|
Brian Easdale
Brian Easdale (10 August 1909 – 30 October 1995) was a British composer of operatic, orchestral, choral and film music, best known for his ballet film score ''The Red Shoes'' of 1948. Life Easdale was born in Manchester, and was educated at Westminster Abbey School and the Royal College of Music. At the latter institution he was a pupil of Armstrong Gibbs (composition) and Gordon Jacob (orchestration). His London introduction as a composer came through a concert of his own music he organised (shared with Herbert Murrill) at the Wigmore Hall on 1 July 1931, which attracted press notices. The concert included the Piano Sonata (1929), String Trio (1931) and five pieces accompanying recited texts by his sister, the poet Joan Adeney Easdale. By the 1930s Easdale was living in London, in a Hampstead bed-sit. His downstairs neighbour, the poet Louis MacNeice, suggested to him that he should work for John Grierson's GPO Film Unit, where MacNeice's fellow poet W. H. Auden was alre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Red Shoes (1948 Film)
''The Red Shoes'' is a 1948 British drama film written, directed, and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It follows Victoria Page (Moira Shearer), a ballerina who joins the world renowned Ballet Lermontov, owned and operated by Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), who tests her dedication to the ballet by making her choose between her career and her romance with composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring). It marked the feature film debut of Shearer, an established ballerina, and also features Robert Helpmann, Léonide Massine, and Ludmilla Tchérina, other renowned dancers from the ballet world. The plot is based on the 1845 eponymous fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen, and features a ballet within it by the same title, also adapted from the Andersen work. ''The Red Shoes'' was filmmaking team Powell and Pressburger's tenth collaboration and follow-up to 1947's ''Black Narcissus''. It had originally been conceived by Powell and producer Alexander Korda in the 1930 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coventry Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of Saint Michael, commonly known as Coventry Cathedral, is the seat of the Bishop of Coventry and the Diocese of Coventry within the Church of England. The cathedral is located in Coventry, West Midlands, England. The current bishop is Christopher Cocksworth and the current dean is John Witcombe. The city has had three cathedrals. The first was St Mary's, a monastic building, of which only a few ruins remain. The second was St Michael's, a 14th-century Gothic church later designated as a cathedral, which remains a ruined shell after its bombing during the Second World War. The third is the new St Michael's Cathedral, built immediately adjacent after the destruction of the former. The ruined cathedral is a symbol of war time destruction and barbarity, but also of peace and reconciliation. St Mary's Priory Coventry had a medieval cathedral that survived until the Reformation. This was St Mary's Priory and Cathedral, 1095 to 1102, when Robert de Limesey m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carol Reed
Sir Carol Reed (30 December 1906 – 25 April 1976) was an English film director and producer, best known for ''Odd Man Out'' (1947), '' The Fallen Idol'' (1948), ''The Third Man'' (1949), and '' Oliver!'' (1968), for which he was awarded the Academy Award for Best Director. ''Odd Man Out'' was the first recipient of the BAFTA Award for Best British Film. ''The Fallen Idol'' won the second BAFTA Award for Best British Film. The British Film Institute voted ''The Third Man'' the greatest British film of the 20th century. Early life and career Carol Reed was born in Putney, southwest London.Philip Kem"Reed, Carol (1906-1976)" ''Reference Guide to British and Irish Film Director'', reprinted at BFI Screenonline. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography' has Wandsworth, London as Reed's place of birth. He was the son of actor-producer Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and his mistress, Beatrice May Pinney, who later adopted the surname of Reed. He was educated at The King's School, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Outcast Of The Islands
''Outcast of the Islands'' is a 1951 British adventure drama film directed by Carol Reed based on Joseph Conrad's 1896 novel ''An Outcast of the Islands''. The film features Trevor Howard, Ralph Richardson, Robert Morley and Wendy Hiller. Plot Peter Willems (Trevor Howard), a selfish and ambitious man, is accused of stealing in his position as manager of a shipping port operation near Singapore. After he is dismissed for his misconduct he reacquaints himself with the trading ship Capt. Lingard ( Ralph Richardson) who befriended him as a 12-year-old boy. Lingard agrees to help Willems regain his reputation by taking him to a trading village located up a difficult-to-navigate channel near the coast of Batam. Lingard's son-in-law, Elmer Almayer (Robert Morley), operates a trading operation for Capt. Lingard in the village. Lingard asks Almayer to take Willems under his wing and teach him the business. While Lingard is away on one of his sea trips, Willems abuses his trust, seduce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walt Whitman
Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was controversial in his time, particularly his 1855 poetry collection ''Leaves of Grass'', which was described as obscene for its overt sensuality. Born in Huntington on Long Island, Whitman resided in Brooklyn as a child and through much of his career. At the age of 11, he left formal schooling to go to work. Later, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a government clerk. Whitman's major poetry collection, ''Leaves of Grass'', was first published in 1855 with his own money and became well known. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malcolm Sargent
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent (29 April 1895 – 3 October 1967) was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works. The musical ensembles with which he was associated included the Ballets Russes, the Huddersfield Choral Society, the Royal Choral Society, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, and the London Philharmonic, Hallé, Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and Royal Philharmonic orchestras. Sargent was held in high esteem by choirs and instrumental soloists, but because of his high standards and a statement that he made in a 1936 interview disputing musicians' rights to tenure, his relationship with orchestral players was often uneasy. Despite this, he was co-founder of the London Philharmonic, was the first conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic as a full-time ensemble, and played an important part in saving the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from disbandment in the 1960s. As chief conductor of London's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tyrone Guthrie
