It's great when Passover and Easter come together like they do this year. I think it gives a little extra depth to our celebrations. Well, to the celebrations of SOME people, anyway.
Have you noticed any differences in approaches to the holidays this spring?
After Dennis Prager's terrible paralyzing accident, I found this message on the meaning of the Passover (from before the accident) to be especially memorable: There are two basic messages in this short piece that you may want to think about this weekend.
Contrast: State, not home:
Did Westminster Abbey do better than that school?
Would King Charles give a more Christian message, or a less Christian message?
Change?
Secular Easter
More Secular Easter
What are you gonna do if you're staying home with the kids this weekend?
Music
Repeating some great Easter music
BBC had some music suggestions. Here's one:
Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Festival Overture
This 1888 overture is named for the Svetliy prazdnik or 'Bright holiday', as Easter is known in Russia.
An avowed atheist, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote that he wanted to capture 'the transition from the solemnity and mystery of the evening of Passion Saturday to the unbridled pagan-religious celebrations of Easter Sunday morning'. The piece paints vividly the explosion of light and colour at the end of a long, hard Russian winter.
Religious and pagan themes are entwined at the very heart of the work: Rimsky-Korsakov borrowed themes from the Obikhod, a collection of Orthodox chants that since 1848 had been a mandatory part of the liturgy for every church in Russia.
These austere motifs shine through the wild textures of the orchestra, no more so than at 8'35 when a solo tenor trombone ('a piena voce') evokes the chanting of a priest.
Handel:
More Handel
Do you have a favorite piece of Easter music? Passover music?
Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.
This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.
Last week's thread, April 5, French Elites are extra confused by President Trump
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