Thomas Paine.
Note: Recently I posted the entire text of Common Sense. This was a nistake. Some readers told me the article automatically went into spam. Therefore I am re-posting only Paine’s introduction to the original addition. My hope remains however, that people will read Common Sense, the book that more than anyother written material, emboldened the colonialists to think differently about their state of affairs and act. R.E.
Government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one. Thomas Paine, Common Sense.
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both. Chief Justice Louis Brandeis.
Introduction
Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.
As a long and violent abuse of power, is generally the Means of calling the right of it in question (and in matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the Sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry) and as the King of England had undertaken in his own Right, to support the Parliament in what he calls Theirs, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpation of either.
In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise, and the worthy, need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious, or unfriendly, will cease of themselves unless too much pains are bestowed upon their conversion.
The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying of a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censures, is the
THE AUTHOR.
Philadelphia, Feb. 14, 1776.
Robin Engelman 
Junge Deutsche Philharmonie
So, I listened to the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie ‘live’ on my Smart TV and the Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall. Britain’s Stefan Asbury Conducted. It was 3:00 PM here in Toronto and 5 hours later in Berlin.
Junge Deutsche Philharmonie are students from Music Academies in Germany. They get together three times a year for intensive rehearsals and then give concerts. They have appeared a number of times in the Berlin Philharmonic hall.
The programme began with an overture to an opera in late Romantic style by Franz Schreker , Die Gezeichneten, then the Schuman Violin Concerto in D major. The soloist Renaud Capuçon was terrific, but now I understand why I’d never before heard the work. I couldn’t get with it. Maybe another time.
Following intermission they played the Symphony No.4 in C minor by Shostakovitch, also a work I’d not heard, unfortunately. Better late than never. This piece highlighted every section of the orchestra and every principal player. Nary a glitch.
A very long first movement with a vivace in the first violins and stretto like, carried on by all the string sections excepting the contra basses whose notes, though slightly reduced in number, were enough. The tempo was alarmingly fast, the music played accurately and with excitement. There were also those mysterious Shostakovitch passages with low bass rhythms underpinning an extremely high, slow moving violin or piccolo melody.
Also typical of Shostakovitch were long and lovely solos for bassoon, contra bassoon, clarinets – Bb and Eb, flute and piccolo. And then the terrifying horn solos, each note rising ever higher than the preceding one. Interlocking timpani parts for two players and another magical touch, a wood block, castagnette and snare drum solo ending the second movement, similar to the materials ending his 14th symphony, but with a tremolo string melody instead of celeste accompaniment. And of course, brilliant brass and snare drum parts and some very nice xylophone and glockenspiel licks during which the player stood militarily erect.
He was not the only player whose posture attracted my attention. The concerto soloist moved towards and away from the conductor and audience, never once lifting his heels or toes. Legs almost straight, he slid flat footed back and forth over the stage floor.
The 4th symphony provided the concert’s entire second half. The Cleveland Orchestra is the only orchestra near Toronto that could match this group of amateurs in music making.
Posted by robinengelman on March 18, 2014 in Articles, Commentaries & Critiques, Composers, History
Tags: Die Gezeichneten, Franz Schreker, Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, Renaud Capuçon, Schuman Violin Concerto in D major., Stefan Asbury-Conductor, Symphony No.4 in C minor by Shostakovitch, The Cleveland Orchestra