Tag: Open Thread
May 14 2010
Open Island
May 14 2010
On This Day in History: May 14
On this day in 1936, Bobby Darin (born Walden Robert Cassotto) was born in the Bronx. In his short career he became the legend that he said he wanted to be before his death at 37 in 1973. His hits “Mack the Knife”, “Splish Splash”, “By the Sea”, “Dream Lover”, “Beyond the Sea” and “You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby” are still heard today. Darin successfully moved into movies garnering an Academy Award nomination for “Best Supporting Actor” in the movie Captain Newman, M.D. (1963).
In 1960, Darin married Sandra Dee. They had one son and divorced in 1967. In 1971, he underwent heart surgery in Los Angeles to repair damaged heart valves that he had lived with since childhood. He spent the next year recovering from that surgery and became a spokes person for the American Heart Association.
In 1973, after failing to take medication before a dental procedure, he developed a blood infection that further weakened his heart. On December 19, he under went a second surgery to repair the same two valves that had previously been repaired. After 6 hours of surgery that initially appeared to be successful, he died suddenly in Recovery without ever regaining consciousness on December 20.
Happy Birthday, Bobby
May 14 2010
Land of Hope and Glory
Who says the English have no sense of humor? The food is an exquisite exercise in irony and their two most famous composers, Haydn and Handel are, well, German. But then so is the Monarchy.
Yet if ever a composer could be said to be ‘The’ English Composer, it would probably be Edward Elgar. If you graduated even from Beauty School in the last hundred or so years, you were shepherded into the ceremony to the Trio of March #1 in D– Land of Hope and Glory.
He was a product of late Victorian/Edwardian Nationalism and like many after World War I, came to question some of his previous assumptions. By that time however he was already looked at as the Rudyard Kipling of English music and his reputation has suffered from it since.
It can’t be said he lacked a sense of humor, his first ‘famous’ piece, the Enigma Variations, was actually an extended satire of the various musical acquaintances he had made in 20 odd years as a professional performer. But that’s not the joke, the joke is that the true ‘theme’ the variations were composed around is never played and was never disclosed and remains a subject of controversy to this day.
Elgar came to be seen as the successor to Arthur Sullivan and after an incredible surge of popularity between 1900 and 1912 he was Knighted and eventually appointed Master of the King’s Musick (where he eliminated the ‘k’, I told you he had a sense of humor).
After his wife’s death and post war loss of popularity he devoted himself to his ‘hobbies’, rooting for the Wolverhampton Wanderers and playing the ponies (“Get your ice cream. Get your Tootsie Fruitsie ice cream.”).
He also recorded and was one of the very first people to use EMI’s famous Abbey Road Studios (yes, that one). Of course it was March #1 in D, “Play this tune as though you’ve never heard it before.”
The Cello Concerto in E Minor (Op. 85) that I am featuring tonight is highly regarded by Elgarians, it has 4 Movements posted by markvogue in 5 parts. This performance is by Jaqueline DuPre conducted by Daniel Barenboim.
May 13 2010
Afternoon Edition
Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 BP readies new bid to contain Gulf of Mexico spill
by Alex Ogle, AFP
52 mins ago
| NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – BP was poised Thursday for a fresh bid to contain the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, hoping its “top hat” box can funnel leaking crude up a mile-long pipe into a waiting tanker.
Operations could begin as early as Thursday, as congressional hearings revealed multiple warning signs were overlooked before the April 20 blast on the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon rig. The indicators of things being wrong included a key pressure test that failed during final operations to seal the well being drilled about 50 miles (80 kilometers) offshore. |
May 13 2010
On This Day in History: May 13
On this day in 1964, Stephen Colbert, American comedian and actor, was born in Washington,D.C., the youngest of 11 children. He was raised in Charleston, South Carolina on James Island until the death of his father and two brothers in a plane crash in 1974, when his mother moved the family to Charleston city proper. During high school he participated in plays and a Rolling Stones cover band.
After graduating from Northwestern University’s School of Communications, he was hired by “Second City” answering phones and selling souvenirs later performing with the touring company as an under study for Steve Carell. He has since written, created and performed a number of comedy shows from “Exit 57” to “Strangers with Candy” and even a gig on “Good Morning America”. He was hired in 1997 by the producer of “The Daily Show”.
His correspondent character, which he described as “a fool who has spent a lot of his life playing not the fool”, would eventually evolve into the parody “Stephen Colbert” character of the much acclaimed “The Colbert Report”. He carries off his parody character so well that many believe that it is really Colbert himself. His performance at the “White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner” in 2006, while not well received that night, became wildly popular on the internet and with the media.
Colbert has also acted in films and TV dramas (Law & Order: Criminal Intent)and provided the voice for animated characters (Phil, “Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law”, “The Venture Bros.” and “The Simpsons”). His book, “I Am America (And So Can You!)”, was #1 on the NYT Best Seller. He was assistant team psychologist for the 2010 US Olympic Speed Skating team and was part of the NBC coverage.
