August 28 - Umberto Giordano; Ivor Gurney; Léon Theremin (The Musical Birthday Series)

Umberto Giordano (28 August 1867 – 12 November 1948) was a composer of several highly successful operas.

Umberto Giordano, today,

Is known for Andrea Chenier.

The success of Siberia

Was vastly inferiah,

In its frigid verismo-ish way.

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Ivor Gurney (28 August 1890 – 26 December 1937) was a poet and composer who never fully recovered after being gassed in World War I.

Doppelgänger

The English department knows Gurney,

A poet of the first world war;

The music department knows Gurney,

The composer of songs by the score.

He must have been quite a conniver

To succeed in these alternate spheres;

A psychically wounded survivor,

The Ivor who had two careers.

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Léon Theremin (27 August [O.S. 15 August] 1896 – 3 November 1993) was an inventor, most 

famously of the early electronic instrument, the theremin. [N.B. Theremin was posted here in error; 

his real N.S. birth date is 27 August.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Counsel

Heed this advice as you begin

Your lessons on the theremin - 

Its repertoire is very thin,

Take up, instead, the violin.

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