventions and co-inventions are used in balloon flight, aircraft and spacecraft.

1887 - Arthur Rubinstein (Polish: Artur Rubinstein), Polish-born American pianist. He received international acclaim for his performances of the music written by a variety of composers and many regard him as the greatest Chopin interpreter of his time.  He has been described as one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century.  He played in public for eight decades. (Arthur Rubinstein - Chopin: Piano Concerto No.2 & Polonaise Op.53 - Israel P. O. - Z. Mehta (1968). Youtube, uploaded by Vladivostok 1969. Accessed January 28, 2018.)

1912 - Paul Jackson Pollock, American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, widely noticed for his technique of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a horizontal surface ("drip technique"), enabling him to view and paint his canvases from all angles. It was also called All-over painting and "action painting", since he covered the entire canvas and used the force of his whole body to paint, often in a frenetic dancing style. Some praised the immediacy of the creation, while others derided the random effects. In 2016, Pollock's painting titled Number 17A was reported to have fetched US$200 million in a private purchase.

1933 - Susan Sontag, American writer, filmmaker, philosopher, teacher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her best-known works include the critical works Against Interpretation, Styles of Radical Will , On Photography, and Illness as Metaphor, as well as the fictional works The Way We Live Now, The Volcano Lover, and In America. Sontag was active in writing and speaking about, or travelling to, areas of conflict, including during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Sarajevo. Although her essays and speeches sometimes drew controversy, she has been described as "one of the most influential critics of her generation."

1936 - Alan Alda (born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo), American actor. A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner, he played Hawkeye Pierce in the war television series M*A*S*H. He has received critical acclaim for films, and his directorial debut film The Four Seasons opposite Carol Burnett. Alda has had performances in Woody Allen's dramedy film Crimes and Misdemeanors, David O. Russell's comedy Flirting with Disaster, Steven Spielberg's Cold War drama film Bridge of Spies, and Noah Baumbach's relationship drama Marriage Story. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Martin Scorsese's Hollywood epic The Aviator. He received three Tony Award nominations for his performances in The Apple Tree, Jake's Women, and Glengarry Glen Ross. In 2019, Alda received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.

1944 - Sir John Kenneth Tavener, English composer, known for his extensive output of religious works. Tavener first came to prominence with his cantata The Whale, premiered in 1968. During his career he became one of the best known and popular composers of his generation, most particularly for The Protecting Veil, which as recorded by cellist Steven Isserlis became a best-selling album, and Song for Athene which was sung at the funeral of Princess Diana. The Lamb featured in the soundtrack for Paolo Sorrentino's film The Great Beauty. Tavener was knighted in 2000 for his services to music and won an Ivor Novello Award. (John Taverner - The Protecting Veil for Cello and Orchestra. Marin Kliegel cello - Ulster Orchestra - conducted by Takuo Yuasa. Uploaded by giuseppe fucci. Accessed January 28, 2020.) Even for those not religious, John Tavener's works evoke some of the most beautiful soul-stirring music. (Here's a video of his take on Wolfgang Mozart: Sir John Tavener on Mozart. Uploaded by iforgetti. Accessed January 28, 2011. This is actually his Foreword in a small book Coffee with Mozart by Julian Rushton. Duncan Baird Publishers. 2007.)

Leftie:
Physicist August Piccard

 

More birthdays and historical events, January 28 - On This Day

Featuring Aaron Copland's "A Quiet City" incidental music for the Irwin Shaw play Quiet City.
(YouTube, uploaded by Richard Lewis. Accessed January 28, 2018)

Historical Events 

1547 - King Henry VIII of England dies and is succeeded by his nine-year-old son, Edward. 

1916 - Louis D. Brandeis becomes the first Jewish judge appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

January 27 Dateline

Birthdays

1756 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, (born Johann Chrysostomus Wolfgang Theophilus  Mozart), Austrian Composer, arguably, the greatest composer of all-time. His music can be categorised into three stages:  early 1761-1772, middle 1772-1781, and late 1781-1791 with his best known works. Wolfgang Mozart composed more than 600 works including: 21 theatre/stage and opera works, 15 Masses, over 50 symphonies, 25 piano concertos, 12 violin concertos, 27 concert arias, 17 piano sonatas, 26 string quartets, and many other pieces. Together with the work of Haydn, Mozart's music marks the height of the Classical era in its supposed purity of melody and symmetricality of form. In 1788, three years before his death, he wrote his last three symphonies, the summation of the Classical symphonic style. A lot more about this beloved composer has been written in this website... simply search for them. (I try to update the links as much as possible but it's never easy with constant changes online including closures of websites or blogs./Tel.)   

1806 - Juan Crisostomo Arriaga, (born Juan Crisóstomo Jacobo Antonio de Arriaga y Balzola), Spanish Basque composer. He was nicknamed "the Spanish Mozart" after he died, because, like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, he was both a child prodigy and an accomplished composer who died young. (Arriaga - Symphony in D Major. Uploaded by winkle522000. Accessed January 27, 2016.)  

1823 - Édouard Lalo, (born Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo), French composer, best known for his Symphonie espagnole, which consists of five movements and remains a popular work in the standard repertoire for violin and orchestra. His noted for the clarity of his orchestration. (Édouard Lalo Symphonie espagnole in D minor Op.21, Christian Ferras, violinist. Uploaded by HarpsichordM. Accessed January 27, 2020.) 

