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PRESS RELEASE: International Peace Coalition Holds Sixth Meeting

July 14—The International Peace Coalition (IPC), initiated by Helga Zepp- LaRouche, held its sixth weekly Zoom meeting today, chaired by the Schiller Institute’s Anastasia Battle, with 38 guests from 15 countries and peace organizations, in addition to members of the Schiller Institute.

At their fifth meeting, in an impassioned presentation, Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST), had described he just concluded July 4–5 conference sponsored by JUST and the Save Humanity and the Planet (SHAPE) centered in Malaysia, titled “Asia-Pacific NATO: Fanning the Flames of War.” The target was AUKUS, the Australia-U.K.-U.S. security pact whose purpose, Dr. Muzaffar said, is to “contain China.” Most Asians oppose this pact, but the political leaders want to “assure the domination of Asia by the British and the U.S.,” and undermine any peace movement. The meeting was quite successful, with speakers from Australia, China, Malaysia, the U.S China and South Korea, with several new organizations participating in the event. JUST and SHAPE will get the news on the IPC to their mailing lists. Dr. Muzaffar thanked Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche and the Schiller Institute for building the IPC, which he said he “hopes will grow and flourish, as it is key to our future.” [Read IPC#5 Press Release Here]

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder and leader of the Schiller Institute, opened the sixth meeting by noting two globally important events in the week since the IPC’s fifth meeting on July 7: the two-day international conference of the Schiller Institute in Strasbourg, France on July 8-9; and the NATO Summit of July 11-12 in Vilnius (referred to as the “villainous Vilnius Summit” by one speaker at the IPC meeting). While the NATO Summit was a war cry for more escalation of the surrogate NATO war against Russia centered in Ukraine, the Schiller Institute conference provided ideas and discussion on the urgency of substituting cooperation for confrontation, preventing the current rush to an outbreak of global nuclear war, and bringing the world’s nations together in a paradigm of development.

Zepp-LaRouche pointed to the newly-announced decision by President Joe Biden to deploy cluster bombs to Ukraine—altogether 300 million bomblets—a madness that will cause thousands of deaths of innocents, as has already been demonstrated by the death and maiming of children and other civilians in Cambodia and Vietnam from the landmines and cluster bombs deployed during the Indochina war of the 1960-70s—deaths and injuries continuing even today. There is international opposition to this genocidal act, including from within the United States, but Biden is going ahead regardless.

The ugly irony of this move, Zepp-LaRouche added, is that Biden has admitted that even though he once opposed the use of cluster bombs as a war crime, now the U.S. and its NATO allies are running out of ammunition to continue the bloodletting in Ukraine, and therefore will use the cluster bombs to keep the war going. She pointed to the decision to deploy F-16s to Ukraine as yet another insane act, noting that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia will have no way to know if the nuclear-weapon capable F-16s are armed with nuclear weapons or not, and must therefore treat them as being nuclear armed.

Zepp-LaRouche also pointed to the NATO Summit’s embrace of a policy to expand the domain of NATO to the Asia-Pacific region, targeting China with the same war-policy as deployed against Russia in Europe.

As to Ukraine, she reported the intention presented at the NATO Summit to turn the country into a military production center, with the West’s major military-industrial companies setting up production facilities in Ukraine for a “forever war.” In the process, there was no discussion by any NATO participants of a peace plan, or even for negotiations for peace. At the rate of destruction of the Ukraine economy and the death of thousands of young men in the bloody cauldron of war, there will be no way for the country to rebuild even if the war can be stopped.

The lesson, Zepp-LaRouche concluded, is that the International Peace Coalition must grow and create a massive public outcry against the madness. The plan for international demonstrations on Aug. 6, the 78th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima by U.S. President Harry Truman, must be the basis for expanding this effort.

Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst and a co-founder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), gave a situation report on the war in Ukraine, asserting that while Biden is declaring that Ukraine is winning, even that Putin has “already lost” the war, that simply demonstrates that Biden is living in an “alternative reality,” since it is abundantly clear that the opposite is the case. The much-heralded “counter-offensive” by the Zelenskyy government forces has been a colossal failure, with the mass destruction of tanks and other military equipment, as well as yet more thousands of lives sacrificed.

Col. Richard H. Black, a retired Marine officer and former Army Joint Advocate General (JAG) lawyer who headed the Army’s Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon before retiring from the military and serving in Virginia’s House of Delegates and Senate, reviewed the failure of Kiev’s “counteroffensive,” suggesting that the idea of a perpetual war of attrition is a losing proposition for Ukraine, and that they may not be able to sustain the current pace even through the end of August.

