Today, April 1, is April Fool's Day. According to The Museum of Hoaxes, "The Origin of April Fool's Day", references to April Fool's Day can be found as early as the 1500s, however, they were infrequent and tended to be vague and ambiguous. Many theories have been put forward about how the tradition began. Unfortunately, none of them are very compelling. Therefore, the origin of the "custom of making April Fools" remains as much a mystery to us as it was back in 1708.
Birthdays
1866 - Ferruccio Busoni, Italian composer, pianist, and teacher. He met and had close relations with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary figures of his time, and he was sought-after both as a keyboard instructor and as composition teacher. Extremely prolific, he rejected his earlier works and embarked on a highly stylistic ones that incorporated Italianate, occult, virtuoso, post-Bachian polyphonic, and Mozartian elements. He is known for his masterpiece, the opera Doktor Faust, that dismisses Wagnerian music-drama in favour of a highly humanist, warmly lyrical, and a visionary aesthetic. (Busoni's Piano Concerto in C major, Op. 39. Marc-André Hamelin piano. Sibelius Hall, Lahti - 31st March 2001. Uploaded by AllegroModerato. Accessed April 1, 2019. Note: Busoni's Piano Concerto in C major, Op. 39 (BV 247), is one of the largest works ever written in this genre. The concerto lasts around 70 minutes, in 5 movements.)
1873 - Sergei Rachmaninoff (or Sergey Rakhmaninov), Russian composer, conductor of the late Romantic period, and virtuoso pianist. He becomes an American citizen shortly before he died. Some of his works are among the most popular in the Romantic repertoire. Born into a musical family, Rachmaninoff took up the piano at age four. By the time he graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892 he had already composed several piano and orchestral pieces. In 1897, following the negative critical reaction to his Symphony No. 1, Rachmaninoff entered a four-year depression and composed little until successful therapy allowed him to complete his enthusiastically received Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1901. For the next sixteen years, he conducted at the Bolshoi Theatre, and relocated to Dresden, Germany, then toured the United States for the first time.(Van Cliburn performs Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, with Kirill Kondrashin conducting Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. YouTube, uploaded by classical rarities. Accessed June 5, 2020.)
1908 - Abraham Harold Maslow, American psychologist, best known for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization. He was a psychology professor at various colleges and universities in the U.S. Maslow stressed the importance of focusing on the positive qualities in people, as opposed to treating them as a "bag of symptoms". A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Maslow as the tenth most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
1909 - Eddy Duchin, American pianist and orchestra leader, famous in jazz circle and was a bandleader during his time. Playing what later came to be called "sweet" music rather than jazz, Duchin opened a similarly styled, piano-playing sweet bandleaders such as Henry King, Joe Reichman, Little Jack Little, and particularly Carmen Cavallaro who acknowledged Duchin's influence, to compete with the large jazz bands for radio time and record sales.
1917 - Dinu Lipatti (born Dinu Constantin Lipatti), Romanian Classical pianist and composer whose career was cut short by his death from causes related to Hodgkin's disease at age 33. He was elected posthumously to the Romanian Academy. (Listen to his beautiful interpretation of Mozart's famous Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, K.467. Uploaded by scartatum. Accessed April 1, 2018.)
1922 - William Manchester, American author, historian and biographer, known for The Glory and the Dream. He was the author of 18 books which have been translated into over 20 languages. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal and the Abraham Lincoln Literary Award.
1940 - Wangari Muta Maathai, Kenyan social, environmental and political activist and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. She was educated in the United States at Mount St. Scholastica and the University of Pittsburgh, as well as the University of Nairobi in Kenya.
Leftie:
Composer Sergei (Sergey) Rachmaninoff (Rakhmaninov)
Features:
1. Rachmaninoff and Busoni
2. Sergey Rachmaninov (Rachmaninoff) and his popular "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43" performed by pianist/composer Stephen Hough.
1747 - George F. Handel's oratorio Judas Maccabaeus is first performed in London.
1826 - The internal combustion engine is patented by U.S. inventor Samuel Morey. It meets with disinterest during Morey's lifetime and is not used in automobiles until the 1890s.
1. Rachmaninoff and Busoni
2. Sergey Rachmaninov (Rachmaninoff) and his popular "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43" performed by pianist/composer Stephen Hough.
Historical Events
1747 - George F. Handel's oratorio Judas Maccabaeus is first performed in London.
1826 - The internal combustion engine is patented by U.S. inventor Samuel Morey. It meets with disinterest during Morey's lifetime and is not used in automobiles until the 1890s.
