Copland - Lincoln Portrait

I combined these two, slightly dissimilar in length, recordings of the Lincoln Portrait by Aaron Copland with great difficulty. Copland conducts the London Symphony Orchestra with Henry Fonda in a recording which is more than 15 minutes in length while Gerard Schwarz''s more recent, and more sprightly rendering, with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra with James Earl Jones, along with slight variations among brass, woodwind and string soloists, made an interesting project as I elected to bring together these two performances performed decades apart. I hope the historical, musical and sociological points intended are well received. The version attributed by the claimant (who believes that an orchestral only track was employed) was NOT used in the development of the soundtrack for this video. Only the original narrated versions were employed. The claimant did properly identify one of the two orchestras, The London Symphony as conducted by Aaron Copland. None of the actual music I employed would be obtained by purchasing the non-narrated version. Thank you all for 1400 plays of this, and with this milestone I just thought to add the Oratorio dialogue: From Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history." That is what he said. That is what Abraham Lincoln said. "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility." [Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862] He was born in Kentucky, raised in Indiana, and lived in Illinois. And this is what he said. This is what Abe Lincoln said. "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and then we will save our country." [Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862] When standing erect he was six feet four inches tall, and this is what he said. He said: "It is the eternal struggle between two principles, right and wrong, throughout the world. It is the same spirit that says 'you toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation, and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle." [Lincoln-Douglas debates, 15 October 1858] Lincoln was a quiet man. Abe Lincoln was a quiet and a melancholy man. But when he spoke of democracy, this is what he said. He said: "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy." Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth president of these United States, is everlasting in the memory of his countrymen. For on the battleground at Gettysburg, this is what he said: He said: "That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."

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