July 4th Celebrations

[Guest zipperzone]

Did you guys catch the telecast of the 4th celebrations from Washington? I thought Tony Danza was really poor as the MC. Surely in that huge land of yours, you can find a more competant performer.

 

I though the actual fireworks were sensational - then I switched chanels and watched the Boston ones, which were even more sensational. God only know how much $$$ they all cost. Oh well, what's a million more? It sure wouldn't put much of a dint in the defecit.

[seattlebottom]

I never liked Tony Danza so enough said there.

 

What really is funny to me is that they always play the 1812 Overture. Don't get me wrong, I love the piece and Tchaikovsky was a wonderful composer, but it's a piece composed by a Russian, commemorating an event important in Russian history and flavored with Russian patriotic music. Isn't there any equivalent musical piece that would suit the needs of the American Revolution?

[Bilbo]

Well, the 1812 use in this circumstance is really funny. But it has been going on for long enough now, that it really is an American tradition. Making the score one more immigrant. I wonder how many people realized that they didn't play the whole thing?

Tony Danza almost worked for me. Almost. His writers had him trying to do Bob Hope style jokes, IMHO, and Bob Hope he ain't.

[+ Lucky]

Say, zipper, what do the boring Canadians do for their Indepependence Day? Oh that's right, they are not yet Independent. God save the Queen!

[Guest zipperzone]

>Say, zipper, what do the boring Canadians do for their

>Indepependence Day? Oh that's right, they are not yet

>Independent. God save the Queen!

 

Well now, let me see........

 

Us BORING Canadians call our national holidy CANADA DAY. Kinda figures eh? And we do all sorts of BORING stuff but as it is mostly "familt oriented" I give it a wide berth.

 

As to the degree of our "Independence" we don't give it much thought. The Queen is totally a figurehead. She can't make one whit's worth of differance and if she were to vanish tomorrow, most BORING CANADIANS wouldn't give a rat's ass.

 

However (and I hope this doesn't get booted to the political section) with the current administration in the US, showing total disregard to the laws of the country - I wonder how truly "independent" you are?

[AdamSmith]

>God save the Queen!

 

"Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States." -- J. Bartlett Brebner

 

"Very little is known of the Canadian country since it is rarely visited by anyone but the Queen and illiterate sport fishermen." -- P.J. O'Rourke

[AdamSmith]

>What really is funny to me is that they always play the 1812

>Overture.

 

... "It is one of the few pieces with good musical content that has cannons exploding," says Leon Botstein, president of Bard College and a conductor and music scholar who has written about Tchaikovsky. ...

 

Though some ensembles had played the "1812 Overture" earlier -- Chicago's Grant Park Orchestra performed it on Independence Day 1935 -- most had done so only sporadically before the '70s. The PSO, for one, played it only four times prior to that decade. In 1974, however, the "1812 Overture" came into its own as a pan-American tradition.

 

That July 4, famed Boston Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler decided to perform the overture with fireworks, real cannons and a coordinated steeple-bell choir to increase attendance at the Pops' summer concerts on the Esplanade, says Bridget Carr, archivist of the Boston Symphony.

 

Also, the nation's bicentennial was around the corner and the desire to have a spectacular show outweighed Cold War conniptions. ...

 

http://www.postgazette.com/ae/20030704overtureae3.asp

[+ Lucky]

Can't take a little ribbing, zipper? You know what they say...don't dish it out if you can't take it!

[jackhammer91406]

I

>wonder how many people realized that they didn't play the

>whole thing?

 

I have watched the Capital Fourth show for years and the biggest disappointment for me has ALWAYS been the fact that they only play the last movement of the 1812. This year Tony Danza was almost the biggest disappointment.

 

I have always enjoyed the Boston Pops program because in addition to having more spectacular fireworks, they always perform the entire 1812 overture. My only complaint is that when the program switched over to A&E, the commercials really became a nuisance. Now that I have Tivo, it's better.

 

Thought Bebe did a good job, but having the fireworks go off during her last number kind of messed things up. But of course Little Richard went long in his set and so the timing was off.

[+ deej]

>Isn't there any equivalent musical piece that would suit the

>needs of the American Revolution?

 

There isn't, actually. All "Americana" tunes of the era are appropriated from elsewhere. Yankee Doodle was a British children's song, and the words were written to taunt the redcoats. Our National Anthem is derived from an olde English drinking song (To Anacreon in Heav'n, itself derived from an earlier opera.)

 

Heck, even the Marine's Hymn started life as a French children's folk song. It first showed up in classical repertoire as the gendarme's duet in Offenbach's "Genevieve du Brabant".

 

"OK", you ask, "but what about "God Bless America"? Great song, certainly a national standard. It was written by Irving Berlin, a Russian immigrant. ;-)

 

The closest to suit this purpose *might* be Dvorak's 9th Symphony, "From the New World". It has the bombast but not the cannons, and he wasn't American either.

 

So, no. There ISN'T an American work of the necessary length and vigor.

