The Morning Delivery

Preparing for Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee

 

Queen Elizabeth II, wearing St. Edward's Crown at her coronation on June 2, 1953

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Britain will be ablaze in lavish festivities this weekend, marking the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II ascending to the throne.

Princess Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip were actually not in England, but on a safari in Kenya when she learned her father, George VI died on February 6, 1952.

Under British tradition, the monarch succeeds automatically on the death of his or her predecessor. The coronation is simply a public declaration of their new position. Patrick Allitt, a native of Derbyshire, England and Professor of U.S. History at Emory University, believes since the weather is traditionally so ``beastly’’ in February, the government most likely decided to postpone the ceremony until the summer. 

The coronation for Queen Elizabeth took place on June 2, 1953, with some 8,000 invited guests, including prime ministers and heads of state present as she took the oath of office to serve her people as queen.

Though there is usually a gap between when the succession and the public coronation, that wasn’t always the case.  Early British tradition held that a monarch was not really king until he was crowned. Harold II (1066) for example, was crowned on the same day of Edward the Confessor’s burial, while Henry I was crowned just three days after the death of his brother, William Rufus in 1100.

The coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953 was revolutionary in that it marked the first time television cameras were allowed inside Westminster Abbey.  53 percent of the adult population of Great Britain (over 19 million) reportedly viewed the procession-and 56 percent (over 20 million)-viewed the Coronation Service, leaving only 12 percent of the adult population who showed no interest in listening of viewing the coronation.

Allowing television cameras to capture the coronation was in fact merely an extension of technological innovations surrounding other such pomp and pageantry. The coronation of her father, George VI (1937) was recorded by cinematography for the first time; and the first coronation photographs were taken at the public ceremony of George V, Elizabeth’s grandfather, in 1911.

Queen Elizabeth’s coronation was the 38th in the present Abbey church and the 50th to have taken place in Westminster.

The ceremony at the coronation has hardly changed over the last 1,000 years, though there have been a few modifications. The preliminary walk to the abbey was abandoned by Charles I in 1625; while the banquet in Westminster Hall was dropped by William IV in 1831.  Elaborate embellishments, meanwhile, were made beginning in 1660, when swords were added; one of them was lost in subsequent years and was replaced with another one in 1678. A Bible was added to the ceremony in 1689 and ``Zadok the Priest’’ was an anthem composed by George Frideric Handel specifically for the coronation of George II in 1727.

59 years ago, June 2, 1953, Elizabeth walked into the Abbey at the end of a procession of 250, pausing first at Theatre, located between the Choir and Sanctuary. There were three chairs used during the ceremony by the Sovereign-the Chair of State: the Throne, and King Edward's Chair, holding the Stone of Scone, first used for the coronation of Edward II in 1308.

A rite known as the ``Recognition’’ was presided over by the Archbishop who presented the Queen to the congregation and asked if they were willing to do homage and service. All roared in unison: `` God Save Queen Elizabeth’’ with the sound of trumpets smothering the air.

The oath followed and the presentation of the Bible, and then the communion service began. After the Creed, the Queen took her place in King Edward's Chair, dressed in an unadorned white gown, waiting to be anointed.  She was invested with the royal robes and ornaments:  the Jewelled Sword, the Armills (gold bracelets of sovereignty and wisdom), the Orb and Sceptre and the Coronation Ring. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury, raising high the heavy crown of Edward the Confessor, solemnly lowered it  on to the Queen's head, while everyone rose to their feet.

All shouted, ``God Save the Queen’’, with trumpets blaring and the guns of the Tower of London firing a Royal Salute.

The Queen and Prince Phillip then made their way to St. Edward's Chapel where the Queen was festooned in her Royal Purple Robe, while the heavy St. Edward's Crown was replaced by the lighter Imperial State Crown.

To end the ceremony, the newly crowned Queen moved with her great procession through the Abbey to the West Door to the sounds of the National Anthem and the pealing of bells.

The coronation parade included the Queen's magnificent carriage surrounded by a phalanx of horse guards, sultans, prime ministers, heads of state and military troops from throughout the Empire and Commonwealth.  Later in the evening, Prime Minister Winston Churchill introduced the Queen's coronation day speech on radio and television. ``Let it not be thought the age of Chivalry belongs in the past. Here at the summit of our worldwide community is a lady, the Queen.’’

When the parade ended, Elizabeth, only 27 years old, with her family beside her, stood on the Buckingham Palace balcony, waving to the euphoric crush of people (despite the heavy rain) as jet planes of the Royal Air Force blazed across the Mall in tight formation.

In a pre-recorded Coronation message later that evening, the Queen addressing the 16 independent countries in which she is head of state, counseled her subjects to guard freedom and practice tolerance, ``so we can go forward together in peace.’’ ``Throughout all my life’’ the Queen said in her moving radio broadcast, `` and with all my heart I shall strive to be worthy of your trust.’’

A Footnote: Queen Elizabeth made history a few years later when she delivered her first televised Christmas speech in 1957. The royal Christmas radio broadcast was a long established tradition which was first inaugurated by George V in 1932.

Though Queen Elizabeth’s coronation was carried off splendidly without any embarrassing blunders, there have been a few mishaps and minor calamities at other coronations in British history. 

William the Conqueror’s coronation (1066), for example, was spoiled by the massacre of his new Saxon subjects. In 1599, Elizabeth I complained that the holy oil was too greasy and had a foul smell.

In addition, in 1727, Queen Caroline was forced to borrow jewels since George I had given the rest to his mistresses. George IV, meanwhile, had some unsolicited theatrics at his coronation in 1821 when his estranged wife demanded to be let in the church right in the middle of the ceremony.  Queen Victoria during her coronation in 1838 was in agonizing pain, or so she claimed, when the archbishop clumsily pushed the ring on her wrong finger; and in 1937, King George VI recalled the archbishop was juggling the crown on his head so much that he never did find out if it was put on his head the wrong way.

Despite plenty of optimism at the time of Elizabeth’s coronation with British journalists speaking of a new ``Elizabethan age to come’’, the early part of her reign was in fact marked by severe economic challenges and financial hardships.  Europe was beginning to recover economically, especially Germany which was quickly becoming a dangerous competitor. In addition to the European recovery, the Eastern economies of Japan, Hong Kong and Korea, were producing televisions, radios, refrigerators and computers at mad clips, representing a formidable threat to the UK.

Aside from their economic challenges, Britain’s railways, mines, shipyards and cotton mills desperately needed upgrading and a fresh infusion of investment, while there was a public clamor at home for new hospitals, schools and badly needed housing.

Finally, Elizabeth’s reign witnessed the collapse of the Empire in quick succession.  Britain withdrew from Malaya and Ghana in 1957, Nigeria in 1960, Sierra Leone and Tanganyika  in 1961, Uganda, Jamaica and Trinidad in 1962, Zambia and Aden in 1964. Britain had already withdrawn from India in 1948 before Elizabeth ascended to the throne.

Elizabeth II or Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was born to the Duke and Duchess of York on April 21, 1926.  Her sister, Margaret Rose was born in 1930. The unexpected abdication of her uncle, Edward VII, brought her father, Albert Frederick Arthur George to the throne as George VI. She married her distant cousin, a naval officer, Philip Mountbatten (Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, a former Prince of Greece and Denmark ), in November, 1947 with the first of their four children, a son,  Prince Charles born a year later in 1948.

