Hello, all! I’m back from my week-long Christmas hiatus.
It’s Sunday, January 2nd, the first Sunday of 2022. I thought we needed music to remind us of who we are, where we are, and what we should be. Antonin Dvorak wrote his 9th Symphony, “From the New World”, in 1893, while serving as Director of the National Conservatory of Music of America from 1892-95. It’s an unabashed celebration of the nation that welcomed him with open arms, and has long been one of the most popular of all the symphonies in the classical repertoire.
In this time when the ‘woke’ and the statists oppress us, a time of political correctness and deplatforming, of repression and oligarchy, of Big Brother and petty bureaucracy, let’s not forget what America was, should still be, and (please God) will be again, to those who value freedom and the human spirit. Dvorak expressed it very well, I think, in this symphony. May it inspire us as it did him.
This performance is one of the finest I’ve ever heard, by the Gimnazija Kranj Symphony Orchestra of Slovenia in 2018, conducted by Nejc Bečan. As you can see, it’s a youth orchestra comprising musicians who are still learning their craft. I think they did an absolutely superb job here.
What a lovely way to start the New Year!
Peter
Welcome back, and an amazing display of will power to resist posting during your break.
I agree a fabulous performance of an old favorite. What talented young people!
Hey Peter;
Welcome back and that was an amazinf piece. I hope we find our way back like the Ancient Israeli's, but it is going to take generations to undo the damage done by the statist march through our institutions.
Happy New Year to you and Ms. Grant and all the readers of this Blog!
That was a sterling use of bandwidth, and lives up to the promise of the internet, so seldom fulfilled.
Happy New Year, sir.
My favorite piece by my all time favorite composer. Thanks; I look forward to giving this a listen this evening. I hope to concur with Aesop. It has a dynamic range that can be stunning with the right interpretation.
It was H.L. Mencken who once said of Dvorak: "Melody flows from the man like cider from a jug!"
Likewise my favourites. His 8th Symphony was also quite good, as are his Slavonic Dances
They had really good video gear for 1918!
Might want to tweak that 100 years. 🙂
@Stan_qaz: Oops!!! Thanks. Fixed it.