Back in Thurgood Marshall's time, the time of segregation, some thought that if people were more open they would have seen the most important black male of the century. He joined the NAACP and argued in Brown v Board. To this day there is only one other black male in the Supreme Court justice. In his time in the Supreme Court he worked to end segregation and fought for the equal rights for all people. Even though he’s dead his legacy is still alive.
Emanuel Feuermann
Emanuel Feuermann (born Kolomyia, Austro-Hungarian Empire, 22 November 1902; died New York City, 25 May 1942) was a famous Austrian cellist who became a naturalized American. During his short career he was thought of as the world’s greatest cellist after Pablo Casals.
Feuermann's parents were amateur musicians. His father started to teach him the violin, but the young boy wanted to hold it between his legs like a cello, so his father bought him a small cello. In 1909 the family moved to Vienna so that he could learn the cello from the famous Friedrich Buxbaum, the cellist of the Rosé Quartet and principal cellist of the Vienna Philharmonic. Then he studied with Anton Walter at the Music Academy in Vienna. In February 1914, aged twelve, he played in his first concert, performing Joseph Haydn's Cello Concerto in D with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Felix Weingartner.
In 1917, Feuermann went to Leipzig where he studied with Julius Klengel. Klengel thought his young pupil was incredibly talented, but that he did not know much great cello music. Feuermann worked very hard. Klengel was a good teacher for him
In 1919 Friedrich Grützmacher died and Klengel recommended Feuermann should take his job at the Gürzenich Conservatory in Cologne. Although he was very young he got the job which had a very good salary, but he was not given the title of “professor”.
During the 1920s he gave many concerts all over the world. In 1929 he became professor at the Musikhochschule in Berlin.He played with famous people such as the violinists Carl Flesch, Szymon Goldberg, Joseph Wolfsthal and Jascha Heifetz, the composer and viola player Paul Hindemith and the pianist Artur Rubinstein.
On April 3, 1933, with the rise of Nazism, he lost his job at the Berlin Conservatory because he was Jewish. He moved to London. He toured Japan and the United States where he played the Haydn concerto with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Bruno Walter. Some music critics were not very impressed with his playing. However, a few days later he gave a recital. Nearly all the professional cellists in New York were there because they had heard that Feuermann was an exceptional player. The audience were extremely enthusiastic and even the music critics changed their minds.
In 1935 he married. He moved to Zürich with his wife, but happened to be in Vienna at the time of the Anschluss while his wife and young daughter were still in Zürich. Bronislaw Huberman helped Feuermann and his family escape to Israel in September 1938. At the end of the year they went to the United States and applied for American citizenship.
He taught at the Curtis Institute of Music and gave concerts and made recordings with other great musicians including Artur Schnabel, Bronislaw Huberman and, especially, with the pianist Franz Rupp.
Feuermann died in 1942 of an infection after a small operation for haemorrhoids.
Feuermann was one of the greatest cellists who ever lived. The cello was not often heard as a solo instrument in those days, but Feuermann and Pablo Casals made people change their minds. Feuermann did not actually practise very much on his own, but when he was making music with other people he worked very hard at all the detail. He loved teaching. He also loved fast cars. His family were very important indeed to him.
Many believe that Feuermann's interpretation of Antonín Dvořák's Cello Concerto and his performance of Johannes Brahms's Double Concerto with Jascha Heifetz are among the best ever.
Jonathan Nott
Jonathan Nott (born Solihull, England in 1963) is an English conductor. He was a choral scholar at the University of Cambridge, and also studied singing and flute in Manchester and conducting in London.
In 1988 he started his career as conductor. He became music director at the Lucerne Theatre, and principal conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra from 1997 to 2002. He made recordings of works by György Ligeti with the Berlin Philharmonic. Nott often conducts the Ensemble InterContemporain (EIC). Since 2000 he has been conductor of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra.
Isabella of France
Isabella of France (1295 – 22 August 1358) was the Queen consort of England as the wife of Edward II of England. She was also Regent of England for her son Edward III of England when he was too young to rule. Until 1325 she was a traditional queen consort. After that time she had one of the worst reputations of any English queen.
She was the daughter of Philip IV of France and Joan I of Navarre. As the daughter of two monarchs she was destined to be a queen. While France and England had a common culture, political relations between them were tense. To ease this situation Pope Boniface VIII arranged two marriages. This double-alliance was between Edward I of England and Marguerite of France and also the infant Edward II marrying Isabel. In 1299 the marriage between Edward I and Marguerite took place. The marriage between Edward II and Isabella would wait until she was old enough. They were married in 1308 at Boulogne-sur-Mer in France.
At age 12 the young bride was already considered a great beauty. Since his father's death a year earlier, the 24 year old Edward II was now king. But he showed very little interest in Isabella. His first act as king was to recall the exiled Piers Gaveston. One chronicler wrote "He had home his greatest love."
Whatever their relationship was exactly, Edward II regarded Gaveston with great affection. From the beginning of his marriage to Isabella their relationship was not good. Edward had no romantic interest in Isabella. Isabella soon found her husband was not giving her any money. She wrote to her father telling him she was living in poverty. King Philip quickly wrote back demanding Edward provide for his wife and any children they might have. Edward stalled by giving excuses. Meanwhile Isabella discovered that Piers Gaveston had been given many of the jewels her father had given her as part of her dowry. Isabella was furious. Her uncles warned Edward they would not attend their coronation unless he got rid of Gaveston. But Edward's barons had already made the same threats. Edward promised he would take care of everything when the parliament met in March. When Gaveston was put in charge of the coronation, one thing after another went wrong. At the banquet table honoring the king and queen, Gaveston sat next to the king instead of Isabella. He even displayed his Coat of arms next to the king's instead of Isabella's. The barons and Isabella's kinsmen were angry over these insults to their new queen. But it wasn't until 1311 that the barons drew up a list of ordinances the king had to follow. The first was to get rid of Piers Gaveston. But before 1312 Gaveston came back to England. That same year Isabella was pregnant with their first child. To escape the barons, Edward and Gaveston fled north taking Isabella with them. They left her unprotected at York while Edward and Gaveston escaped on a ship. But the barons were not upset with Isabella. Gaveston was captured and murdered in the summer of 1312. This didn't end Isabella's troubles as Edward found a new favorite in Hugh le Despenser. In November their first child was born, the future Edward III of England. But Despenser hated Isabella more than Gaveston. By 1321 she was virtually a prisoner. By 1324 Edward had given all her lands to Despenser.