sandr020

Lesley-Ann Jones' biography,  The Real Life of Freddie Mercury: Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mecury,  revealed a bril­liant musician keep­ing his true self hidden from an adoring world-wide audience. Farrokh Bulsara/Freddie Mercury (1946-1991) was born on the small British protectorate island of Zanzibar , a semi-autonomous reg­ion of Tanzania that specialised in spices. When he was 8, his relig­ious Parsi parents Bomi (a British civil servant) and Jer Bulsara sent him to an English boarding school outside Bombay. At St Peter's School , Freddie loved music. The school prin­cipal noticed Freddie's musical talent, and wrote to his parents suggesting that they might want to pay an extra on Freddie's school fees to help him musical­ly. They agreed, and Fred­die began to learn to play the piano. He also became a member of the school choir and took part in theatrical pro­ductions. In 1958, Freddie Bulsara and four other school friends formed a rock band. But it...

Born in Nymphenburg Castle Munich , Ludwig (1845-1886) was a mem­ber of the Wittelsbach dynasty. He became King Ludwig II of Bavaria in 1864 at 18 when his father died, but alas for the Bavarians, Ludwig had no interest in politics. He became a lonely, isolated man, with no wife and no friends. His diaries suggested this devout Roman Cathol­ic king struggled with his sexual orientation during his adult life. He was either straight, gay, bisexual or celib­ate, worry­ingly eccentric and he built expensive mountain castles. Wagner trained Ludwig's brother  Prince Paul von Thurn und Taxis in his opera Loh­engrin, per­formed for the king's 20th birth­day in Aug 1865 in Hohenschwangau. The opera was well staged with Prince Paul dressed as the hero Lohengrin in silver armour, drawn over the lake by an artificial swan. The King sat alone, enraptured with the music. King Ludwig was possessed by the idea of a holy kingdom by the Grace of God.  Yet he had only two passions in life: cas...

I have two important reasons for focusing on Neil Simon. Firstly my family life seemed to replicate his: Russian parents, Jewish, Yiddish-speaking, impoverished in the Great Depression and very keen on tertiary education. Secondly I saw every American play and musical in the 1950s and early 60s, but didn’t enjoy the experience until Neil Simon’s works started arriving in Australia. Neil Simon (1927–2018) was born and grew up in Manhattan, where he lived with his Russian parents and his older brother Danny . His parents were not happy together, made worse by financial hardship caused by the Great Depression. The two boys were sometimes forced to live with various aunts and uncles, instead of in the family home. Needless to say, Danny and Neil took refuge at the cinema as children, finding particular delight in comedies. Neil studied for a short time before signing up for the Army Air Force Reserve, then served as a sports editor for the Lowry Field Base newspaper. He studied at th...

Harry Relph (1867-1928) was the 16th child of a very elderly Kent pub­lican. Harry stood only 4’6” high, with dwarfish legs, and was born with six digits on each hand and foot. His deformities were emphasised for public­ity, although he never wanted to be seen as a handicapped person. His earliest prof­essional perform­ance in 1880 was at a the  Rosherville Gardens  Gravesend , a favourite riverside resort. The 12 year old lad made his very first stage appearance with his own black-face comedy act. Harry took his stage name from an infamous English court case against The Tichborne Claimant that lasted from Ap 1873-Feb 1874, when Harry was still a toddler. In this court case, a Wapping butcher’s son called  Arthur Orton  turned up from Wagga Wagga in rural Australia. He pretended he was Roger Charles Tit­ch­borne , lost at sea in Ap 1854, and heir to an ancient Hamp­shire baronetcy. Orton, who weighed 25 stones, did 14 years in gaol. He was re­leased on ticket-of-le...

As you can tell from my old posts, I've long been interested in Leipzig’s musical connections . Now let us summarise the details published in Discover Leipzig and then focus on the historic Bose House -museum. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was active in Leipzig’s musical life from 1723 on. He was responsible for the services and special cer­emonies at the churches of St Nicholas and St Thom­as . And, as the city's Director Musices, he was also charged with the organ­is­ation of a wide range of secular events. He directed an association of pro­f­essional performers and musically active students. Many of his major compositions were written in Leipzig, including annual cycles of choral cantatas, St John and St Matthew Passions, Christmas Oratorio, Art of the Fugue and his Mass in B Minor. Since the C19th no end of effort has been put into the study and interp­ret­ation of Bach's works in Leipzig, and several instit­ut­ions, societies and competitions have been establishe...

