Goldberg Variations
The first piece, from the Goldberg Variations by JS Bach, stands as a metaphor for all kinds of travel. Only the opening theme (Aria) is played here, but it forms the raw material for a dazzling excursion through the techniques of composition and keyboard playing – via 30 variations. The story has it that Bach composed these variations for an insomniac patron, Count Hermann Karl von Keyserling, who needed ‘to be a little cheered up’ during his fitful hours of sleeplessness. His harpsichordist was Johann Gottlieb Goldberg. The harpsichordist in this rendition is Malcolm Proud.
Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin was famously inspired by a train journey. He wrote:
“It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang, that is so often so stimulating to a composer ... I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise. And there I suddenly heard – and even saw on paper – the complete construction of the rhapsody, from beginning to end. … I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness. By the time I reached Boston [from New York] I had a definite plot of the piece...”
Piano Concerto No. 5
Saint-Saën’s Piano Concerto No. 5 is known as the ‘Egyptian’ for its use of elements of the pentatonic scale, a sound which evoked, in his late 19th- and early 20th-century listeners, the enchantments of Egypt.
Symphonie Fantastique
Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique takes us on an opium-induced journey through the wild peaks and troughs of obsessive love. In movement 4, The March to the Scaffold, the would-be lover, half-crazed through lack of recognition by his beloved, imagines his own terrifying demise by guillotine. Berlioz, using an innovative compositional technique, represents the beloved with a short musical theme or motif which recurs in different guises throughout the 5-movement work.
Train journeys
The next eight selections in the playlist all reference trains in one way or another. The train as vehicle to spiritual enlightenment is heard in ‘This Train is Bound for Glory’ and ‘Get on Board Little Children’. In Trainspotting, a 1990s cult film depicting several of Edinburgh’s young persons’ struggles with crime and drug abuse, train journeys take place, but in the title, the train signifies attempts to grow and change while, agonizingly, life goes racing by. Train to Skaville, by The Ethiopians, became very popular and influential as an early reggae song.
The Guthries
The Guthries, father and son, Woody and Arlo, were both closely associated, throughout their separate careers as folk singers, with themes of workers’ rights and social justice in the USA. In The Motorcycle Song, sung by Arlo, and Take Me Riding in My Car, sung by Woody, each one appears in their equally compelling amusing and playful moods. Motor travel via the Greyhound bus, is still seen as a quintessentially American experience. In ‘America’, Simon and Garfunkel tell the story of two young lovers who board a bus and go off ‘to look for America’, but in truth they are looking for themselves. Other road trip songs, like the Beatles’ ‘Two of Us’ are driven by similar metaphors.
Plane and space travel
Intriguingly, airplane journeys seem much less extolled in song. But one notable tune from the 60s by Peter, Paul and Mary, recounts a poignant parting in ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’. Space travel, on the other hand, inspires both more creativity and introspection. Elton John’s ‘Rocketman’ is the star in the constellation. It is closely followed by David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’, which nods to the iconic Kubrick film, ‘2001, A Space Odyssey’ which used Richard Strauss’s ‘Also sprach Zarathustra’ for its now ubiquitous theme music.
Returning to Earth
The playlist returns to Earth with its two closing songs. The first is Bob Dylan’s epic re-imagining of the prodigal son story in ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’. The words remain eerily and affectingly relevant. Finally, the alternative American national anthem, ‘This Land is Your Land’ is powerfully re-interpreted by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.
Hey Jukebox!
Listen to a playlist of the songs discussed in this blog on Spotify, or in the Museum on Tuesday afternoons from 2.30pm.
Lead image: Ben Everett on Unsplash