Regarding the cluster bombs, Col. Black remarked that the world agreed to ban mustard gas and other chemical weapons as war crimes, and for the U.S. to simply declare that cluster bombs are to be accepted because “Ukraine needs them” does not change the fact that their use is a war crime. Are we to declare later that nuclear weapons will stop being illegal if “Ukraine needs them,” he asked? We are heading for nuclear war, he warned, and there is far too little resistance to it in the U.S., so this Coalition must grow.

Joseph Boyd-Barrett, a professor (emeritus) at California State University and an expert on the uses of propaganda, gave further evidence of the falsification in the mainstream media about the war in Ukraine. Ukraine and its Western backers in NATO have already essentially lost the war, as their munitions are running out and the NATO countries are not able to sustain the supply, while Russia “can produce multiples” of the munitions produced by the combined NATO backers of Kiev. He also estimates that the supply of weapons to Ukraine will run out by the end of August.

The problem remains that the Ukraine government, and its backers in NATO, don’t care that the country and the population are being destroyed by the war policy, and refuse to negotiate. Zelenskyy was elected on a pledge to bring peace, but now it must be said that the Kiev regime’s policy is to see their own population murdered by continuing a war which cannot be won. The Democratic Party in power in Washington appears to believe that the only way to win the next general election in November 2024 is to keep the war going through next year.

Juan Carrero, a peace activist from Spain, said that the Western elites are suffering from dementia, as they repeat without any evidence that Russia will lose the war. He said that he had lived in Hiroshima for a year and a half, and saw the effects of the destruction, calling for the Aug. 6 demonstrations worldwide to be a turning point to stop the madness.

Moderator Anastasia Battle read four demands which the IPC will issue on its website https://humanityforpeace.net/
They are:

  • 1. End the supply of weapons to Ukraine.
  • 2. Begin unconditional peace talks with all parties to the war
  • 3. End the NATO alliance.
  • 4. Establish a new security architecture for all nations, ending the division of the world into warring “blocs.”

Bernie Holland, a peace activist from the U.K., asked Helga Zepp-LaRouche to discuss her concept of the “Coincidence of Opposites” which is the eighth of her Ten Principles of a NewInternational Security and Development Architecture.

Zepp-LaRouche replied with an in-depth discussion of the concept, developed by the 15th-century genius Nicholas of Cusa, who discovered the idea as a method of thought based on the truth that the “One” is superior to the “Many,” that only by recognizing that there is a common principle which unites all human beings, whatever their faith or ethnicity or nationality. This method of thinking made it possible for Cusa to bring about the unity of the Roman and Orthodox Christian religions at the ecumenical Council of Florence between 1431 and 1449, and later was the basis of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ending the Thirty Years’ War in Europe. In the current age of nuclear weapons, that principle of creative thought, based on love rather than hate, is the only basis for world peace. Other speakers reported on their organizing efforts for peace in Argentina, Chile, England, France, Germany, Holland, India, Italy, Nicaragua, Scotland, and across the U.S. All agreed to build an even larger attendance, including representatives from the Global South, for the next meeting on Friday, July 21.

Rally and Concert:
Humanity for Peace is hosting a “Global Rally for World Peace and an End to All Wars!” On Sunday, Aug. 6 from 1-4 pm at the Dag Hammerskjöld Plaza (United Nations Plaza) in New York City, 47th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue, followed by an evening concert from 6-8 pm at the Unitarian Church of All Souls, 1157 Lexington Ave. at East 80th Street, of Mozart’s Requiem, performed by a combined chorus and orchestra which will include the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus and musicians. It will be free and open to the public.

A full report on the fifth meeting of the International Peace Coalition, held on July 7, is here: https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2023/07/13/press-release-fifth-international-peace-coalition-event-reveals-growth-and-extensive-organizing/

In Attendance:

