November 7 Dateline

Birthdays

1867 - Marie Curie, (Marie Skłodowska Curie), Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, is the only woman to win the Nobel prize twice, and is the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two different scientific fields. She was part of the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.

1879 - Leon Trotsky, Russian revolutionary, Marxist theorist, and Soviet politician whose particular strain of Marxist thought is known as Trotskyism. Trotsky joined the Bolshevik Party a few weeks before the October Revolution and became one of the leaders of the party. Trotsky became more prominent as the leader of the Red Army in the post of Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs. Trotsky was a vital leading figure in the Red victory in the Russian Civil War. He was one of the seven members of the first Politburo. Trotsky was openly critical of Stalinism. 

1905 - William Alwyn CBE, (born William Alwyn Smith), English conductor, virtuoso flautist, music teacher, and composer, including film scores.  He was a distinguished polyglot, poet, and artist, as well as musician.^[5] He helped found the Composers' Guild of Great Britain (now merged into the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors), and was its chairman in 1949, 1950 and 1954. He was sometime Director of the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society, a Vice-President of the Society for the Promotion of New Music (S.P.N.M.) and Director of the Performing Right Society. He was one of the panel engaged by the BBC to read new scores to help assess whether the works should be performed and broadcast. He was appointed a CBE in 1978. His compositional output was varied, including five symphonies, four operas, several concertos, film scores and string quartets. 

1913 - Albert Camus, Algerian-born French writer, journalist, and philosopher. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44 in 1957, the second-youngest recipient in history. His works include The Stranger, The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Fall, and The Rebel. His citizenship was French. He joined the French Resistance where he served as editor-in-chief at Combat, an outlawed newspaper. After the war, he was a celebrity figure and gave many lectures around the world. Camus was politically active; he was part of the Left that opposed the Soviet Union because of its totalitarianism. Camus leaned towards anarcho-syndicalism. He was part of many organisations seeking European integration. Philosophically, Camus's views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He is considered to be an existentialist, though he firmly rejected the term.

 

1918 - Billy Graham, (William Franklin Graham Jr.),  American evangelist, a prominent evangelical Christian figure, an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well-known internationally. One of his biographers has placed him "among the most influential Christian leaders" of the 20th century.  As a preacher, he held large indoor and outdoor rallies with sermons that were broadcast on radio and television; some were still being re-broadcast into the 21st century. In his six decades on television, Graham hosted annual "Crusades", evangelistic campaigns that ran from 1947 until his retirement in 2005. He also hosted the radio show Hour of Decision.  Graham was a spiritual adviser to U.S. presidents, from Harry S. Truman (33rd) to Barack Obama (44th). He was particularly close to Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson (one of Graham's closest friends), and Richard Nixon. Graham was on Gallup's list of most admired men and women a record 61 times. (Billy Graham's Last Message to America and the world ... uploaded by Len Hummel. Accessed November 7, 2016.)

1926 - Dame Joan Sutherland, Australian Coloratura Soprano, wife of Conductor Richard Bonynge. She was noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s. Dame Joan possessed a voice combining extraordinary agility, accurate intonation, "supremely" pinpoint staccatos, a trill and a tremendous upper register. She was the first Australian to win a Grammy Award, for Best Classical Performance – Vocal Soloist (with or without orchestra) in 1962.

1943 - Joni Mitchell, Singer and Songwriter (Famous for the pop song, "Both Sides Now." YouTube, uploaded by Mary Plagiannakou, accessed Nov 7, 2018. If you think you really know "life" and "love" at all, think again. But then I do agree with dear Leonard Bernstein's Candide: "Life is neither good nor bad, they're woven fine.")

1962 - Phyllis Nagy, American Theatre and Film Director, Screenwriter and Playwright. In 2006, Nagy was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for writing and directing Mrs. Harris (2005), her screen debut. In 2016, Nagy received an Academy Award nomination, among numerous other accolades, for Best Adapted Screenplay for the 2015 film Carol.

1969 -  Hélène Grimaud, French Classical Pianist and Founder of the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, New York. (H. Grimaud performing Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2, with NHSO conducted by David Zinman. Accessed Nov. 21, 2018.)

Lefties:
Marie Curie
Billy Graham

 

 

More birthdays and historical events, November 7 - On This Day

 

In remembrance of Dame Joan Sutherland, her performance of "Sempre libera" from Verdi's opera La Traviata. Magnificent!