1832 - Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, an English writer of children's fiction, notably remembered for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass. He was noted for his facility at word play, logic, and fantasy. Although Lewis Carroll became a famous writer, he was also a logician, mathematician, photographer, and novelist. (Brief bio of Lewis Carroll. Uploaded by marqzvideo. Acacessed January 27, 2016.) 

1834 - Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (often romanized as Mendeleyev or Mendeleef), Russian chemist and inventor. He is best remembered for formulating the Periodic Law and creating a farsighted version of the periodic table of elements. He used the Periodic Law not only to correct the then-accepted properties of some known elements, such as the valence and atomic weight of uranium, but also to predict the properties of eight elements that were yet to be discovered at the time.

1850 - Edward John Smith, RD, RNR, British Naval Officer, Captain of the RMS Titanic. He served as master of numerous White Star Line vessels. The captain of the Titanic, he perished when the ship sank on its maiden voyage. He joined the merchant navy and the Royal Naval Reserve, then entered the service of the White Star Line, a prestigious British company. His first command was the SS Celtic. He served as commanding officer of numerous White Star Line vessels, including the Majestic (which he commanded for nine years) and attracted a strong and loyal following amongst passengers.

1885 - Jerome Kern, American composer of musicals and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't help Lovin' Dat Man", "A Fine Romance", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "All the Things You Are" and "The Way You Look Tonight".  He collaborated with many of the leading librettists and lyricists of his time, including Oscar Hammerstein II, Guy Bolton, P.G. Wodehouse, Ira Gershwin and Johnny Mercer, among others. ("All the Things You Are (Original Version) - John McGlinn - YouTube". Uploaded by hoffemay. Accessed January 27, 2013. The song was written for the musical "Very Warm for May" (1939). It appeared in the film Broadway Rhythm (1944). As a chorister, I'm particularly sentimental about the chorus I was fortunate to sing many moons ago. The song is rarely sung nowadays as far as I know, but the chorus has become a favorite with singers esp in smaller ensembles.)

1903 - Sir John Carew Eccles, AC FRS FRACP FRSNZ FAA, Australian neuro-physiologist and philosopher who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the synapse. He shared the prize with Andrew Huxley and Alan Lloyd Hodgkin. In March 2012, the Eccles Institute of Neuroscience was constructed in a new wing of the John Curtin School of Medical Research, with the assistance of a $63M grant from the Commonwealth Government.

1921 - Donna Reed (born Donna Belle Mullenger), American actress. She is well known for her role as Mary Hatch Bailey in Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. In 1953, she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Lorene Burke in the war drama From Here to Eternity. Reed is known for her work in television, notably as Donna Stone, a middle-class American mother and housewife in the sitcom The Donna Reed Show (1958–1966). She received numerous Emmy Award nominations for this role and the Golden Globe Award for Best TV Star in 1963.
 

1936 - Troy Donahue (born Merle Johnson Jr.), American film and television actor and singer. He was a popular sex symbol in the 1950s and 1960s.

1940 - James Oliver Cromwell, American character actor and activist. Some of his notable films include Babe, Star Trek: First Contact, L.A. Confidential, The Green Mile, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, The Queen, Spider-Man 3, The Artist, and Still Mine. Cromwell is also known for his performances in television. He has been nominated for five Primetime Emmy Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards, as well as the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Babe. He won a Primetime Emmy Award for his role in American Horror Story: Asylum and a Canadian Screen Award for Best Actor for his role in Still Mine.

1948 - Mikhail Baryshnikov, Soviet Latvian-born Russian-American dancer, choreographer, and actor. He became a noted dance director. Baryshnikov started in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad before defecting to Canada in 1974. After dancing with American Ballet Theatre, he joined the New York City Ballet as a principal dancer for one season to learn George Balanchine's neoclassical Russian style of movement. He then returned with the American Ballet Theatre, where he later became artistic director. He became a naturalized citizen of America since 1986. In 2017, the Republic of Latvia granted him citizenship for extraordinary merits. He received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of Yuri Kopeikine in the film The Turning Point. He starred in the movie White Nights with Gregory Hines, Helen Mirren, and Isabella Rossellini, and had a recurring role in the last season of the television series Sex and the City.
 

1956 - Mimi Rogers, (née Spickler), American film and television actress and producer. Her notable film roles include Gung Ho, Someone to Watch Over Me, and Desperate Hours. She garnered the greatest acclaim of her career for her role in the religious drama The Rapture. Rogers has since appeared in Reflections on a Crime, The Mirror Has Two Faces, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Lost in Space, Ginger Snaps, The Door in the Floor, and For a Good Time, Call... She has had extensive work in television, including roles on The X-Files, Two and a Half Men, Wilfred, and Bosch.

1964 - Bridget Fonda (Bridget Jane Fonda Elfman), a retired american actress. She is known for her roles in The Godfather Part III, Single White Female, Singles, Point of No Return, It Could Happen to You, and Jackie Brown. She is the daughter of Peter Fonda, niece of Jane Fonda, and granddaughter of Henry Fonda. Fonda was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing Mandy Rice-Davies in the 1989 film Scandal and provided the voice for Jenna in the 1995 animated feature film Balto. She received an Emmy Award nomination for the 1997 TV film In the Gloaming, and a second Golden Globe Award nomination for the 2001 TV film No Ordinary Baby.

