Music Selection Notes
Celebrations of Transport
Journeys of Hope
Wanderlied, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, 1846
History
The most basic form of travel was and still is on foot. Today thousands of people hike the 2,650 mile Pacific Crest Trail between Mexico and Canada each year
Another popular trek is the Camino de Santiago which drew just under 500,000 travelers in 2024. Goes to the shrine of Apostle James
Composers often come up with their songs based on their travels. EX: Felix Mendelssohn wrote Hebrides Overture after visiting Fingal’s Cave in Scotland and Darius Milhaud did Longings for Brazil after traveling to South America
Franz Schubert set Wilhelm Mullers travel poetry into 2 song cycles, a set of songs that share a subject matter or musical elements
Friedrich Wilhelm Moller adapted Friedrich Sigismunds poetry Wanderlust into Der Frohliche Wanderer (The Happy Wanderer). The Oberkirchen Children’s Choir sang this on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964
The Happy Wanderer is known for its laughing chorus
At least 75 poems have the title Wanderlied, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel published 2 of them for piano and for voice + piano
Hensel
Had great expectations put on her from a young age. Her brother, Felix Mendelssohn composed Wedding March for A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Family relatives studied under the sons of Johann Sebastian Bach
Started practicing piano with her mother as a child. Could play Well Tempered Clavier by Bach from memory by her early teens
She showed promise as a composer but her father did not think it was appropriate for girls to perform music publicly or become a composer
She played music publicly exactly once when she was 32 at an 1838 benefit concert. Otherwise she only played for private family “house concerts”
Married Wilhelm Hensel, a court painter, in 1929. He paid for her to visit Italy, they stayed for a year.
Released her first piece of music, Opus 1 Sechs Lieder (Six Songs), in 1846. This delighted her mother who shamed her brother for his jealousy
While conducting a rehearsal, she had a stroke and died at 41. After hearing about her death, Felix collapsed and died 6 months later at 38
Wanderlied
Takes the form of a German art song called a Lied
Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s poetry pieces are used for the form
Composed nearly 10 years before it officially debuted
Emphasizes optimism and encouragement, repeating the line “let your life be the deed”
Uses many elements of word painting to mirror the sound of music and the meaning of poetry.
In Verse 1, the line “Da bewegst sichs wie Gesang” meaning “there is liveliness like a song” use a device called text expression
Halfway through measure 10, the note duration lengthens, holding the word “wie” for 3 ½ beats and is notated with an elaborate melissima
The piano arpeggios symbolize a mountainous contour
Born to Be Wild, Mars Bonfire, 1968
History
New horizons brought song after song about open roads, highways and freedom of exploration
Examples include Ventura Highway, Hotel California, Freeway of Love and Wild as Her which all express the image of wind blowing through ones hair
German Engineer Gottlieb Daimler mounted a small gasoline engine on a wooden bicycle like frame and named it “Reitwagen” meaning riding car and is recognized as the first gas powered motorcycle. Daimler earned the title of “The Father of the Motorcycle”
The 1912 book series Motorcycle Chums fed young boys fascination with motorcycles. The sport was compared to horse riding and riders were pictured as cowboys or centaurs
Steppenwolf/ Bonfire
Song was originally inspired by Bonfire’s family car
Born Dennis McCrohan
Him and his brother adopted the surname Edmonton when they were in a band called The Sparrows. After dropping out of the band, he took on the name Mars Bonfire
While riding his Ford Falcon in the San Bernardino Mountains, he was caught in a storm which inspired the lyric of “I like smoke and lightning, heavy metal thunder” with the color of the sky. This lyric predated the heavy metal genre
Gabriel Mekler, producer of Dunhill Records, was hunting for a new act that would connect with a rock audience. He knew the singer of The Sparrows and listened to the band rehearse the song. This is where he suggested the name of Steppenwolf, taken from the novel.