 

 

November 6 Dateline

Birthdays

1661 - Charles II, King of Spain, also known as El Hechizado or the Bewitched, was the last Habsburg ruler of the Spanish Empire. He is best remembered for his alleged physical disabilities, and the war that followed his death. Charles suffered ill-health throughout his life; from the moment he became king at the age of four, the succession was a prominent consideration in European politics. Despite two marriages, he remained childless. When he died in 1700, his heir was 16-year-old Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV and his first wife, Charles's elder half-sister, Maria Theresa. The succession of Charles was less important than the division of his territories, and the failure to resolve that question led to war in 1701.

1814 - Adolph Sax, Belgian inventor and musician who created the saxophone in the early 1840s, patenting it in 1846. He also invented the saxotromba, saxhorn and saxtuba. He played the flute and clarinet.

1854 - John Philip Sousa, American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era known for American military marches. He is known as "The March King" or the "American March King", to distinguish him from his British counterpart Kenneth J. Alford.  Among his best-known marches are "The Stars and Stripes Forever" (National March of the United States of America), "Semper Fidelis" (official march of the United States Marine Corps), "The Liberty Bell", "The Thunderer", and "The Washington Post".

1860 - Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Polish composer, pianist, and former Prime Minister, a spokesman for polish independence. He was a favorite of concert audiences around the world and his musical fame opened access to diplomacy and the media. Paderewski played an important role in meeting with President Woodrow Wilson and obtaining the explicit inclusion of independent Poland as point 13 in Wilson's peace terms in 1918, called the Fourteen Points. He was the Prime Minister of Poland and also Poland's foreign minister in 1919, and represented Poland at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. He served 10 months as prime minister, and soon thereafter left Poland, never to return. (Paderewski plays his Minuet in G, Op 14, No. 1. Recorded 1937. Uploaded by Bechmesser2. Accessed November 6, 2019.) 

1883 - Hubert Charles Bath, English film composer, music director, and conductor. His credits include the music to the Oscar-winning documentary Wings Over Everest (1934), as well as to the films Tudor Rose (1936), A Yank at Oxford (1938), and Love Story (1944). Cornish Rhapsody, the theme music featured in the film Love Story is often played as a companion piece to the more famous Richard Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto. Love Story stars Margaret Lockwood and Stewart Grainger, with Lockwood playing as concert pianist, and in the film her composition of the Rhapsody reflects her love both for Grainger and the Cornish landscape that provides much of the setting for the film. (Cornish Rhapsody - Hubert Bath). YouTube, uploaded by Montezuma48. Accessed Nov 6, 2012)
 

1892 - Harold Ross, American journalist, founder of New Yorker (1925)

1901 - Juanita Hall,  American musical theatre and film actress, remembered for her roles in the original stage and screen versions of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals South Pacific as Bloody Mary - a role that gave her the Tony Award - and Flower Drum Song as Madame Liang. (Link from the film South Pacific with Juanita Hall's exquisite voice from the original Broadway cast recording, synched to the film. The clip also includes a deleted scene, apparently due to its gay overtones that time - Here. YouTube, uploaded by Lost Vocals. Accessed August 16, 2018.)

1916 - Ray Conniff, American bandleader and arranger, leader of popular vocal groups, best known for his Ray Conniff Singers during the1960s. (Feeling nostalgic about the good old days? Here: some of his greatest hits, YouTube, uploaded by Natural Relax. Accessed Nov 6, 2025.)

1946 - Sally Field, American actress and director.  She is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and she has been nominated for a Tony Award and two BAFTA Awards. Field began her professional career on television, starring in the short-lived comedies Gidget, The Flying Nun, and The Girl with Something Extra. In 1976, she garnered critical acclaim for her performance in the miniseries Sybil, for which she received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. More successful movies and television roles followed.  As a director, Field is known for the television film The Christmas Tree, an episode of the 1998 HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, and the feature film Beautiful. In 2014, she was presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 2019 received the Kennedy Center Honors.

