I just heard the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra tonight, and they were fantastic. A pleasant surprise was seeing Zubin Mehta up there on stage.
They began the programme with Jan Freidlin's Poem of the Contrasts, which kind of rocked my world. It was a world premiere, and I think I just witnessed some history. Watch out.
They went on to play Bartok's Concerto No. 2 for violin and orchestra, a piece I fell in love with at the same time I was listening to Technotronic. Yeah, I'm gettin' old(ish). Anywho, the soloist was phenomenal: Leonidas Kavakos.
Finally, they ended with Saint-Saens' Organ Symphony. Get your mind out of the gutter. Good stuff.
What impressed me most was not the classical, modern and new works I was accustomed to, but the Israeli National Anthem - Hatikva - they played at the start. It's GORGEOUS. It makes me think that America's National Anthem was just an afterthought, a song someone scrounged up at the last minute.
Hatikva is moving, spiritual (much like this great land) and digs deep. It's my new theme song.
3 comments:
Well, as I learned recently, the tune of our national anthem actually stems from a drinking song:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.
100010458/default.html
There's at least one other pre-Banner song that shares the tune: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.
100010461/default.html
I learned this and stole those links from a post on Soho the Dog: http://sohothedog.blogspot.com/2007/09/
full-measures-of-devotion
(you'll have to reconstruct the links, I had to break them up to make them fully appear. Boooo!)
Beautiful.
i feel like the music/fashion world is cyclical (every 20 years) and TECHNOTRONIC is right on schedule to be so hot right now!!! pump up the jam. now bring on the lisa stansfield, cathy dennis and deee-lite!
i love that you know what a merkin is.
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