  • Helga Zepp-LaRouche (Germany), founder and leader, Schiller Institute
  • Colonel Richard Black (U.S., ret), former head of the Pentagon Criminal Law Division, former Virginia State Senator
  • Oliver Boyd-Barrett (U.S.), Professor Emeritus, Bowling Green State University, Ohio
    Alessia Ruggeri (Italy) Trade Unionist
  • Anton Winter, (Austria) Nouvelle Alliance, UZG – Initiative Zivilgesellschaft
  • Dr. Balkrishna Kurvey (India) President of the Indian Institute for Peace, Disarmament and Environmental Protection
  • Barbara Spahn (Germany)
  • Beatriz Solórzano León (Guatemala), Lawyer, Parliamentary Technician
  • Bernie Holland (UK) No2NATO
  • Fr. Robert Cushing (U.S.), Association of US Catholic Priests (AUSCP), Pax Christi GA, former priest
  • Bolívar Téllez Castellón (Nicaragua), Lawyer and university professor
  • Boubacar Sidy (USA/Guinea)
  • Christer Lundgren, (Sweden)
  • Ruben Dario Guzzetti (Argentina), Argentine Institute of Geopolitical Studies (IADEG)
  • Christine Bierre (France), Solidarity and Progress
  • Fr. Harry Bury (U.S.), Archdiocese of Saint Paul in Minneapolis, MN
  • Ingo Scharpff (Germany)
  • Jacques Cheminade (France), head of Solidarity and Progress
  • Jimmy Gerum (Germany), Lighthouse Media
  • Juan Carrero (Spain), President, S’Olivar Foundation
  • Juan Gómez (Chile)
  • Karen Ball (U.S.) Pax Christi – Texas
  • Liliana Gorini (Italy), Movisol
  • Mike Billington, (U.S.) Executive Intelligence Review Magazine
  • Muhammad Selim Akhtar (U.S.) Muslim Alliance
  • Ray McGovern (U.S.) former senior analyst, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); founding member, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
  • Rev. Dr. Terri L. Strong (U.S.), AME minister from Memphis, TN Chair of the Actions and Global Concern Committee of the Church Women United
  • Ulf Sandmark (Sweden), President Schiller Institute, Sweden
  • Wolfgang Lieberknecht (Germany)
  • David Andersson, (U.S.) Coordinator of NYC bureau for Pressenza Press Agency and hosts a talk-show, Face 2 Face, broadcast on Youtube and Facebook
  • Jurgen Wolf (Scotland), No2NATO UK, Workers Party BG
  • Jack Gilroy (U.S.), Organizer, Pax Christi, NY State/Pax Christi International; Board Member, New York Veterans for Peace
  • Sonja Van den Ende, (Netherlands/Russia) Independent Journalist, covers Russia/Ukraine conflict, for Katehon 
  • Chris Fogarty (U.S./Ireland), Irish American Leader
  • Fredrick Weiss (U.S.) Classical musician
  • Dennis Small (U.S.), Schiller Institute, Virginia
  • Dennis Speed (U.S.), Schiller Institute, New Jersey
  • Diane Sare, (U.S.) U.S. Senate Candidate, New York
  • Jose Vega, (U.S.) Interventionist, Organizer Schiller Institute
  • Anastasia Battle (U.S.) Organizer, Interventionist and Editor-in-Chief, Leonore Magazine

**Affiliations for identification purposes only


Make the U.S. a Force for the Good

Diane Sare – Mrs. Sare is a candidate for the U.S. Senate in New York, USA.

Thank you! I am very happy to be with you here, because we must quickly improve ourselves and our approach to everything in a coordinated fashion. I would like to thank Jacques Cheminade for his important leadership of France and his recent statement, and Helga Zepp-LaRouche for her brilliant initiative to pull together all of the international peace movements onto the same page. There is hope.

Humanity is undergoing a transition, and it is a very dangerous one, because you have some shriveled-up old, evil people running some evil institutions, who don’t want to give up the power that they used to have—and I say “used to,” because they’ve already lost that power, and the danger comes from their failure to realize that important fact.

Lyndon LaRouche provided a pathway for the new order with his 1976 [1975—ed.] proposal for an “International Development Bank,” in which every nation would have the opportunity to achieve its full independence in the way the American President Franklin Roosevelt envisioned should occur after World War II.

Unfortunately, or by design, FDR had died just before the end of the war, and his vision for the post war world was unfulfilled.

In 1976, when Mr. LaRouche put forward his program, and launched his first US Presidential campaign, the financial and intelligence community interests tied to the British Imperial system still had too much power, and were able to prevent him from becoming President of the United States. They later assassinated Indira Gandhi and others, including two important German figures, Alfred Herrhausen and Detlev Rowedder, when we had another chance in 1989.

Now, these rotten institutions are totally and thoroughly bankrupt—and I mean, the World Bank, the IMF, NATO, the U.S. Federal Reserve, the ECB, the Bank of England, JP Morgan Chase, all of them! So everything they try to do, not only backfires, but it produces the opposite effect.

