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Showing posts with the label "The Lesson Song"

What's not to be happy about?

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Video posted by arnau884 Of course, this "Best of All Possible Worlds" is from Leonard Bernstein's operetta based on Voltaire's satire Candide , and thus it is extremely tongue-in-cheek. You could even call it a bit mean-spirited, because, being a satire of Leibniz's optimism it is extremely broad and the philosophy it is satirizing is more subtle. (...But it is not entirely an unfair critique, either!) *** A positive raft of lyricists ultimately worked on Candide , but I believe that John Latouche wrote the lyrics for this iteration of "The Best of All Possible Worlds [The Lesson Song]," and although he apparently never mentioned it, Latouche was indeed Jewish, since both his maternal grandparents were . He died young (at age 41), but before that wrote the lyrics for some very well-known songs, such as "Taking a Chance on Love," and a number of musicals, plays, and even an opera. Of course, Leonard Bernstein was famously Jewish . And...