Born to Be Wild
Hit number 2 on the Billboard charts in 1968
Gained an even bigger audience with its use in the 1969 movie Easy Rider. Directed by Dennis Hopper, produced by Peter Fonda and edited by Donn Cambern
Cambern showed the song to the band Crosby, Stills and Nash because he wanted them to write a soundtrack for the movie. They turned down the offer because they said they couldn’t do better than the song
The licensing for the song and others cost over 3 times the films budget at 1 million dollars
The mountains, ocean and desert around Los Angeles inspired the bluesy riff of the song
Bonfire built the riff in a 3 chord pattern. G flat, A flat, E flat
Follows verse chorus form, with a rock style pre chorus. The pre chorus switches harmony more often
There is debate if the song is actually heavy metal like one of its lyrics says. Lead singer John Kay says no and that Led Zeppelin founded the genre while Steppenwolf drew on hard rock and blues. Others call it proto-metal
Fast Car, Tracy Chapman, 1988
History
Dewey Bunnell wrote “Horse With No Name” for the band America in 1971, inspired by his childhood in growing up near Vandenberg Air Force Base in California
The association of journeys and escaping is deeply expressed in the spirituals (rhythmic songs) of the enslaved people of the US
Some spirituals included coded messages about the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman was known by her code name “Moses”
Most common method of secret communication was singing. Enslaved people would hum the song “Steal Away” to indicate they would hold a secret meeting. “Follow the Drinking Gourd” included instructions on how they could trace their way by the stars of the Big Dipper, one being Polaris (north star)
Tracy Chapman
Parents divorced when she was 4, family lived in poverty
Found solace in music early on, practiced the ukulele in elementary school, started writing songs on her $20 guitar
Won a scholarship to a prep school in Connecticut, where she first encountered folk music
Impressed her soccer coach while performing at the school coffeehouse, who raised money to buy her a new Fender guitar, a process that only took 10 minutes (allegedly). Later thanked her coach on her album Tracy Chapman
Attended Tufts University. Stayed there for Thanksgiving Break with a friend where she was encouraged to play at Harvard Square. She earned $20-25 and treated her and her friend to Chinese food
Her songs addressed topics like hope, heartbreak, consequences of bad choices and the cycles of poverty and alcoholism
Caught the attention of Brian Koppelman who was looking for a protest singer. His father was Charles Koppelman of the SBK music publishing company. Brian brought him a demo of “Talkin ‘bout a Revolution” and his father offered Chapman a deal
Signed with SBK in 1986, graduated in 1987.
Signed with Elektra Records and released her debut album in 1988, which thanked Koppelman as well
Booked one of the biggest gigs of her career on June 11th, 1988 at the Wembley Stadium in London to commemorate the 70th birthday of Nelson Mandela
A technical issue arose and prevented Stevie Wonder from taking the stage. Chapman was asked to take out her acoustic guitar and sing again. She performed “Talkin ‘bout a Revolution” and “Fast Car” for 70,000 people and broadcasted in 60 countries.
The author Maythee Rojas praised Chapmans ability to elevate the working class experiences of Black women to an international audience
The concert pushed Chapman's sales from 200,000 expected to 20 million
Fast Car
Hit #6 on the Billboard “Hot 100” in August 1988 and #1 for album sales
Earned a standing ovation at the 31st Grammy Awards ceremony. Earned 3 awards “Best Female Pop Vocal Performance”, “Best Contemporary Folk Recording” and “Best New Artist”
The country singer Luke Combs covered “Fast Car” in 2023, earning Song of the Year at the 2023 Country Music Association Awards
Held a duet of this song between Combs and Chapman at the 2024 Grammy Awards, inspiring artists like Taylor Swift
The ultimatum at the end of the song states “You gotta make a decision, leave tonight or live and die this way”
Uses verse chorus form with a hook instead of a contrasting bridge
Gives the sense of shifting from a quadruple meter to duple meter with the repetition of “be someone” 3 times
Verses use present tense while choruses use past tense as the speaker recalls the empowering feeling of riding in a fast car.