They intended to destroy Russia—in fact, President Biden announced that himself last year when he visited Poland. It is not “Russian propaganda’ (which I’ve been accused of spreading).

Has Russia been destroyed? No. The Russian economy is stronger than ever, and Putin is now even more popular since the Prigozhin/Wagner attempted insurrection was so quickly and efficiently put down. Contrary to idiot western propaganda, Putin is stronger, and his nation more unified. However, the arrogant, and perhaps also drug-induced, blindness of the so-called western leaders seems to prevent them from seeing this.

But it’s not only Russia. There is a powerful dynamic among many large nations, and they are joining into various groups, such as the BRICS, the SCO, the Eurasian Economic Union, and now there are signs of unity coming in Ibero-America, and in Africa as well. The African Union has become a powerful player in world politics. Trade between Russia and China is now 85% in yuan and rubles, not dollars.

The grave danger is that the delusional west thinks that they can blackmail and threaten six billion people to change course, and go back to being slaves. If anyone has paid attention to recent speeches of South African President Ramaphosa, you know that this will never happen. So, we face nuclear war.

Please don’t think I am exaggerating, or Helga is exaggerating when she keeps saying this. Let me remind you that President Biden has already crossed several of his own boundaries in escalating this proxy war in Ukraine. He said, “no tanks”; we are sending tanks. He said, “No F 16’s”; we are sending F-16’s. He said, “No long range missiles;” we are now sending those as well. He also said, “NordStream will be ended…. I promise you.” And he delivered. Would he, would [British Prime Minister] Rishi Sunak, would [NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg approve a strike on the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant?

Now, those of us here, are here because we want to stop this. We want to move mankind into a new direction, but we face some obstacles. Perhaps most frustrating is that our governments don’t listen to us. Not only that, but our governments persecute truth-tellers. Because our societies have been so culturally degraded, it is easy to respond with violence. Before Helen Keller had access to language, if she needed or wanted something, all she could do was throw a tantrum. She caused harm in hope of getting a response.

The violence can be expressed outwardly as in the riots and looting just seen in France, and as happened in the USA a few years ago, or mass shootings—now we have one every few hours; or it is expressed inwardly, with drug addiction, alcohol addiction, and suicide. The rate of suicides among children in the United States, aged 10-19 years old, has tripled.

Everyone seems to believe that brute force, rather than poetry, is the way to “send a message.” What is the message? This is our challenge, because God has created each of us with an innate sense of Truth and Justice, but due to the willful degradation of our culture, like the young Helen Keller, we feel powerless to express these principles and to “be heard.”

The first thing we must remind ourselves is that the universe is created according to the same principles that exist in our souls, and this is why, if we temper ourselves—or tune ourselves to universal principles—we can defeat all evil. But this is hard work!

Let me give an example of the wrong idea about “justice.” You may not have this so badly in Europe, or maybe you do, but in the United States we are obsessed with punishment. It is a popular sentiment, that if a person does something harmful or illegal, they should be made to “suffer the consequences,” which is supposed to ensure that they don’t repeat the action. We even have a culture which blames people for being refugees—we call them “illegals.” There is no concern for whatever monstrous acts, even by our own governments, may have driven them to flee their country, but merely rage that they get a hotel room, limited medical treatment, maybe, and a cell phone!

This self-righteous indignation is fueled by the anxiety and frustration felt by millions of Americans, who themselves can’t afford medical care, or rent, or are hopelessly indebted, and I think it is designed to try to induce us to start killing each other—but that can be taken up later.

I have been reading a book by Dr. Homer Venters, who was the chief medical officer for NYC Jails. It’s called, “Life and Death in Rikers Island.” To give you a sense of the results of this attitude, of the need to punish, let me tell you the story of one 25- year-old inmate at Rikers Island, who died there in 2012. His name is Jason Echevarria.

On the evening before his death, Mr. Echevarria was being held in a unit for people with mental illness who failed to obey orders. It was then decided that he was “fit enough” to be subjected to solitary confinement as a form of punishment. According to Dr. Venters, “in order to escape the stress of solitary confinement, Mr. Echevarria swallowed a packet of industrial soap and then told correctional officers that he needed medical attention. Passing medical staff confirmed that he was vomiting and required medical attention, but the response of Department of Correction staff and their supervisor was to keep Mr. Echevarria in his cell overnight, intermittently taunting and ignoring him as he vomited blood, bile, and lye, screamed for help, and ultimately died with an eroded esophagus.”

