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John Nyren tells us about one of cricket’s truly great batsmen, John Small.
John Small the Elder (1737-1826) was a truly historic figure of cricket, a supreme batsman credited with the first recorded century in a serious match, 136* for Hampshire vs Surrey on July 13th, 1775. He was also a gifted violinist and cellist, and on one occasion it quite possibly saved his life.
The fandango is Spain’s most alluring national dance, and the story goes that even the most solemn clergyman could not resist it.
Jean-François de Bourgoing was secretary to King Louis XVI’s legation to Spain from 1777 to 1786, and served as Ambassador in 1792-93. The French Revolutionary government mistrusted him, but his diplomatic career revived under Napoleon. In 1807, he brought out a fourth edition of his popular study of modern-day Spain, first published ten years earlier, which included this account of the fandango.
John’s enduring influence is evident today in the rich sights and sounds of Christian liturgy.
St John Damascene (676-749) was Syrian monk and a contemporary of our own St Bede, both of them highly respected scholars with a deep love for Church music. John left us an exposition of Christian theology of enduring importance throughout east and west; he compiled a wealth of hymns, collects and prayers; and he saved Christian iconography everywhere from the hands of extremists.
When the capital of the Roman Empire was in the grip of a violent earthquake, it fell to one small child to save all the people.
According to tradition, the Trisagion or Thrice-Holy Hymn was revealed by angels one September 24th during the tenure of Patriarch Proclus of Constantinople (434-446). Some thirty years later Peter, the abrasive Patriarch of Antioch and a former fuller by trade, took it upon himself to add an extra line. Three centuries after that John Damascene was still upset about it.
While on tour in Austria, Irish tenor Michael Kelly was introduced to Mozart, and discovered a man of many talents and much kindness.
In 1783, young Irish tenor Michael Kelly embarked upon a tour of Austria. One of his early engagements was a piano recital and supper-party also attended by none other than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, now twenty-seven, and the two became friendly. Mozart spoke touchingly of his English friend Thomas Linley, a gifted violist who had drowned in a boating accident some five years earlier, aged just twenty-two.
John Mansur, working in Islamic Syria, thought he could safely criticise the Roman Emperor for meddling in Christian worship. But he was wrong.
In 726, the Roman Emperor Leo III, seated in Constantinople (modern Istanbul), declared that images of Christ and his saints were ‘idolatrous’ and must be scrubbed from all church walls. The ban was sternly enforced, but there were rebels; and the outspoken John Mansur encouraged them with stirring pamphlets written from the safety of the Islamic court of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, Caliph of Damascus.
An amateur composer once asked Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart how he thought of his lovely music and — for one performance only — the maestro told him.
In April 1789, Mozart quitted Vienna and embarked on a tour that took him to Prague, Berlin, Leipzig, Potsdam and Dresden. In the course of his travels he made the acquaintance of Baron V—, an amateur musician who subsequently sent him a song, a symphony and a bottle of wine. The Baron also asked him how he thought up his own wonderful music, and Mozart, most unusually, told him.