Song of the Day - 4th July
Today is American Independence Day so it is fortuitous that I have just completed work on the latest video of a performance by one of my lovely Beta choirs which serves to honour two great Americans on this day. Today's Song of the Day is my setting of a famous poem by Walt Whitman (1819-1892), "O Captain! My Captain!", written in 1865, in the wake of President Lincoln's assassination in April of that year. Although he never met Lincoln, Whitman felt a connection to him and was greatly moved by Lincoln's assassination. Many people "of a certain age" may, like me, have been first introduced to it in the film "Dead Poets Society" starring the incredible, inimitable, indescribably funny Robin Williams (can you tell I'm a fan?) who you can see AI-imagined as a sea captain in the first photo of this video. Uncharacteristic of Whitman's poetry, the poem was Whitman's most popular during his lifetime, and the only one to be anthologized b...