A Fabulous Musical Gift for You

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1. Gayle Mullins says:

   December 25, 2014 at 10:36 am

   Diane, thank you for your support of public schools and teachers. Thank you for the beautiful Christmas song today. Merry Christmas.

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2. Gayle Mullins says:

   December 25, 2014 at 10:37 am

   Love it. Thank you so much!

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3. Cosmic Tinker says:

   December 25, 2014 at 10:40 am

   I’m very grateful for the glorious reminders that even those of us who are not so fortunate have good reason to praise our being here.

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4. Ellen Lubic says:

   December 25, 2014 at 10:55 am

   Loved this one.

   It is an early California morning with the sun and blue sky bursting through the trees outside my window. What a wonder that Diane can send this from NY and so many of us sit in our bathrobes enjoying Halleluyah all around the country.

   Thanks Diane for making us an extended family.

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5. chemtchr says:

   December 25, 2014 at 11:33 am

   That’s an amazing performance, right at the intersection of our battered holiday culture.

   The children are transported completely, but I sympathize with the wariness visible in some adult diners. I remember an occasion, at age 5, when I was sat totally frozen by the experience of all the children around me singing along with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer; because I had no idea what it even was. It’s totally secular, but it still creeps me out a little. I didn’t believe a word of it.

   When I consider the music and architecture that can be produced by cultures literally bound by common religious beliefs, I have more sympathy for the totalitarian bloodbaths that enforced the doctrinal unity of European Christanity. Here’s Bach’s masterpiece version the Nicean Creed, for example, also at the intersection of architecture and song.

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   • dianeravitch says:

     December 25, 2014 at 12:29 pm

     ChemTeacher, I have no sympathy at all for the totalitarian bloodbaths that “enforced the doctrinal unity of European Christianity.” If it is Hitler you refer to, I don’t think of him as a Christian. As my partner (who is of German descent) says of him, he was “God for-loss.” That is a bad transliteration of the sentiment: He was “lost to God.” And don’t forget that he and his madmen were ultimately defeated by European Christians because he threatened civilization.

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     • chemtchr says:

       December 25, 2014 at 12:51 pm

       No, the Nicean Creed wasn’t about Hitler at all. Why would you say such a thing? Your quick defense of European Civilization expresses exactly the reflexive sympathy I was referring to.

       I was thinking of the brutal suppression of the Albigensian heresy, the extermination of the Troubadors, the burning of hundreds of thousands of women, of the Inquisition, then of the wars of Reformation and Counter Reformation. I was also thinking of the human hands and hearts that built those cathedrals, or the Pyramid at Giza, or the Great Mosque at Djenne, or Tenochtitlan.

       I was saying that the religious cohesion we humanists tolerate and even celebrate has ALWAYS come at great human cost. I was elaborating on the historical cost of fundamentalism itself, and hoping we weren’t about to embark on another war fueled by religious identity.

       And I was being transported by the Mass in B Minor.

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     • dianeravitch says:

       December 25, 2014 at 2:32 pm

       ChemTchr, you were thinking more profoundly than I. Human history is bloody, and it continues. That’s why I feel grateful to live in this time and place. Not because we are exempt from error and evil, but because most of us, most of the time, are accustomed to predictability and security. Many, many other places are not, even now.

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   • Robert Rendo says:

     December 26, 2014 at 7:48 am

     ChemTeacher,

     Please tell us all what you are REALLY feeling.

     Don’t hold back.

     Your voyage of light heartedness and sparkly spirit are far too shallow and lack the sort of profundity and intellectual discourse this post needs.

     Please infuse some serious, solemn thought and by all means, stop adding to the good cheer and audacious fleeting several minutes of joy and song.

     If you continue this almost Kim-Kardashian style of contribution here in this post, you might be seen as obnoxious. And if that were to happen, it might color all your other wonderful posts.

     Please take care to have a very morose and battle-filled, war-ravaged holiday, one filled with all the dark underbelly of mankind. If not, we risk our lives and the future of our species if we were to take a break from it, even for a few seconds. . . . . . .

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6. nick marcantonio says:

   December 25, 2014 at 11:53 am

   Beautiful! Brought tears to my eyes. Thank you so much!

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7. Threatened out West says:

   December 25, 2014 at 1:28 pm

   This last Sunday I was able to sing the Messiah with a choir for the first time. I hadn’t even realized it was on my “bucket list” until midway through the first chorus. What a wonderful experience! Thank you, Diane, for this gift!

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8. Bill & Ruth Langmeyer says:

   December 25, 2014 at 2:56 pm

   Thank you, Diane.Bill Langmeyer

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9. Robert Rendo says:

   December 26, 2014 at 9:21 am

   Beautiful post, Diane.

   Thank you for this link!

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10. Communist Teacher says:

    December 26, 2014 at 12:14 pm

    Magnificent!

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