I had enjoyed Australian holiday camps every summer throughout high school and university. Wonderful memories and activities!! But 1971 was my first year in Europe and Britain, so I was very keen to visit Butlins for the first time. In the 1920s, young Billy Butlin (1899-1990) was staying at a Bed & Breakfast in Barry Island, Wales. Everyone knew that guests would be locked out of their accommodation after breakfast and only let back in when the prop­rietor opened the door for tea. But But­lin hated the boredom, and decided to create a new kind of holiday de­st­ination, one where residents wouldn’t be subject to the relentless rain outside.  Butlin, the son of fairground owners, decided to develop a holiday facility where on-site entertainment would be provided for the guests during the day. Having arrived in Skegness at the height of the foreshore development with his hoopla stall, Butlin went on to build and operate a new amusement park. In fact he opened a perm­an­­ent fai...

La Belle Epoque in Paris was time of peace, scientific prog­ress, prosperity and leisure, at least for those with money. Four events in the later C19th led to si­g­nificant chan­ges in how Parisians lived: 1] Paris’s C19th layout was redesigned by Baron Haus­smann on behalf of Nap­oleon III , to beautify the city. Between 1852-72, Haus­s­mann demolish­ed medieval roads, built wide boulevards and elegant buildings, surroun­ded by greenery. 2] the destructive Franco Prussian war of 1870-1 ended. 3] arrival of the rail­ways by the mid C19th meant French­men could travel anywhere! And the Paris Metro opened in 1900, with the elegant Art Nouveau décor. 4] The 1889 World Fair & Eif­fel Tower were a major stimulus to French and foreign tourism. Cafe life arrived. Moulin Rouge, with its windmill vanes opened in Montmartre in 1889. Moulin Rouge interior, 1898 Great galleries and museums were created to display the treas­ures gathered from across Europe, and Paris became the art capital of ...

For those of you who remember 1956 clearly, Australian television expos­ed Annie Oakley (1860-1926) for the first time in a fictional American Western series. Featuring act­ress Gail Davis, each weekly programme lasted half an hour. My parents didn’t have a tv in the 1950s, but our elderly neighbours let the local children watch between 7-7.30 PM. Thank you Wild West Magazine for the historical data. Early Family life Phoebe Ann Moses was born to Jacob and Susan, Quakers who had migrat­ed from Pennsylvania to a farm in rural Darke County Ohio. Annie was the sixth of their seven children. In 1866 her father died, leaving her mother and the seven young children in poverty, so mother sent Annie to the live at the Darke County Infirmary/poor house. At 10 Annie become a servant for another local farming family. She stayed with them in dismal conditions for two years before running away, then she returned home to her mother, again in poverty. Annie did not live in the West but she fi...

On 11th of October each year, the United Nations celeb­rate In­ternational Day of the Girl Child , emphasising the needs and challenges that girls face. So this year I was interested in looking over my own posts on Fanny Hensel (1805–47), Felix Men­delssohn ’s sister, compos­er and under-valued musical advisor. Unfort­unately I didn’t find very much. However it did get me onto a totally different search: for Maria Anna Mozart (1751–1829) aka Nannerl, Wolf­gang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91)’s older sister. They were the children of musician and composer Leopold Mozart and Anna Maria Pertl of Salzburg. Maria Anna was taught harpsichord by her father Leopold. So they enjoyed a great childhood, indulging their musical creat­iv­ity and creating their own musical world. In fact Leopold took the two children to tour the most cultural cities across Europe, perform­ing together as child prodigies. Acc­ord­ing to all reports, the youngsters impressed both audiences and critics. But it was possible...

Michael Barclay invited us to share his sensitive obituary. Gordon Downie (1964-2017) was born near Kingston Ont, to Lorna & Edgar. He was the 4th of 5 children, the one who played goalie for Amherst­view’s successful hockey team. Downie moved to Kingston to attend Kingston Collegiate Vocat­ional Institute . Coming from a rural area, his out­sider status became part of his public identity: the poet in the bar band; the rock star slumming it with indie kids while cosying up to intel­ligent­sia; the artist with a commer­cially successful cushion who thrived on chall­enging himself with new collab­orators and varied disciplines like dance, painting and act­ing. The rest of the Tragically Hip were scions of the King­ston elite. Downie could at least boast that he was connected to hockey royalty. He joined a punk band called The Slinks; their friendly rivals at the school were a Grade 13 group The Rodents, featuring bassist Gord Sinclair and guitarist Robbie Baker . A young drummer...