On April 21, 2006, Queen Elizabeth at age 80 became the third oldest person to hold the British crown.

-Bill Lucey
WPLucey@gmail.com
June 1, 2002

 

50 Years Ago, Britten's War Requiem Premieres

 

All that is left of St. Michael's Cathedral, Coventry, England in 1940 after heavy German bombardment during the Battle of Britain.

English conductor and organist Meredith Davies (center left) and English composer Benjamin Britten (center  right) at Coventry Cathedral preparing for the premiere of Britten's 'War Requiem', for which they shared the conducting duties. (Photo by Erich Auerbach/Getty Images)

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50 years ago, May 30, 1962, Benjamin Britten’s ``War Requiem’’ premiered at St. Michael's Cathedral,  Coventry, England. Even before this historic performance, it was universally acclaimed a masterpiece.

In the Requiem, Britten combines words of the liturgical Missa pro Defuntis (Mass for the Dead) in Latin with nine anti-war poems by William Owen, who was considered the most distinguished of 'the poets of protest' in the 1914 war. Owen was killed in France on November 4, 1918-just a week before the Armistice-fighting in the Company of the Second Lancashire Regiment. He was 25.

With the war nearing its end, Owen wrote what turned out to be his last piece of writing, a letter to his Mother on October 31: "It is a great life. I am more oblivious than alas! yourself, dear Mother, of the ghastly glimmering of the guns outside, and the hollow crashing of the shells. . . Of this I am certain: you could not be visited by a band of friends half so fine as surround me here.''

Owen considered war to be the ``failure of Christianity’’, views corresponding with Britten’s Christian humanism, including his pacifism, which led him to register as a conscientious objector during World War II.

In reciting Owens’s poems, this profound lament for the war dead arranged by Britten are sung by the solo tenor and baritone, accompanied by a chamber orchestra; while the solo soprano and chorus are accompanied by the full orchestra.  A distant boys' chorus, accompanied only by organ, appears in selected parts of the text to underscore somber conditions of incorruptibility and innocence.

Britten conducted the first performance with a solo trio, which consisted of Galina Vishnevskaya, Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau and Peter Pears. Britten regarded the three solo singers as fitting representatives of the countries that bore the brunt of the global conflict: England, Germany and Russia.

A Footnote: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the legendary German baritone, who performed at the premiere of Britten’s Requiem in 1962, died recently (May 18, 2012) at the age of 86: [See Guardian obituary  ]

The War Requiem gained even more international acclaim when it was performed in London at Westminster Abbey on December 6, 1962. By the end of 1963, it had been performed in a number of major cities around the world, including Berlin, Boston, Paris, Perugia and Prague. Such a strong impression did the Requiem make that the Decca gramophone recording sold over 200,000 sets in only five months.

Britten was commissioned to write a Requiem for the rededication of St. Michaels Cathedral, which had been shattered beyond repair during the Second World War, when factories located in this industrial heartland of the Midlands, suffered merciless bombardment by the German Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain on November 14, 1940, causing the ancient wooden beams supporting the cathedral to collapse amid the steady rain of incendiary shells.  The only remaining relic from this medieval parish church was its walls which were kept as a reminder of the destructive nature of war. Also surviving after the bombing had stopped, among a sea of thousands of dead Britons in the rubble from surrounding neighborhoods, was the cathedral’s single tower.

St. Michaels dates back to 1043, when it was founded as a Benedictine community by Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and his wife Codiva.  The cornerstone for the new cathedral was designed by the Scottish architect, Basil Spence, which was laid by Her Majesty the Queen on March 23, 1956, with the official consecration of the building taking place on May 25, 1962.

After the war, it was decided to rebuild the church with a new design.

Though the War Requiem was intended as a reflective lamentation for the dead during the Great War-juxtaposed with Owen’s poetry—it is in fact a sorrowful howling for all wars: past, present and future; whether it be the battle of the Somme or Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

The UK lost 887,748 soldiers in World War I, 383, 683 in World War II; and since the Second World War, 3,473 UK troops have gone to their graves in different theaters of operation around the world, according to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Edward Benjamin Britten, the son of Robert Victor Britten, a dentist, and Edith (who sang in an amateur chorus) and the youngest of four children, was born at 21 Kirkley Cliff Road, in a house facing the North Sea on St. Cecilia Day (patroness of musicians) in the Suffolk town of Lowestof, southeast of Norwich on November 22, 1913.

This aspiring child prodigy began composing at age 5; by age 14 he had written 10 piano sonatas, 6 string quartets, 3 suites for piano, an oratorio and dozens of songs.  Soon after graduating from London's Royal College of Music in 1933 where he studied composition with John Ireland and Frank Bridge and piano with Arthur Benjamin and Harold Samuel, he was offered a position writing music for the documentary films being produced by the British Post Office. The eager young English composer wrote scores for 18 documentary films and one feature, ``Love from a Stranger'', a 1937 mystery thriller starring Ann Harding and Basil Rathbone.

In 1937, Britten crossed paths with the English tenor Peter Pears; the two formed an intimate relationship lasting 40 years. Pears melodious operatic voice inspired a number of works by Britten. 

His international reputation, meanwhile, took shape beginning in 1945 with ``Peter Grimes'', an opera which was performed at the Metropolitan Opera Company in 1948.  This was followed with ``The Rape of Lucretia'' (1946), an opera in two acts, ``Albert Herring'' (1947), a comic opera, a recomposition of ``The Beggar's Opera'' (1948) and a children's piece, ``The Little Sweep’’ (1949).  Also meeting with critical acclaim was his opera based on Henry James's ``The Turn of the Screw’’ (1954) which made its way to the New York City Opera.

Among his choral works, the most celebrated include: ``A Ceremony of Carols'', ``Les Illuminations,'' for solo voice and orchestra; ``Spring Symphony'' and ``Symphony for Cello and Orchestra.’’

Britten’s most stinging setback came in 1951 when he was commissioned to compose an opera for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. ``Gloriana'' (1953), was ruthlessly assailed by critics and was arguably the English composer’s least successful effort.

Taken together, Britten produced almost 100 compositions, ranging from full scale operas to musical compositions for children.  His interest in providing children with a strong musical education was evident with ``The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra'' a musical composition originally commissioned for an educational documentary film called ``The Instruments of the Orchestra’’ which received additional notoriety when it was used by Jerome Robbins for his ballet, ``Fanfare.’’

Music historians attribute Britten’s pacifism to his association early in his life with the poet, W.H. Auden, considered to be one of the most important influences on his life, who also provided Britten with the text for his first major song cycle, ``Our Hunting Fathers’’ (1936).

``Death in Venice’’ based on the novella by Thomas Mann would be the last of Britten's 15 operas and stage pieces in 1973. Critics point out this work revealed his most public statement yet concerning his life long relationship with Peter Pears.

Because of his resistance to the war, Britten fled for the United States between 1939 to 1942, spending most of his time in Brooklyn Heights, New York at 7 Middagh Street in a brick house owned by George Davis, a magazine editor who was married to Gypsy Rose Lee.

While in the United States, Britten completed a violin concerto, an operetta (Paul Bunyan), his first symphony (Sinfonia da Requiem), and his first string quartet.  What’s more, ``Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge ‘’ (1937) was performed by orchestras in Toronto, New York, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco.

The most enthusiastically received of Britten's new compositions performed in the United States was the Violin Concerto, with Olin Downes  of The New York Times, describing it as "sometimes very simple, often very brilliant, [but] nevertheless so expert that the violin is never covered when it is intended to show forth, while at no time does the writing appear impractical or ineffective."

