Celebration Day
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The Life You Give: Heinrich Heine *1797
Heinrich Heine, born Dec. 13, 1797, Düsseldorf, Germany, was a poet whose international literary reputation and influence were established by the Buch der Lieder (1827; The Book of Songs), frequently set to music, though the more sombre poems of his last years are also highly regarded. Heine was born of Jewish parents. His father was…
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Happy Birthday, Edvard Munch! *1863
Edvard Munch was a prolific yet perpetually troubled artist preoccupied with matters of human mortality such as chronic illness, sexual liberation, and religious aspiration. He expressed these obsessions through works of intense color, semi-abstraction, and mysterious subject matter. Following the great triumph of French Impressionism, Munch took up the more graphic, symbolist sensibility of the…
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Happy Birthday, Elliott Carter! *1908
Elliott Carter, born December 11, 1908, in New York, New York, was a composer, and musical innovator whose erudite style and novel principles of polyrhythm, called metric modulation, won worldwide attention. He was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music, in 1960 and 1973.Carter, who was born of a wealthy family, was educated at Harvard…
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Weekly Woman: Gloria Coates *1938
An American composer who has made her career for the most part in Germany, Gloria Coates was born in Wisconsin in 1938. As a child, she sang on local radio and in her early teens, she took top honors at a National Federation of Music Clubs Composition Contest. This girl from rural Wisconsin headed over…
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I died for beauty but was scarce
I died for beauty but was scarceAdjusted in the tomb,When one who died for truth was lainIn an adjoining room. He questioned softly why I failed?“For beauty,” I replied.“And I for truth, the two are one;We brethren are,” he said. And so, as kinsmen met a night,We talked between the rooms,Until the moss had reached…
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The Life You Give: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf *1915
Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, born Dec. 9, 1915, in Jarotschin, near Posen, Germany, [now Poznań, Poland] was a soprano who performed in the major opera houses of the Western world and is remembered especially for her mastery of German songs known as lieder. Schwarzkopf studied at the Berlin High School for Music from 1934, winning various…
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“When the music’s over”
When the music’s overWhen the music’s over, yeahTurn out the lightsTurn out the lightsFor the music is your special friendDance on fire as it intendsMusic is your only friendUntil the endUntil the endCancel my subscription to the resurrectionSend my credentials to the house of detentionI got some friends insideThe face in the mirror won’t stopThe…
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“Horse Latitudes”
Happy Birthday, Jim Morrison! —December8 1949 When the still sea conspires an armorAnd her sullen and aborted currentsBreed tiny monstersTrue sailing is deadAwkward instantAnd the first animal is jettisonedLegs furiously pumpingTheir stiff green gallopAnd heads bob upPoiseDelicatePauseConsentIn mute nostril agonyCarefully refinedAnd sealed over Written by Jim Morrison and John Paul Densmore
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The Life You Give: Sammy Davis, Jr. *1925
Sammy Davis, Jr., born December 8, 1925 in New York, New York, was a singer, dancer, and entertainer. At age three Davis began performing in vaudeville with his father and uncle, Will Mastin, in the Will Mastin Trio. Davis studied tap dancing under Bill (“Bojangles”) Robinson but never received a formal education. After serving in…
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Happy Birthday, Ray Shulman *1949 (Gentle Giant)
Ray Shulman was born on December 8 1949, as the younger of three boys to a family of Scottish-Jewish descent in Portsmouth, England. With his brothers, Derek, and Phil, the progressive rock group Gentle Giant was active from 1970 to 1980. Ray was Gentle Giant’s bassist, while also playing trumpet, violin, viola, cello, vocals, drums,…
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The Life You Give: Tom Waits *1949
Tom Waits, born December 7, 1949, in Pomona, California, is a singer-songwriter and actor whose gritty, sometimes romantic depictions of the lives of the urban underclass won him a loyal if limited following and the admiration of critics and prominent musicians who performed and recorded his songs. Born into a middle-class California family but enamoured…
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La Damnation de Faust (Berlioz) premiered today in 1846
“La Damnation de Faust” Opus 24Dramatic Legend for four soloists, children’s chorus, seven-part choir, and orchestra Composer: Hector Berlioz Librettists: Hector Berlioz, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, & Almire GandonnièrePremiere: December 6 1846 On this recording: Kenneth Riegel —- Tenor [Faust]José van Dam —- Bass [Méphistophélès]Frederica von Stade —- Mezzo-soprano [Marguerite] Malcolm King —- Bass [Brander]…
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The Life You Give: Rainer Maria Rilke *1875
Rainer Maria Rilke, born December 4 1875, in Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary [now in Czech Republic] was the poet who became internationally famous with such works as Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus. Rilke was the only son of a not-too-happy marriage. His father, Josef, a civil servant, was a man frustrated in his career; his…
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The Life You Give: Jean-Luc Godard *1930
Jean-Luc Godard, born December 3, 1930, Paris, France, is a French Swiss film director who came to prominence with the New Wave group in France during the late 1950s and the ’60s. Early life and career Godard’s first feature film, À bout de souffle (1960; Breathless), which was produced by François Truffaut, his colleague on…
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The Life You Give: Ozzy Osbourne *1948
Ozzy Osbourne, born John Michael Osbourne on December 3, 1948, Birmingham, England, is the musician who gained a loyal following as the vocalist for the heavy metal group Black Sabbath before embarking on a successful solo career. Raised in a working-class family, Osbourne dropped out of school at age 15 and held several low-paying jobs.…
Sila Blume 