1980 - Marat Mubinovich Safin, Russian politician and retired professional tennis player. He achieved the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) world No. 1 singles ranking on 20 November 2000. Safin is the older brother of former world No. 1 WTA player Dinara Safina. They are the only brother–sister tandem in tennis history who have both achieved No. 1 rankings. He won his first Grand Slam title at the 2000 US Open, defeating Pete Sampras, and won the 2005 Australian Open, defeating Australian Lleyton Hewitt in the final. Despite his dislike of grass courts, he became the first Russian man to reach the semifinals of Wimbledon at the 2008 Wimbledon Championships, where he lost to Roger Federer. In 2016, he became the first Russian tennis player inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

Lefties:
None known 

More birthdays and historical events, January 27 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

1895 - Swan Lake / Le Lac de Cygne, with music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, is first performed at full length in Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Tchaikovsky:  Swan Lake / Le Lac de Cygne - Kirov Ballet



1906 - Mozart's Don Giovanni is staged at the Metropolitan Opera to honour the composer's sesquicentennial.

1945 - The liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet army takes place.  Auschwitz is the largest killing camp established by the Nazis, responsible of the death of over a million Jewish people.

January 26 Dateline

Birthdays

1880 - General Douglas MacArthur, American five-star General and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. He was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the Philippines Campaign, which made him and his father Arthur MacArthur Jr. the first father and son to be awarded the medal. He was the only one conferred the rank of field marshal in the Philippine Army. On 11 March 1942, during World War II, General Douglas MacArthur, his family members and staff left the Philippine island of Corregidor which were surrounded by the Japanese. They traveled in PT boats through stormy seas patrolled by Japanese warships and reached Mindanao. From there, MacArthur and his party flew to Australia in a pair of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, ultimately arriving in Melbourne by train on 21 March. In Australia, he made his famous speech in which he declared, "I came through and I shall return".

1905 - Baroness Maria Augusta von Trapp (née Kutschera), DHS (Order of the Holy Sepulchre), stepmother and matriarch of the Trapp Family Singers. She wrote The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, which was published in 1949 and was the inspiration for the 1956 West German film The Trapp Family, which in turn inspired the Broadway musical The Sound of Music (1959) and its 1965 film version.

1925 - Paul Leonard Newman, American actor, film director and producer, race car driver, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. His major film roles include The Hustler, Hud, Harper, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, and leading roles in The Sting, Slap Shot, The Verdict. A ten-time Oscar nominee, Newman won the Academy Award for Best Actor for The Color of Money. He also received the Academy Honorary Award, and Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

1945 - Jacqueline du Pré, OBE (born Jacqueline Mary du Pré), English cellist, considered one of the greatest cellists in 20th-century. At a young age, she achieved enduring mainstream popularity unusual for a classical performer. Her career was cut short by multiple sclerosis, which forced her to stop performing at the age of 28. She battled the illness for a further 14 years until her death at the age of 42.  (Jacques Offenbach's "Jacqueline's Tears" performed by cellist Werner Thomas (with the Münchener Kammer-Orchestra) who dedicated this beautiful music to Jacqueline Du Pré. YouTube, uploaded by cmlavita. Accessed January 26, 2018. Elgar - Cello Concerto, Delius - Cello Concerto (recording of the Century: Jacqueline Du Pré. Youtube, uploaded by Classical Music//Reference Recording. Accessed January 26, 2023.) 

1955 - Björn Johan Andrésen, Swedish actor and musician, best known for playing the fourteen-year-old Tadzio in Luchino Visconti's 1971 film adaptation of the 1912 Thomas Mann novella Death in Venice.  Video: (Death in Venice / Muerte en Venecia. Uploaded by Morrissot. Accessed January 26, 2018.) Theme music is Mahler's Adagietto from Symphony 5. Björn Andrésen brought Tadzio to life in this film. He had only appeared in one film, En Kärlekshistoria (1970) at the time he was cast in Death in Venice, which gained him international recognition. While the film was not a box office success, Andrésen was noted for his performance as Tadzio, the beautiful young Polish boy with whom the film's older protagonist Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde) falls in love. Film historian Lawrence J. Quirk commented in his study The Great Romantic Films (1974) that some shots of Andrésen "could be extracted from the frame and hung on the walls of the Louvre or the Vatican". 

1958 - Ellen Lee DeGeneres, American comedian, television host, actress, writer, and producer. She starred in the sitcom Ellen from 1994 to 1998 and has hosted her syndicated TV talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, since 2003. She has hosted the Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, and the Primetime Emmys. She has authored four books and started her own record company, Eleveneleven, as well as a production company, A Very Good Production. She launched a lifestyle brand, ED Ellen DeGeneres, which comprises a collection of apparel, accessories, home, baby, and pet items. She has won 30 Emmys, 20 People's Choice Awards (more than any other person), and other awards for her work and charitable efforts, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Golden Globes Carol Burnett Lifetime Achievement Award.

Leftie:
None known

More birthdays and historical events, January 26 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

1340 - English monarch King Edward III is proclaimed king of France.

