Good music, coupled with a feeling of inferiority

Last updated on: July 2, 2016 at 11:37 pm by Dan Peterson

Good music, coupled with a feeling of inferiority 2016-07-02T23:37:22-06:00 Dan Peterson

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The snow is all gone now, and the mountains and trees are green. (This Wikimedia Commons photo was taken in the month of May.)

We’re just back from Deer Valley, where we attended a “patriotic” concert by the Utah Symphony, which performed under the guest direction of Jerry Steichen. The program included pieces by John Philip Sousa, of course.

My father always remembered seeing and hearing Sousa as a child, when the great band director brought his group on tour through rural North Dakota.

But there was also quite a bit of music by George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Aaron Copland.

It’s a bit depressing, sometimes, to contemplate the astonishing achievements of so many Jewish writers, scientists, musicians, businessmen, and so forth. The Gershwins were Jewish, of course, as were Berlin and Copland.

As are Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, who created the musical Les Miserables. As is Herbert Kretzmer, who created the English lyrics for the musical — from which the program in Deer Valley included the famous prayer-solo “Bring Him Home.” The version by Alfie Boe is deservedly famous — here he is, singing it with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir — but tonight’s soloist, Broadway’s Doug LaBrecque, did an extremely good job himself.

He also gave a surprisingly good and quite fresh interpretation of the old Simon and Garfunkel hit “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Of course, Paul Simon, who composed the song, is Jewish. And, for that matter, so is Art Garfunkel.

Is it hopeless? Do Gentiles, goyim, even stand a chance against Jewish talent?

Well, fortunately, there were some pieces by goyim on the program, too. A selection from Antonin Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”), for example — the part well known to many as “Going Home.” And Sousa, of course. And, inevitably for such a concert, George M. Cohan.

Anyway, it was a very good evening, out under the summer evening sky, among the trees.

Posted from Park City, Utah

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