Egypt

Georg Friedrich Händels großes Chor-Oratorium "Israel in Egypt" ist das wertvollste Geschenk, das der Komponist der Chormusik machen konnte: Der Chor fungiert als Protagonist in diesem klangmächtigen Werk, das in bildhafter Dramatik vom alttestamentarischen Exodus erzählt. Viel zu lange war das Oratorium nach seiner wenig erfolgreichen Uraufführung im Londoner King’s Theatre in Vergessenheit geraten, bis es im Zuge der Barock-Renaissance unter Felix Mendelssohn im 19. Jahrhundert wiederentdeckt wurde.

In 2008, the idea of a rock band doing their proverbial thing in Egypt holds far less cache than it did 30 years prior. However, it was unquestionably a novel notion when the Grateful Dead sought to begin diplomatic talks between the U.S. Government and Egyptian officials to allow for the band to bring their "long, strange trip" to Cairo's Gizah Sound & Light Theater in mid-September of 1978. Considering the precarious political state of the world at the time, it is a minor miracle that these shows came off at all. Rocking the Cradle: Egypt 1978 (2008) gathers two-and-a-half hours of highlights from the September 15 and 16, 1978 performances – with the vast majority coming from the latter date. While they played on the 13th (as a sort of sound check) and the 14th as well, there is no music from either date located here…