1788 - British Captain Arthur Philip begins the first convict colony in Australia, having set sail from Portsmouth. He lands at Sydney Cove on this Day. The cove and the settlement was named Sydney after the British Home Secretary Lord Sydney.  This is now celebrated as Australia Day. 

January 26 celebrated by Australians as Australia Day. 

 

1790 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Cosi fan tutti is first performed at Vienna's Burgtheater, a day before his birthday, with the composer himself conducting. The first instrumental rehearsal was held in January 21, five days earlier, in Vienna. Invited were Joseph Haydn and Michael von Puchberg.

January 25 Dateline

Birthdays

1759 - Robert Burns, Scottish Poet, considered the most famous poet of Scotland, famous for "Auld Lang Syne" (sung by Dougie Maclean) and "O My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose" (Sung by soprano Taryn Fiebig, accompanied by harpist Jayne Hockley), R. Burns: The Man and his Legend (Documentary)

1874 - William Somerset Maugham, CH, English Playwright, Novelist and Short Story Writer, most famous for Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence, and The Razor's Edge.  Of Human Bondage (1915) initially was criticized in both England and the United States; the New York World described the romantic obsession of the protagonist Philip Carey as "the sentimental servitude of a poor fool". The influential American novelist and critic Theodore Dreiser rescued the novel, referring to it as a work of genius and comparing it to a Beethoven symphony. His review gave the book a lift, and it has never been out of print since.  (Maugham reads his own short story "The Happy Couple". Uploaded by TheMaughamCollection. Accessed January 25, 2018.)

1882 - Virginia Woolf (born Adeline Virginia Stephen), English Writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. She was a founder of the Bloomsbury Group of Writers and artists. Her works have since garnered much attention and widespread commentary for "inspiring feminism" and they have been translated into more than 50 languages. A large body of literature is dedicated to her life and work, and she has been the subject of plays, novels and films. During the interwar period, Woolf was an important part of London's literary and artistic society. In 1915 she published her first novel, The Voyage Out. Her best-known works include the novels Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and Orlando. She is also known for her essays, including A Room of One's Own, in which she wrote the much-quoted dictum, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."   (The Recorded Voice of Virginia Woolf, uploaded by goshawk, accessed January 25, 2009. Virginia Woolf Documentary, uploaded by vocalissimo1, accessed January 25, 2013.)

1913 - Witold Lutoslawski, Polish Composer and orchestral Conductor. He was one of the major European composers of the 20th century, and one of the pre-eminent Polish musicians during his last three decades. He earned many international awards and prizes. His compositions (of which he was a notable conductor) include four symphonies, a Concerto for Orchestra, a string quartet, instrumental works, concertos, and orchestral song cycles.(Witold Lutoslawski SymphonyNo. 4, OPRF, Salonen conducting. Uploaded by Justin Geplaveid. Accessed January 25, 2016.) 

1919 -  Eula Beal Garnett, billed as Eula Beal, American opera Contralto. During her relatively short touring career, she performed with distinguished collaborators not only in concert on the US West Coast but also in Concert Magic, a 1947 film billed as "the first motion picture concert".

1933 - Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, 11th President of the Philippines and the first woman to hold that office, wife of former Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr., and mother of Benigno Aquino III, 15th President of the Philippines.

1944 - Leigh Taylor-Young, American Actress. She has appeared on stage, screen, podcast, radio and television. The most famous films in which she had important roles include I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, The Horsemen, The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, Soylent Green, and Jagged Edge). She is an ordained minister in the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness

1979 - Christine Helen Lakin, American Actress. She is best known for her role as Alicia "Al" Lambert on the 1990s ABC/CBS sitcom Step by Step. She also played Joan of Arc on Showtime's Reefer Madness, was the sidekick on Craig Kilborn's 2010 Fox talk show The Kilborn File, and provides the voice of Joyce Kinney in Family Guy.

Leftie:
Actress Christine Lakin

More birthdays and hisstorical events, January 25 - On This Day
 

 

Features:

1.  More on Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Virginia Woolf spent her literary life testing effective means of fulfilling her mission as a novelist, as set out in her essay "Modern Fiction".  Among the books in which Virginia Woolf moved from "realism" to much more experimental forms are Night and Day (1919), Jacob's Room (1922) and The Waves (1931). She was co-owner of Hogarth Press (with her husband Leonard Woolf), publishing some of the day's most brilliant authors.

Since her youth V. Woolf was plagued by terrifying mental disturbances and became increasingly aware of life's dark counterparts. Having endured German bombs alongside completing a book which that did not satisfy her, she felt her personal darkness plummet, and eventually took her own life.

"Life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end. Is it not the task of the novelist to convey this varying, this unknown and uncircumscribed spirit, whatever aberration or complexity it may convey...? - Virginia Woolf.

2. Felix Mendelssohn's Wedding March from "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

Video below is a performance by the Berliner Philharmoniker, with Claudio Abbado conducting. (Uploaded by Berliner Philharmoniker, accessed January 24, 2018)

Historical Events

1858 - "The Wedding March" by Felix Mendelssohn becomes a popular wedding recession after it is played on this day at the marriage of Queen Victoria's daughter, Victoria, to Friedrich of Prussia.

1924 - The first winter Olympics is held.

