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GeneralJust for fun: classical compositions about geological features

11th Apr 2021 20:12 UTCHarjo Neutkens Manager

Our Mindat member Erik Vercammen came across Hovhannes' Mount saint Helens Symphony in his collection and was wondering how many other compositions based on geological/mineralogical features there are, and posted this on a Belgian mineralogy platform.
Because I'm a professional musician I obviously took the opportunity to come up with a few I could think of, and so did a few other collectors.
This is what we have so far:
Alan Hovhannes: Mount Saint Helens symphony
Richard Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie
Ferde Grofé: Grand Canyon suite
Antoine Brumel: Missa Et ecce terrae motus  
Gustav Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde

Harrison Birtwistle: Earth Dances
Ernst Reijseger: The Volcano symphony
Rupert Hechensteiner: Bletterbach Canyon
Bohuslav Martinu: symphonic poem 'The Rock'
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Sinfonia Antartica
Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: The Hebrids. In which Fingal's Cave (a basalt cave) is musically described.
Franz Liszt: 1st Année de pelerinage, Suisse. A pianistic account of his trip through the Swiss Alps (Vallée d'Obermann, Au lac de Wallenstadt, Au bord d'une source etc)
Johann Sebastian Bach: from the Matthew and St John's passions the recitative 'Und siehe da, der vorhang im Tempel zerriss' when the earth starts to shake and the rocks crack: 'und die Erde erbebete, und die Felsen zerrissen'
Georg Friedrich Händel: from the Messiah the tenor aria 'Every valley': Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low, and the rough places plain. The crooked straight and the rough places plain
 
There's likely much more. can you think of any? :-)

 


 

 

11th Apr 2021 20:38 UTCEd Clopton 🌟 Expert

Here are a few more that come to mind.  The list could get pretty long if we allow art songs and/or folk songs about lakes, rivers, and seas.

William Henry Fry, "Niagara Symphony"
Mussorgsky, "Night on Bald Mountain"
Grofe, "Mississippi Suite"; "Death Valley Suite"; "Yellowstone Suite"; "Niagara Falls Suite"
Smetena, "Vltava (The Moldau)" from "Ma Vlast (My Fatherland)"
Ives, "The Housatonic at Lockbridge" from "Three Places in New England"
Hovhannes, Symphony #2, "Mysterious Mountain"
Tchaikovsky, "Swan Lake"

11th Apr 2021 21:25 UTCDoug Daniels

Would Grieg's "Hall of the Mountain King" fit?

11th Apr 2021 22:29 UTCSteve Ewens

Twisted Sisters Compilation
"I wanna rock!"



Sorry, as an old hippie I could not resist.
I do love all kinds of music.

Steve

11th Apr 2021 23:08 UTCClosed Account 🌟

...indeed a classic, Steve!

Here is another one: We Rock by Ronnie James Dio!
Or what about: Let there be Rock by AC/DC

Cheers,

Branko

11th Apr 2021 22:33 UTCMichael Hatskel

Alexander Fridlender, "The Mountain Fairy Tale" (The Mistress of the Copper Mountain) ballet
Alexander Fridlender, "The Stone Flower" ballet
 

 

11th Apr 2021 23:41 UTCBob Harman

05938330016133481253385.jpg
In 1985, then John Cougar Mellencamp recorded the song   "R.O.C.K. in the USA".

This was a song expressly written to commemorate the "classic" American rock songs of the 1960s .  "Classic music", hence my adding it to this thread.            BOB

12th Apr 2021 00:24 UTCRuss Rizzo Expert

Michael Gordon's Symphony for Nature which was inspired by Oregon's Crater Lake National Park which encompasses the caldera of Crater Lake, a remnant of Mount Mazama, an extinct volcano.

Some of my favorite geology related songs:

Foot of The Mountain by Paul Weller

Man on the Silver Mountain  by Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow

The album In Rock by Deep Purple



12th Apr 2021 01:10 UTCPaul Brandes 🌟 Manager

I would think Gustav Holst's The Planets, Op. 32 would fit the theme of this thread...

12th Apr 2021 01:12 UTCFrank K. Mazdab 🌟 Manager

I'll add "Hot Westerly Winds of Mt. Isa" by Stanley Fields to the list, an hour-long collection of Outback nature sounds intended for relaxation and meditation. I got this CD some years ago as a birthday gift from family then still in Mt Isa.

It's not classical music, per se (unless one considers nature sounds, which pre-date man-made music, the most "classical" music of all... lol), nor does Mt. Isa in the title refer to the famous ore deposit, but rather presumably to the landscape around the town build to exploit it.

So what do the relaxing hot westerly winds of Mt. Isa sound like? There's surprising more sounds of water than I recall and that one might expect from an arid community, but there are also no sounds of mining activity coming from the mine itself (the mine is on the west side of town, from where these "hot winds" are coming from) ... those wouldn't be relaxing, I suppose?