1955 - Maria Owings Shriver, American journalist and writer, former First Lady of California, and the founder of the nonprofit organization The Women's Alzheimer's Movement. She was married to former Governor of California and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, from whom she filed for divorce in 2011. Shriver has received a Peabody Award and was co-anchor for NBC's Emmy-winning coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics. As executive producer of The Alzheimer's Project, Shriver earned two Emmy Awards and an Academy of Television Arts & Sciences award for developing a "television show with a conscience". She is a member of the Kennedy family; her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, was a sister of John F. Robert and Ted Kennedy. 

Lefties:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events, November 6 - On This Day

 

Featured Music:

 
Ignacy Paderewski's exciting Polish Fantasy (Fantazja polska) in G minor for piano and orchestra, Op. 19, 1st Movement. The Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic European Art Centre. Marcin Nałęcz-Niesiołowski, conductor. Kevin Kenner, piano. The Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic Symphonic Orchestra.

 

 

November 5 Dateline

Birthdays

1494 - Hans Sachs, German Burgher, meistersinger, composer, master shoemaker,  and poet who was outstanding for his popularity, output, and aesthetic and religious influence. He surpassed all his contemporaries in artistic power; for there was nowhere in which he did not try his hand, no interest of the time which did not find an echo in his writings. He is considered the greatest poetical genius that had appeared in Germany since the Minnesingers.  Richard Wagner made him the principal in his opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. (Image: Hans Sachs' Reflection and David Song. Sachs ponders about last day's riot, while David tries to gain his attention. Music: Overture and beginning of the first scene of the third act of the music drama "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" Composer: Richard Wagner Orchestra: Herbert von Karajan with the Staatskapelle Dresden.  Uploaded by Arthur Carmonario. Accessed November 5, 2016.)

1887 - Paul Wittgenstein, Austrian-American concert pianist notable for commissioning new piano concerti for the left hand alone, following the amputation of his right arm during the First World War. He devised novel techniques, including pedal and hand-movement combinations, that allowed him to play chords previously regarded as impossible for a five-fingered pianist.  He was an older brother of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. (Wittgenstein plays Ravel, Piano Concerto For the Left Hand (Solo Excerpts). YouTube, uploaded by Eoin Alllen. Accessed Novembr 5, 2018.)

1913 - Vivien Leigh (born Vivian Mary Hartley), styled as Lady Olivier after 1947), British stage and film actress. She won two Academy Awards for Best Actress, for her definitive performances as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she had also played on stage in London's West End in 1949. She also won a Tony Award for her work in the Broadway musical version of Tovarich.

1940 - Elke Sommer (born Elke Baronin von Schletz), German actress, entertainer and artist who starred in many Hollywood films.  After the 1990s, Sommer concentrated more on painting than on acting. As an actress, she had worked in countries learning the languages (she speaks seven languages) and storing up images which she has subsequently expressed on canvas. Her artwork shows a strong Marc Chagall influence. In 2001, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to her.  As of early May 2017, Frau Baronin (Baroness) von Sommer was living in Los Angeles, California. 

1941 - Art Garfunkel, American musician and singer, poet, and actor. He is best known for his partnership with Paul Simon in the folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel. Highlights of his solo music career include a top 10 hit, three top 20 hits, six top 40 hits, 14 Adult Contemporary top 30 singles, five Adult Contemporary number ones, two UK number ones and a People's Choice Award. Through his solo and collaborative work, Garfunkel has earned eight Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1990, he and Simon were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2008, Garfunkel was ranked 86th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. (The Sound of Silence from the famous Duo: Simon and Garfunkel).

1943 - Sam Shepard Rogers III, American actor, author and playwright, screenwriter, and director. He won ten Obie Awards for writing and directing. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. Shepard received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in the 1983 film The Right Stuff. He received the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009. Shepard's plays are known for their bleak, poetic, surrealist elements, black comedy, and rootless characters living on the outskirts of American society. 

 

1954 - Geoffrey Peter Bede Hawkshaw Tozer,  Australian classical pianist and composer. A child prodigy, he composed an opera at the age of eight and became the youngest recipient of a Churchill Fellowship award at 13. His career included worldwide tours, where he performed the Yellow River Concerto to an estimated audience of 80 million people. Tozer had more than 100 concertos in his repertoire, including those of Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Medtner, Rachmaninoff, Bartók, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Gerhard. Tozer recorded for the Chandos label. Regarded as a "superb recitalist", he had the ability to improvise, transpose "instantly" and reduce an orchestral score to a piano score at sight. Tozer won numerous awards and much recognition worldwide. (Geoffrey Tozer - Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No 2 with own cadenza (1987 Canberra)-LP transfer. YouTube, uploaded by Oceania Classics. Accessed May 20, 2023)

 
Leftie:
Pianist Paul Wittgenstein

 

More birthdays and historical events, November 5 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

1605 - The Gunpowder Plot is foiled when Guy Fawkes is discovered in a cellar below the English Houses of Parliament lighting a long fuse, set to explode as King James I opens Parliament. Fawkes is executed later.

