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>
Show replies by date