The terrible amnesia to which humankind is prey is undoubtedly one of the principal causes of our inability to learn from history. The invasion of Occitania and particularly the massacre on 22nd July, 1209, of the 20,000 inhabitants of Béziers on the pretext that the town harboured 230 heretics whom the town council refused to hand over to the Crusaders, dramatically recalls similar events in modern times, such as the Spanish Civil War triggered in 1936 by Franco's army with the excuse of the Communist threat and the division of Spain, the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939 with the excuse of the Sudetenland, and the invasion of Poland by Hitler's German troops, in September 1939, over the question of Gdansk. More recently, we remember the wars in Vietnam (1958-1975), Afghanistan (2001), those launched in retaliation against the terrorist attacks of 11th September, and the Iraq war (2003) with the excuse of that country's supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction....
Comments
(sorry if this is a repeat - not sure the first attempt made it, I run my default browser with extremely restricted settings and occasionally get bitten :-) )
(bobregular)
Hi Bob:
More like “Guessing the Score” but would it be Elgar’s “The Apostles”?
Carol
… Elgar’s Apostles which includes a Shofar …
Antoine
Interesting trivia ... of the first five readers who correctly identified Elgar's The Apostles one lives in England, one in Estonia, one in France (just) and two in the States. Which gives the lie to Elgar only appealing to the English.
More trivia, the first two correct answers came from current or former librarians on both sides of the Atlantic and two of the first three came from ladies, the eternal feminine clearly know their Elgar.
I was going to head the post Shofar so good but thought that would give the game away.
What a wonderful work The Apostles is. It is so different to the 'smells and bells' of Gerontius and is almost contemporary in its ecumenical message.
If you don't know the work Boult's classic recording from EMI is currently available for the price of two Starbuck lattes - no contest.
Many thanks to everyone who joined in the fun.
Actually, the question is as much whether Elgar finds appeal beyond the UK (I love Falstaff and the end of the Dream is worthy of Brahms’s German Requiem) as much as how many who responded correctly are Jewish (disclosure: I am).
AL
Actually, I live in Lithuania, not Estonia.
One of my friends, Anatolijus Senderovas, had composed a piece involving the shofar, Shmaa Israel
http://www.mic.lt/en/classical/persons/works/senderovas/36?ref=%2Fen%2Fclassical%2Fpersons%2F41
It involves a shofar...you can listen to bits of it. After that it was easy to find it....
Doesn't mean I appreciate Elgar, though ;-)
-- Beate
Social Protection Consultant Ambassador
- Vilnius 2009
- Cultural Capital of Europe
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