Now, suppose they had allowed the medical staff to treat him before he died a horrible painful death, and they had saved his life, but he’d gotten to suffer a bit. Would that be an appropriate means to “teach him a lesson?”

“Well, everybody doesn’t think that way—it’s not how things are done most of the time,” many even here might say. But I am telling you that this is the institutional policy of our governments.

Take sanctions, for example. What’s the idea of sanctions? “Just starve the people, let them watch their babies die in their arms, and they’ll shape up. They’ll overthrow their leader, or their leader will finally start obeying us.” This is the exact same attitude as expressed by the corrections officers, but now made policy and imposed upon millions of innocent people.

Do you think that a society which tolerates and promulgates such barbarism will be capable of preventing nuclear war?

So, we must temper ourselves. We must remember certain fundamental universal principles, so that we can act in accordance—what a great word, with “chord” in the middle—with the universe, which will greatly amplify our voices.

[Video of a musical performance is shown.]

I apologize that that may not have been as beautiful as I’d like, but I think you get the idea. We have to sound a certain trumpet—or trombone—but not in an arbitrary way, but based on truthful principles. If I hadn’t bothered to find out that the note F is in first position, it would have been a very frustrating and ugly experience.

Similarly, if you have a mass movement for change, and you ask for the wrong thing —that is, your demand is not in coherence, as Confucius might say, with the laws of heaven, you might regret getting what you asked for in a way you never intended.

The fundamental principle of our universe, and of our relationship to it, is growth. That is—and we are learning this more and more with the Webb telescope—that contrary to foolish opinion, the universe is moving from lower order, lower energy-density to higher, and more complex order and higher energy-density.

Life on this planet used to be little single-cell organisms which went extinct easily, until photosynthesis occurred. Suddenly, more advanced life was possible, until we came to fish and amphibians which could propel themselves—no longer dependent on the ebb and flow of the tide. Then came mammals, which not only could regulate motion, but also body temperature, requiring a great increase in caloric intake per kilogram of body mass.

What is the link between a mammal and a salamander? I think you’d be hard pressed to find it—these are some of the great mysteries—like the link between life and non-life. There is not a linear connection—if you squeeze a rock hard enough, it will turn into a mushroom, for example. We don’t know how it works.

Then humans emerged, and suddenly, not only could they regulate their own activity and temperature, but they could change the environment around themselves! They could cook their food! They could plan into the future—sowing crops for later consumption. They could build houses to enable survival in extreme temperatures. People are able to improve their environment to make it possible for more people to live more happily. People can even improve the environment to make it possible for more animals to live more happily—some good and some bad, but I wouldn’t call increasing the rat population exponentially an improvement.

This means that the natural creative love of discovery in the human mind is resonant with the way the universe itself is unfolding. This means, that if we wish to survive as a species, we must create the conditions for each individual person to develop their innate potential as much as possible. Do you believe there is such a thing as “too many geniuses?” We need billions of geniuses! We are so very arrogant to imagine that we’ve mastered the secrets of the universe, and that now we should all just stop eating and using electricity and reduce our carbon footprint because we are complete.

It is precisely trying to halt growth which will kill us all, because it goes completely contrary to the laws of the universe. So far, the most efficient means we’ve discovered to foster the development of the individual, is the principle of the nation state. So, the sovereignty of nations must be respected, and the need for each nation to have ever increasing available energy and energy-density. We don’t all need to have the same language, religion, or appearance, but we do need to respect the principle that the measure of our success is the development of mankind.

This is why the one standard which gives any government legitimacy is the principle of the General Welfare. Any policy which seeks to degrade the humanity of any individual person, or any group of people, is wrong.

Mankind is now at a crossroads, as the United States was when Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860. The United States had reached a breaking point where it was unavoidably obvious that slavery was creating a harsh dissonance with the principles of our republic. The United States could not survive if that evil institution were allowed to continue. Similarly, the world has reached the point where humanity will no longer submit to a system which arbitrarily determines that one group is superior to another, and has the power to make its own rules, as if natural law and the created universe did not exist. The majority of mankind is no longer willing to pretend that snow is black.

If we wish to be heard, and have the power to change our own sorry governments, we will have to tune our trombones to that chorus.

