Lennon–McCartney (sometimes McCartney–Lennon) was the songwriting partnership between the two English musicians John Lennon (1940-1980) and Paul McCartney (born 1942). It is one of the best-known and most successful musical partnerships in history. Between 1962 and 1969, they wrote about 180 credited songs. Most of the songs were recorded by the band they were both part of, The Beatles. Other songs credited to Lennon–McCartney were originally released not by the Beatles but by other artists, especially those managed by Brian Epstein. Recording a Lennon–McCartney song helped start new artists' careers. For example, one of The Rolling Stones' first singles, "I Wanna Be Your Man", was a Lennon–McCartney song.
Birmingham Triennial Music Festival
The Birmingham Triennial Musical Festival was a festival of classical music that used to be held in Birmingham, England. It was started in 1784 and continued until 1912. “Triennial” means that it happened once every three years.
The first music festival was held for three days in September 1768. It helped to raise money to complete the new General Hospital on Summer Lane. Another festival was held in 1778 to get more money. The hospital opened in September 1779.
From September 1784 the festival was held every three years. It continued to raise money for the hospital.
The church and theatre where the festival was held became too small, so in 1834 they built Birmingham Town Hall which had much more room.
Many famous musicians performed at the festival. In 1837 Felix Mendelssohn conducted a performance of his oratorio "St. Paul", played the organ, and played the piano part in the first performance of his Piano Concerto No. 2 which had been especially commissioned by the Festival. In the next festival he played his Piano Concerto No. 1. In 1846 (a year before he died) the festival commissioned him to write his oratorio "Elijah". It was a huge success. He was paid 200 guineas. "Elijah" was played at every festival after that.
The festival commissioned other composers to write works, these included: Arthur Sullivan, Max Bruch, Charles Gounod and Antonín Dvořák.
The great conductor Hans Richter was made principal conductor in 1885.
Edward Elgar wrote several works for the festival. In 1900 his oratorio "The Dream of Gerontius" was given its first performance. In 1903 he performed "The Apostles", and 1906 "The Kingdom". In 1912 he wrote "The Music Makers". The principal conductor for 1912 was Henry Wood.
The 1909 and 1912 festivals lost a lot of money and they could not give any money to the hospital. This was soon followed by World War I, so the festival stopped and did not continue after the war.
You Never Give Me Your Money
"You Never Give Me Your Money" is a song by The Beatles that opens the medley on side two of the album "Abbey Road". It was written by Paul McCartney and is credited to Lennon/McCartney.
The Beatles recorded 26 takes of "You Never Give Me Your Money" on May 6, 1969, with McCartney on piano and vocals, Lennon and Harrison on guitar and Starr on drums.
On July 1, McCartney overdubbed lead vocals onto take 30, and added more vocals and chimes on July 15.
"You Never Give Me Your Money" was originally to transition into "Sun King" with a long organ note. This was recorded along with more vocals on July 30. They were scrapped the following day, when McCartney completed the song by adding bass guitar and piano. The "Sun King" crossfade was completed on August 5 with a series of tape loops containing the sounds of bells, birds, bubbles and insects.
Whenever You Need Somebody (song)
"Whenever You Need Somebody" is a song originally sang by Rick Astley. The song's style is pop-dance. It was the second single released by Astley, and it is the title track of Astley's debut album "Whenever You Need Somebody", that was written and produced by Stock Aitken Waterman.
It was a successful European hit, following the pattern of the artist previous smash single "Never Gonna Give You Up". It was never released as a single in the U.S.
Sun King (song)
"Sun King" is a song written by John Lennon but credited to Lennon/McCartney and recorded by The Beatles for their "Abbey Road" album.
The working title was "Here Comes the Sun King", but was shortened to "Sun King" to avoid confusion with the song "Here Comes the Sun". The song is in three-part harmony, sung by Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Harrison. At the end of the song, the music stops abruptly and a Ringo Starr drum fill leads into the next track, "Mean Mr. Mustard".
The mixing of Romance languages occurs in the last three lines of the song. In 1969, Lennon was interviewed about these lyrics and said, "We just started joking, you know, singing 'cuando para mucho.' So we just made up... Paul knew a few Spanish words from school, you know. So we just strung any Spanish words that sounded vaguely like something. And of course we got 'chicka ferdy' in. That's a Liverpool expression. Just like sort of-- it doesn't mean anything to me but (childish taunting) 'na-na, na-na-na!'"
In 1976, The Bee Gees covered the song for the musical documentary "All This and World War II".
Alan Gray
Alan Gray (born in York, 23 December 1855; died in Cambridge, 27 September 1935) was a British organist and composer.
Gray was born in York. He went to St Peter's School in York, and Trinity College, Cambridge. From 1883 to 1893, he was Director of Music at Wellington College, Berkshire. In 1893, when Stanford left the post of organist at Trinity College, Alan went back there to become organist, and stayed there until 1930.
From 1922-1923 he was president of the Royal College of Organists.
Gray wrote several cantatas as well as chamber music and organ music, but he is mainly remembered for his church music, including an Evening Service in F minor (Magnificat and Nunc dimittis). He also composed several descants to various hymn tunes, several of them are still sung today. He did a lot of work as editor of the Purcell Society.
Alan Gray was a very tall man: 2 metres (nearly 6 ft 7in).
Mean Mr. Mustard
"Mean Mr. Mustard" is a song written by John Lennon (credited to Lennon/McCartney) and performed by The Beatles on their album, "Abbey Road". The "Abbey Road" version was recorded with "Sun King" in one continuous piece.
Written in India, Lennon said that the song was inspired by a newspaper story about a miser who hid his cash wherever he could so he can stop people from making him spend it. On reflection, he didn't think highly of the composition, describing it in "Anthology" as "a bit of crap I wrote in India."
A demo version of the song was recorded in May 1968 at Kinfauns, George Harrison's home in Esher, and appears on Anthology 3. In that version, Mustard's sister is named Shirley. Lennon changed it to Pam when he saw the ochance to ease the segue into the song "Polythene Pam", which is after "Mean Mr. Mustard" on the album. According to Lennon, "In 'Mean Mr. Mustard', I said 'his sister Pam'—originally it was 'his sister Shirley' in the lyric. I changed it to Pam to make it sound like it had something to do with it." Additionally, the original version of the song was a quieter acoustic rendition and was over 4 minutes in length.
The version in the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" film was performed by Mean Mr. Mustard (played by Frankie Howerd) and his evil robot companions named the Computerettes. As with the performance of "She's Leaving Home" also in the film, the computerized singing of the Computerettes was performed by the Bee Gees.
Magnificat
The Magnificat is the song that the Virgin Mary sang when she was told by the angel that she was going to give birth to God's son in Christian mythology. This is the story told in the Bible in the book of Luke Chapter 1,verses 46-55. It is also known as the Song of Mary. "Magnificat" is a Latin word meaning "magnifies" (i.e. saying how great (God) is).