So uncomfortable with other British artists making concerted sacrifices during the war (William Walton, for example, was reportedly driving an ambulance; Lennox Berkeley was a fire-watcher; Edmund Rubbra and Alan Bush had joined the army), while he was still plying his trade and drawing a handsome salary on foreign soil, that Britten returned to England in 1942 and applied for registration as a conscientious objector. He was soon granted exemption from military service in return for writing music for the British Broadcasting Corporation's propaganda broadcasts.

After the war, discouraged his homeland had only two opera companies, Britten founded the English Opera Group in 1947; and later in collaboration with Peter Pears and the librettist Eric Crozier, created the annual Aldeburgh Festival in 1948, (Aldeburgh is a coastal town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England), which in addition to providing a much needed venue for opera performances, also included readings of poetry, literature, drama, lectures and exhibitions of art.

So warmly received was his ``War Requiem’’, that in July, 1964, Britten traveled to Aspen, Colorado to receive the newly established Aspen Award by Robert Anderson of the Institute of Humanistic Studies at Aspen.

Suffering from a defective heart valve, Britten underwent an operation on May 7, 1973 at the National Heart Hospital, which left him an invalid. Lingering helplessly for three years, England’s greatest composer since Henry Purcell in the 17th century, died on December 4, 1976 at his country home in Aldeburgh England, twelve days after his 63rd birthday and just six months after Queen Elizabeth granted him a life peerage when he became Baron Britten of Aldeburgh.

He was buried in the graveyard of Aldebrugh Parish Church. A service of Thanksgiving for his life and work was held in London, at Westminster Abbey on March 10, 1977.

Upon hearing the news of his death, the New York Philharmonic issued a statement echoed by its principal conductor Leonard Bernstein, stating: ``Britten’s creative output has greatly enriched the history of music.’’ Aaron Copland, considered the most influential friend to Britten during his time in the United States, told The New York Times in its obituary of the English composer that ``He [Britten] wrote some of the best music of our period and was undoubtedly England’s most distinguished and gifted living composer.’’ In the same obituary, violinist Yehudi Menuhin, observed that Britten had provided a ``link with the great Elizabethan tradition, which is reflowering today, largely thanks to him.’’

-Bill Lucey
WPLucey@gmail.com
May 30, 2012

 

20 Years Ago, Johnny Carson Bids a ``Heartfelt Goodnight!’’

On October 1, 1962, Groucho Marx introduced Johnny Carson as the new host of the Tonight Show.

Source: AP

Johnny Carson shakes hands with the show's announcer Ed McMahon during the final taping of "The Tonight Show" in Burbank, Ca., Friday, May 22, 1992,

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20 years ago, May 22, 1992, Johnny Carson, age 66, after serving as the Tonight Show host for 30 years, including 4,531 shows, while interviewing approximately 24,000 guests, tapes his final show at the NBC studios in Burbank Calif.

``I bid you a very heartfelt goodnight’’ was Carson’s final words before fading deep into the night.

He was succeeded by Jay Leno on May 25, 1992.

The crowned ``King of Late Night’’, except for a brief appearance celebrating Bob Hope’s 90th birthday in 1993 and hand delivering a top 10 list to David Letterman in 1994, never again popped up on any television show either as a guest or host of a special presentation.

Carson,  not quite 37, a shy Midwesterner and known only to a modest television audience as host of the ABC quiz game show, ``Who Do You Trust’’,  began his miraculous run on October 1, 1962 with guests Tony Bennett, Rudy Vallee, Joan Crawford, Groucho Marx, and a rising comedy writer, Mel Brooks,

A Footnote: Among the personalities, who turned down offers by NBC to replace Jack Paar, included:  Bob Newhart, Jackie Gleason, Joey Bishop, and Groucho Marx.

Carson lived up to the grand billing he was given in the 26 weeks between Jack Paar’s last show and his debut on the Tonight show, which paid him just a shade over $100,000 a year.  During Carson’s first week, fan mail reportedly flew in at a rate of 12,000 letters a week, a rate never witnessed before in NBC’s entire television history.  During its first six months, the program averaged over seven million viewers; and by the time he passed the baton to Leno, the Tonight Show audience had leaped to 15 million, generating approximately 17 percent of the network's total profit, making it one of the biggest money makers in network history.

A Footnote: Carson’s single biggest audience came on Dec. 17, 1969, when Tiny Tim, an American singer and ukulele player, married 17 year-old  Vicki Budinger  or ``Miss Vicki’’ before an estimated 58 million viewers.

Jack Paar, Carson’s predecessor, told the Saturday Evening Post in a December 1962 interview that ``Carson is a natural wit. He’ll do well.  I recommended him personally to the network.’’

But not all greeted this tall skinny comedian’s entry into late night television with such enthusiasm.  “He [Carson] exhibits all the charm of a snickering small boy scribbling graffiti on a public wall’’ wrote John Horn of the New York Herald Tribune,  demonstrating “no apparent gift for the performing arts.”

From the outset, Carson wanted no part of his predecessor’s signature combativeness and emotional tension which he brought to the Tonight Show from 1957 through 1962, opting instead for a more good natured genial approach without lobbing hand grenades to his guests. ``I have no intention of being Mike Wallace’’ Carson told the Saturday Evening Post in 1962.
 
Under his 30-year supremacy, Carson earned six Emmy Awards, was the recipient of the Friar's Club Entertainer of the Year (1965, 1969), the Harvard Hasty Pudding Club Man of the Year in 1977, a Peabody award winner in 1985, winner of People's Choice Awards in 1987, inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1987, received the American Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award (1992), the same year he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President H.W. Bush, along with the 1993 Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Award, while hosting the Academy Awards five times (1979, 1980, 1981, 1982 and 1984).

No one was more surprised of America’s national treasure announcing his retirement in May, 1991 than his long time friend and second banana, Ed McMahon.  Big Ed said in his book: `` For Laughing Out Loud: My Life and Good Times’’ that he had no warning Johnny was planning on shutting it down for good.  ``I don’t think he told anyone except his wife Alex, that he had decided to quit’’ McMahon wrote. So unprepared was the network for the retirement bombshell that NBC asked Carson’s sidekick to remain on the show for six additional months after the host departed. McMahon respectfully declined.

According to a Gallup poll, 10 years after Carson stepped down, four out of 10 or 39 percent of Americans considered Carson to be their favorite late-night talk show host of all time, well ahead of David Letterman with 20 percent followed by Jay Leno with 16 percent.

Johnny Carson was one of the highest paid entertainers in television history, earning an estimated $2, 380 per minute of airtime.

Carson died with his family at his side at 7:00 a.m. on January 23, 2005 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications from emphysema. He was 79.

48 hours after his death, the $49.99 DVD set, ``The Ultimate Johnny Carson Collection: His Favorite Moments from The Tonight Show’’ was the bestselling DVD on Amazon.com.

John William Carson, the second of three children, was born on October 23, 1923 in Corning, Iowa. The family moved to Norfolk Nebraska in 1933 when Carson was eight years-old. After serving three years in the navy beginning in 1943 during World War II and earning a B.A. degree in English at the University of Nebraska (1949), he launched his radio career in Lincoln Nebraska at KFAB (later in Omaha at WOW); in 1951, he moved to Los Angeles, where landed a job as a staff announcer at KNXT-TV, a year later in 1952, he segued into a Sunday afternoon comedy show ``Carson’s Cellar’’ with a budget of $25.