January 24 Dateline

Birthdays

76 C.E. - Hadrian (Latin: Caesar Traianus Hadrianus), Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born into a Roman Italo-Hispanic family that settled in Spain from the Italian city of Atri in Picenum. His father was of senatorial rank and was a first cousin of Emperor Trajan. He married Trajan's grand-niece Vibia Sabina early in his career, before Trajan became emperor and possibly at the behest of Trajan's wife Pompeia Plotina. Plotina and Trajan's close friend and adviser Lucius Licinius Sura were well disposed towards Hadrian. When Trajan died, his widow claimed that he had nominated Hadrian as emperor immediately before his death.

1670 - William Congreve, English playwright and poet of the Restoration period. He is known for his clever, satirical dialogue and influence on the comedy of manners style of that period. He was also a minor political figure in the British Whig Party. His major plays were The Old Bachelour (1693), The Double-Dealer (1693), Love for Love (1695), and The Way of the World (1700), considered his best known comedy. (The Way of the World - Short Summary & easy to understand. It is widely regarded as one of the best restoration comedies and is still occasionally performed. Initially, the play struck many audience members as continuing the immorality of the previous decades, and was not well received. Uploaded by Train Literacy Ugc Net English Campus. Accessed January 24, 2019.)

1679 - Christian Wolff, German philosopher and mathematician, eminent between Leibniz and Kant. School: Age of Enlightenment and Rationalism. His main achievement was a complete oeuvre on almost every scholarly subject of his time, displayed and unfolded according to his demonstrative-deductive, mathematical method, which perhaps represents the peak of Enlightenment rationality in Germany.

1862 - Edith Wharton (born Edith Newbold Jones), American novelist, short story writer, playwright, and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper class New York "aristocracy" to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, in 1921. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996. Best known for novels: Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth. (Videos: Edith Wharton, uploaded by Betsy Bayha, accessed Janaury 24, 2019; Tour of Edith Wharton's Mansion Retreat, The Mount, uploaded by Bob Vila, accessed January 29, 2019.)  

1941 - Neil Diamond (born Neil Leslie Diamond), American singer-songwriter and actor. He has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He has had ten No. 1 singles on the Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts. Numerous songs have featured in the Top 10 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts.He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984, and he received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. In 2011, he was an honoree at the Kennedy Center Honors, and in 2018, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. (Neil Diamond Greatest Hits Full Album 2020 - Best Song Of Neil Diamond. YouTube, uploaded by Rock Music TV. Accessed Aug. 6, 2020.)

1943 - Sharon Tate (born Sharon Marie Tate Polanski), American actress and model. Tate made her film debut in 1961 in Barabbas with Anthony Quinn. Her most remembered performance was as Jennifer North in the 1967 cult classic film, Valley of the Dolls, earning her a Golden Globe Award nomination. Also in 1967, she performed in the film The Fearless Vampire Killers directed by her future husband Roman Polanski. Tate's last completed film, 12+1, was released posthumously in 1969. On August 9, 1969, an eight-and-a-half months pregnant Tate and four others were murdered by members of the Manson Family in the home she shared with her husband Roman Polanski.

Lefties:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events, January 24 - On This Day

 

Featuring Neil Diamond's "You don't bring me flowers."  

The song was written by Neil Diamond with Alan & Marilyn Bergman for the TV show 'All that Glitters,' intended to be the theme song, but Norman Lear changed the concept of the show making the song inappropriate. Diamond expanded the track from 45 seconds to 3:17, also added instrumental sections and an additional verse. The Bergmans contributed to the song's lyrics.

Video from YouTube: "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" provided by Universal Music Group

Historical Events

41 C.E.  - Roman Emperor Gaius Caesar (Caligula), known for his eccentricities and cruel despotism, is assassinated by his disgruntled Praetorian Guards. His uncle Claudius succeeds him.

1536 - Henry VIII falls during a joust and the horse rolls over him that leaves him unconscious.   He later became enormously fat, but he remains very sporting into his forties.

January 23 Dateline

Birthdays

1752 - Muzio Clementi, Italian-British virtuoso pianist and composer, pedagogue, conductor, music publisher, editor, and piano manufacturer, who was mostly active in England. He settled in London in 1782 and founded the present-day technique of piano playing. He was a contemporary of Wolfgang A. Mozart. Clementi is best known for his 'Gradus ad Parnassum' collection of piano studies, and for his sonatinas. (Clementi - Gradus Ad Parnassum: Complete Piano Studies (Ct.rc.: Danielle Laval / World Premiere. YouTube, uploaded by Classical Music // Reference Recording. Accessed January 23, 2023. Such a pleasure listening to this lovely performance.) 

1832 - Édouard Manet, French Modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, and a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. (E. Manet Paintings. Uploaded by Getahun Haile. Accessed January 23, 2013.)

