Posted on 01/01/2017 6:44:11 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
January 15, THURSDAY. . . . Tuesday afternoon I dined at John Astor’s *, with D’Oremieulx, George Anthon, Cornell, Lord, Henry Day, Porter of Niagara, Edward Bell (the Great Bell of Moscow, where he was last winter), and Dick Emmet; very splendid and quite pleasant. The lady’s elegance of manner was a little oppressive, but she improves on acquaintance I had the honor to take her in and sit next her, and gradually warmed up to the conviction that she was amiable and agreeable.
*John Jacob Astor (1822-1890), son of William B. Astor, had married Charlotte Gibbes of South Carolina. His career was mainly devoted to administering the Astor estate, which came into his hands on the death of his father in 1875, and to the promotion of the Astor Library.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Several of these attendees are listed as founding trustees of the Astor Library.
That is interesting.
Okay, how did you know that?
I looked up “Astor Library” on Wikipedia. It was mentioned in the bio bit about John Jacob. I thought I remembered something about it, but I really remembered something about the J.P. Morgan Library, which was founded decades later.
The library board also included the unwell Mr. Ruggles, about whose health outcome I don’t want to know until it happens in sequence.
Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera, sera
What will be, will be
Ah, but Mr. Strong has seen the Mr. Ruggles's future!
Forgot to chronicle Miss Betty Rhinelander’s engagement. The lucky man is William Edgar (Newbold Edgar’s brother, the “Commodore” of the Yacht Club), old, forty-five at least, and not handsome, but very respectable, rich, honest, well-connected, and manly, and to his intimate friends genial and generous. A good step on both sides.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Sounds like a fine person. I wouldn't mind marrying him myself!
The Barking Moonbat has its capital city in San Francisco.
LOL - good point.
Tuesday night Eisfeld’s third concert. The Quartette in F, Beethoven’s Opus 19, was not intelligible to me, but admirable in the better informed judgment of others (for example, J.J. Post, who had heard it before). Eckart’s trio, Opus 18 – Hoffman at the piano, as extemporized substitute for the great Gottschalk, who was ill; clear, fluent, and pretty, particularly the scherzo manifestly the germ of the old “Gaily the Troubadour” melody. Haydn’s Quartette in G, No. 63, very familiar and genial. Last night a big, slow, splendid ball at Mrs. Peter Schermerhorn’s in University Place.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Theodore Eisfeld’s Wikipedia page
.
I can just picture the big, slow, splendid ball.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Eisfeld
“On Eisfeld’s return trip from a visit to Europe in September 1858, he was one of the few survivors of the burning of the steamship SS Austria where he was lashed to a platform and so drifted on the ocean, without food, for nearly two days and nights. Eisfeld never recovered from this extraordinary prostration, returning to Germany in 1866, and remained there until his death in Wiesbaden at 66.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Austria
“...a decision was made[by whom?] to fumigate steerage by dipping a red-hot chain into a bucket of tar; the chain became too hot for the boatswain to hold, and it was dropped onto the deck, which immediately burst into flames; although the ship was traveling at only half speed it was impossible to stop the engines as the engine crew had become asphyxiated. When the helmsman abandoned the wheel, the ship swung into the wind, spreading the flames down the length of the ship, racing through the mahogany veneer and varnished bulkheads, as passengers jumped into the sea. The passing barque, Maurice of France rescued most of the survivors, and the Catarina of Norway picked up more the next morning. As the blackened hulk was left to sink, all but 65 of 538 passengers were lost.”
Boy, extreme lack of common sense and suffering an extreme consequence as a result.
Wow, what a bizarre and tragic event.
Those words "not intelligible" I'd apply to something from, say, John Cage, never to Beethoven.
And, I can't find a quartet for Beethoven's Opus 19, leading me to wonder if Strong doesn't mean some other Opus 19 quartet?
But if he is referring to the following Opus 19 concerto, I think it's delightful and you can judge for yourselves:
Bethoven's Opus 19, Piano concerto
Here is another quartet in F, Opus 19, but not by Beethoven.
Also delightful.
When I was prepping this entry for posting if figured I would link youtube versions of the pieces so we could compare our opinions to those of George Strong. But I ran into the same difficulty identifying them with all the ones he mentioned. Maybe the numbering system changed over the years.
I think it’s very nice, but I don’t know if it’s “intelligible.” I haven’t done the course on understanding the details of classical music. I just listen to stuff.
I was just following up on what happened to this guy and Wow! You never know what is going to happen in your future, I guess. Yet another case of “Best to be prepared for anything at any time.”
If Beethoven had written:
That would be unintelligible, because it belongs to no known genre of music from Beethoven's time.
Instead, Beethoven's music could never be mistaken for Danny & the Juniors, and indeed, we're convinced that both Beethoven and Tchaikovsky rolled over under the onslaught of such "noise". ;-)
So in this case, "unintelligible" simply means unrecognizable as a certain category of music, in this case, Beethoven quartets.
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