So impressive was this young Nebraskan in his television debut that a number of high profile comedians landed on his show, including Fred Allen, Groucho Marx, Jack Benny, Red Skelton and Jerry Lewis.

The clear game changer in Carson’s career came in August, 1954, when he filled in for Red Skelton on his CBS show, delivering a hilarious opening monologue on the economics of television, resulting in rave reviews from television critics, which also caught the eye of CBS executives who offered him a half hour show in prime time, ``The Johnny Carson Show.’’ The show, which tore through seven directors and eight writers, never took hold, running for only 39 weeks in 1955. 

Beginning November 18, 1957 and up until he was tapped as Paar’s successor, he hosted an ABC game show, (along with announcer Ed McMahon), ``Who Do You Trust’’, which was based on a interview game show ``Do You Trust Your Wife’’? with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, which ran on CBS from January 3, 1956 through March 26, 1957.

A Footnote:  Carson filled in briefly for Jack Paar as a guest host on "The Tonight Show" in 1958; he also performed in nightclubs and in the Broadway comedy "'Tunnel of Love" before succeeding Paar permanently.

Except for entertaining a select group of friends on occasion, after the Tonight Show, Carson lived his remaining years in seclusion in his $12 million Malibu home while making occasional excursions on his 125-ft. yacht.

Outside of the NBC studios, Carson often made news with his stormy marriages, first with Joan Wolcott Carson  (1949-63), then Joanne Copeland Carson  ( 1963-72), followed by Joanna Holland Carson  (1972-83).  The fact that his first three wives had such similar first names, led to a running joke within the industry that the only reason the Tonight Show host married these particular women was so that this shameless penny pincher wouldn’t have to change the initials on his monogrammed bath towels. Carson married a fourth time on June 20, 1987 to Alexis Maas Carson.

Upon his death, Carson was survived by his wife, Alexis ; two sons, Chris and Corey; his brother, Richard; and his sister, Catherine. Another son, Richard Wolcott Carson, known as `` Ricky’’, died in a car accident in 1991 after his car plunged 100 feet down an embankment in Cayucos, Calif. He was 39.

Beginning in  August, 1971  with Carson taking Monday’s off, along with taking frequent vacations, the popular host had his share of guest hosts over the years. According to JohnnyCarson.com, Joey Bishop hosted a record 177 times, followed by Joan Rivers with 93.

The papers of Johnny Carson, which were acquired by the Library of Congress in 1996 from the Carson Production Company , includes approximately 47, 600 items consisting exclusively of the records of "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," arranged chronologically by date as aired from October 1970 to May 1992, with a gap in the 1976 files.

Records for each show include cue cards, chronologies, outline, scripts, and broadcast standards acceptability reports, an assortment of correspondence and other materials.

In addition, The Library's Motion Picture Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division archives NBC and other broadcasting materials and recordings, including approximately 30 Jack Paar shows; 1,500 David Letterman shows, from NBC and CBS; 1,000 Jay Leno shows; and 750 Conan O'Brien shows, as well as a sound recording of excerpts from the early years of Carson's reign.

-Bill Lucey
May 22, 2012
WPLucey@gmail.com

176 Years Ago, Edgar Allan Poe Marries His 13-Year Old Cousin

 

The Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Grave in Baltimore, MD
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176 years ago, May 16, 1836, Edgar Allan Poe marries his 13 year-old cousin, Virginia Eliza Clemm in the parlor of their Richmond boardinghouse overlooking the Virginia State Capitol. Poe was 27 years old.  Virginia was the daughter of his father’s sister. Poe first met Virginia when she was 8 years-old after moving in with her mother Maria (his aunt) in Baltimore, Maryland.

The marriage was conducted by the Reverend Amas Converse, editor of the Southern Religious Telegraph. The couple reportedly honeymooned in Petersburg, Virginia.

Some historians argue one of America’s most celebrated poets, may have married his young cousin much earlier, on September 22, when he took out a marriage license certificate for Virginia and himself. The marriage document was co-signed by his friend, Thomas Cleland who verified Virginia Clemm was 21 years old. There is no hard evidence, however, that a private ceremony was ever conducted in September, 1835, so it remains mere speculation.

Because of her young age, the young couple apparently slept in different bedrooms until she turned 16 and only then began a normal married life.

Imagine,  today, if a 13 year-old girl (never mind a blood relative ) married a well known public figure of Poe’s stature; how their scandalous marriage would have been splashed over every tabloid in the country with each salacious detail of the nuptials reported on every 24/7 cable network?

Such was not the case in ante-bellum America.  Women in the South, in particular, tended to marry younger than other sections of the country; and first-cousin marriages wasn’t considered uncommon at the time.  Cousin marriages, in fact, were perfectly legal in all States prior to the Civil War. Not until the 1880’s did the social stigma attached to cousin marriages become prevalent, which led 13 states and territories to pass cousin marriage prohibitions. And the age of consent to marry was well under 16 until social purity reformers kicked off a campaign in 1885 to petition legislators to raise the legal age of consent to at least 16. The advocacy campaign paid big dividends, with almost all states raising the age of consent to 16–18 by 1920.

Though the marriage may not have been frowned upon in social circles or scorned by his contemporaries, Poe was still self-conscious of his bride’s young age.

Kent P. Ljungquist, a literary critic and a leading authority on the life and writings of Edgar Allan Poe, informs me: ``He [Poe] spoke ambiguously of Virginia's age when the subject came up. He writes to her with an emotional intensity, but evidence suggests that she was "cherubic" and child-like in her appearance at the time of the marriage in Richmond. The early stage of their relationship may have been more like an innocent brother-sister relationship.’’

Since Poe’s own mother died at such a young age, (Edgar was only 2) Virginia's sweetness and innocence, along with her gift for singing was for Poe, many scholars reason, a representation of the young and beautiful mother he was deprived of.

``His [Poe’s] general response to women,’’ Ljunsquist wrote in an email, `` was to idealize them and to refer to them as spiritual presences or beings.’’

Virginia and Edgar were star-crossed lovers.

After breaking a blood vessel while singing, the first sign of tuberculosis, Virginia died in 1847 at age 24 (the same age as Edgar’s mother and from the same illness) after a long painful illness. Poe, emotionally distraught over Virginia’s death, leaped into a series of destructive relationships with other women, developed ``a lesion of one side of the brain’’ and on a trip to Baltimore, was found lying in a gutter, rambling and hallucinating.  Rushed to Washington College Hospital (now Church Hospital) in an unconscious state, he died four days later after never regaining consciousness on October 7, 1849 at age 40, just two years after losing Virginia. The cause of Poe’s death was never determined.

Born Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts, January 19, 1809, his parents were traveling actors. After his father David Poe abandoned his family and his mother died of tuberculosis on December 8, 1811 in Richmond Virginia, when Edgar was only two, he was taken in (but never officially adopted) by John Allan, a Virginia planter.

A Footnote: Poe was one of three children but all were raised by separate families.  His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe also became a poet before dying at a young age (his literary work was never preserved), and his sister Rosalie Poe later in life taught penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school.

Edgar attended the University of Virginia from February 14 to December 15, 1826, but never graduated after lapsing into wild drinking binges and gambling recklessly, running up debts as high as $2,000.

