Trumpeter Dave Douglas and pianist Uri Caine share a lot – big techniques, innovative intelligence, multi-genre fluency and connections with John Zorn, for starters – but this melodious balance of old Protestant hymn themes, postbop swing and a little free improv is their first duo project together.
Certain passages of the Aton Hymn demonstrate themes shared by a wider literary tradition; portions have been compared in imagery to Psalm 104 (see Psalms).
In his hearing, the French nominee hymned Gaullist themes, proposing a "social impact assessment" of new single-market rules, and vowing to defend public services.
His first work, Notas de un himno (1876; "Notes for a Hymn"), dealing with themes of sadness and patriotism, clearly reflects the influence of the famous Spanish Romantic poet Gustavo Adolfo Becquer and sets the tone for all his poetic work that followed.
Written by Paul Green, a playwright celebrated in the 1920's and 30's for his harsh, realistic depictions of social ills, often on racial themes, "Hymn" is marked by the unblinking indignation that made it courageous and powerful in its day but now comes across as thunderously unsubtle.
This caused some difficulty at the time of the first World War in a staid English public school for one of their hymns used this same theme.
To that end, he draws his themes from hymn tunes, and he revels in the homey, slightly chaotic and occasionally ecstatic qualities one might expect in the scene he has painted.
The Hymns are similar in theme to the Discourses, but are written with poetic meter and rhyme.
This second theme, a hymn-like E-flat major melody in four-part harmony, greatly contrasts with the first, though its melodic contour is prefigured in the sudden A-flat major departure.
With Mr. Fisher on the podium (mostly) and Mr. Dworsky at the piano, Mr. Keillor and Christine DiGiallonardo, a singer with the brook-clear voice of a Disney princess, ambled through church hymns and Tchaikovsky themes, advertising jingles and songs by the Beatles and the Grateful Dead.