1846 - Robert Schumann's Symphony No.2 is first performed and conducted by Felix Mendelssohn in Leipzig.

November 4 Dateline

Birthdays

1841 - Carl "Karl" Tausig (born Karol Tausig),  Polish virtuoso pianist, composer, and arranger, a student of Franz Liszt, generally regarded as Liszt's most esteemed pupil, and also considered one of the greatest pianists of his time. (Carl Tausig - Ballade 'The Ghost Ship' Op.1c - Michael Ponti, pianist. Uploaded by deviantrake. Accessed Nov 4, 2020)

1937 - Loretta Swit, an American stage and television actress known for her character roles. Swit is best known for her portrayal of Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan on M*A*S*H, for which she won two Emmy Awards.

1941 - Richard James Gill, AO, Australian conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic works. He was known as a music educator and for his advocacy for music education of children.

1955 - Matti T. Vanhanen, Finnish politician, Prime Minister of Finland from 2003 to 2010. He was also Chairman of the Centre Party, and in the second half of 2006 he was President of the European Council. In his earlier career he was a journalist. On June 9, 2020, he became the Minister of Finance.

Leftie:
Former Prime of Finland, Minister Matti T. Vanhanen

 

More birthdays and historical events, November 4 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

1783 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Symphony No. 36 "Linz" is first performed. Below, Mozart's Symphony No. 36 in C major, K. 425 "Linz" (Staatskapelle Dresden & Horst Stein). YouTube, updated by LOFTMusic, from the Great Hall of the Mozarteum, Salzburger Festspiele 1991 Staatskapelle Dresden Horst Stein - conductor. Accessed November 4, 2021.

 

1876 - Johannes Brahms's Symphony No. 1 is first performed, at Karlsruhe, with Otto Dessoff conducting.

November 3 Dateline

Famous Birthdays

1801 - Vincenzo Bellini, Italian composer known for his long-flowing melodic lines, famous for operas Norma and La Sonnambula/The Sleepwalker.  He was the quintessential composer of the Italian bel canto era of the early 19th century. (A biography of Bellini from Encyclopaedia Britannica - here.)  Bellini was admired by fellow composers like Verdi as he was by the public. A large amount of what is known about him comes from surviving letters written over his lifetime to his friend Francesco Florimo, whom he had met as a fellow student in Naples and with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship. Other sources of information come from correspondence saved by other friends and business acquaintances. (Listen to "Casta Diva" from Norma, famously sung by Maria Callas, with the depth and richness of her feelings. YouTube, uploaded by Th Paw. Accessed November 3, 2011. Featuring Bellini's opera Norma, performed by The Australian Opera & The Elizabethan Sydney Orchestra, with Dame Joan Sutherland, Norma, conducted by Richard Bonynge. Sydney Opera House, 1978)

1841 - Isabella MacDonald Alden (pseudonym: Pansy), author. She wrote more than 120 books focusing on private religious commitment, Bible study and a moral duty to improve lives of the poor.

1921 - Charles Bronson (born Charles Dennis Buchinsky), American actor who was often cast in roles of police officers, gunfighters, or vigilantes in revenge-oriented plot lines. He had long-term collaborations with film directors Michael Winner and J. Lee Thompson and appeared in 15 films with his second wife, Jill Ireland. At the height of his fame in the early 1970s, he was the world's No. 1 box office attraction, commanding $1 million per film.

1933 - John Barry, OBE, English composer and conductor of film music (Here's Top 10 John Barry Scores, including 'Out of Africa', 'Somewhere in Time' and 'Dances with Wolves' aside from the famous James Bond movies soundtracks. Barry composed the scores for 11 of the James Bond films between 1963 and 1987, and also arranged and performed the "James Bond Theme" to the first film in the series, 1962's Dr. No. He wrote the Grammy- and Academy Award-winning scores to the films Dances with Wolves and Out of Africa, as well as the theme for the British television cult series The Persuaders!, in a career spanning over 50 years. In 1999, he was appointed OBE for services to music. 

