Remembering The World Trade Center and 9/11 (Gorecki Symphony #3)

This is a video I created several years ago to commemorate the 7th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy. I used an excerpt from the 1st movement of Gorecki's Symphony #3.

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to use Gorecki's Symphony #3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) for this video. Most people are familar with the David Zinman recording with Dawn Upshaw. In the original version of my video, I used that version. But one day I was listening to the version by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra featuring soprano Susan Gritton, and I found that I liked it better. There's an urgency in the strings that's reminiscent of bells ringing, and it reminded me of the poem by Edgar Allan Poe, "The Bells," which contains this verse:

Hear the loud alarum bells -
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now - now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells -
Of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

This was NOT an easy video to create. It was borne from the sorrow in my heart. Perhaps someone else will also find comfort in it, too.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• World
• Trade
• Center
• 9/11
• 10th
• tenth
• anniversary
• memorial
• memory
• remembering
• Gorecki
• Symphony
• #3
• Osama
• Bin
• Laden
• dead
• killed

[evernetherall]

I was given to understand "we" never had a moving shot of the first tower getting hit! That thing looks like it crashes through straight in from the TOP of the tower to where it explodes out the lower side! And why is the fully equipped fireman already 'waiting there' as if to expect the FIRST hit??!! This is astonishing footage I've seen nowhere before! {Thank you Ned for this heart-wrenching Memorial fittingly today, Easter Sunday 2011.} ~_~

[NedNickerson2010]

@evernetherall The day of the 9/11 attacks, filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet were filming a documentary about a rookie fireman Tony Benetatos. He was working on a gas leak when American Airlnes 11 flew by overhead. Jules turned the camera to follow the plane and taped the first plane hitting the North Tower. The members of Battalion 1 that were investigating the gas leak were the first responders on the scene and Jules was allowed to follow the chief during the attempted rescue operation.

[NedNickerson2010]

@NedNickerson2010 The documentary was completed and released a few months later. CBS aired the film commercial-free in March 2002 to mark the 6-month anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The film was re-aired on the first anniversary and released on DVD. Do a Google search for "9/11 (film)" as well as "Jules and Gedeon Naudet" for more information about the film.

[MeganKerschieter]

can't stop crying .

[foutsfouts]

Oh my God, look at 6:29....incredible

[Elzars]

I'm not American and nor do I live in America. But watching this and remembering when this happened, Just breaks my heart. Very moving video, Ty for making it xx

[roz805]

This moved me to tears.