United Nations Day Concert Held at United Nations Headquarters

The 1970 U.N. Day Concert was held in the General Assembly Hall at U.N. Headquarters tonight. Cosmogony, a new composition for soloists, chorus and orchestra by the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, which was commissioned by U.N. Secretary-General U Thant, to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the U.N., was performed by the Los Angeles Philarmonic Orchestra, with the Rutgers University Choir and soloists, under the direction of Zubin Mehta. Cosmogony takes its inspiration from an anthology of thoughts upon the origin of the universe taken from many sources. These include Sophocles, Lucretius, Ovid, Giordano Bruno, Leonardo da Vinci, Nicholas Copernicus, Yuri Gagarin and John Glenn. Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with its choral setting of Schiller's Ode To Joy, was also heard in its entirety.
Zubin Mehta, Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, is seen here with the Polish composer Kryzstof Penderecki, during rehearsal for the U.N. Day Concert.