1899 - Humphrey Bogart, American film & stage actor. His performances in Classical Hollywood cinema films made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Bogart as the greatest male star of classic American cinema. His breakthrough from supporting roles to stardom came with High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon, considered one of the first great noir films. His most significant romantic lead role was with Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, which earned him his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Bogart and Lauren Bacall fell in love when they filmed To Have and Have Not. After their marriage, she played his love interest in Dark Passage and Key Largo. Bogart's performances in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and In a Lonely Place are now considered among his best. For his role as a cantankerous river steam launch skipper with Katharine Hepburn's missionary in the World War I adventure The African Queen, Bogart received the Academy Award for Best Actor. In his later years, significant roles included The Barefoot Contessa and Sabrina. ("I was born when you kissed me. I died when you left me. I lived a few weeks while you loved me."- H. Bogart)

1933 - Joel Spiegelman, American composer, conductor, concert pianist, harpsichordist, recording artist, arranger, author and teacher. As a composer, Spiegelman has been widely known for his blending of techniques from traditional classical music, dodecaphonic music, aleatoric music, gospel, Russian folk, and electronic idioms. He has written original music for string quartet, piano trio, piano quintet, chamber music with percussion, solo instruments, wind ensembles, symphony orchestra, ballet, film, choral and vocal music. (Joel Spiegelman: Cry of the Bird of Passage for Symphony Orchestra. YouTube, accessed January 23, 2021.

1950 - Richard Dean Anderson, American actor and film producer. He began his television career playing Jeff Webber in the American soap-opera series General Hospital, then rose to prominence as the lead actor in the television series MacGyver. He later appeared in films such as Through the Eyes of a Killer, Pandora's Clock, and Firehouse. In 1997, Anderson returned to television as the lead actor of the series Stargate SG-1, a spin-off of the 1994 film Stargate. He played the lead from 1997 to 2005 and had a recurring role from 2005 to 2007. Since 1997, he has starred in only one film: Stargate: Continuum, released in 2008 as a sequel film after the Stargate SG-1 film The Ark of Truth. He appeared in the follow-up Stargate spin-off series Stargate: Atlantis and Stargate: Universe (reprising his role from SG-1 as Major General and later Lieutenant General Jack O'Neill).

1957 - Princess Caroline of Monaco; Caroline, Princess of Hanover (Caroline Louise Marguerite Grimaldi), eldest child of Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, and the American actress Grace Kelly. She is the elder sister of Prince Albert II and Princess Stéphanie. Until the births of her niece and nephew, Princess Gabriella and Prince Jacques, in December 2014, she had been heiress presumptive to the throne of Monaco since 2005, a position which she previously held from 1957 to 1958. Caroline is married to Ernst August, Prince of Hanover, the heir to the defunct throne of the former Kingdom of Hanover, as well as the heir male of George III of the United Kingdom. 

Lefties:
None known
 

More birthdays and historical events, January 23 -  On This Day

 

 

Featuring Muzio Clementi, Italian pianist and composer. 

Below is Clementi's famous Sonatina in C, Op. 36 No. 1.  (Uploaded by Phillip Sear, who played it himself. Accessed January 23, 2018.)

Historical Events

1510 - Henry VIII of England, 18 years old that time, takes part incognito in a tournament at Richmond and is applauded for his jousting before revealing his identity.

1571 - The Royal Exchange in London is opened by Queen Elizabeth I. 

1849 - Elizabeth Blackwell becomes the first U.S. female doctor.

January 22 Dateline

Birthdays

1561 - Sir Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban, PC QC, English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, and author. He served as Attorney General and as Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon has been called the father of empiricism. His works argued for the possibility of scientific knowledge based only upon inductive reasoning and careful observation of events in nature. He argued that science could be achieved by use of a sceptical and methodical approach whereby scientists aim to avoid misleading themselves. Although his Baconian method, did not have a long-lasting influence, the general idea of the importance and possibility of a sceptical methodology makes him the father of the scientific method. This method was a new rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, the practical details of which are still central in debates about science and methodology.  Bacon was a patron of libraries and developed a functional system for the cataloging of books by dividing them into three categories—history, poetry, and philosophy. He was the first recipient of the Queen's counsel designation, which was conferred in 1597 when Elizabeth I of England reserved Bacon as her legal advisor. In 1603, Bacon was knighted, later created Baron Verulam and Viscount St. Alban in 1621. (The Philosophy of Francis Bacon by Will Durant. Uploaded by Rocky C. Accessed January 22, 2016.)

1572 - John Donne, English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London. He is considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His poetical works are noted for their metaphorical and sensual style and include sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, and satires. He is also known for his sermons. In 1615 he was ordained Anglican deacon and then priest, although he did not want to take holy orders and only did so because the king ordered it. He also served as a member of Parliament.  (John Donne's 17th devotion, "Meditation XVII", from his Devotions Upon Emergence Occasions. YouTube, uploaded by Glory Hallelujahal.  Donne's "Occasional Mercies" from his sermons preached n Christmas Day. www.Bartleby.com. Holy Sonnets by John DONNE read by David Barnes | Full Audio Book. YouTube, uploaded by LibriVox Audiobooks.  Accessed January 22, 2019.)

 

1788 - George Gordon Byron, the 6th Baron Byron, FRS, known simply as Lord Byron, was an English poet, peer, and politician who became a revolutionary in the Greek War of Independence, and is considered one of the historical leading figures of the Romantic movement of his era and one of the greatest English poets. Among his best-known works are the narrative poems Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Many of his shorter lyrics in Hebrew Melodies also became popular. His only legitimate child, Ada Lovelace, is regarded as a foundational figure in the field of computer programming based on her notes for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine.  Byron's illegitimate children include Allegra Byron, who died in childhood, and possibly Elizabeth Medora Leigh. ("Darkness" by Lord Byron. Read by Tom O'Bedlam. Uploaded by SpokenVerse. Accessed January 22, 2012. So poignant, brilliant in its melancholy.)

