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We’re now almost midway through Black History Month. Launched in the United States in February 1926 as Black History Week to coincide with the anniversaries of the births of two figures prominent in the abolition of slavery — former president Abraham Lincoln and social reformer Frederick Douglass — in Ireland and the UK it’s celebrated each October.
There are musical anniversaries aplenty associated with October 7. It was a Friday in 1932 when the London Philharmonic Orchestra first took to the stage. Hard to believe now that the musical public in the English capital was remarkably ill served back then.
With all the talk in recent weeks about the exodus of European footballers lured by petrodollars to the Saudi Arabian League, it’s worth recalling another case of money talking back in the day. For Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema — two of soccer’s biggest names — read the Czech composer Antonin Dvorák.
In German, they’re known as lieder. In French they’re mélodies. In English, they get the rather grandiose title of ‘art song’, to distinguish them from popular vocal music and folksong.