Musical Geography: 16 Travel Destinations
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- čas přidán 26. 07. 2024
- Musical Geography: 16 Travel Destinations
Grofé: Grand Canyon Suite
Smetana: Ma Vlást (My Country)
Vaughan Williams: A London Symphony
Bloch: Helvetia
Sibelius: Tapiola
Holst: Egdon Heath
Falla: Nights in the Gardens of Spain
Leifs: Hekla
Castellanos: Santa Cruz de Pacairigua
Strauss: Aus Italian
Ives: Three Places in New England
Albeniz: Iberia
Godowsky: Java Suite
Villa-Lobos: Floresta Do Amazonas
Delius: North Country Sketches
Messiaen: Des Canyons aux Étoiles - Hudba
Hovhaness: Symphony No. 50 "Mount St. Helens" (before, during, and after the eruption)
Sculthorpe: Earth Cry and Kakadu, although virtually everything he wrote evokes the Australian outback
McPhee: Tabuh-Tabahan
Great list, and so many more to choose. To name just a few more…
Bax: Tintagel, Tchaikovsky: Capriccio Italian, Borodin: In the Steppes of Central Asia, and perhaps in the far distant future, Holst: The Planets!!!
I love that "geographical surveys" idea, sounds like a super fun way to see a bunch of different composers' distinct conceptions of a given idea
Very excited for this series! A couple (albeit already well known) pieces to "visit":
Copland: An Outdoor Overture (for going to one of my favorite places - outside!)
Adams: The Dharma at Big Sur
The Adams is a little too "droney" for me, but if it saves me from a long drive out to Big Sur, California, I'll take it! Copland somehow manages to capture the romanticized American West in some of his pieces, and as a side note, they make for great road trip music or soundtracks to trips out to the Southwest U.S.
Jacques Ibert: Escales (Ports of Call)
Josef Suk: Praga
Novak: Slovak Suite
Novak: In the Tatra Mountains
Balakirev: In Bohemia
Balakirev: Islamey, Oriental Fantasy
Hovhaness: Mysterious Mountain
Good call on Suk on Novak, two terribly underappreciated composers. In the Tatra Mountains is such a magnificent piece of majestic, lush Late Romanticism, but I never hear it talked about. The opening bars alone let you know it's going to be awesome. Who the heck needs Strauss? :) Re: Hovhaness, there's also Mountains and Rivers Without End, which, iirc, was inspired by a Chinese landscape painting. And then there's his ear-splitting Mount St. Helens Symphony.
And here is my American list:
MacDowell - Woodland Sketches (New England) (piano suite)
Delius - Florida Suite
Beach - Eskimos (piano suite)
Ives - Concord Sonata
Ruggles - Sun Treader (The Sun!)
Gershwin - An American in Paris
Copland - Rodeo
Gilles - Tulsa, A Symphonic Portrait in Oil
Bernstein - Symphonic Suite from On the Waterfront (Hoboken, NJ & New York. Yes, I said Hoboken, New Jersey!)
Rorem - The Lordly Hudson (song)
Since I'm a guitarist, I'd like to recommend a wonderfully evocative guitar concerto for 2 guitars called 'Concerto Caboclo', by one of my favorite Brazilian guitarists, Paulo Bellinati. The music brings to mind a Southern Brazil cowboy/gaucho folkloric landscape, and is unabashedly lyrical and rich with imagery. The last movement, titled 'Ponteado' is worth the wait and so dynamic and full of joy, it oftens makes me cry. I believe it's a little known and performed piece, so wanted to share. There's a really nice live performance of it by the Sphinx Orchestra on CZcams as well a recording with the Delaware Orchestra.
Elgar's Cockaigne (though obviously a trip to the London of Elgar and RVW involves time travel as well.)
I also love Charpentier's Impressions of Italy, and we might well theow in Bizet's rarely heard Roma.
Copland's 3rd Symphony was never meant as a travelogue but to me the sound of so much of it evokes the wide open spaces of middle America I know so well.
Nobody plays Loeffler's Life in a Russian Village (Memories of My Childhood) anymore, but it's so evocative, complete with harmonica.
Debussy's Iberia.
Grofe also has his Mississippi Suite though I don't think it's as successful as Grand Canyon.
I love Douglas Lilburn's "Aotearoa"--"Land of the Long White Cloud"--far from the only evocation of New Zealand from its native son, but a lovely one.
What a cool idea! One could also use Holst’s Hammersmith for wind ensemble (yes, I’ve heard the orchestral version). Very atmospheric.
Respighi. Fountains and Pines of Rome
Hamish McCunn - Land of the mountain and the flood!
