Which one?

Re the Israeli national anthem, I found the following from this site

http://www.national-anthems.org/anthems/country/ISRAEL

The book 'The Music of Israel' (1949) states that Shmuel Cohen had borrowed the tune from a cantorial composition by the famous Cantor Nissan Belzer. In any event, it does represent a type which has been familiar in Spanish folk singing for centuries. Pendrell, the well-known Spanish folklore expert quotes a very similar tune under the title of 'Virgen de la Cueva' ('Virgin of the Cave'). It would seem that the Sephardic Jews knew it in Spain and took it along with them to the near east. It is interesting to note that the same tune can be found among the Poles ('Pod Krakovem') , the Basques, and even the Netherlanders.

Somebody mentioned "Barwick Green".  Now, I haven't listened regularly to the Archers since childhood, but I recall that there's a later section of the tune which is/was only ever played once every few years when the episode ends on something earth-shattering, like the death of a major character (the last time I recall hearing it was when Peggy accepted Jack's proposal of marriage).

Years later it all came flooding back to me when I heard the opening of the third movement of Brahms 4 for the first time...

True, but surely that was a deliberate imperialist statement along the lines of a kind of warning shot across the bows to the effect that it would only be a matter of time before the Soviet Russian jackboot would stomp its way into India to take the place of the Brits?

Best,

Alistair

It may be my memory playing tricks with me but I don't really see that similarity, MTW.

The Russians had in fact marched on India as early as 1812 when Kotliarevsky's regiment, finding itself no longer needed after victory of Napoleon, marched through Central Asia on a lightning raid - taking the Brits by surprise, since they'd been Russia's allies against France only months previously (see Peter Hopkirk's "The Great Game" pp64-68).  The Brits were holding Persia by proxy, but hadn't reckoned on the cowardice of their ally, the Shah of Persia... who ordered both his own troops and the Brits "advising" them to surrender to the Russians. Captain Christie (of "Christie & Pottinger" fame) refused the order, saying that if he was to be dishourably discharged for disobedience, then he would prefer it to be for attacking rather than fleeing. Christie was slaughtered, of course.  (In point of fact "Mad" Tsar Paul I had earlier suggested a "carve-up" of India if Napoleon would join forces with him to dislodge the Brits - Napoleon was so angered by the patronising tone of Paul's letter that he allegedly threw it in the bin without replying).

Although I don't disagree with the idea of a soviet jackboot on political grounds, my reservation with it is more the unbelievable idea that the USSR might have been able to equip its wretched conscript troops with decently-made Teutonic-standard boots...  or that it could even have been arsed to do so

Pity about the Soviet Anthem, which is regrettably "back" as the Russian Anthem these days (to new words, even more preposterous than the previous ones). Glinka's lovely National Hymn (originally composed for the ceremony of turning-on the Fountain Cascade at Petrodvorets Palace) was discontinued because it didn't have any words.

Tommo - I have to do it again - Aaaarrrggghhh!!!!!!

I can't listen to the first four notes of the prelude to Mendelssohn's "Elijah" (after the opening declamatory recitative-thing) without thinking of "Jaws".