Flat broke, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, registering as "Edgar A. Perry.’’ Restless, he had his stepfather arrange for his discharge who arranged to have him appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he studied from 1830 to 1831. Poe would eventually be dismissed from West Point for ``neglect of duty.’’

Poe’s first volume of poems appeared in 1827 when he was 18-years old; two years later, a second volume appeared  with fresh poems, revealing classical influences from  Milton and other characters from classical literature, including the Bible. By 1831, he published his first short stories, some dealing with dark gruesome themes, such as “The Bargain Lost," about a devil devouring the souls of Plato, Aristophanes, Catullus, Hippocrates, Quintilian, and Terence. Poe’s development into the American Gothic genre (he later became known as the ``father of the horror genre’’) became all the more evident with the publication of two other stories in 1839: "Ligeia" and "The Fall of the House of Usher.’’

 
Poe introduced his detective hero, C. Auguste Dupin in his short story, `` The Murders in the Rue Morgue’’ in Graham’s Magazine in 1841, which many literary scholars single out as the first detective story.

"The Raven,’’ the poem that made Poe a household name was published in 1844, and during the last five years of his life, literary scholars argue, Poe wrote his two best pieces of criticism, "The Philosophy of Composition" and "The Poetic Principle.’’

Before establishing himself as preeminent poet and author, Poe worked as a literary critic for a number of publications, including  the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond ( 1835-36); Burton's Gentle man's Magazine, Philadelphia, (1839-40); Graham's Magazine, (1841-42); The New York Evening Mirror, (1844-45); and briefly as editor and proprietor of The Broadway Journal, (1845-46). 

The reason for so many stints at different publications is attributed to Poe’s predilection for engaging in verbal clashes with editors and falling in and out of destructive drinking binges.

Poe was buried alongside his young wife Virginia in Baltimore, Maryland at the Old Western Burial Ground (today, the Westminister Burying Ground) in an unmarked grave in the very rear of the gravesite. In November 1875, his remains were dug up and moved to another more widely visited section of the graveyard at the southeast corner of Greene and Fayette Streets. This move was done in order to accommodate the flood of tourists and Poe admirers who wanted to visit his gravesite.

-Bill Lucey
May 16, 2012
WPLucey@gmail.com

170 Years Ago, The Illustrated London News Begins Publishing

 

170 years ago, May 14, 1842, the Illustrated London News, founded by Herbert Ingram who pioneered the use of wood-engraved illustrations, published its first issue, consisting of 16 pages with 32 engravings.  The newspaper images were typically accompanied by first-hand accounts of newsworthy events.

Some of the stories and photographs which appeared in the first issue included: Paris fashions; a Parliamentary report; a tragic railway accident near Paris; a horrific steamboat explosion in America; and the War in Afghanistan.

The first issue of ILN sold 26,000 copies; during the Great Exhibition (1851) in Hyde Park, circulation jumped to 130,000 a week, and to 200,000 in 1855 when five of its artists were covering the Crimean War. By 1863, its circulation reached 300,000 compared to 70,000 for London’s leading daily newspaper, The London News.

In sharp contrast to other penny press publications flourishing in London at the time, which tended to focus on sensational news like violent crimes and gruesome murders, ILN’s core audience were the ``respectable families of London’’; and so the thrust of many of ILN’s pictorial essays dealt with panoramic views of London, its urban development, its grandiose churches, the latest fashions (especially French fashions) its exhibition halls and the Royal Family, especially the captivating appeal of young Queen Victoria.  ILN displayed a number of pictorials of practically every phase of the construction of the Crystal Palace, the magnificent cast-iron and plate-glass building used to house the Great Exhibition.

Above all, what made these illustrative displays so revolutionary at the time is that it allowed the lower classes of Britain and the illiterate for the first time to see for themselves the Monarchy, what they looked like, what they were doing through their travels and to feast their eyes on such magnificent pageantry.

ILN pulled out all the stops when it came to displaying a dazzling collection of pictures of the Royal Family at the Great Exhibition (1851) and the first Royal Jubilee in 1887; and even when the news from the Royal Family wasn’t so significant, readers were still able to whet their appetite with a regular feature called "Court and Haut Ton’’ which reported on some of the more trivial activities of the Royal Family.  The January issue of ILN, for example, was particularly popular with readers when it showed the pomp and solemnity of the opening of Parliament.

In keeping with their theme of  catering to the ``respectable’’ middle class audience, ILN was at the forefront of portraying the Queen as a devoted wife, loving mother and frequently showing pictures of newly born babies in the Royal Family. One of the most influential pictures ILN ever ran was in 1848, showing Victoria and Albert gathered around a decorated Christmas tree with their children. The idea of gathering around the Christmas tree was a tradition Prince Albert remembered fondly from his childhood in Germany. Once these Christmas pictures of the Royal Family hit the streets of London, gathering around a decorated Christmas became a permanent annual tradition with most families in Britain with trees bedecked with candles, along with sweets, fruit, homemade decorations and small gifts.

Other historic events covered by ILN included: the Irish Famine of 1847, the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War in 1861, while over 150,000 copies alone were snatched up when they reported on the funeral of the Duke of Wellington in 1852.

Herbert Ingram was born on May 27, 1811 at Paddock Grove, Boston, Lincolnshire, the son of a butcher. While working as a printer in London, he noticed newspapers sold much faster if they contained woodcut illustrations.

Among his many attributes, Ingram was a staunch liberal reformer who used ILN to crusade against a number of social ills in society, particularly his distaste for child labor. Beginning in 1856, Ingram continued his social crusades as a member of the British House of Commons until his death.

Ingram died tragically on September 8, 1860. While traveling aboard the steamship Lady Elgin on Lake Michigan on his way to the U.S. with his eldest son, the ship sank after colliding with another vessel.

The enduring legacy of The Illustrated London News is that of being the world's first illustrated newspaper, which paved the way for other prominent illustrative publications who followed in their path, such as the French L'lllustration and Le Monde Illustre; Germany's Illustrierte Zeitung; Amsterdam's Hollandsche Illustratie; America's Leslie's Weekly, and Harper's Weekly.

The Illustrated London News was published weekly until 1971, monthly until 1989, and bimonthly until ceasing publication in 2003.

-Bill Lucey
WPLucey@gmail.com
May 14, 2012

 

163 Years Ago, Bloody Riots Break Out at Astor Place

163 years ago, May 10, 1849, a theatrical riot, one of the bloodiest public disturbances in the antebellum period, broke out at the Astor Place Opera House in New York City at 13 Astor Place in which several people were killed and many more wounded.

To understand the cause of the riot it is necessary to put the environment of the city in proper historical context.

 In 1849, the United States and especially in New York City, bitter feelings toward the British over the Revolution and the War of 1812 were still fresh in public memory.  In American minds, British actors represented the tyranny of aristocracy; and the New York Irish, in particular, loathed the British for their repressive measures against the Irish in their homeland, and in general, resented their wealth and pompous upper class snobbery.

This pent-up animosity and class warfare, which had been brewing for some time between the upper class and the poor and neglected, reached its tipping point on the night of May 10, 1849.

The protagonists of this class warfare pitted American Shakespeare actor, Edwin Forrest against William C. Macready, a British actor, also a Shakespearean actor, who publicly expressed contempt for American audiences. The two couldn’t have been more different. While Macready played to a refined polite upper class audience at New York’s Astor Place Theater, Forrest preferred working audiences at the Bowery Theater, which predominantly catered to immigrant groups, including the Irish, Germans, and Chinese. Astor Place, moreover, was a luxurious Opera House, requiring a dress code, including kid-gloves (especially for Italian operas), while charging patrons a $1 a ticket, four times the price of what other New York theaters were charging.