Song ends with a present tense hook when she forces her partner to make a choice about their relationship
Uses a pedal steel guitar along with Chapman’s voice and acoustic guitar
Titanic “The Launching: There She Is”, Maury Yeston, 1997
History
The oldest image of sailing comes from Kuwait, 6th millennium BCE.
Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean in the late 15th century, He recorded the use of dugout canoes that held 90 men and traveled at 6 knots
In 1606, one canoe carried 40-50 island residents to an English ship
Dugout ships traveled to South America, 93 miles away
The Age of Sail from 1450s to the 1850s inspired later musical compositions
Both Beethoven and Felix Mendelssohn adapted Goethe’s poetry about sea voyages for their compositions.
“Meeresstille” (meaning Calm Sea) and “Gluckliche Fahrt” (meaning Prosperous Voyage) were both written by Goethe in 1795. Beethoven released a composition of the same name (2 combined) in 1815. Mendelssohn used the exact same title for his in 1828.
Christopher Gunning’s 2012 work Night Voyage was inspired by the sight of a gray freighter on a rainy evening by the Mersey River in Liverpool. Follows the journey of an adventure and a sudden storm
In 1807, Robert Fulton developed the first commercially successful steamboat, The Clermont. Made history by traveling on the Hudson River between Albany and New York City in 32 hours, smashing the record of 4 days
Sirius (ship) is notable for 2 things. It was the first ship to cross the Atlantic solely on steam power (almost ran out of coal and had to burn support poles to finish the journey) and set a speed record with a 19 day voyage (lost 3 ½ hours later to The Great Western)
Titanic was the largest ship in the world, carrying 3500 people total including 900 crew members. When it first set sail though, there were only 1324 passengers and 899 crew members.
Planned to cross the Atlantic in 6 days but hit an iceberg. Poor lifeboat planning caused chaos since the ship was deemed unsinkable, lifeboats were not a priority and only legally had to cover half the passengers on board.
706 people survived but 500 more could have if the lifeboats were full
Maury Yeston
The discovery of the wreck in 1985 inspired Broadway composer Maury Yeston to compose a theater piece about the wreck
He saw parallels between this wreck and the space shuttle Challenger incident in 1986. He was also interested in class survival rates, with first class passenger survival much higher than third class
His stage show Titanic premiered on April 12th, 1997. Peter Stone wrote the book while Yeston wrote the lyrics.
Both artists received Tony Awards in 1997
The James Cameron movie in 1997 also boosted the stage production
Musical opens on April 10th, 1912 as passengers board the ship in Southampton, England. The musical numbers emphasize the excitement of sea travel and the Titanic’s size
There She Is
Begins with triumphant fanfare that resembles Aaron Copland (in opinion of Stuart Ostrow), his works Billy the Kid, Rodeo and Appalachian Spring have come to represent the American Frontier
Also begins with an upward soaring a melody that crosses a full octave in 3 notes
First 2 notes hold for 3 beats for a triple meter hemiola effect that contrasts with the common time meter. May represent passengers looking up at the size of the ship
The “There She Is” segment uses AABA “song form” with one modification on the second repeat of the a melody where the phrase is a whole step higher on “Sailing Day!”. The key signature also changes from F major to G major.
The b melody of the song is called a bridge. It uses short, falling stepwise notes within the perfect fifth interval, contrasting half note triplets against whole notes.
