Beethoven Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op.92

The Western Connecticut Youth Orchestra spring concert 2013. The orchestra plays Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Performed in the Clune Auditorium at Wilton High School on 3rd March 2013.

 

Promenade. (Walking the dog). George Gershwin.

Promenade. (Walking the dog). George Gershwin.

 

Quotation: Virginia Woolf

Never are voices so beautiful as on a winter’s evening, when dusk almost hides the body, and they seem to issue from nothingness with a note of intimacy seldom heard by day.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

 

Today’s Birthday: DANIEL BOONE (1734)

Daniel Boone (1734)

Boone was a legendary American frontiersman who blazed a permanent trail across the Appalachian Mountains in 1775. Known as “Wilderness Road,” it became a major route for westward migration in the US. Boone also established Boonesboro, Kentucky, and was captured by Shawnee Indians while trying to defend it. He escaped after five months but moved to the Missouri Territory after losing his land claims in Kentucky. He gained international fame after what British poet mentioned him in an epic?More…

 

This Day in the Yesteryear: FIRST AND ONLY FLIGHT OF THE “SPRUCE GOOSE” (1947)

First and Only Flight of the “Spruce Goose” (1947)

A few years before going into complete seclusion, millionaire aviator and airplane manufacturer Howard Hughes built and piloted the only flight of the Hughes H-4 Hercules, the largest flying boat—indeed the largest airplane—in history. He designed the seaplane as a troop and materiel transport for the US War Department and manufactured it almost entirely from wood because of wartime restrictions on the use of aluminum. Though nicknamed the “Spruce Goose,” it was actually primarily made of what? More…

 

GERMANY RECOGNIZES THIRD GENDER

Germany has become the first European country to legally recognize a third sex—indeterminate. Parents there may now leave the gender box blank on their children’s birth certificates, a move aimed to meet the needs of those babies born with both male and female or ambiguous sex characteristics or genetics. Until now, parents of intersexchildren had to make rapid decisions not just about which gender to put down on the birth certificates but also whether to take surgical steps to match the infants‘ physical appearances to the selected gender. Experts now believe that this sort of sex assignment early in life can have negative psychological consequences down the line. More…

 

ATONALITY

Musical compositions that do not use an established musical key are said to be atonal. Atonality is a radical alternative to the diatonic system—the natural major or minor scales that form the basis of the key system in Western music. After World War I, an atonal system of composing emerged using 12 tones. By World War II, however, “atonality” had become a pejorative term to condemn music perceived as lacking structure and coherence. In Nazi Germany, atonal music was also criticized as what? More…