Category: Today’s Birthday

The principal shaper of the Classical style, Haydn was an Austrian composer who exerted major influence on his contemporaries, including Mozart, and future composers. The first great symphonist, he composed 106 symphonies and virtually invented the string quartet. By his later years, he was recognized internationally as the greatest living composer. He composed important works in almost every genre. What legendary composer was a student of Haydn? Discuss

Goya was a Spanish painter and printmaker whose work profoundly influenced 19th-century European art. He started out designing tapestries for the royal manufactory of Santa Bárbara and was appointed painter to Charles III in 1786. By 1799—under the patronage of Charles IV—he had become Spain’s most successful and fashionable artist. Goya’s works address all aspects of Spanish life, including the political and social turmoil of his day. Why did his art come under the scrutiny of the Inquisition? Discuss

Early in his career, Jünger, a German writer and WWI veteran, published novels based on his army experience. Strongly influenced by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, they glorified war and its sacrifice as the greatest physical and mental stimulants. He later opposed Hitler and rejected his own militarism, expressing instead a desire for peace in his wartime diaries and in futuristic novels like On the Marble Cliffs, an allegorical attack on Nazism. What is Jünger’s best known work? Discuss

Briand was a French statesman who served as premier of France 11 times and held 26 ministerial posts between 1906 and 1932. After World War I, he emerged as a leading advocate of international peace. As foreign minister from 1925 to 1932, he was the chief architect of the Locarno Pact and the Kellogg-Briand Pact. An impressive orator, Briand was a prominent figure in the League of Nations and advocated for a United States of Europe. With whom did he share the 1926 Nobel Prize for Peace? Discuss

“The Divine One,” Sarah Vaughan was an American jazz contralto with a vast range who worked as a soloist for much of her career. As a child, Vaughan studied piano and organ and began singing in her church choir. As a teenager, she won the famous amateur contest at Harlem’s Apollo Theater and was featured with bandleader Earl Hines. One of jazz’s finest vocalists, she learned much from the horn stylings of what bebop musicians with whom she recorded in 1945? Discuss

Perhaps the most popular and beloved of 20th-century American poets, Frost wrote of the character, people, and landscape of New England. Rooted in the New England landscape, yet deeply symbolic, his work is concerned with human tragedies and fears, the complexities of life, and the ultimate acceptance of one’s burdens. Frost was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry four times—in 1924, 1931, 1937, and 1943. He recited a poem at the inauguration of which US president? Discuss

Bartók was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, and collector of folk music. In 1904, having discovered that the folk-music repertory generally accepted as Hungarian was in fact largely urban Roma—Gypsy—music, he set about researching Hungarian folk music. He worked folk themes and rhythms into his own music, achieving a style that was at once nationalistic and deeply personal. What surprising discoveries did he make in his study of folk music? Discuss

After starting an unsuccessful art studio with Walt Disney, Iwerks continued working on film animation until Disney brought him to Hollywood in 1923 to help draw Alice in Cartoonland. Together, Disney and Iwerks created Mickey Mouse—drawn by Iwerks, with Disney providing the voice. Iwerks went on to develop many special effects for animated movies, winning Academy Awards in 1959 and 1965 for his technical contributions to motion pictures. What other cartoon characters did Iwerks create? Discuss

Regarded as one of the world’s greatest directors for his ability to combine Japanese aesthetic and cultural elements with a Western sense of action and drama, Kurosawa became an assistant director and scenarist at PCL movie studio in 1936. He wrote and directed his first feature film in 1943 and earned international acclaim for Rashomon in 1950. His later classic films include Seven Samurai and Yojimbo. In 1990, Kurosawa won an Academy Award for what? Discuss

Marceau was a French actor and mime who gained renown in 1947 with the creation of Bip, a sad, white-faced clown with a tall, battered hat—reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp. Noted for his eloquent, deceptively simple portrayals, he earned worldwide acclaim in the 1950s with his production of the “mimodrama” of Nikolai Gogol’s Overcoat. In 1978, he founded a school of mimodrama in Paris. How did Marceau’s miming help save children from the Nazis during World War II? Discuss