André Rieu – The Beautiful Blue Danube

An evening pause: What I think makes these performances by Rieu and his orchestra so especially appealing is that he finds musicians who are glad to show how much they enjoy playing this lovely music. He recognizes the importance of fun.

And yes, as a child of the 1960s, I cannot help listening to this music and see spaceships docking. Those of my generation will of course immediately know to what I am referring. Will anyone younger?

Hat tip Edward Thelen.

A*Teens – Halfway Around The World

An evening pause: Watching this only confirms for me a well known fact: Young people sure have more energy than they know what to do with. In this case, it is used well.

Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who adds that this “Swedish group originally formed as an ABBA tribute band (originally, they called themselves “ABBA Teens”). As they became older, they branched out into their own music selections that had nothing to do with ABBA.”

Vitas – Opera #2

An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who also provides an English translation of the Russian lyrics, which I think combine very well with the dark and intriguing performance.

My house has been built,
But I’m alone in it.
A door was slammed behind my back.
Autumn wind is knocking at the window,
It’s crying over me again.
It was thunderstorm last night,
So it’s foggy in the morning.
The Sun got quite cold.
Old anguishes
Are going in a long train.
Let them get together.

My house has been built,
But I’m alone in it.
A door was slammed behind my back.
Autumn wind is knocking at the window,
It’s crying over me again.
It’s my fate, I can’t
Ask my fate for anything.
I only know, how the winds
Will cry after I’ve gone.

Suggesting Evening Pauses

It appears that my request on Friday for evening pause suggestions from my readers was not clear. I am therefore posting my request again, in its own post, with the hope that I will get lots of pause suggestions, but done correctly this time so that I can use them.

If you’ve already emailed me an evening pause suggestion in the past, you know the routine. Note that my scheduled list of future evening pauses is getting very short, and will run out in only a few more days. If you’ve got something you’ve been planning to send me, please do so.

If you’ve never emailed me an evening pause suggestion and want to, please comment here. DON’T mention what the pause is. DON’T provide the youtube link here either. Just comment that you have one or more suggestions and I will then email you for the information. (If you post the link here and now in a comment, I then really can’t use it in the future, as it will already be posted. This happened on Friday, with several people offering some great suggestions, which I now sadly can’t use. The idea of the evening pause is to have it happen daily and to be an upcoming surprise that people can anticipate.)

Some guidelines: I prefer live performances. Strange and interesting engineering pieces are also good. So is anything that is creative, funny, entertaining, and different. For my pauses I prefer if we avoid politics or newsy pieces, as the idea here is to take a pause from the news of the day to be either entertained or educated in a way that is unique and profound.

Anyway, send those suggestions! And thank you all again for your support and help in making Behind the Black the website I want it to be.

Justin Hayward – Forever Autumn

An evening pause: This song, sung mostly by Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues, was written by Jeff Wayne and is performed here as part of his musical concert of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. And yes, that is Richard Burton’s voice for the narrator.

Hat tip Wayne DeVette.

As always, I am looking for more suggestions for future evening pauses from my readers. If there’s something entertaining that you think will fit, comment here (without giving the link to the piece), and I will email you!

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