Fritz Spiegl (27 January 1926 - 23 March 2003) was born at Zurndorf, Austria, the son of an agricultural merchant and his Jewish wife. Events 98 - Trajan becomes Roman Emperor after the death of Nerva. Year 1926 ( MCMXXVI) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1174 - Jocelin, Abbot of Melrose, is elected Bishop of Glasgow. Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. Zurndorf is a town in the district of Neusiedl am See in Burgenland in Austria. Austria (Österreich ( officially the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ He became a musician, journalist, broadcaster, humorist and collector who lived and worked in England from 1939. A musician is a person who plays or writes Music. Musicians can be classified by their roles in creating or performing music An instrumentalist plays a A journalist (also called a newspaperman) is a person who practices Journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events trends A presenter, or host (sometimes hostess, in feminine form is a Person or Organization responsible for running an event A humorist is a person who writes or performs humorous material The Hobby of collecting includes seeking locating acquiring organizing cataloging displaying storing and maintaining whatever items are of interest to the individual collector England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland
He was a distant relative of the composer Gustav Mahler. In 1939, Fritz and his sister, neither of whom spoke English or knew anything of music, were sent separately to England. He was one of three children taken in by the Secretary of State for War Captain David Margesson and his American wife. The position of Secretary of State for War, commonly called War Secretary, was a British Cabinet -level position first applied to Henry Dundas Henry David Reginald Margesson 1st Viscount Margesson, of Rugby ( July 26 1890 – December 24 1965) was a British Conservative politician
The Margessons taught Fritz English and sent him to Magdalen College School, near Banbury. Magdalen College School is an independent school for boys located in Oxford, England. Banbury is a Market town located on the River Cherwell in northern Oxfordshire, England. At 15 years of age, Spiegl invented a model aeroplane which had another riding piggy-back upon it. Model aircraft are flying or non-flying models of existing or imaginary Aircraft, often scaled down versions of full size planes using materials such as balsa The two were rigged together with a series of pulleys and elastic bands and, to his delight, the contraption could fly a short distance. A pulley (also called a sheave or block) is a Wheel with a groove between two Flanges around its Circumference A rubber band (in some regions known as a binder, elastic band, lackey band, elastic blubber, "laggy band" or gumband') The results were published in model aeroplane magazine. Thereafter Spiegl was hooked on the printed media.
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Early life
Spiegl was born near the Hungarian border in the village of Zurndorf, Burgenland, Austria, where his father was a businessman manufacturing among other things carbonated water. Hungary (Magyarország 'mɔɟɔrorsaːg) officially in English the Republic of Hungary ( Magyar Köztársaság, literally Magyar (Hungarian Republic Burgenland ( Croatian Gradišće, Slovenian Gradiščansko, Hungarian Várvidék, Őrvidék or Felsőőrvidék Austria (Österreich ( officially the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich Spiegl attended the Gymnasium in Eisenstadt but, as the family were Jewish, they soon found themselves being persecuted by the Nazis in the wake of the Anschluss of 1938. A gymnasium (pronounced with ɡ- in several languages is a type of school providing Secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar Eisenstadt (Kismarton Železna Kapla Željezno is a City in Austria, the state capital of Burgenland. PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ Nazism, which was a short name for National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus refers primarily to the Ideology and practices of the National Socialist German The ( German: "link-up" also known as the, was the 1938 Annexation of Austria into Greater Germany by the Nazi All their property having been confiscated, Fritz's parents succeeded in leaving the country in 1939, eventually escaping to Bolivia while sending Fritz and his older sister Hanny (born 1923) to England, where, in Northamptonshire, they received a warm welcome. The Republic of Bolivia (República de Bolivia) named after Simón Bolívar, is a Landlocked country in central South America. Northamptonshire (or archaically the County of Northampton; abbreviated Northants
Every Saturday, for eight years, Spiegl would discuss such matters as the use of the word "lie", the flagrant misuses of parliamentary language, the prevalence of tautology in popular speech and the verb "jubilize" as it was employed during Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. He would even meditate on the habit of young doctors wrapping their stethoscopes in a U round their necks rather than in a Y configuration, as depicted by the Telegraph cartoonist Matt.
Reading every national newspaper every day, he continued to accumulate knowledge and anecdotes throughout his life. His sure-footed negotiation through the linguistic jungle in an accented English made him immediately recognisable on the television or wireless; this was all the more remarkable since he had arrived in Britain shortly before the Second World War speaking no English, and was later stricken by impaired hearing.
