Christmas Eve in the Trenches, 1914: When Warring Sides Laid Down Their Arms & Joined Each Other in Song

in History, Music | December 23rd, 2008

Right in time for Christ­mas Eve…

World War I was a relent­less­ly grind­ing and bru­tal war. Europe had nev­er expe­ri­enced any­thing like it. But there was one notable moment of respite, a brief moment when human­i­ty showed back through. Christ­mas Eve, 1914. The mov­ing sto­ry of what hap­pened that night gets recount­ed in John McCutcheon’s touch­ing song, Christ­mas in the Trench­es. The video below includes the back­sto­ry and the song itself. You can also watch a live per­for­mance here, and get the lyrics here. Hap­py hol­i­days to all. And thanks Sheryl for the tip.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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The Nepotism Special

in Music | December 22nd, 2008

Here it goes:


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Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 — Karajan or Muppet Style

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | December 21st, 2008

A cou­ple of big blogs recent­ly high­light­ed a clip of the Mup­pets doing Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth. It’s cute, and I was hard­ly sur­prised that the video logged 3.6 mil­lion views on YouTube.

Not far behind, at 3.2 mil­lion views, is a long video show­ing Her­bert Von Kara­jan lead­ing a live per­for­mance of Beethoven’s Ninth. The fact that Kara­jan, one of the world’s best-known con­duc­tors, lags behind a bunch of pup­pets is unfor­tu­nate, no doubt. But it’s also heart­en­ing in some ways. It tells me that high cul­ture is still com­pet­ing for an audi­ence. So here it goes. Kara­jan in action:

(You can get Part 2 here, and we’ve added both clips to our YouTube Favorites. Also you can find more vin­tage Beethoven/Karajan footage in this guy’s video col­lec­tion.)

 

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U2 at Live Aid, 1985

in Music | December 19th, 2008

Let me indulge in a brief bit of nos­tal­gia for a sec.  Some­how my once way­ward friends and I scored tick­ets to Live Aid back in 1985, which meant that we got to spend a scorch­ing day at Philly’s JFK Sta­di­um, watch­ing live acts that includ­ed Led Zep­pelin, Eric Clap­ton, Cros­by, Stills, Nash & Young (leav­ing aside a campy Bowie and Jag­ger video). But some­how what still stands out for me are two acts piped in from Lon­don’s Wem­b­ley Sta­di­um —  U2’s 12 minute ver­sion of  “Bad” (below), which launched the band into inter­na­tion­al star­dom, and, yes, Queens’ set: Bohemi­an Rhap­sody & Radio Gaga, Ham­mer To Fall & Crazy Lit­tle Thing Called Love (also below), and We Will Rock You/We Are the Cham­pi­ons.

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Top Ten Versions of Leonard Cohen’s Classic “Hallelujah”

in Music | December 18th, 2008

Hat tip to Bob for tip­ping us off to this col­lec­tion put togeth­er by The Mir­ror in the UK. They take  Leonard Cohen’s clas­sic “Hal­lelu­jah” (lis­ten below) and then bring you the ten best cov­er ver­sions. On the list, you’ll find ver­sions by Bob Dylan, John Cale (founder of The Vel­vet Under­ground), Rufus Wain­wright, Jeff Buck­ley, among oth­ers.

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YouTube Gets a Little More Intelligent

in Music, YouTube | December 1st, 2008

YouTube has had the mass mar­ket locked up for some time. But, dur­ing the past year, it has been giv­ing a lit­tle nod to more “high­brow” view­ers. We’ve seen chan­nels sprout­ing up on YouTube that fea­ture con­tent pro­duced by uni­ver­si­ties and oth­er high-val­ue con­tent providers. (See our col­lec­tion Intel­li­gent Life at YouTube: 80 Video Col­lec­tions.) We’ve also watched the launch of The YouTube Screen­ing Room, which brings short inde­pen­dent films to the view­ing pub­lic. Now we have The YouTube Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra. 

This project brings clas­si­cal music into the world of Web 2.0. As The New York Times explains it, the ini­tia­tive will pro­duce a mashup of orches­tral pieces con­tributed by users. And, it will also fea­ture a con­test in which musi­cians can upload sam­ples of their work, and, à la Amer­i­can Idol, win­ners will be cho­sen by a pan­el of judges and brought to per­form at Carnegie Hall under the direc­tion of Michael Tilson Thomas, music direc­tor of the San Fran­cis­co Sym­pho­ny. (Get more from the video below.)  Some purists will find this high­ly gim­micky, no doubt. Oth­ers may see it as a good way to keep clas­si­cal music rel­e­vant. Have an opin­ion? Let us know in the com­ments.

 

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Mozart’s Complete Works

in Music | November 29th, 2008

Just a quick heads up: Amazon.com is run­ning a pret­ty good look­ing deal on a box set of Mozart’s com­plete works. The pack­age includes 170 CDs of music. And it also comes with a cd-rom con­tain­ing essays on his works, artist bio’s, text and libret­ti’s. User reviews sug­gest that the record­ing qual­i­ty is quite high. The box set is being sold for $74.99, or 50% off the nor­mal list price. I’m not sure how long this sale will go on.

In the mean­time, if you’re more in the mood for some free Mozart, then spend some time with the clas­si­cal music pod­casts that we have indexed here.

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Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash Together in 1969: Free MP3s

in Music | November 24th, 2008

Two Amer­i­can icons got togeth­er in Nashville in 1969 and record­ed at least 22 tracks togeth­er, includ­ing some well known clas­sics: Ring of Fire, I Walk The Line, Girl From the North Coun­try, and You Are My Sun­shine. You can lis­ten in on the his­toric col­lab­o­ra­tion for free here.

via Boing­Bo­ing

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