Four concerts and a lecture
In the past week we went to four concerts, which is unusual. First we went to our regular Monday noon concert at Shearim in Netanya. Last Monday it was a piano-violin duo and they were very good. The last piece "Jealousy" was very nicely done. Then we went to the concert in Herzliya of the Ihud Choir singing Carmina Burana, which we saw advertized in The Jerusalem Post. This was an exceptional experience.
Some friends asked me about "Carmina Burana," the name means simply songs from Burana, a place in lower Germany. They were written between the 11th-13th centuries mostly in medieval Latin, with some German, French and Italian. In fact the 254 songs, poems and theatrical pieces were from a hoard discovered in a Benedictine monastery in Bavaria in 1803. They were probably written down by novice monks, but the songs are bawdy, with many references to sex, drinking and even some mocking the Catholic Church. They were probably the kind of thing spoken/sung by the common people and monks in the lingua franca of medieval central Europe. There are many musical arrangements of them, but the most famous is that of Carl Orff, who set 24 of them to an innovative score in 1938. It has been performed many times and is a popular choral/percussion piece.
Then a day later we had a show at the AACI called "Frankly Sinatra," presented by the "Broadway Rabbi" Yisrael Lutnick, who is from the US but has a pulpit in Mevasseret Zion near Jerusalem. He sang very well, although not trying to sound like Sinatra, he was charming and personable. He told Frankie's life story through his songs.
Then we had our monthly prescription concert of the Herzliya Chamber Orchestra under Harvey Bordowitz, which last Sat night had a concert of orchestral pieces, the last one of which was Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony (no. 8), which as usual was beautifully performed. The reason I tell you about these concerts is to let you know that life continues as normal here, and we have a very active program.
In between these concerts, we went to a lecture about Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, given by a Professor of History who visits here every year, Hank Citron, who taught at various Universities in the USA. He pointed out that Herzl was completely secular, had no Jewish education, but became aware of irrational anti-Semitism when he reported on the Dreyfus trial in Paris for his liberal Viennese newspaper. He wrote the pamphlet "der Judenstaat" in 1896 which made him famous at the age of 38. He then gave up his job and spent his own money founding the Zionist movement and organized its first Congress in Basel in 1897. Although few knew him and his plans, he managed to persuade about 100 Jewish leaders of different political views to attend. At first he focussed on rich Jews, and tried to obtain concessions from the Sultan of Turkey on Palestine and the Kaiser of Germany, but both rebuffed him. He met the Kaiser on his visit to the Holyland, not in his hotel but on the road to Jerusalem. However, since there was no photograph of this incident, the Zionists manufactured a picture of the two of them together, an early case of "photo-manipulation". Actually he was unsuccessful, so he swtiched to gaining support from the poor Jewish masses and there was more successful. He published his novel, "Altneuland" in 1902 and predicted that there would be a Jewish State within 50 years, and he was right. He died in 1904 at the age of only 44. In every town and city in Israel the main street is called "Herzl Street" and he is buried in Jerusalem on Mt. Herzl.
Some friends asked me about "Carmina Burana," the name means simply songs from Burana, a place in lower Germany. They were written between the 11th-13th centuries mostly in medieval Latin, with some German, French and Italian. In fact the 254 songs, poems and theatrical pieces were from a hoard discovered in a Benedictine monastery in Bavaria in 1803. They were probably written down by novice monks, but the songs are bawdy, with many references to sex, drinking and even some mocking the Catholic Church. They were probably the kind of thing spoken/sung by the common people and monks in the lingua franca of medieval central Europe. There are many musical arrangements of them, but the most famous is that of Carl Orff, who set 24 of them to an innovative score in 1938. It has been performed many times and is a popular choral/percussion piece.
Then a day later we had a show at the AACI called "Frankly Sinatra," presented by the "Broadway Rabbi" Yisrael Lutnick, who is from the US but has a pulpit in Mevasseret Zion near Jerusalem. He sang very well, although not trying to sound like Sinatra, he was charming and personable. He told Frankie's life story through his songs.
Then we had our monthly prescription concert of the Herzliya Chamber Orchestra under Harvey Bordowitz, which last Sat night had a concert of orchestral pieces, the last one of which was Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony (no. 8), which as usual was beautifully performed. The reason I tell you about these concerts is to let you know that life continues as normal here, and we have a very active program.
In between these concerts, we went to a lecture about Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, given by a Professor of History who visits here every year, Hank Citron, who taught at various Universities in the USA. He pointed out that Herzl was completely secular, had no Jewish education, but became aware of irrational anti-Semitism when he reported on the Dreyfus trial in Paris for his liberal Viennese newspaper. He wrote the pamphlet "der Judenstaat" in 1896 which made him famous at the age of 38. He then gave up his job and spent his own money founding the Zionist movement and organized its first Congress in Basel in 1897. Although few knew him and his plans, he managed to persuade about 100 Jewish leaders of different political views to attend. At first he focussed on rich Jews, and tried to obtain concessions from the Sultan of Turkey on Palestine and the Kaiser of Germany, but both rebuffed him. He met the Kaiser on his visit to the Holyland, not in his hotel but on the road to Jerusalem. However, since there was no photograph of this incident, the Zionists manufactured a picture of the two of them together, an early case of "photo-manipulation". Actually he was unsuccessful, so he swtiched to gaining support from the poor Jewish masses and there was more successful. He published his novel, "Altneuland" in 1902 and predicted that there would be a Jewish State within 50 years, and he was right. He died in 1904 at the age of only 44. In every town and city in Israel the main street is called "Herzl Street" and he is buried in Jerusalem on Mt. Herzl.
posted by Jack Cohen at 9:19 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home