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The
Earth inspires us in different ways;
some respond to the beauty of the
sun setting beyond the spherical horizon
with quiet admiration while
others respond in their own special ways
to the boldness and grandeur
of a mighty river. Our responses
are of course conditioned by
what we know and practice in our daily
lives. Consider the
response of music composers not only to
nationalistic pride and place
names, but also awe-inspiring rock
formations, environmental issues,
political situations, cultural backdrop,
and so forth. Please add
to this list by sending me, via email
(sarhaus@umich.edu), your own
favorites and we'll accumulate them in a
later issue of Solstice as a sort of
geo-musical
atlas. An earlier Solstice article
suggested a different context
for this sort of idea (Arlinghaus, S.
and Blake, B., "Two
Rivers Ridge: Capturing Art," Solstice,
Volume XV, No. 2., 2004).
Is music inspired by the Earth
somehow more moving to you than other
pieces, independent of
genre? Others have noted similar
ideas; but, as geography is more
than place names--so too is a musical
response to patterns on, or seen
from, the
Earth's surface. Here
are links to a few sites listing place
name music, elsewhere on the
Internet. An additional list
follows reflecting the abundance of
geo-music beyond place name music,
supplemented when it seemed
natural, with related poetic quotations.
Added inspiration is often fostered in
museums. Consider, for
example, the Musical Instrument Museum
in Phoenix, AZ (http://mim.org/).
Visit instruments,
played in the field, from around the
world and organized by continent
and region within the walls of the
museum, often with associated
fabrics, costumes, You Tubes of
indigenous population playing the
displayed instruments in natural
settings, and more. Visit the
Experience Room and try your hand, along
with others, on a variety of
instruments. The author is shown
below trying her hand with
portions of the Indonesian Gamelan
interactive display!
LINKS ELSEWHERE
COUNTRIES
REGIONS
CITIES
- Felix
Mendelssohn, Venetianisches
Gondellied
- Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart, Symphone No.
31
K. 297, D major, Paris
- Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart, Symphony No.
36
in C, K. 435, Linz
Symphony
- Ottorino
Respighi, Fountains
of Rome
- Ottorino
Respighi, Pini
di Roma
- Johann
Strauss II, Vienna
Blood Waltz
- Richard
Wagner, Die
Meistersinger
von Nürnberg, Overture
- _________________________________
- Joan
Baez, House
of the Rising
Sun
- Tony
Bennett, I
Left my Heart in
San Francisco
- Glen
Campbell, By
the Time I Get to
Phoenix
- Glen
Campbell,
Galveston
- Nat
King Cole, On
the Sidewalks of
New York
- George
Gershwin, An American in Paris, Gene
Kelly, I
Got
Rhythm
- Jerome
Kern and Oscar Hammerstein III, Last Time I Saw Paris
- Guy
Mitchell, There's
a Pawn Shop
on the Corner
- Frank
Sinatra, Chicago,
Chicago
- Meredith
Willson, The
Music Man, Gary,
Indiana
WATER
- Ferde
Grofé, Mississippi
Suite
- Bedrich
Smetana, Die
Moldau
- Russian
Song, The
Song
of the Volga Boatman
- Franz
Schubert, Die
Forelle, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau,
Moore.
- Johann
Strauss II, The
Blue Danube Waltz
- __________________________________
- Paul
Dresser, On
the Banks of the
Wabash Far Away, Shannon
Quartet
- Jerome
Kern and Oscar Hammerstein
III. Ol'
Man River,
Paul Robeson
- Marty
Robbins, Red
River Valley
- Pete
Seeger, Michael
Row the Boat
Ashore
- Paul
Simon and Art Garfunkel, Bridge
over Troubled
Water
- "I
never
saw a moor, I never saw the
sea, Yet know I how the
heather
looks, And what a wave must
be." Emily
Dickinson.
- Arthur
Sullivan and W. S. Gilbert, Pirates
of Penzance
WOODS
AND FLOWERS
- Edvard
Grieg, Peace
of the Woods
- Franz
Schubert / Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe, Heidenröslein
- "I
wandered lonely as a cloud, That
floats
on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of
golden daffodils. Beside
the lake, beneath the trees;
Fluttering
and dancing in the breeze.
... Ten thousand saw I at a
glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly
dance." William
Wordsworth
- Johann
Strauss II, Tales
from the
Vienna Woods
LANDFORMS
TRANSPORTATION
- Roy
Acuff, The
Wabash Cannonball
- Rosemary
Clooney, On
the Atchison,
Topeka, and the Santa Fe
- John
Denver, Leaving
on a Jet
Plane
- Steve
Goodman, City
of New Orleans,
sung by Willie Nelson
- Kingston
Trio, M.T.A.
- Gordon
Lightfoot, The
Wreck of the
Edmund Fitzgerald
- "
'God
save thee, ancient Mariner! From the
fiends, that plague thee thus!—Why
look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow I
shot the ALBATROSS."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Pete
Seeger,
The
Erie
Canal
CULTURAL
BACKDROP
AND POLITICAL
- Johannes
Brahms, Hungarian
Dance No. 5
- Antonin
Dvorak, Symphony
No. 9 in E
Minor, from the New World
- Giuseppe
Verdi, Triumphal
March, Aida
- ___________________________________
- Joan
Baez, The
Night
they Drove Ol' Dixie Down
- Joan
Baez, We
Shall Overcome
- Richard
Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II,
The
King and I, March
of the Siamese
Children
- Buffy
Sainte-Marie, Universal
Soldier
Paul
Simon and Art Garfunkel, Scarborough
Fair
- Andy
Williams, Battle
Hymn of the
Republic
UTOPIAN
SEASONS,
EARTH-SUN
RELATIONS, DIRECTIONS
<>
- Peter,
Paul, and
Mary. Blowing
in
the Wind
- Edith
Piaf, Milord
- "The
North
wind doth blow, And we shall
have snow, And what will the
robin
do then, Poor thing?"
Mother Goose
- Dinah
Shore, Buttons
and Bows
- "Oh,
East
is East and West is West,
And never the 'twain shall
meet." Rudyard
Kipling
EARTH IN SPACE
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