1940 - Sir John Vincent Hurt, CBE, English actor. He came to prominence for his role as Richard Rich in the film A Man for All Seasons and gained BAFTA Award nominations for his portrayals of Timothy Evans in 10 Rillington Place and Quentin Crisp in television film The Naked Civil Servant – winning his first BAFTA for the latter. He played Caligula in the BBC TV series I, Claudius. Hurt's performance in the prison drama Midnight Express earned Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards, along with an Academy Award nomination. His BAFTA-nominated portrayal of astronaut Kane, in the science-fiction horror film Alien, yielded a scene where an alien creature burst out of his chest. It has been named by several publications as one of the most memorable moments in cinema history.

 
1960 - Michael Kelland John Hutchence, Australian musician, singer, songwriter, and actor. Hutchence co-founded the rock band INXS, which sold over 60 million records worldwide and was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2001. He was the lead singer and lyricist of INXS from 1977 until his death. He was a member of the short-lived pop rock group Max Q. He also recorded some solo material and acted in feature films. In July 1996, Hutchence and English television presenter Paula Yates had a daughter, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily.

1965 - Diane Colleen Lane, American actress and producer. She made her screen debut in George Roy Hill's 1979 film A Little Romance. Lane has appeared in several notable films, including the 2002 film Unfaithful, which earned her Satellite, New York Film Critics Circle, and National Society of Film Critics awards for Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama). Her performance in Unfaithful also garnered her Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Best Actress.

Leftie:

Actress Diane Lane

More birthdays and historical events, January 22 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

1840 - The first British colonists reach New Zealand.

1859 - Johannes Brahms is soloist in the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 1, in Hanover, with Joseph Joachim conducting.

Here's Brahms's Piano concerto No. 1,  interpreted by pianist Arthur Rubinstein, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), conducted by Bernard Haitink, in Amsterdam, 1973.

 

 

January 21 Dateline

Birthdays

1845 - Harriet Backer, Norwegian painter. She achieved recognition in her own time and was a pioneer among female artists both in the Nordic countries and in Europe generally. She is best known for her detailed interior scenes, communicated with rich colors and the interplay of light and shadow.

1858 - Mel Bonis (born Mélanie Hélène Bonis), French late-Romantic composer. She wrote more than 300 pieces, including works for piano solo and four hands, organ pieces, chamber music, mélodies, choral music, a mass, and works for orchestra. She attended the Paris Conservatoire, where her teachers included Cesar Franck, Ernest Guiraud, and Auguste Bazille.  (Mel Bonis: Eclogue, Op. 12. This beautiful piece comes from a set of five pieces published with separate opus numbers in 1889. YouTube, uploaded by PSearPianist. Accessed January 21, 2020.)

1869 - Grigori Rasputin (21 January [O.S. 9 January]), Russian mystic and self-proclaimed holy man who befriended the family of Nicholas II, the last emperor of Russia, and gained considerable influence in late imperial Russia. Russian mystic and self-proclaimed holy man who befriended the family of Tsar Nicholas II, the last monarch of Russia, and gained considerable influence in late imperial Russia.

1885 - Umberto Nobile, Italian aviator, airship designer, aeronautical engineer and Arctic explorer. He was a developer and promoter of semi-rigid airships between the two World Wars. He is primarily remembered for designing and piloting the airship Norge, which may have been the first aircraft to reach the North Pole, and which was indisputably the first to fly across the polar ice cap from Europe to America. Nobile also designed and flew the Italia, a second polar airship; this second expedition ended in a deadly crash and provoked an international rescue effort.

1895 - Cristobal Balenciaga (Cristóbal Balenciaga Eizaguirre), Spanish fashion designer, and founder of the Balenciaga fashion house. He had a reputation as a couturier of uncompromising standards and was referred to as "the master of us all" by Christian Dior and as "the only couturier in the truest sense of the word" by Coco Chanel, who continued, "The others are simply fashion designers". On the day of his death, in 1972, Women's Wear Daily ran the headline "The king is dead". Since 2011 the purpose built Museo Balenciaga has exhibited examples of his work in his birth town Getaria. Many of the 1,200 pieces in the collection were supplied by his pupil Hubert de Givenchy and clients such as Grace Kelly.

1905 - Christian Dior, Fashion Designer (“Happiness is the secret to all beauty; there is no beauty that is attractive without happiness.” - C. Dior.) He is best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, also called Christian Dior, which is now owned by Groupe Arnault. His fashion houses are now all around the world.

1922 - Telly Savalas (Aristotelis Savalas), American actor and singer. Noted for his bald head and deep, resonant voice, he is perhaps best known for portraying Lt. Theo Kojak on the crime drama series Kojak and James Bond archvillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the film On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Savalas' other roles include Birdman of Alcatraz, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Battle of the Bulge, The Dirty Dozen, Kelly's Heroes. For Birdman of Alcatraz, he was nominated for the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. As a singer, Savalas released a cover of the Bread song "If", which became a UK No. 1 single in 1975. The song also peaked at number 12 in Australia.

1941 - Placido Domingo, Spanish tenor, conductor and arts administrator (P. Domingo singing a famous Mexican song, 'La Malagueña Salerosa.' The song is about a man telling a woman (from Malaga, Spain) how beautiful she is, and how he would love to be her man, but that he understands her rejecting him for being too poor.)