Couperin - Les Nation
Campra - L'Europe Galante, Les Fêtes Vénitiennes
Telemann - Les Nations Anciens et Modernes
Mendelssohn - Hebrides Overture
Ives - Central Park in the Dark
Debussy - La Mer
Borodin - In The Steppes Of Central Asia
Milhaud - Suite Provencale
Bartok - Hungarian Sketches
Rodrigo - Concierto de Aranjuez, Concierto Andaluz
Interesting topic. I am surprised that no one has yet suggested: Vaughn Williams' Symphony No. 7 Sinfonia antartica (1949-52); (partly based on his music for the film "Scott of the Antarctic". You want desolate and no people: here it is!
Here are a few such pieces of music, (I've read the comments and tried to avoid anything that's already been suggested):
Geirr Tveitt: Hardanger Suites, Hardanger Concerti, 50 Hardanger tunes
Erland von Koch: Svensk Dansrapsodi
Leopold Kozeluch: Sinfonia Francese in A
Uuno Klami: Suomennlina
Ferrucio Busoni: Indianische Tagebuch, Indianische Fantasie
Franz Liszt: Trois Morceaux Suisses, Hungaria, Die Zell in Nonnenworth
Ottorino Respighi: Brazillian Impressions
Ole Schmidt: In Denmark I was born
Hugo Alfvén: Symphony No. 4, “From the seaward skerries” (Stockholm’s rockbound archipelago, SUMMER WITH MONIKA territory)
Kurt Atterberg, Symphony No. 3, “West Coast [Sweden] pictures”
Delius: Hassan, incidental music (“We take the golden road to Samarkand,” with tinkling camel-bells)
This list was a lot of fun...I am surprised to see so many deep cuts in the comments! So I thought I would chime in with a few more that I haven't seen anyone else mention yet:
Beethoven: Ruins of Athens
Tchaikovsky: Souvenir de Florence
Dvorak: Bells of Zlonice (Symp#1)
Lou Harrison: At the tomb of Charles Ives
and Marriage at the Eifel Tower
Philip Glass: Aguas da Amazonia
Steve Reich: Desert Music
and The Cave...plus City Life
John Adams: Nixon in China
and Hallelujah Junction
Morton Feldman: Rothko Chapel
and The King of Denmark
Alfred Schnittke: Nagasaki
Kitaro: Silk Road Suite. The original Silk Road music was written for a documentary. Because of the success some of the music has been arranged for orchestra and recorded with the LSO.
If Tapiola is allowed, may I nominate Rimsky's Antar? The very beginning evokes deserts and having traveled quite a bit in the deserts of Arabia, it's actually a pretty good evocation of that geography. It always starts playing in my mind when I look at my photos from these deserts. :D
Hello Dave:
- Chávez' "Sinfonia India", latin-american (from Mexico down to Chile) echoes everywhere, amazing.
- "El condor pasa", you know your Simon and Garfunkel from A to Z. Don't know if there's a CD of the whole zarzuela, cause it's like some incidental music, last thing I know it was reconstructed and performed not so long ago.
- Ginastera's "Estancia" without narration, don't need it to be at the Patagonia's pampas.
- Shostakovich's "Five Days Five Nights" suite, supposed to be about Dresden but it takes me to whatever city and place destroyed by war, well, even Dmitry said that.
- Glazunov's "Karelian Legend" sparks my interest about the region, and all it's myths, but Sibelius hits the final nail.
- Enescu's "Romanian Rhapsodies".
Dave, where exactly is planet Baxia?. Cheers.
Deli us had his "Appalachia".
Maxwell Davies had his "Mavis in Las Vegas".
I thought of a number of pieces: Two other works of Holst: Japanese Suite and A Somerset Rhapsody; Debussy': "Iberia" (I know it's the central part of his Images pour Orchestre); Ibert': "Escales"; Delius: Paris - The Song of a Great City; Ravel: Rhapsodie Espagnole
A call out for Scotland: Maxwell Davies: An Orkney Wedding
Robert Farnon: Symphony No. 2 (“Ottawa”)
(not confused with his orchestral suites “Canadian Impressions” or “Gateway to the West”)
Nelson Riddle: British Columbia Suite
Wow, the Nelson Riddle work I'd never heard of and is a very cool find! (I was only familiar with his famous Sinatra/big band charts, etc.)
@@brentmarquez9057 Riddle’s episodic 38’ minute suite, composed in his idle downtime between Sinatra, Clooney and Ronstadt, is posted at CZcams for curious Riddle completists and was generously commissioned by the cash-flush B.C. provincial government. Capilano Records issued a lavish, colour-illustrated gatefold, vinyl edition in 1969, digital reissue 1995 by Vancouver’s “Total Recordings” under the more pretentious title “Symphony for the North.”
Compositions of Albert W. Ketèlbey appears yet to be mentioned. Some of them: 1) In a Persian Market 2) In a Monastery Garden 3) In the Mystic Land of Egypt 4) In a Chinese Temple Garden do appear to evoke musical geography and invoke travel destinations.
