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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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