Thursday Evening Ride

It’s 7:30 p.m. and I’m home from the bike ride. Big thunderstorms are roaming the area and getting wet was not on the agenda. We did go through a couple of small showers in the dash to get back home before the big rain. It started a major rain about five minutes ago. I’m liking being inside and watching the rain and thunder outside! Now my bike ride is quite a bit different than my son Jim’s bike ride. Check out his post on his son Steven smoking him on their bike ride around the area. I firmly believe that all good bikes have a motor….

My iPod goes with me on the bike rides. Lots of big music while motoring through the backways of southeastern Idaho is just, well, fun. I didn’t get through the playlist before we got back home, so I’m sitting at the computer with my headphones on listening to the rest of this classical playlist:

  • Overture: Die Hebriden (Fingal’s Cave), Op. 26 (Mendelssohn)
  • Swan Lake, Op 20 (Tchaikovski)
  • Pilgrim’s Chorus: Begluckt darf nun dich (Wagner)
  • Zadok the Priest (Handel)
  • Sanctus (Gonoud)
  • Ave Maria (Bach, Gounod)
  • Sanctus (Plank)
  • Christ on the Mount Of Olives: Hallelujah (Beethovan)
  • Ave Maria (Schubert)
  • Requiem, Op 9: Sanctus (Durufle)
  • Te Deum, Op. 103: Te Deum Laudamus (Dvorak)
  • Alleluia (Beethovan)
  • Panis Angelicus (Frank)

The whole playlist is about sixty-five minutes long and contains lots of very bombastic music. Just right for riding on a motorcycle!

One of the pieces, “Zadok the Priest”, has some interesting connections between King Solomon and our day. The first chapter of 1 Kings lays out all of the palace intrigue around Solomon being crowned king by Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet. Fast forward to 1727. Handel received a commission to write four anthems to be performed during the coronation of King George II of England. He paraphased 1 Kings 1:38-40 as:

Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet anointed Solomon King.
And all the people rejoic’d, and said:
God save the King, long live the King, may the King live for ever!
Amen Alleluia!

Why would Handel pick this text about the coronation of Solomon for a coronation anthem for King George? Because according a somewhat dubious genealogy, European royalty is descended from the ancient Israeli kings. Solomon would have been a progenitor of King George, as was David. Generally speaking, people who have genealogical lines traced back to Adam somehow connect into the royal bloodlines of Europe and ride that genealogy back through Solomon and David.

There’s a further connection between Solomon and King George II. The link is the “Stone of Scone”. This rectangular piece of sandstone is installed under the seat of the King Edward Chair in Westminster Abby (where all the kings / queens of England are crowned). This stone is reputed to be the “pillow of Jacob”, where Jacob slept the night before his reunion with his brother Esau using stones for pillows and having a wonderous dream (Genesis 20:10-18). The next morning Jacob built an altar and placed this stone at the top of the altar. Several hundred years later, David finally captured Jerusalem and brought this altar stone to Jerusalem where it became the seat of his throne. Solomon would have been seated on this stone when he was annointed King of Israel. Somehow the stone made it’s way to Scotland, either by the Gaels (from whom Scotland gets the Gaelic language) or in some other way. At any rate, it was used as the seat of a throne in Scotland where the Kings of Scotland were crowned and annointed. King Edward I of England went to war with Scotland and brought the stone to London as part of the spoils of war where he installed it in a chair named for him. The king of England sits in this chair to be annointed with extra virgin olive oil specifically imported from the Holy Land as part of the coronation ceremony.

One of Handel’s coronation anthems was to be performed as the King was being annointed while sitting in King Edward’s chair on the Stone of Scone, the same stone that Solomon sat on when he was annointed. The anthem “Zadok the Priest” was that anthem. It became so popular that it has been performed at every coronation in England since that time.

King George II’s claims to fame are primarily that he was the last English king to lead his armies in battle. (We’re having some huge thunder outside. Have to save often so I don’t need to rewrite this long post!) He also succeeded in almost bankrupting the monarchy. His son, King George III, followed his father as king in 1760. He immediately set about replenishing the treasury. One of those methods was to place a quite onorous tax on the goods being exported from England to the commonwealth countries, including the Americas. That tax eventually included a tax on tea — precipitating the Boston Tea Party, a triggering event leading to the Revolutionary War. Thus the connection from Solomon through Handel to King George III and our independence. I really like “Zadok the Priest”. I have several different recordings of that anthem and they are included on three different playlists on my iPod. Great music to bike by — even if you’re being “smoked”, James!

1 thought on “Thursday Evening Ride

  1. I need an iPod!! although the ear pieces would probably fall out constantly while pedaling so hard! I agree about the motor though!

    Jim

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