Segues from “There She Is” into “Loading Inventory” uninterrupted to keep the audience from applauding in the middle of the number. Features many conversations between dockworkers as they announce the cargo they are loading onto the ship
“The Largest Moving Object” features 3 men who claim ownership of the Titanic, J Bruce Ismay (chairman of the White Star Line), Edward J Smith (captain of the ship) and Thomas Andrews (naval architect and designer of the Titanic)
The men converse about the ships speed and weather before splitting between harmony and imitative polyphony. The voices converge for a unison phrase at a grandioso tempo on “the largest moving object in the world!” and hold on the last note with a fermata
Star Trek (Main Title), Alexander Courage, 1966
History
One of the first recorded records of human flight comes from inventor Abbas Ibn Firnas who used artificial wings to fly around 875 CE. Suffered a bad back injury that he blamed on his lack of tail
Monk Eilmer of Malmesbury attempted to use bird like wings around 1000 CE. Flew 600 feet and broke both of his legs, also blamed not having a tail
Marco Polo reported that the Chinese used giant kites to fly
Sir John Cayley used his coachman to fly a glider across an English valley in 1853
John J Montgomery, a professor at Santa Clara University, recorded several successful glider attempts before 1884 but German inventor Otto Lilienthal stole his thunder
Lilienthal inspired the Wright Brothers to add a motor driven propeller to a glider. Their 853 foot flight near Kitty Hawk, NC made December 17th, 1903 a milestone in aviation history
Scottish mathematician and astronomer William Leitch published about rockets and space travel as early as 1862
Jules Verne published From the Earth to the Moon in 1865 that included a space canon that shot 3 passengers into the sky
An 1880 issue of the London Pall Mall Gazette made sci fi history by publishing the first known use of the word “space-ship”. In this story, the adventurer builds and even larger contraption to upstage Jules Verne
Comic Series like “Buck Rogers” and “Flash Gordon” published stories about rocket ships, starships and other space flight technologies
Science fiction started to become Science fact in the early 20th century. In 1926, Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid fueled rocket
US and the USSR locked into a cold war and space race in the middle of the century. Americans landed the first man on the moon in 1969 and today the International Space Station orbits the earth
Alexander Courage
Created by Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek follows the journey of the starship Enterprise over 3 years and 79 episodes. Fandom members were called “Trekkers” or “Trekkies”
Alexander Courage, a orchestrator and composer for film and TV, created the opening theme to the original series
Worked with Roddenberry on the pilot episode of Star Trek “The Cage”. While working at Desilu Studios in late 1964 and early 1965, Courage recorded the music cues for the episode and the main title
NBC rejected the first pilot and wanted a second one called “Where No Man Has Gone Before” which prompted Courage to write a new brassy fanfare for the title theme. NBC ordered 16 episodes but Roddenberry was not a fan of the new title so they settled on the title theme from “The Cage”
Main Title
Uses a 29 piece ensemble including the wordless voice of Loulie Jean Norman, giving the song its ethereal quality
Norman was a member of the Screen Actors Guild and was entitled to fees for reruns. They didn’t want to pay her for later seasons so an instrument replaces her voice in the second and third year
Roddenberry claimed half of the royalty payments for the song which annoyed Courage since he wasn’t part of the process
Includes 3 main sectors: Space Theme (A), Enterprise Fanfare (B) and Beguine (C). Enterprise Fanfare is most well known and commonly coincides with the exterior shots of the ship in space.
This tradition continued when Fred Steiner wrote cues for Star Trek: The Next Generation
Circle of Fifths involved
Widens a full octave after Beguine with a rising and falling countermelody
Quintal harmony during fanfare
Perilous Journeys
Symphonie Fantastique, Hector Berlioz, 1830
History
The poet Virgil wrote about Roman Armies using musical instruments in Rome
Italian writer Machiavelli discussed using music to regulate the military in his 1521 book The Art of War
The type of music that boosted soldiers morale was dubbed the march
Anna Amalia composed a march for her brother Frederick the Great which sought to keep soldiers in line with one another
The funeral march evolved from this functional march. It includes a slow and steady pace, minor mode, melodic strains, dotted rhythms and muffled percussion
Composer John Philip Sousa is best known for his stylized marches. His career began in the US Marine Band and featured 136 marches. His best known marches are Semper Fidelis, The Washington Post and The Stars and Stripes Forever!