[Transcript of video clip:]

So let’s talk a little bit about resonance, and I’m going to use a trombone as an example of how, if we are truthful, the universe can amplify our truthfulness, and it is a matter of principle. Now, to make a sound on a trombone, we have this, which is not an amplifier…. That not very beautiful, it is kind of labored and the sound doesn’t really carry…. When I put my mouthpiece into the trombone, then we get a great sound which carries, but you have to be precise in your tuning, because the trombone has a certain length … and if you adjust the length the resonance changes, for example, or the pitch changes. There you can hear, the longer the length, the lower gets  the sound…. So, what happens if I decide I want to play, but instead of picking the right position in my trombone, I choose something arbitrary. I can get a note but it is not beautiful, and that won’t carry.


Schiller Rep Tells RIA Novosti: Attack on Russian Fine Arts Is an Attack on Truth Itself

March 4, 2023 (EIRNS)–The renowned Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has gone to hell and apparently intends to stay there. It has become a soldier in Global NATO’s black propaganda machine. RIA Novosti and other Russian media are reporting the story that the identity of many leading Russian painters of the 19th century—Ivan Aivazovsky, Ilya Repin and Arkhip Kuindzhi—whose excellent paintings hang on the museum walls, have had their Russian nationality erased from their paintings’ name plates. Their identities have been changed to “Ukrainian” or to other nationalities. Notices attacking Russia appear next to some of the paintings.

This Nazi-inspired policy of cultural ethnic cleansing is part and parcel of the West’s current forbidding of its scientists from participating in international conferences in Russia, the canceling of the concerts of Russia’s top Classical musicians and singers, and the false arrests and the destruction of the scientific careers of Chinese researchers working in America’s labs.

Quoted in RIA Novosti news service on March 3, the Schiller Institute’s Richard A. Black responded: “The beauty of mankind lies in the fact that it has developed a variety of different civilizations which differ in their language, their means of communication, and in fundamental ideas. Islamic, Western European, Chinese, Vietnamese—all civilizations have evolved for thousands of years, and have made unique contributions to the understanding of fundamental principles, fundamental truths—which, in essence, is the role of art. So, the imposition of lies by the U.S. authorities on an institution—such as the Metropolitan Museum—about leading examples of Russian civilization—this is a mockery of all culture, of all art and all science.” Black called the museum’s actions an attack on truth, “on an idea, on civilization, on the role that art and science play in civilization. This is an attack on American citizens, in order to continue to keep them uninformed, and to portray Russia as an enemy.” RIA Novosti concluded its article by reporting, “According to President Vladimir Putin, Western Russophobia is nothing but racism.” The article, in Russian, may be found here.

The article was also published by Sputnik Mundo, Sputnik’s Spanish-language site today, in full, changing it only to report that Black had made his statement to Sputnik


Farrakhan’s Agapic Birthday Gift: Beethoven’s Violin Concerto

May 12 (EIRNS)–In celebration of his 88th birthday, and of Beethoven’s 250th birthday, Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, made a loving intervention into a crisis-torn world: he released the video recording of his performance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto, which he had done in 2002, but which, for various reasons, had not been able to be released earlier. The concert included a performance of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, followed by the concerto.

Due to the livestream, which was affected by internet receptivity, at least from this author’s vantage point, there were moments where it wasn’t clear if the orchestra was as together as it might have been at every moment. Also, in some of the very difficult passages of the concerto every note Farrakhan played wasn’t perfectly in tune, but as Ayke Agus, the violinist who agreed to work with the Minister on preparing the performance on a miraculously rapid schedule, and who was the concertmistress for the performance, said, the musical quality and the truthful, non- pretentious intent of the message transcended all technical shortcomings, which were probably not even noticed by most. Certain lyrical sections were absolutely gorgeous, with a beautiful singing quality, and the extremely high notes were beautifully placed, as a great singer would do.

The video was introduced by Farrakhan’s grandson, and then Cornel West, who spoke about the power of Beethoven’s music to unite people, but the most striking comment he made was, (paraphrase) “I have some very deep disagreements with the Minister, but I love him.”

From Farrakhan’s coach, Cornel West and the Minister, the story emerged of the Minister having attended a concert in 1942 or 1943 in Boston of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, followed by Jascha Heifetz performing the Beethoven Violin Concerto in a way which profoundly moved the young boy. He got Heifietz’s autograph on the program, which he has to this day. He clearly had enormous talent as a child, but the nation was not ready for a black Classical violinist, and he put his instrument away for 40 years.

When he picked it up again his teacher was Elaine Skorodin Fohrman, herself a student of Heifetz, who assisted him in preparing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, but who was not convinced that he could master the Beethoven in such a short time (or any time under 10 years.) While her reluctance persisted, she was nonetheless present in the orchestra, both as moral support, and despite her disagreement.

