More on Haydn's anthem...
I was thinking of this tune while I drove across Westward Northern into Over The Rhine, my drive home four days a week. As I approached the viaduct and the familiar train yards came into view, I was strangely reminded of Sir John Gielgud's outstanding performance in the 1980 film "The Formula." He plays an aged German scientist. Complaining about having suffered the indignities of Germany's defeat in 1945, his character describes the Russian soldiers (peasants) who took over his apartment, (I paraphrase) "They kept flushing the toilet! And there it was, the German Empire defeated by men who had never seen a toilet!"