My little Gnudren, Yuletide greetings!

To help you celebrate this joyous season, and by way of exhortation and edification Old Gnu presents you with the second recording of a world premiere by the LA Philharmonic DLH Orchestra. For he is mindful that the wise scribe in the Kingdom of Heaven must needs bring out things old and new.

Here is another dance, a Pas de Deux, but one with a difference and not in the manner of Tchaikovsky and other composers of Ballet music. This my dear Gnudren is the Pas de Deux – mais ils ne coopèrent pas!  For in this piece two tunes fight for the pre-eminence and there is only surface co-operation between them. And the piece ends with an extended musical sigh that amounts to Quel fromage!….. or should that be Quel dommage? Old Gnu often gets his fromages and dommages mixed up. (I apologise if I have caused any offence to the speakers of the German language.) At this Christmas season we celebrate God coming down to earth in Jesus but are we truly in step with him? Or are we merely pretending to dance the joyful Pas de Deux of God and sinners reconciled? Are we in fact out of step with the Heavenly Dancer and merely fighting him for the pre-eminence, while he in gracious humility is seeking our co-operation?

Co-operation is also a very important theme on Sesame Street that many of us need to investigate if there are to be no fights while we are eating Christmas Dinner. Here are 3 links to help you prepare for a peaceful Christmas Day:

           

Old Gnu, the Dancer, offers you this challenge in a musical parable. Listen, dance, and be edified.

And one final note. The sweet sounding little tinkly bell that starts and ends the piece is a peace offering to Mrs. Gnu from Old Gnu who carelessly broke the base of her favourite sherry glass by accident. As an act of penitence Old Gnu recorded the sweet bell like sound of the glass and inserted it in the Pas de Deux, as a reminder of what he had been forgiven. The glass then went into the dustbin. But in the words of Hebrews 11:4 (KJAV) the glass is very much like Abel: He being dead yet speaketh.

Vetus Pater Gnu,
Cantoris Praesultatoris
Turris, Oppidum Longum Cineres Aboris (LA)
XII Decembris MMXVII