Sir William Tyrone Guthrie (2 July 1900 – 15 May 1971) was an English theatrical director instrumental in the founding of the Stratford Festival of Canada, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at his family's ancestral home, ''Annaghmakerrig'', near Newbliss in County Monaghan, Ireland. He is famous for his original approach to Shakespearean and modern drama. Early life Guthrie was born in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, the son of Dr. Thomas Clement Guthrie (a grandson of the Scottish people, Scottish preacher Thomas Guthrie) and Norah Power. His mother was the daughter of Sir W. Tyrone Power, William James Tyrone Power, Commissariat, Commissary-General-in-chief of the British Army from 1863 to 1869 and Martha, daughter of Dr. John Moorhead of Annaghmakerrig House and his Philadelphia-born wife, Susan (née Allibone) Humphreys. His great-grandfather was Irish people, Irish actor Tyrone Power (Irish actor), Tyr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Opera Group
The English Opera Group was a small company of British musicians formed in 1947 by the composer Benjamin Britten (along with John Piper, Eric Crozier and Anne Wood) for the purpose of presenting his and other, primarily British, composers' operatic works. The group later expanded to present larger-scale works, and was renamed the English Music Theatre Company. The organisation produced its last opera and ceased to run in 1980. English Opera Group Fleeing internal politics at Sadler's Wells Opera at the end of 1945, Britten and singers Joan Cross, Anne Wood, and Peter Pears joined with designer Piper and producer Crozier to found the English Opera Group. The new company's goal was to première Britten's operas, and to present other, mostly British, small-scale operas. Rosenthal, Harold. ''English Opera Group'' in Sadie, vol. 2, p. 52 The company's first project was to première Britten's chamber opera ''Albert Herring'' and give further performances of his opera ''The Rape of L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naomi Mitchison
Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison, Baroness Mitchison (; 1 November 1897 – 11 January 1999) was a Scottish novelist and poet. Often called a doyenne of Scottish literature, she wrote over 90 books of historical and science fiction, travel writing and autobiography. Her husband Dick Mitchison's life peerage in 1964 entitled her to call herself Lady Mitchison, but she never did. Her 1931 work, ''The Corn King and the Spring Queen'', is seen by some as the prime 20th-century historical novel. Childhood and family background Naomi Mary Margaret Haldane was born in Edinburgh, the daughter and younger child of the physiologist John Scott Haldane and his wife (Louisa) Kathleen Trotter. Naomi's parents came from different political backgrounds, her father being a Liberal and her mother from a Conservative, pro-imperialist family. However, both were of landed stock; the Haldane family had been feudal barons of Gleneagles since the 13th century. Today the best-known member of the family i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rapunzel
"Rapunzel" ( , ) is a German fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm and first published in 1812 as part of ''Children's and Household Tales'' (KHM 12). The Brothers Grimm's story developed from the French literary fairy tale of ''Persinette'' by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force (1698). The tale is classified as Aarne–Thompson type 310 ("The Maiden in The Tower"). Its plot has been used and parodied in various media. Its best known line is, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair". Plot A lonely couple, who long for a child, live next to a large, extensive, high-walled subsistence garden, belonging to a sorceress.), despite the common modern impression. The wife, experiencing pregnancy cravings, longs for the ''rapunzel'' that she sees growing in the garden (''rapunzel'' is either the salad green and root vegetable ''Campanula rapunculus'', or the salad green ''Valerianella locusta''). She refuses to eat anything else and begins to waste away. Her husband fears ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Palmer
Christopher Francis Palmer (9 September 194622 January 1995) was an English composer, arranger and orchestrator; biographer of composers, champion of lesser-known composers and writer on film music and other musical subjects; record producer; and lecturer. He was involved in a very wide range of projects and his output was prodigious. He came to be regarded as one of the finest symphonic orchestrators of his generation. He was dedicated to the conservation, recording and promotion of classic film scores by composers such as Bernard Herrmann, Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman, Miklós Rózsa, Elmer Bernstein and others. He wrote full biographies as well as sleeve notes, radio scripts, reviews and articles, on composers such as Benjamin Britten, Frederick Delius, Karol Szymanowski, Arthur Bliss, George Dyson (composer), George Dyson, Herbert Howells, Maurice Ravel, Nikolai Tcherepnin and others. He arranged music from the film scores and other music of William Walton, Malcolm Arnol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iain Sutherland (conductor)
Iain Sutherland (Glasgow, 1936) is a British conductor. In 1966 he was appointed Conductor of the BBC Scottish Radio Orchestra) in Glasgow. Previously he had been an orchestral and session violinist in London playing in the LPO, Philharmonia, RPO and ECO under such conductors as Boult, Sargent, Groves, Solti and Klemperer. Sutherland was the conductor of the BBC Scottish Radio Orchestra until a major restructuring was initiated by BBC in 1972 to reduce its coverage of "light" music, in favour of "pop" music. His remit with the BBC SRO included TV as well as Radio. He was Musical Director for many Light Entertainment series with Stanley Baxter, Kenneth McKellar, Moira Anderson and Andy Stewart The orchestra was officially closed in 1981. In 1973 Sutherland returned to London and was regularly invited by BBC Radio 2 as guest conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra for the "Friday Night Is Music Night" programme. From 1988 to 1995 he was the principal conductor of the BBC Radio Or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_(The_Angel_with_the_Eternal_Gospel).jpg "Click for more on -> Coventry Cathedral")