1956 - Geena Davis (Virginia Elizabeth Davis), American actress, advocate, executive producer, and former model. She is the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, in addition to nominations for a BAFTA Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. In 2019, she was given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for the work she has done over the decades to fight gender bias on and off the screen in Hollywood. "If you risk nothing, then you risk everything." - Geena Davis.

Leftie:
Actor Telly Savalas

More birthdays and historical events, January 21 - On This Day

Historical Events

1189 - Phillip II, Henry II, and Richard the Lion-Heart start the third Crusade to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims.

1789 - The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy, is printed in Boston, Massachusetts.

January 20 Dateline

Birthdays

1894 - Walter Piston, American composer of classical music, music theorist, and Harvard University professor. He was awarded the Edward MacDowell Medal for his outstanding contribution to the arts by the MacDowell Colony in 1974. Piston wrote four books on the technical aspects of music theory which are considered to be classics in their respective fields: Principles of Harmonic Analysis, Counterpoint, Orchestration, and Harmony. The last of these introduced for the first time in theoretical literature several important new concepts that Piston had developed in his approach to music theory, notably the concept of harmonic rhythm, and the secondary dominant.

1896 - George Burns, American comedian, actor, singer, and writer. He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, radio, film and television. His arched eyebrow and cigar-smoke punctuation became his familiar trademarks for over three quarters of a century.
 
1906 - Aristotle Socrates Onassis, Greek industrialist and shipping magnate, commonly called Ari or Aristo Onassis. He amassed the world's largest privately owned shipping fleet and was one of the world's richest men. He was married to Athina Mary Livanos (daughter of shipping tycoon Stavros G. Livanos), had a long-standing affair with famous opera singer Maria Callas and was married to Jacqueline Kennedy, the widow of American President John F. Kennedy. In the mid-1950s, he sought to secure an oil shipping arrangement with Saudi Arabia and engaged in whaling expeditions. Onassis attempted to establish a large investment contract—Project Omega—with the Greek military junta, and he sold Olympic Airways, which he had founded in 1957. Onassis was greatly affected by the death of his 24-year-old son, Alexander, in a plane crash in 1973, and he died two years later.

1910 - Joy Adamson (born Friederike Victoria Adamson (née Gessner), born in Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic), naturalist, artist and author. Her book, Born Free, describes her experiences raising a lion cub named Elsa. Born Free was printed in several languages, and made into an Academy Award-winning movie of the same name. In 1977, she was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art.

1920 - Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI, Italian film director and screenwriter. Known for his distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness, he is recognized as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. Sight & Sound lists his 1963 film 8½ as the 10th-greatest film of all time. Spanning a career for almost fifty years, Fellini won the Palme d'Or for La Dolce Vita, was nominated for twelve Academy Awards and won four in the category of Best Foreign Language Film, the most for any director in the history of the Academy. At the 65th Annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles, he received an honorary award for Lifetime Achievement. Besides La Dolce Vita and 8½, his other well-known films include La Strada, Nights of Cabiria, Juliet of the Spirits, Satyricon, Amarcord and Fellini's Casanova.

1930 - Buzz Aldrin (born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.), American engineer and a former astronaut and fighter pilot. Aldrin made three spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission, and as the Apollo Lunar Module pilot on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, he and mission commander Neil Armstrong were the first two humans to land on the Moon.

1965 - Sophie, The Countess of Wessex, GCVO DStJ CD (born Sophie Helen Rhys-Jones), member of the British royal family. She is married to Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, the youngest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. She began working in public relations, representing firms across the UK, Switzerland, and Australia before opening her own agency in 1996. Sophie met Edward in 1987 while working for Capital Radio. They were married on 19 June 1999 at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. The couple have two children: Lady Louise Windsor and James, Viscount Severn. In 2002, Sophie closed her business interests and began full-time work as a member of the royal family. She is the patron of over 70 charities and organisations. She undertakes over 200 engagements each year, including visits to schools, universities, and military bases. Her charity primarily work revolves around people with disabilities, women's rights, avoidable blindness, and agriculture.  

 

Lefties:
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin
Comedian and actor George Burns
Countess of Wessex Sophie Rhys-Jones

 

More birthdays and historical events, January 20 - On This Day

 

Featuring:

 

'La Dolce Vita,' one of  the famous films Fellini directed and co-wrote.
La Dolce Vita (Italian for "the sweet life" or "the good life"), is a 1960 Italian drama film that follows Marcello Marcello Rubini, a journalist writing for gossip magazines, over seven days and nights on his journey through the "sweet life" of Rome in a fruitless search for love and happiness. La Dolce Vita won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival. and the Oscar for Best Costumes. It remains one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time. The film stars Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg. (Resource: Wiki)  Below is the Trevi Fountain Scene of the film. (Youtube, uploaded by italfilmsubs. Accessed January 20, 2018.)

Link to La Dolce Vita's soundtrack:  here. Composed by Nino Rota.

Historical Events

1885 - L.A. Thompson patents the roller-coaster.

1936 - Edward VIII, son to George V, ascends the throne, but abdicates before he is crowned, to marry Wallis Simpson. He dies without heirs and is buried in the same place as his great-grandmother, Victoria, at Frogmore in Windsor.