The hostility between these two belligerent thespians weathered a stormy history.  When in London, Forrest was often booed and jeered by theatergoers hired by Macready, while Forrest usually returned the favor, such as in Edinburgh, when he booed Macready himself during one of his performances. 

Their ongoing feud was well known among theatergoers, representing a welcome source of entertainment.

When Macready went on an Ameican tour in 1848, Forrest followed suit and the two continued to exchange insults when their paths crossed. On  his scheduled trip to New York City, the working class saw a perfect opportunity to vent their animosity toward this uppity Englishman. Most of the working class were organized in various clubs and gangs, especially the Irish or the Bowery B’hoys led by Tammany Hall's Captain Isaiah Rynders -who turned up in such large numbers it could have easily been mistaken for a military police battalion.

During the performance of May 7, 1849, these groups discharged a number of verbal attacks, such as `huzzah for native talent’’ and ``three groans for the English bulldog’’ while hurling rotten eggs, potatoes and chairs.

Enraged, Macready decided to head back to England, but stayed only because a group of petitioners begged him to stay; among the group of petitioners, which published their letter in the New York Herald on May 9, 1849, were Herman Melville, Washington Irving, Cornelius Mathews, Evert Duyckinck and 43 other prominent citizens.

A Footnote: Melville lived in a house on Fourth Avenue, near the corner of 11th Street, three short blocks from the Opera House, and less than a five-minute walk.

To counter this petition signed by Melville and other prominent residents, leaders of the Native American Party posted handbills all over the city, asking: ``WORKING MEN, SHALL AMERICANS OR ENGLISH RULE IN THIS CITY?, while New York City gangs posted placards calling for their supporters to the ``English Aristocratic Opera House’’ pressing them to`` burn the damned den of the Aristocracy.’’

The theater refused to sell tickets to the threadbare scruffy patrons who tried to enter.  Some managed to sneak in anyway and let loose a battery of stinging insults toward Macready as soon as the curtain was raised. They were quickly arrested.  But the real trouble was only beginning. An angry mob estimated between 10-15,000, which had gathered outside, began heaving rocks and smashing windows.  With an unarmed police force, New York City Mayor Caleb Smith Woodhull had little choice but to call in the National Guard with orders to fire at the crowd if necessary. 

At first, the militia just fired in the air, but as stones continued to be thrown in their direction-they fired a spray of bullets directly into the crowd until they dispersed. By the time it was over, 22 people (at least by some estimates) were killed and more than 100 wounded.

The New York Herald on May 11, 1849, wrote the following firsthand account of the riot: ``The house itself was filled to the dome. A great portion of the assemblage in the theater consisted of policemen who had been distributed all over the house in detached parties.  Macready’s appearance was a signal for a great explosion of feeling. Hisses, groans, shouts of derision assailed him, intermingled with loud cries of ``Out with him!’’, ``Out with him!’’

The Astor Place riots were significant from a social perspective in that it woke people up to the class combat rupturing the city that needed to be addressed. As The Philadelphia Public Ledger wrote:``There is now in our country, in New York City, what every good patriot hitherto had considered it his duty to deny-a high and a low class.’’

The New York Herald in its editorial "Mobocracy’’, took a more militant stand in suggesting that mobs ``must be not only encountered, but crushed into utter and helpless impotency," while Horace Greeley's New York Tribune argued the reason for the riot were due to economic hardship, most notably high unemployment, poverty, and discouraged immigrants feeling left out of the American dream.

Dennis Berthold, writing in the journal ,``American Literature’’ (September, 1999) noted that ``The Astor Place riot gave credence to conservative warnings about mobs, anarchy, and "Red Republicans," and forced theoretic democrats to confront the reality of class conflict in America.’’

After the dust had finally settled, the most substantial consequence of the Astor Place riots were the reforms put into operation for the poorly trained and often unarmed police department.  Beginning in 1853, officers were given uniforms and in 1857, the state legislature created the Metropolitan Police for the city of New York, Brooklyn (which was independent from New York at the time) and Westchester County.

-Bill Lucey
WPLucey@gmail.com
May 10, 2012

 

38 Years Ago, Impeachment Hearings Against RMN Begins

 

38 years ago, on May 9, 1974, at approximately 1: 10 p.m. (EST), impeachment hearings against Richard Nixon began before the 93rd Congress of the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by New Jersey Democrat Peter J. Rodino in room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building. 

Specifically, the committee began considering evidence related to the President’s possible involvement in the Watergate break-in and cover-up.

Prior to this, on March 18, 1974, Federal District Judge John J. Sirica ordered that the grand jury report of their 21 month investigation related to Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate scandal be turned over to the House impeachment inquiry.

Over the next 11 weeks, the committee heard testimony (behind closed doors) which revealed a pattern of misuse of presidential power. 

A Footnote: According to the New York Times, only 11 citizens were able to squeeze into the packed committee room on May 9, 1974 with most of the space occupied by 90 news reporters, 43 aides or guests of the members, 10 committee staff assistants as well as three live television cameras.

The Watergate investigation officially kicked off on February 7, 1973, when the Senate created the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (chaired by Senator Sam Ervin, Jr., a former North Carolina Supreme Court justice) to investigate campaign activities related to the presidential election of 1972. The White House, meanwhile, launched the Watergate Special Prosecution Force under Archibald Cox in May, 1973.

During the investigations, Nixon refused to turn over 64 tapes to special Watergate prosecutor, Leon Jaworski on grounds of executive privilege. On July 24, 1974 in United States vs. Nixon , the U.S. Supreme Court in a unanimous decision ruled executive power was something to be determined by the courts, not the president; and furthermore in an absence of a legitimate claim of national security, executive privilege could not be used to withhold evidence from a grand jury about possible criminal actions.  Nixon, the court ruled, will be required to turn over the tapes.

A Footnote: According to Ruth P. Morgan, writing in the Presidential Studies Quarterly (Winter, 1996), ``Another immediate impact [of Watergate] was the rush to judgments by the other institutions of government.  Howard Ball has effectively argued that the Supreme Court, in choosing to fulfill their "duty" to end the Watergate crisis, rushed to judgment too quickly and should have spent a great deal more reflection and analysis on ruling a constitutional privilege of executive privilege before creating it by precedent.’’

On July 27, the Judiciary Committee adopted the first article of Impeachment by a vote of 27-11, charging Nixon with obstructing the investigation of the Watergate break-in; two days later, the committee adopted the second Article of Impeachment with misuse of power and violation of the oath of office; and by July 30th, the House Judiciary Committee adopted the third Article of Impeachment, charging Nixon with failure to comply with the House subpoenas.

On August 5th, in compliance with the Supreme Court order, Nixon released conversation transcripts and three tapes in what became known as the ``Smoking Gun’’ so named because of its incriminating conversations, revealing Nixon not only knew of the break-in, but ordered the cover up and directed the FBI to abandon its investigation of the burglary.  The transcripts of the tapes showed three conversations between Nixon and his White House Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman six days after the break-in. The most damaging of the tapes released was the one from June 23, 1972 in which Nixon discussed using the CIA to block the FBI’s investigation of the burglary, which clearly demonstrated the burglary had become linked to the White House and Nixon had attempted to use federal agencies to obstruct justice.