A native speaker of German, Fritz Spiegl did not speak a word of English when he moved to England as a 13 year-old -- a fact which has often been regarded as the trigger for his preoccupation with language phenomena such as, say, malapropisms and for the biting yet humorous linguistic purism of his later years. A first language (also mother tongue, native language, arterial language, or L1) is the language a human being learns from birth The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. A malapropism (also called a Dogberryism) is the substitution of an incorrect word for a word with a similar sound usually to comic effect As one commentator remarked, Spiegl
. . . soon knew a great deal more about the language than most English people do. And cared more too. One can understand this. It's galling, when you've taken the trouble to learn that "an alibi" is not the same as "an excuse", to find that the natives themselves seem to have forgotten the difference.
On arrival in Britain, Spiegl was sent to a minor public school, where he learned little beyond "rugger, plane-spotting and a bit of Latin". An independent school in the United Kingdom is a school relying upon private sources for all of its funding predominantly in the form of school fees Eventually he went to London to work for an advertising agency. London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. But he soon switched to music, taught himself to play the flute, enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music and, within a short time, became Principal Flautist with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he kept for more than a decade. The flute is a Musical instrument of the Woodwind family Unlike other woodwind instruments a flute is a Reedless wind instrument that produces its The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a well known conservatoire and one of the leading music institutions in the world The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra based in Liverpool, England, is one of the world's oldest established Orchestras It is owned and administered Ear damage appears to have played a part in his exit from professional playing, as in later years he would occasionally refer to having been "invalided out by the brass section".
However, during that time he also pursued other interests and began his association with the BBC, aiming to be a popularizer of classical music. A resident of Liverpool, he organised annual Nuts in May concerts, featuring a Liszt Twist and other parody items. Liverpool ( is a City and Metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary A parody (ˈpɛɹədiː US, [ˈpaɹədiː] UK) in contemporary usage is a work created to mock comment on or poke fun at an original work its subject This approach helped draw new young audiences into concert halls. Less attracted to pop music, Spiegl once called the Beatles phenomenon "the greatest confidence trick since the Virgin Birth". Pop music as a genre features a noticeable rhythmic element catchy melodies and hooks, a mainstream style and conventional structure The Beatles were a pop and rock band from Liverpool, England formed in 1960 A confidence trick or confidence game (also known as a bunko, con, flim flam, gaffle, grift, scam, scheme The virgin birth of Jesus is a religious Tenet of Christianity and Islam which holds that Mary miraculously conceived Jesus while However, he used to be tolerant towards journalists who, up to his death, often misspelt his name Spiegel, Spiegle, Speigl, Speigel, or Speigle.
Fritz Spiegl died suddenly during a Sunday lunch with some friends and his wife, Ingrid Frances Spiegl.
Works
Compositions
As a composer, Spiegl scored a popular success with the original theme from the TV series Z-Cars, based on "Johnny Todd", a Liverpool sea shanty. Z-Cars (sometimes written as Z Cars) was a British Television drama series centred on the work of beat police in the fictional Sea shanties (singular " shanty " also spelled " chantey " derived from the French word "chanter" 'to sing' were Shipboard He also composed the original theme for the Z Cars spin-off series Softly, Softly; the song was also released as a single on Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate record label in 1966. Softly Softly was a British Television drama series produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966 Andrew Loog Oldham (born January 29 1944 in Paddington, West London) is an English Rock and roll producer, Immediate Records was a British Record label, started in 1965 by The Rolling Stones manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, concentrating His BBC Radio 4 UK Theme, in which national songs from each of the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom are ingeniously combined, sometimes in counterpoint with each other, and was heard on Radio 4 at the beginning of each morning's broadcasting until April 2006. The BBC Radio 4 UK Theme is an arrangement of traditional British airs composed by Fritz Spiegl (and possibly Manfred Arlan which was played every morning The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located In Music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and Rhythm, and interdependent in Harmony
Selected books
- How to Talk Proper in Liverpool (Lern Yerself Scouse S. ) (1966)
- Keep Taking the Tabloids. What the Papers Say and How They Say It (1983)
- The Joy of Words. A Bedside Book for English Lovers (1986)
- Fritz Spiegl's Book of Musical Blunders and other Musical Curiosities (1996) Robson Books Ltd. ISBN 1-86105-075-5
- The Lives, Wives and Loves of the Great Composers (1997) Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd. ISBN 0-7145-2917-6
- An Illustrated Everyday History of Liverpool and Merseyside (1998)
- MuSick Notes: A Medical Songbook (2001)
- Contradictionary: Of Confusibles, Lookalikes and Soundalikes (published posthumously in 2003)
External links
- Obituary in the Daily Telegraph
- Dennis Barker Fritz Spiegl: Witty musical polymath and broadcaster The Guardian 25 March 2003
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