Music gained popularity in the intimate nineteenth-century parlour. At the time, home life was centred in the salon, or parlour, where children played and learned with adult supervision, and where the family entertained company.
Carnival in Cologne is almost as old as the history of the city itself. But it has been celebrated in the organized fashion we know today for only about 190 years. The Greeks and the Romans celebrated joyous spring festivals in honor of Dionysus and Saturn with wine, women and song. The ancient Germans celebrated the winter solstice in order to pay homage to the gods and drive out the evil demons of winter. In later times, the Christians adopted these heathen customs. Lent, the period of fasting before Easter, was ushered in by carnival (carne vale = Farewell to meat!).
I make no excuse for focusing on the European artistes of yesterday. They endure through the centuries. Perhaps younger generations will discover that true quality doesn’t need to be built on marketing and real talent doesn’t have a ‘sell by’ date on it.
Have you ever relaxed as your ears breathed in the dreamiest piano music imaginable? The John Field (1782~1837) experience is to enjoy the most sensual massage by the world’s most gifted masseur.
Although I took my Liverpool working-class roots for granted few others did so. Wherever in the world we ‘Scousers’ went we were feted as celebrities. The Beatles in the 1960s were taking the world by storm. There were many other Liverpool legends like Billy Fury and Charlie Landsborough (Birkenhead) and, of course, Gerry Marsden of the Pacemakers.
In the UK, 500 people sang a folk song at the same time via video link, dedicating an unusual flash mob to the New Year and hopes that all the bad things were left behind.
Twelfth Night (also known as Epiphany Eve) is a festival in some branches of Christianity that takes place on the last night of the Twelve Days of Christmas, marking the coming of the Epiphany. Different traditions mark the date of Twelfth Night as either 5 January or 6 January, depending on whether the counting begins on Christmas or 26 December.
Every age should have its giants; men who will not only reach the epoch of their calling but become a master of other men’s crafts. Herbert von Karajan (April 5 1908 – July 16 1989) was such a man. Many regard him as the greatest conductor ever to mount the podium, the greatest translator of Europe’s classical music.
Partying at home on New Year’s? Here’s a list of livestream events that will bring pop, rock and classical music concerts straight to the living room.
This government has only one way, to go away on its own. Raimonds Pauls is a Latvian composer and piano player who is well known in Russia and the Baltic States, indeed, much further afield. He was the Minister of culture of Latvia from 1988 to 1993.
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