 
1933 - Jeremy Brett (Peter Jeremy William Huggins), English actor. He played fictional detective Sherlock Holmes in four Granada TV series from 1984 to 1994 in all 41 episodes. His career spanned from stage, to television and film, to Shakespeare and musical theatre.

Leftie:
English actor Jeremy Brett, best known for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.

 

 

More birthdays and historical events, November 3 - On This Day

 

Recommended Listening:

In memory of John Barry:  Here's his Academy Award-Winning for music score, "Out of Africa" movie soundtrack (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1985). Composed and Conducted by John Barry.)

Historical Events

1871 - After six months in Africa searching for missionary Dr. David Livingstone, Henry Stanley finds him living in Lake Tanganyika. Dr. Livingstone had not seen another white man for six and a half years. He refused returning to England and died two years later.

1899 - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Tsar's Bride opens in Moscow. 

November 2 Dateline

Birthdays

1734 - Daniel Boone, American pioneer, explorer, woodsman, and frontiersman whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Although he also became a businessman, soldier and politician who represented three different counties in the Virginia General Assembly following the American Revolutionary War, Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now Kentucky, that remained part of Virginia until it became a state in 1791.

1739 - Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Austrian violinist and composer. His German-language two-act singspiel Doktor und Apotheker (Doctor and Apothecary), uploaded by Musikacademie Rheinsberb, is considered the his masterpiece.  Accessed November 2, 2018)

1755 - Marie Antoinette (born Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna), the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria and was the penultimate child and youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I. She became dauphine of France in May 1770 at age 14 upon her marriage to Louis-Auguste, heir apparent to the French throne. On 10 May 1774, her husband ascended the throne as Louis XVI and she became queen.

1868 - Yokoyama Taikan (pseudonym Sakai Hidemaro), Japanese painter, a major figure in pre-World War II Japanese painting. He is notable for helping create the Japanese painting technique of Nihonga. Among Yokoyama’s works are “Mountain Path,” “Vicissitudes,” and “Cherry Blossoms.” (Y. Taikan brief profile from Britannica.com. Accessed October 27, 2019)

1906 -  Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo, Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, also a screenwriter. He is best known for his films Ossessione (1943), Senso (1954), Rocco and His Brothers (1960), The Leopard (1963) and Death in Venice (1971). He was formally known as Count don Luchino Visconti di Modrone, and his family is a branch of the Visconti of Milan. In his early years, he was exposed to art, music and theatre: he studied cello with the Italian cellist and composer Lorenzo de Paolis (1890–1965) and met the composer Giacomo Puccini, the conductor Arturo Toscanini and the writer Gabriele D'Annunzio.(The Films of Luchino Visconte. Uploaded by Eddie Lensweiger. Accessed November 2, 2017.  Visconti's Actors / Visconte Y Sus Actores. Uploaded by  pereznuix. Accessed November 2, 2014.)

1913 - Burt Stephen Lancaster,  American actor and producer. Initially known for playing "tough guys" with a tender streak, he went on to achieve success with more complex and challenging roles over a 45-year career in film and, later, television. He was a four-time nominee for the Academy Award for Best Actor (winning once), and also winning two BAFTA Awards and one Golden Globe Award for Best Lead Actor. His breakthrough role was the film noir The Killers alongside Ava Gardner.  He played the illicit lover of Deborah Kerr in the military drama From Here to Eternity. A box office smash, it won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and landed a Best Actor nomination for Lancaster. In 1956, he starred in The Rainmaker, earning a Best Actor Golden Globe nomination.

Lefties:
None known 

 

More birthdays and historical events, November 2 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

1899 - The Boers begin their siege of British-occupied Ladysmith in South Africa. The siege lasts 118 days before the Gordon Highlanders arrive, driving off the Boers.

1950 - Italian-French pianist Aldo Ciccolini makes his American debut playing Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1, with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Below's performance of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto in B flat minor was recorded July 25 July, 1951, at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.  The uploader recorded this track from the LP, "Tchaikovsky - Concerto No. 1," issued by RCA Victor on the Bluebird Classics label (LBC 1020).