Wild about Waltz King
QUESTION Female fans would rip the composer Franz Liszt’s clothes. What other historical characters were the subjects of ‘Beatlemania’?
Franz Liszt (1811-86), the prolific Hungarian composer and piano virtuoso, cut a dashing figure on stage with his handsome features and flowing hair.
He was a great showman who drove audiences wild with his performances of fiendishly difficult works. admirers would fight over his handkerchiefs and gloves and buy up locks of his hair.
this frenzy began in Berlin in 1841 and German writer Heinrich Heine coined the term Lisztomania to describe it.
Liszt regarded the attention as a cross to be borne by a genius, stating: ‘sorrowful and great is the artist’s destiny.’
similar adoration was bestowed on Johann strauss ii (1825-1899), the austrian composer of more than 500 waltzes, including the Blue Danube (1866) and tales From the Vienna Woods (1868).
His music was more lyrical and refined than his famous father Johann i, composer of the radetzky March, bringing the artistry of the Viennese waltz to its zenith and winning a legion of fans.
strauss was an international celebrity. Posters announcing his concerts showed the Waltz King sitting on top of the globe with his conductor’s baton held as a sceptre. During his U.s. tour, crowds of more than 100,000 attended his concerts.
He was treated with such adulation that women kissed the seams of his coat and begged for locks of his hair.
though he had a fine mane of hair, he could not compete with the demand. so his valet provided ‘authentic strauss’ hair that he had, in fact, clipped from a black newfoundland dog.
On June 3, 1899, conductor Eduard Kremser was holding a benefit concert at stadtpark Pavilion, Vienna, when he heard of strauss’s death. He stopped the orchestra mid-number and, without explanation, played the Blue Danube. the audience rose to its feet and wept.
strauss’s violin was carried in the funeral Hair-raising adulation: Blue Danube composer Johann Strauss II procession on a velvet pillow. all of Vienna lined the streets to witness it.
James Hall, Bladon, Oxon. rUDOLPH VaLEntinO ‘ the Latin Lover’, was the smouldering megastar of silent cinema.
in 1921 he starred in the Four Horsemen Of the apocalypse, where he stole the hearts of female film-goers by dancing a tango in his first scene.
He became the first Hollywood sex symbol, and the mania around him grew, with women fainting when they saw him in his next picture, the sheik.
His untimely death in 1926 from peritonitis, at just 31, caused mass hysteria. an estimated 100,000 people lined the streets of Manhattan to pay their respects at his funeral.
several suicides were blamed on Valentino’s death, and the funeral nearly turned into a riot when the windows of the undertakers were smashed by fans desperate to pay their respects.
theories that he wasn’t dead, but blind or mad, continued for years. Emma Sherwood, Leighton Buzzard, Beds.
QUESTION Germany has a tripartite education system. What is this?
GErManY has three types of secondary schools, much like the British education system in the Fifties of grammar, secondary modern and technical schools.
the German secondary education begins at ten (12 in Berlin and Brandenburg).
a third of pupils go to gymnasium (grammar school) up to the age of 18 or 19, which has the Abitur university qualification as the leaving exam.
Realschule ( technical school), for children aged up to 16 or 17, has the
Mittlere Reife ( Realschulabschluss) as the leaving exam.
the Hauptschule (secondary modern school), for children up to the ages of 15 or 17, has the Hauptschulabschluss as the leaving exam. the percentage of children attending this type of secondary school varies from 60 per cent to as low as 4 per cent, depending on the area.
some Lander (German states), particularly in the former East Germany, combine the second and third types into a technical- modern Mittelschule,
Regelschule or Regionale Schule. admission procedures differ across the states. in some, primary school grades are critical for entering gymnasium. in others, the choice of school type is a parental right. the tripartite system was abolished in Berlin in 2011 and Hamburg in 2010, which now have only gymnasium and comprehensives.
Holland, austria and switzerland have also retained selection, while most other European countries moved to a comprehensive system by the mid-seventies.
the last local education authority in the UK to abolish the tripartite system was Bexley, south-East London, when Bexley-Erith technical High school for Boys was renamed Beths Grammar school in 1998.
Chris Bird, Cheltenham, Glos.
QUESTION Did Buzz Aldrin secretly take Holy Communion on the Moon?
tHE previous answer related how a lawsuit filed by Madalyn Murray O’Hair, leader of american atheists, had led to aldrin taking Communion in secret.
O’Hair was dubbed the ‘most hated woman in america’ following the case of Murray v. Curlett, which led to the ending of compulsory Bible-reading in U.s. public schools in 1963.
Her life came to a grisly end. in 1995, O’Hair, her son Jon and granddaughter robin disappeared in austin, texas.
a year on, with no sign of the family, the new York times speculated they had gone on the run with money embezzled from the organisation — large sums had been withdrawn shortly after their disappearance. another theory was that O’Hair had committed suicide to stop the faithful ‘praying over her corpse’.
in 2001, their dismembered bodies were found on a ranch in texas. they had been murdered by David Waters, a former american atheists employee, and two accomplices.
David Wright, Ipswich, Suffolk.