In Farrakhan’s post-performance comments in 2002, which were included in the video , he introduced two young black violinists who had been part of the orchestra. The first was a 19-year-old young woman, who had sent in a video of herself playing the Sibelius Violin Concerto which left Farrakhan in tears, saying “she can be everything I had ever hoped for someone,” and a young man, who had sent in a video of himself playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, again causing a torrent of tears. Of these, Farrakhan said, “he is all that I had hoped to be, and then some” — which both addressed racism as the crime it actually is and suggested how to reject the intended effect of that crime, by seizing, through the discipline and gift of Classical culture, a truly human identity despite racism’s evil intention. In this way, when this path is taken, civilization may not be deprived of the moral potential, expressed by the development of great talent into genius which would uplift and transform that entire society. Here is a link to the full concert.


Beethoven: Sparks of Joy!

Beethoven: Spark of Joy – HIs Mass in C, God’s Grace Comes to Those Who Act for Posterity

Prince Nikolaus Esterházy II, the long-time patron of Franz Josef Haydn, commissioned a new mass setting each year for his wife’s name-day. In 1807, the commission fell to Beethoven, who, in his own words, “treated the text in a manner in which it has rarely been treated”. The great masses of Bach and Mozart are structured somewhat like operas, whereas Beethoven’s mass is powerfully symphonic, with the soloists treated as a unified quartet, inextricably interwoven with the choir. Esterhazy was not pleased, but the next performance, at Prince Lichnowsky’s residence, received a more positive response. After its publication in 1813, one commentator wrote that the mass conveyed “a childlike optimism that in its very purity devoutly trusts in God’s grace, and appeals to him as a father who desires the best for his children and hears their prayers”.
On November 18, 2018, the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus performed Beethoven’s Mass in C at the beautiful St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City. [Notes by Margaret Scialdone.]


Beethoven: Sparks of Joy!

Beethoven: Sparks of Joy – Piano trio, variations on “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu” theme

“Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu” (I am Kakadu the tailor) was the name of a popular tune from Wenzel Muller’s opera “Die Schwestern von Prag (The Sisters from Prague). Beethoven composed these variations during his early years in Vienna, then sent them to the publisher after the opera was revived in 1814, with the note, “one of my earlier compositions, though it is not among the reprehensible ones”. 
Enjoy this delightful performance by the ATOS Trio. [Notes by Margaret Scialdone.]


Beethoven: Sparks of Joy!

Beethoven: Sparks of Joy – Lessons from history: act for your nation.

Eleonore Prochaska was the daughter of a Prussian soldier, raised in a military orphanage after the death of her mother. She was one of many German women who fought in the Napoleonic Wars, though most were ejected from the army when it was found out that they were women. In 1813, Prochaska disguised herself and joined the the Lützow Free Corps under the name August Renz, serving first as a drummer, then in the infantry. She was severely wounded in battle and died three weeks later. In death, she was memorialized as a chaste heroine and “Potsdam’s Joan of Arc”. A momument to her memory, “Der Heldenjungfrau zum Gedächtnis”, or “In memory of the maiden-heroine” survives to this day in Potsdam’s Old Cemetery.
In 1814, Johann Friedrich Duncker accompanied the King of Prussia to the Congress of Vienna, and asked Beethoven to compose incidental music for his play, “Leonora Prohaska”. The play was never performed, as the subject had already been treated in Piwald’s “Das Madchen von Potsdam” which was performed that year.
Beethoven’s music has four parts:
1) Chorus, “Wir bauen und sterben’ (We build and die);
2) Romanze (Es blüht eine Blume im Garten mein) (A Flower blooms in my garden);
3) Melodrama;
4) Trauermarsch (Funeral March);
The fourth number is an arrangement for full orchestra of the funeral march from the Piano Sonata No. 12 in A flat major, Op. 26, transposed from A flat minor to B minor.
This rarely-heard work is performed here by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Claudio Abbado. [Notes by Margaret Scialdone.]


Beethoven: Sparks of Joy!

Beethoven: Spark of Joy — Tribute to the incomparable Christa Ludwig on her passing

To honor the memory of the great mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig, who passed away April 26th, we hear today her legendary performance in the title role of Beethoven’s opera,  Fidelio. She sings the recitative, “Abscheulicher! Wo eilst du hin?” followed by the aria, “Komm, Hoffnung!”

