United Nations Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Hymn to the United Nations== {{main|Hymn to the United Nations}} On the request of then United Nations [[Secretary-General of the United Nations|Secretary-General]] [[U Thant]], a Hymn to the United Nations was performed on the occasion of its 26th anniversary, on 24 October 1971, by [[Pau Casals]], the lyrics to which were penned by the poet [[W. H. Auden]]. Thant first approached Casals, who was a personal friend, looking to create a hymn to peace and hoping for the song to be based on the preamble of the [[Charter of the United Nations]]. Thant later commissioned Auden to write the poem after Casals requested one to set to music. Auden completed his work in three days time. The finished work, scored for chorus and orchestra, takes approximately seven minutes to play. However, there were never any plans to adopt the song as the organization's official anthem. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page