Arnold Bax (1883–1953) was an English composer, poet, and author. Best known for his orchestral music, he also wrote songs, choral music, chamber pieces, and solo piano works. In addition to a series of symphonic poems, he wrote seven symphonies, and was for a time widely regarded as the leading British symphonist. Bax was born in Streatham to a prosperous family who encouraged his music career, and his private income enabled him to follow his own path as a composer without regard for fashion or orthodoxy. While still a student at the Royal Academy of Music, Bax became fascinated with Ireland and the Celtic Revival. In the years before the First World War he lived in Ireland and became a member of Dublin literary circles, writing fiction and verse under the pseudonym Dermot O'Byrne. His best-known work is the symphonic poem Tintagel (1917). In 1942 Bax was appointed Master of the King's Music.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Bax

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1834:

The Tolpuddle Martyrs were sentenced to transportation to Australia for swearing a secret oath as members of a friendly society in Dorset, England. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolpuddle_Martyrs

1915:

First World War: In one of the largest naval battles of the Gallipoli campaign, Ottoman forces sank three Allied battleships (French battleship Bouvet pictured) and severely damaged three others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_operations_in_the_Dardanelles_campaign

1970:

U.S. postal workers began an eight-day strike after Congress raised their wages by only 4 percent despite increasing its own pay by 41 percent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._postal_strike_of_1970

1990:

Thieves stole thirteen works of art collectively valued at $500 million from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum_theft

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

jar: 1. (transitive) To preserve (food) in a jar. […] 2. (transitive) To knock, shake, or strike sharply, especially causing a quivering or vibrating movement. 3. (transitive) To harm or injure by such action. 4. (transitive, figuratively) To shock or surprise. 5. (transitive, figuratively) To act in disagreement or opposition, to clash, to be at odds with; to interfere; to dispute, to quarrel. 6. (transitive, intransitive) To (cause something to) give forth a rudely tremulous or quivering sound; to (cause something to) sound discordantly or harshly. 7. (intransitive) To quiver or vibrate due to being shaken or struck. 8. (intransitive, figuratively) Of the appearance, form, style, etc., of people and things: to look strangely different; to stand out awkwardly from its surroundings; to be incongruent. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jar

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Man is an animal, but a social animal. Society for its manifold blessings asks in exchange sacrifice and compromise. Concession is the world's walking gait. Fevers and hallucinations sweep over us, it is true; but be they permitted to infect the public body, slaughter shall result. Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading.   --John Updike https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Updike