When this new damaging evidence surfaced, 11 Republicans on the Judiciary who previously voted against Impeachment announced they would change their votes, giving Nixon little choice but to resign the office, which he did on August 9, 1974, becoming the first U.S. president to do so.

Prior to his resignation, Richard Milhous Nixon served in the office of the presidency for five years and 201 days. His successor, Gerald R. Ford, pardoned him on September 8, 1974 for ``all offenses against the United States’’ during his presidency. Nixon died on April 22, 1994, four days after suffering a debilitating stroke at his Park Ridge New Jersey home. He was 81. (See The New York Times Obituary ).

The Watergate break-in first became public when The Washington Post reported (June 18, 1972) the arrest of five men (one a former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency) on charges of second-degree burglary in the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the sixth floor of the plush Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.

-Bill Lucey
WPLucey@gmail.com
May 9, 2012

 
***
Web Sites to Keep in Mind:

Watergate Timeline, May 9, 1974-September 8, 1974 (Gerald R. Ford Library & Museum) 

Opening Statements and Supporting Evidence Presented to the House Judiciary Committee related to the Watergate Scandal

 Richard M. Nixon: The Watergate Tapes (University of California, Berkeley)

The Woodward and Bernstein Watergate Papers (The University of Texas at Austin)

The Watergate Files-Film Reels (Gerald R. Ford Library & Museum) 

188 Years Ago, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony Premieres

 

 

188 years ago, May 7, 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven, conducts the premiere of the Ninth Symphony at the Karthnerthor Theater in Vienna, sharply at 7 p.m. The symphony was based entirely upon his memories of sound.

Would this musical mastermind have any way of knowing when he began composing this work (along with Missa Solemnis) in 1818 that it would become his most famous piece, at least to the ears of the audiences in western culture?

In breaking with tradition, the Ninth Symphony (no. 9 in D major) presents the chorus joining the orchestra in the final movement, an adaptation of Friedrich von Schiller’s ``Ode to Joy.’’  It has been said the Ninth Symphony was the seminal work which influenced Hector Berlioz and Richard Wagner.

Because of Beethoven’s total deafness, the real direction of the orchestra during the premiere became the responsibility of Austrian composer, conductor, and violinist, Michael Umlauf with Ignaz Schuppanzigh serving as the principal violinist.

With this historic concert representing Beethoven’s first appearance directing an orchestra in public since 1812, heightened anxiety set in prior to the premiere, even more so when scheduling difficulties resulted in only two full rehearsals with young boys of the chorus struggling to hit the high notes.  Beethoven himself coached the soloists with Umlauf assisting.

A Footnote: Beethoven considered premiering the Ninth not in Vienna, but in Berlin. When rumors began to circulate that such a move was being planned, a petition was quickly set in motion (most likely by Count Moritz Lichnowsky, an Austrian aristocrat, brother of Prince Karl and close friend of Beethoven). The petition, signed by some of Austria’s most distinguished musicians and patrons, was published in Vienna’s Allegmeine Musikalische Zeitung and the Vienna Theater-Zeitung, all of whom urged the German composer to introduce his Ninth Symphony on Austrian soil. After such an outpouring of support, Beethoven bent to the wishes of the popular will.

Despite the unease, the Ninth was a smash success. After the performance, the crowd exploded into thunderous cheers; Caroline Unger, the Austro-Hungarian contralto, who made her first signing debut in the Ninth, (including Missa Solemnis), turned the deaf composer around to face the audience so he could witness for himself the wild cheers and handkerchiefs waving throughout the theater.

The theater was filled to capacity that night; the only empty box, that of the Austrian emperor, Francis I who was out of town despite receiving a personal invitation from Beethoven. Most of the published reviews of the Ninth abounded with enthusiastic admiration. According to a review from Allegmeine Theater-Zeitung (May 13, 1824): ``Imagine the highly inspired composer, the musical Shakespeare, to whom all means of his arts are readily available at the slightest nod, how he glowed from devotion and how in the innermost belief in the holy work of redemption, he sings the praise of God and the hope of Mankind. Then one has, perhaps, a slight notion of the impact of this Kyrie, Credo, and Agnus Dei!”

In addition to conductor Michael Umlauf, Caroline Unger, and Ignaz Schuppanzigh, the list of performers included:  58 members of the string section, 24 violins, ten violas, 12 cellos, 12 basses with the choir consisting of approximately 90 voices.

Harold C. Schonberg, the former New York Times music critic once wrote that the Ninth represented everything the ``Romantics thought to be the essence of Beethoven-a defiance of  form, a call for brotherhood,  a titanic explosion, a spiritual experience.’’

Beethoven’s immense body of work includes: nine symphonies; a dozen pieces of "occasional" music, seven concerti for one or more soloists and orchestra, (four shorter works that include soloists accompanied by orchestra), an opera (his only opera) Fidelio; two masses and a number of shorter works. His piano compositions were equally impressive:  32 piano sonatas and numerous shorter pieces, including arrangements of some of his other works, while works with piano accompaniment include 10 violin sonatas, 5 cello sonatas, and a sonata for French horn, as well as numerous liede.

Beethoven additionally wrote his fair share of chamber music. In addition to 16 string quartets, he wrote five works for string quintet, seven for piano trio, five for string trio, and more than a dozen works for various combinations of wind instruments.

Ludwig van Beethoven died on March 26, 1827, age 57; his funeral was held three days later with Franz Schubert and Carl Czerny serving as torchbearers. The funeral march from the A-flat-Major Sonata, Opus 26,filled the air as the procession passed.

Franz Grillparzer, an Austrian writer and chief poet, delivered the funeral oration, which included the following words: ``The harp that is hushed! Let me call him so! The thorns of life had wounded him deeply, and as the castaway clings to the shore, so did he seek refuge in thine arms. O thou glorious sister and peer of the Good and the True, thou balm of wounded hearts, heaven born Art! He was an artist-and who shall arise to stand beside him?...He who comes after him will not continue him; he must begin anew...''

 Bill Lucey
WPLucey@gmail.com
May 7, 2012

59 Years Ago, Hemingway Lands His First Pulitzer Prize

59 years ago, May 4, 1953, Ernest Hemingway is awarded a Pulitzer Prize, his first, for ``The Old Man and the Sea’’,  his sixth novel about an old Cuban man who had gone 84 days without a catch until finally snagging one in an epic 2 ½ day struggle.

Hemingway was traveling on his 38 foot Cabin cruise, the Pilar (his pet name for his wife Pauline) when he learned that ``The Old Man and the Sea'' had been awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

This well traveled American author and journalist wasn't sure just how the prestigious honor would impact the book. ``Can't hurt it, I guess'', he sarcastically wrote to his editor at Scriber’s, Wallace Meyer.  Hemingway also indicated that he couldn't really take the award all that seriously considering he was denied a Pulitzer for ``A Farewell to Arms’’, his semi-autobiographical novel concerning events during the Italian campaigns during World War I.

As it turns out, Hemingway had good reason to grouse. Despite a unanimous approval by the Pulitzer advisory board in 1941 to award a Pulitzer Prize to a ``For Whom the Bell Tolls, Columbia University President, Nicholas Murray Butler blocked the award, blasting the novel as ``lascivious.’’ In a memo to the Pulitzer Board, Butler wrote: ``The trustees of Columbia University would never, under any circumstances, approve the awarding of the prize for a Novel so obscene, vulgar and revolting a book as Ernest Hemingway's ``For Whom the Bell Tolls.''