 

BTW, did anyone notice the GLARING "editorial comment" during the Macy's fireworks show in NYC? All the music was American save one curious inclusion from Gustav Holst's "The Planets": Mars, the Bringer of War. :-(

[AdamSmith]

>So, no. There ISN'T an American work of the necessary length

>and vigor.

 

How about Charles Ives's "Three Places in New England"? Plenty of vigor and place-relevance there. Or if that's too long, maybe his 15-minute-long Third Symphony?

 

This reminds me of a past July 4 thread started by the much missed Trixie:

 

http://m4m.m4m-forum.org/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=17&topic_id=8184&mesg_id=8184&listing_type=search

 

P.S. Re the above thread, just noticed the final verse of "America the Beautiful." At risk of getting this kicked into the Politics forum, it seems only too relevant today...

 

O beautiful for patriot dream

That sees beyond the years

Thine alabaster cities gleam

Undimmed by human tears!

America! America!

God shed his grace on thee

Till nobler men keep once again

Thy whiter jubilee!

[+ deej]

The Ives works lack popular recognition. There's some Chadwick stuff that would work well, too, but it doesn't have popular recognition (or cannons) either.

 

Remember that fireworks themselves (at least on July 4th) are remembrances/commemorations of battles past. It is appropriate that fireworks are ushered in by live-fire artillery (albeit generally at a quarter load).

[AdamSmith]

>The Ives works lack popular recognition.

 

Well, if people had the chance to hear them performed once or twice...

 

Sort of the converse of Yogi Berra's "Nobody goes there any more -- it's too crowded."

[+ deej]

>Well, if people had the chance to hear them performed once or

>twice...

 

Yeah, that's the conundrum for classical music these days. Unless it gets used in the soundtrack of a major blockbuster motion picture it just won't achieve popular recognition. And even if it gets that treatment, it'll be known as "Theme from..." instead of its real title.

 

>Sort of the converse of Yogi Berra's "Nobody goes there any

>more -- it's too crowded."

 

I love Berra-isms. When asked "what time is it?" he once responded "you mean now?"

 

Blondes don't have a lock on ditzy.

[Guest zipperzone]

>Can't take a little ribbing, zipper? You know what they

>say...don't dish it out if you can't take it!

 

Hey Lucky - I have no trouble with a little ribbing. I thought my reply was somewhere between mild & factual.

 

There are many times when I find Canadians (and especially our politics) to be so boreing I could just hurl.

[Guest zipperzone]

>"OK", you ask, "but what about "God Bless America"? Great

>song, certainly a national standard.

 

Yes it is a great song - but somehow it has never sounded quite as good as when it was sung by Kate Smith (anybody remember her?)

 

On a sidenote - I always enjoy seeing Keith Lockhart conduct the Pops. He is such a little cutie. I noticed this year that he was not wearing his wedding ring on his left hand, which had been very visable in years gone by. Could he be up for grabs?

[Bilbo]

Religion

 

Well, we risked moving the thread with politics, so here's some religion. Might as well....

Two Gospel songs definitely saying "Jesus is Lord" (which sentiment I personally agree with) and nothing from any other religion???

[Rick Munroe]

RE: Religion

 

>Two Gospel songs definitely saying "Jesus is Lord" (which

>sentiment I personally agree with)

 

If Jesus is Lord, who's Taylor? (I'm not familiar with any of that because I was raised a strict Orthodox Bloomingdale's)

 

http://www.simon.com/mall/images/tenants/3647bt_LordTaylor.jpg

[AdamSmith]

RE: Religion

 

>If Jesus is Lord, who's Taylor? (I'm not familiar with any of

>that because I was raised a strict Orthodox Bloomingdale's)

>

>

>http://www.simon.com/mall/images/tenants/3647bt_LordTaylor.jpg

 

Only because it has not been said here in too long:

 

Jesus saves; Moses invests.

 

Gratuitousness is all!

[+ deej]

I always heard that his Back Bay nickname was June.

[Laurent]

I've never found Canadians boring, but if I had, my first visit to the bars of Montreal would have caused that opinion to vanish in record time.

[Louis]

Well I am a Canadian, and to be truthfull, probably quite boring. I like bland food, gospel music. I rebuilt an old pipe organ about that is about 180 years old. I ride bike every evening and take train pictures. This spring I bought a kayak and have been going to various places to take train pictures. I am very laid back. I do have friends who do party, but I tend to be like a lot of Canadians, and jell out a lot.

I kayaked into Ottertail Lake for the first time this afternoon, so that I can take train pictues there. Tomorrow afternoon, I will go to a bay on Rainy Lake and take more pictures.

I do keep busy but when you compare what I do with lot of people on the list, a person would rightly say that I am boring, but I enjoy it this way...:-)

[AdamSmith]

>I always heard that his Back Bay nickname was June.

 

Not, for better or worse, the local buzz on Keith. Looks can be deceiving.

[AdamSmith]

>I've never found Canadians boring, but if I had, my first

>visit to the bars of Montreal would have caused that opinion

>to vanish in record time.

 

The subject was Canadians.

 

Canadiens are a different story! }(

[Guest Callipygean]

Or, as one of our humourist put it:

 

"Americans are proud to be American. Canadians are relieved to be Canadian"

 

LOL