Colbert is married to Evelyn McGee-Colbert, has three children, 2 boys and a girl, and lives in Montclair, New Jersey. He is a self proclaimed Democrat and stated in a speech at Kennedy School of Government at Harvard Institute of Politics, that “he has “no problems with Republicans, just Republican policies.”
Happy 46th Birthday, Stephen
May 13 2010
Piano Rolls
So I was looking at Debussy (which I swear I’ll get to, but it’s really complicated) and shopping for YouTubes when I ran across 2 Piano Rolls of his.
What’s a Piano Roll? Basically a Paper Tape to program your Player Piano which is one reason why aficionados like to call them ‘digital recordings’ (another would be a lame pun about fingers).
You see, your performer sits down at a Reproducing Piano, plays the piece, and punches holes in the tape. Then you take your master tape to a duplicator and sooner than you can say ‘Bob’s your Uncle’ you can be selling them to every bar, honky tonk, saloon, or whatever too cheap to hire a piano player, but willing to spend big bucks on a hunk of obsolete equipment (capitalism, gotta love it).
The beauty part is the sound reproduction.
Instead of a scratchy unrecognizable mess like we heard from Brahms on Saturday, you get an exact duplicate of the tempo, duration, and pitch (assuming your piano is tuned) of each note. It doesn’t do volume so well, or at least not in a standardized way.
Still it is a remarkable ‘voice of the pharohs’ device that has preseved the performances of such famous composers as Debussy (of course), but also Gershwin, Grieg, Joplin, Mahler, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, and Scriabin (well, that wiki lists, there are doubtless others).
Both pieces tonight are Debussy playing Debussy via Piano Roll. The one on the left is Arabesque #2 posted by jero13595. It has pretty pictures. The one on the right is very static visually, but you’ll instantly recognize it (and perhaps be reminded of another Piano Roll composer). The title is Golliwogg’s Cakewalk and it was posted by theoshow2.
May 13 2010
Afternoon Edition
Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 BP banking on ‘top-hat’ to cap US oil leak
by Alex Ogle, AFP
51 mins ago
| VENICE, Louisiana (AFP) – BP battled Wednesday to cap a huge oil leak, lowering a box dubbed “a top-hat” into the Gulf of Mexico amid mounting US anger over a spill flowing unchecked for three weeks.
Frustrated by the lack of progress so far, President Barack Obama dispatched a top team to BP’s command center in Houston, Texas, to discuss how to stop the estimated 210,000 gallons of oil spewing into the sea daily from a sunken rig. Energy Secretary Steven Chu voiced some optimism as he emerged from the talks, as oil company executives were grilled for a second day by lawmakers in Washington. |
May 12 2010
On This Day in History: May 12
On this day in 1937, George Denis Patrick Carlin was born in the Bronx. He was raised by his mother in Morningside Heights which he and his friends called “White Harlem” because it sounded tougher. He was raised Irish Catholic and educated in Catholic schools. He often ran away from home. After joining the Air Force while stationed in Louisiana, Carlin became a DJ in Shreveport starting on his long career in entertainment. Carlin rose to fame during the 60’s and 70’s, generating the most controversy with his famous “Seven Dirty Words”:
Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that’ll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war.
His arrest and the subsequent FCC rulings ended up in the Supreme Court which upheld the right of the FCC to regulate the public airways. In the ruling it called the routine “indecent but not obscene”.
In 1961, Carlin was also present in the audience the night that Lenny Bruce was arrested in San Fransisco for obscenity. He was arrested, as well, after the police, who were questioning the audience, asked Carlin for ID. He said he didn’t have any because he didn’t believe in government-issued ID’s.
We all know the rest. His popularity as a comic and “commentarian” on politics, religion and social issues made him a popular guest on late night talk shows. His death in June 22, 2008 saddened many. He left behind his second wife, Sally Wade, whom he married after his first wife Brenda died of liver cancer in 1997. He left a daughter by his first marriage, Kelly.
Happy Birthday, George, you are missed.
May 12 2010
Amy Beach
Well I told you I wanted to get away from those depressing Russians and Germans so I went looking far across the Atlantic where I found a little place called Hennicker, New Hampshire and a composer named Amy Beach.
She was quite the prodigy and started composing at the age of 4. In her whole life she only had one year of formal education in composition, when she was 14, although she did receive extensive training in performance.
At 16 she made her professional debut and was soon a soloist with the Boston Symphony Opera. Two years later she married a surgeon 24 years older who requested that she perform only once a year.
So she devoted herself to composing and was soon considered one of the major American composers. She composed a piece to open the Women’s Building at the Columbia Exposition in 1893.
When her husband died she toured Europe for several years and upon her return was particularly noted for teaching and mentoring young musicians. She was the first President of the Society of American Women Composers and wrote a book laying out her mostly self-taught compositional principles- Ten Commandments for Young Composers.
Her best known works are her Mass in E Flat Major, the Gaelic Symphony, and her opera Cabildo. This piece, Piano Concerto Op. 45, starts on the right and continues below the fold. It was posted by deviantrake.