El Salon Mexico (Copland)
Africa - Symphonic Poem (Still)
Capriccio Espagnol (Rimsky-Korsakov)
Hebrides/Fingal's Cave Overture (Mendelssohn)
A wonderful and inspiring topic in deed!
Miecszyslaw Karlowicz Rapsodia litewska (Lithuanian Rhapsody) Op 11 -- a really wonderful evocative composition!
Of course: George Gershwin's American in Paris has the travelling experience already in its title and is an all time gem!
Kaija Saariaho: Six Japanese gardens -- admittedly something more avantgarde like and not for everyone, but really good music and sensitive towards the title-giving geography and culture.
Speaking of good old city of London I'd add Elgar's delightful Cockaigne Overture.
Then, of course, there's Charles Ives' Concord Sonata and Central Park in the Dark.
Ottorino Respighi: Pini di Roma, Fontane di Roma
Robert Schumann: Symphony No. 3 "Rhenish", as German and Rhine-landish as it can get!
I'm listening to the Saariaho right now - never heard of it and it's absolutely gorgeous. I plan to listen to every piece I don't know that has been suggested by everybody here. Thank you for posting yours!
@@paul.351 Thank you, Paul, for the response! I'm very happy that you can relate to that music!
Some of these are not really about places at all, but they are wonderful works nonetheless.
So many good ones:
Liszt: Années de pèlerinage
Delius: Florida Suite
Hovhaness: Mount St. Helens
Respighi: the Roman trilogy
Bax: Tintagel
Atterberg: West Coast Pictures
Lilburn: Drysdale and Aotearoa
Novak: In the Tatra Mountains
Boccherini: La ritirata di Madrid
Bantock: Celtic and Hebridean symphonies
Elgar: Crown of India Suite
Barber: Knoxville, Summer of 1915
Strauss: An der schönen blauen Donau
Antheil: McKonkey's Ferry
Willson [sic]: Symphony 1 "A Symphony of San Francisco"
Villa-Lobos: Little Train of the Caipira
and if you're going to stretch things, Daugherty's Metropolis symphony and Rautavaara's On the Last Frontier
Good call on the Liszt - some of his best music in the Italy and Switzerland years.
You can cover the entire solar system with Holst's Planets
Well, except for Pluto, be it a planet or not. 😉
@@josecarmona9168 Pluto's been demoted to a dwarf planet by the astronomers so that's an interesting point. It can go either way, but I'll give Holst the benefit of the doubt on this one.
Except they aren’t about the planets, rather Their mythical personas
A whole program could be done on Delius‘s geographic pieces. You could even play connect the dots… From Delius‘s Paris to Gershwin‘s An American in Paris, then to Gershwin‘s Cuban overture, then Gottschalk probably has written something based on Cuba, etc., etc..
This video got me so excited! I'm going to post TWO lists, one American and one everywhere else. I tried to pick some off the beaten paths ones that I really like, like the Godard and Lambert pieces. I hope you enjoy them!
Saint-Saens - Africa
Chabrier - Espana
Rimsky-Korsakov - The Invisible City of Kitzeh Suite (if we’re allowed fictional places)
Godard - Fantasie Persane (piano/orchestra)
Ippolitov-Ivanov - Caucasian Sketches
Decaux - Clairs de lune (if the moon counts)
Scriabin/Nemtin - Universe
Caplet - Suite persane (for double wind quintet)
Bartok - 3 Songs from Csik (piano)
Vladigerov - Bulgarian Rhapsody
Lambert - The Rio Grande
Fazil Say - Istanbul Symphony
Debussy: Iberia
All of Malcolm Arnold's Dances from the home states
Elgar's In The South
Respighi's Roman Trilogy
The Yellow River Piano Concerto (by a committee of 5 Chinese composers!)
Let's see, there's GUSTAVE CHARPENTIER'S: Impressions Of Italy. That Chinese thing THE YELLOW RIVER CONCERTO. Someone already mentioned DELIUS' Florida Suite. SAINT-SAENS: Algerian Suite. How about RACHMANINOV'S Isle of The Dead, not a popular destination spot, I would imagine. THANKS DAVE !!!!
Fun! about 9½Hours of music, will compliment my travels this summer! - You should do a traversal of all the US States (One each)
Speaking of volcanoes - I enjoy Hovhaness Sym 50: Mount St Helens
The American composer Leo Sowerby wrote two piano suites: From the Northland, about his native Michigan (which he later orchestrated) and Florida, and Prairie, an orchestral tone poem about his adopted state of Illinois.
To the many, many worthy choices you and my fellow commenty people name, I’ll add William Henry Fry’s Niagara Symphony
If you feel like going to Colombia (not Columbia, mind you), then give a listen to Seis piezas colombianas by Blas Emilio Atehortúa.
Schnittke: To Liverpool (it sounds like something really awful happened to him there)
Asking again cause it’s been a while: Would love to see reviews of both the new Seattle and Utah recordings of from the Canyons to the Stars that were both released last year.