George Frideric Handel included a “Dead March” in his 1739 oratorio Saul that includes a theatrical funeral for dead Israelites who had fallen in battle 68
Appeared in Winston Churchill’s funeral service and for Abraham Lincoln and Washington
Fryderyk Chopin composed Marche Funebre as a concert piano work in 1837. It was orchestrated in 1849 at Chopin’s burial and was also involved at JFK’s and Queen Elizabeth 2nd funerals
Hector Berlioz earned a medical degree because his parents wanted him to but abandoned the profession in 1824 after graduating
Started studying at the Paris Conservatorie in 1828
Inspired after seeing Hamlet in 1827. The female lead, Harriet Smithson, immediately captivated him and channeled this obsession into his compositions
Also inspired by Beethoven, adding a programmatic component to Symphonie Fantastique
Symbolized his love for her by making the symphony cyclic with a repeating melody
During his engagement to another woman, he traveled to Rome for 3 weeks as part of his reward for winning the Prix de Roman and his fiancee married someone else in his abscence
Swore that he would murder her, along with her mother and new husband. He continued writing Symphonie Fantastique instead
In 1832, Smithson came to the show and found out she was the beloved after seeing people staring at her
They married in 1833 and seprated only after 6 years
Symphonie Fantastique
The main character-the artist-takes opium and imagines seeing his beloved and listens to her through the idee fixe melody
Premiered on December 5th, 1830 at the Paris Conservatorie
“Marche Au Supplice” is particularly well regarded with many dramatic musical elements. The audience burst into cheers when this movement ended during the premiere
“Marche Au Supplice” starts with an ominous ambience. 3 timpani and low strings (cello and bass) play steady pizzicato pulses with sponge headed mallets
The timpanists play sextuplets that create a blurry effect
Second measure includes pianissimo volume level and a catchy syncopated rhythm which plays a half note off beat
The first theme includes a crescendo and plays in the key of G minor and the string instruments play arco in diminuendo
The bassoons play a funeral march countermelody
Second theme modulates to B flat with an ascending direction and plays at a forte volume. Very energetic with the wind instruments
The 3rd theme involves fortissimo brass blasts and responding forte woodwinds. The 3 melodies cut each other off
A single pianissimo clarinet plays the idee fixe for 5 measures
3 pizzicato notes tell the audience the artist has been slain
Charlie Rutlage, Charles Ives, 1920-21
History
Horseback riding ranks among the top 20 sports for number of injuries, with over 40,000 recorded in 2023.
Equestrian Sports are the most common cause of traumatic brain injuries
In 2017, 38% of livestock related injuries came from inexperienced riders whereas 43% were from experienced riders
In the 19th century, poet Dominick John O’Malley captured the popular imagination with his stories about cowboys and ranching
His first poem To The Memory of Wiley Collins described a chuckwagon cook who was struck and killed by lightning
One story follows Charles Rutledge, a Texan cowboy who worked for the X I T outfit in Montana. The ranch had at least 2 million acres of land between Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers
Rutledge’s horse stumbled and fell off his mount. A cowpuncher carried him 60 miles to Miles City but he died of his injuries. O Malley made a poem called “A Cowboy’s Death” under the name D J W, which debuted in 1891 in the Stock Growers Journal
20 years later, John A Lomax published a song version of the poem in 1910 with his collection Cowboy Songs and other Frontier Ballads. Him and his son, Alan Lomax, released a revised and enlarged edition of Lomax’s collection in 1938. Both used the poetry transcription
The 1938 version of the collection notes the melody is “The Lakes of Pontchartrain”
Charlie Rutlage
Charles Ives uses a similar transcription in his version from his 1922 collection 114 Songs. He transcribed the song in 1914-1915
Begins with a bouncy piano ostinato with a “boom-chick” accompaniment
Folk impression stops abruptly in the second verse, opting for rhythmic notation'
Piano mimics “whoopie ti yi yo” cowboy shouts.