No Pulitzer was awarded in 1941 in the category of fiction.

A Footnote: Hemingway briefly flirted with the titles of ``The Sea in Being’’ and ``The Dignity of Man’’ before settling on ``The Old Man and the Sea’’

Life Magazine paid him a handsome $21,000 to publish ``The Old Man and the Sea’’ in a single issue, which appeared in their September 1, 1952 edition. A week later, it was released as a book and sold 5.3 million copies in two days.

Critics, by and large, warmly received the ``The Old Man and Sea’’, a sharp departure from his previous work, ``Across the River and into the Trees’’ which was savaged by critics. The Atlantic (September, 1952) described ``Old Man and the Sea’’ as ``Hemingway at His Best’’; ``A great American classic of man’s battle with the Titan of the sea’’ wrote Fanny Butcher of the Chicago Sunday Tribune, (September 7, 1952).  William Faulkner, Hemingway’s contemporary, was certainly taken with it, writing in the Shenandoah (Autumn, 1952) ``Time may show it to be the best single piece of any of us, I mean his and mine contemporaries.’’

Even The New York Times (reviewed by Robert Gorham Davis, professor of English at Smith College on September 7, 1952) embraced Hemingway’s clear unpretentious writing style and his influence on American literature, when writing:  `` In the Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway has like the young man in ``Big Two-Hearted River'', got back to something good and true in himself, that has always been there. And with it are new indications of humility and maturity and a deeper sense of being at home in life which promise well for the novel in the making.’’ `` Hemingway is still a great writer’’, Davis wrote, ``with the strength and craft and courage to go far out and perhaps even far down for the truly big ones.’’

But not all reviews of ``The Old Man and the Sea’’ were so flattering.

Phillip Rahv writing in Commentary hardly considered it a masterpiece: ``The meaning of The Old Man and the Sea is sought in its profound symbolism. It may be that the symbolism is really there, though I for one have been unable to locate it...Hemingway's big marlin is no Moby Dick, and his fisherman is not Captain Ahab nor was meant to be.’’

G.T. Dempsey, writing it in the Antioch Review (Spring, 2007), offered some tough love: ``The sad truth, though, is that this short novel is a masterpiece despite its awfulness. It is marred throughout, both structurally and stylistically, by all the sentimentalizing excesses of Papa's ``hokum'' period at its most pervasive.’’

Though most literary critics agree Hemingway turned out his best work in the 1920’s, ``The Old Man and the Sea’’   nonetheless was a masterpiece, even if it was a late masterpiece. As Alfred Bendixen, Executive Director of the American Literature Association and Professor English Texas A&M University tells me: ``The Old Man and the Sea was part of a projected trilogy on the land, the sea, and the sky which never quite came together but this short, beautifully shaped work of fiction merits attention and praise as one of the few post WWII masterpieces by a modernist of the post WWI generation.’’

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born in on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois and began reporting for the Kansas City Star in 1917; by 1920, he landed at the Toronto Star Weekly, a year later becoming their European correspondent based in Paris, covering the Greco-Turkish war along with conferences in Geneva and Lausanne.

He traveled to Spain in 1923, where he witnessed his first bullfight, a seminal event which sparked his lifelong love affair with the savage sport. He published his first major work in 1925, ``In Our Time’’; and in 1944 he fled to Europe and England to cover World War II for Collier’s with the Fourth Infantry of the U.S. Army.

Suffering most of his adult life with severe bouts of depression, paranoia, obsessions and delusions, Hemingway committed suicide on July 2, 1961, 19 days shy of 62nd birthday, killing himself with a shotgun at his home in Ketchum Idaho, two days after being released from the Mayo Clinic.

In all, Hemingway published seven novels, six short story collections and two non-fiction works and in addition to his Pulitzer Prize in 1953, he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

-Bill Lucey
WPLucey@gmail.com
May 4, 2012

55 Years Ago, Dodgers Say Goodbye to Brooklyn

****

55 years ago, May 3, 1957, Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, meets with Los Angeles city officials, including City Attorney Roger Arnebergh at the Statler Hotel (now the Wilshire Grand) located at Wilshire and Figueroa in the heart of downtown Los Angeles.  It was at this meeting where O’Malley agreed in principle to relocate the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.

The meeting produced the infamous ```Arnebergh Memorandum. ‘’

According to the memo: ``At a conference today, held at the Statler Hotel, discussion was had involving the possibility of bringing Major League Baseball to Los Angeles. It was indicated that the City and County should be prepared to make an offer containing the following provisions: ‘’

The first of 10 provisions read as follows:  1.) ``City and/or County to acquire and deed to the Major League Baseball club 350 acres in Chavez Ravine, including the present 257 acres now owned by the City, the additional acreage to be adjacent thereto. Such 350 acres to comprise an approximate circle, if possible.’’

Mr. O’Malley made it painfully clear to New York City planning officials that he needed a new stadium to replace the dilapidated Ebbets Field (the team’s home since 1913), a stadium built by Charles H. Ebbets,  which included inadequate parking and a seating capacity of only 23,000. Attendance at Ebbets Field, moreover, had been declining every year since 1948. Specifically, O’Malley wanted a 40,000-seat ballpark with 12,000 parking places.

Talks seemed to go nowhere with the Dodger owner and city officials. New York City planner Robert Moses stipulated the city would own and operate a new ballpark, not in Brooklyn, but in Queens at the site of the 1939's World's Fair at Flushing Meadows, the eventual site of Shea Stadium.

6,702 Brooklyn fans attended the final game at Ebbets Field on September 24, 1957 not knowing if this would be the last time they would see their beloved Dodgers in a Brooklyn uniform. The Dodgers blanked the Pirates, 2-0 in the season finale, finishing in 3rd place with an 84-70 record, 11 games behind the Milwaukee Braves.

The official announcement that the Dodgers were bound for L.A. didn’t come until October 8, 1957.  O’Malley expressed regret  for the relocation, citing four reasons which forced his hand: 1.) A new ballpark for an aging Ebbets Field; 2.) Poor attendance; 3.) Insufficient parking; 4.) A New York City amusement tax of 5% on admissions.”

Los Angeles offered O’Malley 400 acres of land in Chavez Ravine, an area in Sulfir Canyon, with an additional 40 acres to be developed for recreational purposes. The city additionally gave O'Malley $4.7 million to begin construction on a premier baseball facility, Dodger Stadium.
 
When the Dodgers announced they were leaving Brooklyn, many New Yorkers felt as if they had just been delivered a swift sucker punch, especially members of the press. Milton Gross of the New York Post imagined O'Malley saying, ``Damn the fans, L.A. Here we come.’’ Journalists Pete Hamill and Jack Newfield, meanwhile, compiled their list of 10 worst human beings of the 20th Century; their top three included: Hitler, Stalin, and Walter O'Malley. Newfield once wrote that O'Malley`` killed a generation's innocence.'' Hamill, a Brooklyn native, later wrote:  ``After 1957, it seemed like we would never laugh again. Of course we did. It's just that we were never young again.''

The Dodgers had represented Brooklyn in the National League since 1890. The Brooklyn Dodgers won the National League pennant 12 times and the World Series once, in 1955.

Despite his pariah status among Brooklynites, the late Walter Francis O’Malley was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008.

-Bill Lucey
WPLucey@gmail.com
May 3, 2012