Song of the Moment

A beautiful song with a significant basis in the Jewish prayer, Unetanneh Tokef, which is traditionally recited during the services for the High Holy Days. Strictly speaking, it's more a poem of a peculiarly religious sort; but I don't know how much anyone—that is, who's not already familiar with Jewish liturgy and ritual—would get what I mean by describing it that way. Anyway, the very title of the song, "Who by Fire," is in fact directly drawn from the prayer.

Severelius wrote:

Really quite lovely!

Update: I've changed my mind! This isn't just lovely, it's exquisite! The gradual progression from the countertenor alone, to the duet and then the addition of the final vocalist—it's delightful and so, so very lovely! Instrumentals, vocals, etc., all of it is lovely. Thanks so much for posting this!

Second update: And a copy of the libretto, which I found online, says it's in ancient Egyptian no less! What a genuine and wonderful treat this is! I think I might just read through the whole libretto if I can find the time, since I'm very interested at this point.

Glass' opera, though I've only managed to listen to parts of it and not the thing in its entirety, is so delightful and interesting. I'd read about Akhnaten previously, but had never imagined to encounter something like this—an opera wholly devoted to him, his impact on Egyptian culture and religion, and his subsequent fall, his effacement from the records and such. I find so remarkable and peculiar, albeit in the best of ways of course, that the libretto is a compilation of countless tiny scraps of primary source material, naught really but"bits and pieces," known about Akhnaten. Anyway, I'll not carry on any longer, since I might seem a tad silly (or more so, honestly, than I may already appear).

Here, the recitative at the beginning is beautiful and expresses such a wonderful request, petition, sentiment, or whatever you please to call it. The duet, of course, is beautiful too, but in the auditory aspects of the singing itself, rather than anything in respect to what it is that's being uttered—i.e., as concerns the meaning of what is sung. The continuo (I believe that's what it'd be called) at the beginning, for the rectitative, is also quite nice, and I find it doesn't seem to distract, or worse, detract, from the recitation itself.

It scares me to think how old this song already is.