Monster! Where are you rushing?
What will you do in your wild rage?
Does the call of sympathy,
The voice of humanity,
Move nothing in your savage heart?
But just as like stormy seas
Anger and hatred surge in your soul,
There appears to me a rainbow,
That rests bright on the dark clouds,
That watches so quietly,
So peacefully below,
That mirrors old times,
And newly calmed my blood flows.

Come, Hope, let the last star
Not fade for the weary,
Illuminate my goal, be it ever so far,
Love will reach it.
I follow an inner drive,
I waver not,
I am strengthened by my duty
Of true wedded love.
Oh you, for whom I bore everything,
Could I only be at your side,
Where evil has you chained,
And bring you sweet comfort!
I follow an inner drive,
I waver not,
I am strengthened by my duty
Of true wedded love.

Ms. Ludwig was also a signer of the Schiller Institute’s 1988 call for the Verdi tuning to be restored bringing the pitch back to A = 432 cycles per second. [Message by Margaret Scialdone and Mary Jane Freeman.]


Beethoven: Sparks of Joy!

Beethoven: Sparks of Joy — his beautiful song, An die ferne Geliebte to contemplate the future.

Alois Jeitteles was a young physician who was also making a name for himself as a poet when he wrote the six poems which Beethoven wove into the beautiful “An die ferne Geliebte” (To the distant Beloved). It is a true Liederkreis (song cycle), thoroughly composed so that the songs are inseparable from one another. 
This performance by John Sigerson and Margaret Greenspan was part of an international conference of the Schiller Institute that took place in April of 2020. [Notes by Margaret Scialdone.]


Schiller Institute NYC Chorus Dedicates Concert to the “Spirit of the Elbe”

April 25 (EIRNS) – The Schiller Institute NYC Chorus & with friends from Ibero-America and Europe broadcast an uplifting concert this afternoon, which was introduced as follows by Jen Pearl:

Good afternoon, and welcome to `Beethoven’s Credo: Believe in the Future, a World Without War.’ My name is Jen Pearl and I am the chair of the board for the Schiller NYC chorus.

On December 17th, 2019, Beethoven’s 249th birthday, our chorus, the SI NYC Chorus participated in an event at Carnegie of the Foundation for the Revival of Classical Culture, opening up what was supposed to be a year-long celebration of the Beethoven 250th year. We performed the choral movement of the Ninth Symphony there, with the preeminent Gerard Schwarz as conductor. We took as our objective to perform Beethoven’s great Missa Solemnis a year later.

Then we all know what happened. While many choruses and arts organizations were forced to pull back during the lockdown, the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus pushed ahead, despite the challenges, because we know how important it is to sing beautiful and profound music in times of crisis—music, which connects us at the higher level of humanity as a single immortal species. We managed to present virtual performances of the Kyrie and Gloria last December.

Today’s concert is truly special because it features another movement the Missa Solemnis.

And while we are excited and joyful about bringing you the Credo movement of the Missa Solemnis and other beautiful selections tonight, we are also performing this concert in the context of a world fraught with crises, including an increasing potential of world war and starvation in Yemen and Syria. The beauty of tonight’s program, which reflects the very best of mankind’s creativity, is also very much in direct contrast or dissonance with the very worst actions being done at the hand of human beings, right now as we speak, toward entire nations and populations of children.

Beethoven once said that, if people understood his music, there would be no war.

On this day, April 25th, 76 years ago there was an event that resonates powerfully still today with that sentiment, that mankind should not settle disputes with violence. This was the day during WW II that American and Soviet troops met from the east and the west at the Elbe River near Torgau Germany, south of Berlin, ensuring an early end of the war, and thus became known as `Spirit of the Elbe.’ We dedicate this concert to that spirit which is much needed today. So we will begin our concert today with this short video introduction.

Near the end of the concert, Jen Pearl made the following closing remarks:

Our final offering this evening is Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus. Mozart composed this motet in a perfect way to evoke from you the awe you would experience when seeing the body of Christ for the first time. Imagine what your reaction would be then as you listen, think of how Mozart evokes that in you!. Mozart’s opening words are `hail, hail true body. . .’ As with any great classical work, the singer and you, the audience, can relive the experience of that actual moment in history and therefore experience true immortality.

We are now in a moment of history, where we need to evoke that quality of empathy and immortality in ourselves in order to take all of mankind into our hearts and souls. As we referenced at the beginning, we invite you to join the chorus of voices that are calling for an end to these wars, sanctions, and starvation, particularly in Yemen and Syria. You can find Mrs. LaRouche’s urgent call in today’s program and I invite you to join us. Thank you, and now you will hear Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus.

Note the concert can be viewed at this link.


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