As an aside, I don't think Stanley Fields must have ever lived in Mt. Isa. When the winds did come from the west, the smell of sulfur from the smelter stacks hung over the town, and I always wondered how high everyone's blood Pb levels must have been. It's a stark and very beautiful area, but "relaxing" may be a bit subjective... heh heh.

12th Apr 2021 05:57 UTCDuncan Miller

'Mount Messiaen is an awesome tribute to an incredible composer! In 1972, French composer Olivier Messiaen visited Utah. Inspired by Utah's landscapes and birdsongs, Messiaen composed the massive orchestral work "Des canyons aux étoiles." The state of Utah honored Messiaen by naming a mountain after him.'
 

12th Apr 2021 14:36 UTCPaul K. Monk

One of my favourites is Ella Fitzgerald's "Our Love is Here to Stay".  It has the line:

"The Rockies may crumble,
  Gibraltar may tumble,
  They're only made of clay...."

Her best geological song!

12th Apr 2021 15:44 UTCHarjo Neutkens Manager

Joachim Raff: symphony 7 'In den Alpen'
Arthur Honneger: La traversée des Andes  
Darius Milhaud: La création du monde
and....
John Adams: Hallelujah Junction :-) !!!!


12th Apr 2021 16:44 UTCSteve Ewens

Anything by Sergei Rachmaninoff

Or, Rock of Ages. Thomas Hasting

Steve

13th Apr 2021 18:40 UTCMatt Ciranni

Or, Rock of Ages, Def Leppard. 

There was one of those scary-clown metal bands, cant remember which one it was now (a lot of them all sound the same anyway) who recorded an album called "Celestite."  Even spelled it like the strontium mineral.   

13th Apr 2021 18:43 UTCClosed Account 🌟

Celestite is the fifth album by the American black metal band "Wolves in the Throne Room".

Cheers,

Branko

12th Apr 2021 18:41 UTCAlex Homenuke 🌟 Expert

"Red Hill Mining Town" - U2

12th Apr 2021 19:04 UTCBill Dameron 🌟 Expert

Geology: The waters come in, the waters go out.  Benjamin Britten - Noye's Fluud...

13th Apr 2021 23:41 UTCEd Clopton 🌟 Expert

Rachmaninoff, symphonic poem Isle of the Dead, inspired by a painting with that title by Arnold Bocklin featuring a steep, rocky islet.  An interesting piece of music, much of it in a meter of 5/8, one of my recent "new favorites".  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_the_Dead_(Rachmaninoff)

14th Apr 2021 16:17 UTCWilliam W. Besse Expert

Also a bit off-topic but still fun:

14th Apr 2021 16:41 UTCKnut Edvard Larsen 🌟 Manager

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: The Hebrids. In which Fingal's Cave (a basalt cave) is musically described
 It inspired also a modern classic, Pink Floyd's Fingals cave

14th Apr 2021 18:03 UTCGerhard Brandstetter Expert

I love the songs of my personal friend David K. Joyce: 
"Nuggets and High Grade!
The Mineral Collecting and Mining Songs of David K. Joyce"
There is even a song about crystal systems! 

!Weusd a Herz hast wia a Bergwerk" (because you have a heart like a mine) from Rainhard Fendrich is still very popular in Austria
   

14th Apr 2021 19:23 UTCHarjo Neutkens Manager

Richard Wagner: Das Rheingold (how could we miss that one!)
Julia Wolfe: Anthracite Fields (oratorio)
Johann Johannson: score for 'The miners's hymn'
Hamish MacCun: The land of the Mountain and the Flood
Charles Ives: From the steeples and the mountains
Ernst Krenek: Travel book from the Austrian Alps
Arnols Bax: A mountain mood
Frederick Delius: A song of the high hills
E.J. Moeran: In the mountain country
Geir Tveitt: A hundred Hardanger tunes
Ralph Vaughan Williams: The lake in the mountains
Viteszlav Novak: V Tatrách
Franz Liszt: Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne
Pavel Haas: string quartet 2 'from the monkey mountains'
Tan Dun: Earth concerto

17th Apr 2021 18:19 UTCGregg Little 🌟

On the east coast of Canada we not only have songs celebrating the life and times of coal mining in songs like WORKING MAN but it's sung by a twenty-five member coral ensemble MEN OF THE DEEPS, all coal miners.

17th Apr 2021 20:52 UTCPaul Brandes 🌟 Manager

Since we've seemed to have gotten away from what I would call "classical compositions", then Tennessee Ernie Ford's Sixteen Tons surely fits....

17th Apr 2021 21:41 UTCNick Gilly

I'll nominate Kraftwerk - Kristallo:


It's certainly got classical influences.
 
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