This 13th day of February falls on a Friday,as will happen again in March and November, 2026 being one of the years when the supposedly unlucky coincidence happns three times. Our “Friday the Thirteenth” page goes into the statistics.
You can judge whether “the fault is in your stars that you’re an underling” (pardon the misquotation from Julius Caesar).
Venus is below ground at this hour, and is at southernmost latitude from the ecliptic at this date, while Saturn is prominent, and it would be a stretch to argue that any of that has significance. Pegasus is a tumbling horse, and Cygnus a plunging swan.
Home planet department
There may be a Friday 13 in a foggy month, but Bad Friday Eve (as I’ll call yesterday) was a day when several things turned out well for me, and the morrow is cheerful Valentine.
Good luck and bad luck are like notes in a musical scale, flanked by their sharps and flats. There is good luck mis-handled and bad luck overcome.
We had luck (of the kind that doesn’t just happen but has to be prepared for) to get discounted tickets for a performance by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment on February 8 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, a twenty-minute walk along the Thames bank, of Beethoven’s 4th and 5th symphonies.
The 5th, nicknamed the “Fate” symphony, is the one that opens with the four-note knock-at-the-door motif.
Its history exemplifies bad luck heroically transcended.
From 1804 to 1808 Beethoven composed – not in succession, but constantly having to interrupt work on each to work on others – four symphonies, his only opera, a piano sonata, string quartets, violin and piano concertos, and a mass. He was working at his piano in a rented Vienna apartment. Napoleon’s troops occupied the city in 1805. Beethoven was beginning to go deaf.
The premiere performance in 1808 was part of a more-than-four-hour all-Beethoven concert all conducted by Beethoven and with piano parts played by him. Besides the 6th and 5th symphonies it included ten other items, including an extemporized fantasia at the piano. It was December 22, the theater was unheated, the audience was cold. There had been only one rehearsal, a mistake was made, Beethoven had to make the orchestra start over, the audience booed.
This month brought another musical example of a heroic and unapplauded overcoming of bad luck:
In Puccini’s opera Turandot at the Royal Opera House, the star tenor who singing the part of Prince Calaf got through the first two acts and then was unable to continue. Rather than end the performance, the music manager sang the part from out of sight while another staff member mimed it on stage. They had to omit the aria “Nessun dorma” as technically too difficult. Did the audience admire their pluck? No; having not got what they paid for, they booed.
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I am amazed by musical talent so I never boo. Likewise, I am amazed by the myriad flavors and textures in food so I’ve never returned a meal at a restaurant.
Your bad luck story reminds me of a story I heard about Itzhak Perlman . The Israeli violinist had polio as a child making it difficult to walk. Before each performance, he slowly walks to his chair in the center of the stage with the aid of crutches. Then he sits down, lays down his crutches, takes the clasps off his legs, then sits in his characteristic pose of one foot under the chair and the other forward.
Then he picks up his violin and starts to play.
During one performance, after the second measure of the first song, one of his strings broke. The audience didn’t know what would happen next. Would he put his clasps back on and ambulate offstage to get another violin or string, or would someone bring out a string or violin? Instead, he sat for a moment in thought, changed the tuning on his violin, and then signaled to the conductor to resume where they left off.
He continued the concert by improvising and playing on his violin with only 3 strings. It was considered to be his best performance ever. The audience applauded and whooped after the show for a long time.
As we age we may only be playing with 3 strings but we can still shine.
OK, that’s weird. When I first opened this article from my email link it read 1895 as that year. As soon as I posted my above comment that it was 1805, the page refreshed to the correct year.
Thank you for that augmentattion to the theme.
Is this a typo? Napoleon’s troops occupied the city in 1895. 1805 maybe…
P.S. For the astrologically inclined, today is a big day. At 0011 hours UTC Saturday February 14, Saturn will enter the sign of Aries, i.e. cross the threshold of zero degrees ecliptic longitude, beginning another twenty-nine-and-a-half year sojourn through the zodiac. Then next Friday February 20 Saturn will conjunct Neptune in ecliptic longitude, marking the beginning of their 36-year synodic cycle.
Boo to the booing! If somebody in the audience could do a better job, they should have gotten on stage.
I’ve heard recordings of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. They have a light touch, very engaging. What a treat to hear them live!
According to Wikipedia, Napoleon’s army occupied Vienna in 1809. I’ve read somewhere that during the prolonged artillery bombardment Beethoven sheltered in a basement and covered his ears with pillows to try to protect what was left of his hearing.
Yesterday evening was perfectly clear here in San Francisco. During twilight from Bernal Hill I saw Venus and Mercury for the first time during their current apparitions. Venus was only visible through binoculars before setting during bright twilight. Once the sky was dark Mercury was surprisingly bright.
Best wishes to everybody who is celebrating Valentine’s Day.
I had corrected my typo 1895 to 1805 but that didn’t get into version you saw. I always hope the post will be opened by clicking on the title, which will get it from the server,