Word painting to symbolize Charlie’s horse falling on top of him
Uses cluster chords filled with adjacent sounds at a ffff volume (LOUD)
Pauses for a moment after his climatic death, then it resumes the boom chick. This symbolizes that life must go on
Bus Plunge, Gunnar Madsen and Richard Greene, 1983
History
Air travel is the safest method of travel, recording 0.1 injuries per 100 million passenger miles travel
A 2007 report showed that automobile fatality rate is 23 times higher than bus travel and in 2013, it was 66 times higher
The deaths of actor James Dean and Princess Diana inspired many musical works. The Beach Boys a capella piece “A Young Man is Gone” is especially impactful. The refrain from the eagles song “James Dean” reference Dean’s tragic passing
Gunnar Madsen and Richard Greene
Approached travel safety with a humorous tone in their song Bus Plunge
Formed a new a capella group called The Bobs, a 4 piece whose each member adopted the name bob
Bus Plunge appeared on their self titled 1983 debut with a very offbeat subject matter
The story of Bus Plunge follows a bus driver who is struggling to stay awake on a long bus ride
Bus Plunge
Uses a number of steady ostinato patterns
Rapid alternation between the 2 singers is called a hocket from the medieval word for hiccup. You can also hear it in contemporary songs like Watermelon Man (1973)
The ending features soft screaming and a honk like pitch along with a coda
747 Strangers in the Night, Peter Byford, Steven Dawson and others, 1980
History
A massive power outage in the US and Canada at 5:16 pm on November 9th, 1965 drew attention to the crucial role of the radio
A faulty circuit breaker at Sir Adam Beck Power Plant in Ontario detected an incorrect overload on one of it’s transmission lines. The system shut down the overloaded line and diverted that power to the other 4 lines, overloading them and Toronto immediately lost power
These blackouts rolled to New York City by 5:27 PM, thrusting 80,000 square miles and 30 million people into darkness
Stranded 800,000 people on the subway for up to 14 hours, bagpipe and harmonic players entertained the passengers
Dan Ingram heard the playback speed of his records drop and the lights dimmed in his station before the power went out
Some radio stations were still powered by generators providing information to people. It was called the greatest hour since D-Day
A few scant areas held power, such as Staten Island
The New York Times issued a 10 page edition on November 10th rather than it’s usual 96 by using a printing press. Bought the whole stock of candles and 50 flashlights from a hardware store to run it’s operations, supplementing with churches candles
12 brave staff members funneled in articles from the Times office to the Newark Evening office via the Lincoln Tunnel
The Maryland Based Weather Bureau had 8 of its 15 IBM 7090 computers fail. To get weather information out, they contacted their meteorological departments and punched in information by hand
The only weather line that failed was from Moscow to NJ
On Scandinavian Airlines Flight 911, carrying 89 passengers to JFK airport, Captain Carl Lofsted was landing the plane when the runway lights blinked off and he decided to turn back and not risk striking Manhattan skyscrapers
Logan Air Traffic control lost radio for 4 hours. Staff at LaGuardia airport repurposed a water pump and used a radio transmitter on a truck connected to radio systems to get them back ATC power. The team landed 240 planes
The blackout impacted 500 flights, with 200 diverted to Philadelphia, Newark, Hartford and Washington
This event inspired Peter Byford from the British heavy metal band Saxon. He watched the opening episode of “The Trigger Effect”. The song 747 from the bands second album, Wheels of Steel, reimagines that night
747 (Strangers In The Night)
Plane that is sung about was the 747 Scandinavian Airlines flight that diverted to JFK airport
Has many creative liberties with the Boeing 747 prototypes and how the song is supposedly set in 1965 when Scandinavian 747’s debuted in 1971
Verse chorus form beginning with a heavy metal riff with syncopated chords
Employs overdubbing to layer multiple recordings of vocal lines
Ends with a rock fade/diminuendo
3 part harmony
Reached Number 13 on UK charts. Earned acclaim from critics such as Dom Lawson