Moral Maze - British Places : Better Represented By Classical Music Than Other Forms

[Lat-Literal]

Because we all know the romanticism that is attached especially in popular music to American places but here it is arguably less clear cut.

Cases for the prosecution and the defence are welcomed, especially with specific examples.

Exhibit A - Julius Harrison - Bredon Hill - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZY_JTU6ynA

[HighlandDougie]

Loads of examples I can think of (especially if not specifically confined to classical music) but, as I've just been listening to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylF3lhlXs8s

John McCabe: Cloudcatcher Fells. Very much about place, IMV (and a very fine piece of music)

[teamsaint]

I've always thought that American songwriters deal with" place" in a much more comfortable way than their British counterparts.
If this is the case, I'm not really sure why. The more powerful attachment to state than county may be something to do with it, or perhaps the much greater distances between major settlements may have some bearing.
Who knows? and probably off topic anyway ......

[Lat-Literal]

Loads of examples I can think of (especially if not specifically confined to classical music) but, as I've just been listening to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylF3lhlXs8s

John McCabe: Cloudcatcher Fells. Very much about place, IMV (and a very fine piece of music)

Oh yes, that is a great piece of music which I do know. Thanks ever so much for helping to kick it off so to speak. This thread potentially has so much reach beyond its title. I'd love the title almost to be forgotten in the process with the rich contributions that could ensue. I began with the mildly contentious which seemed right. Middle England - literally - and not RVW etc. McCabe is a "Mc" - as are many. Born in Liverpool. I'm still not satisfied that on this forum we have ever really got to the heart of non-English British classical music although I search for it. PMD in Orkney is great but bear in mind his place of birth and Williams, Hoddinutt, Howells, Jones.....they can't do it on their own. This introduces a slightly different point and it doesn't even include Northern Ireland. So - let's go with the remit whatever I am rambling about yet again. A good call - possibly a little universal - and no Terry and Julie in sight.

I've always thought that American songwriters deal with" place" in a much more comfortable way than their British counterparts.
If this is the case, I'm not really sure why. The more powerful attachment to state than county may be something to do with it, or perhaps the much greater distances between major settlements may have some bearing.
Who knows? and probably off topic anyway ......

And thank you ts too.......the Americans at their most lovely can distort.......Galveston prompted this.......perhaps it is that expanse and actually ignorance in a nice way that shapes it?

For the defence - London (eccen) tricity:

The Kinks - Waterloo Sunset - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_MqfF0WBsU

[MrGongGong]

Chris Watson

(nuff said)

http://chriswatson.net

[vinteuil]

.

... I don't think any of the music I particularly rate has any significant relation to a place. Or if it does (Monteverdi, Venice) the music is more important than any contingent relationship.


Excepting Waterloo Sunset, natch...


.

[doversoul1]

Because we all know the romanticism that is attached especially in popular music to American places but here it is arguably less clear cut.

Cases for the prosecution and the defence are welcomed, especially with specific examples.

Exhibit A - Julius Harrison - Bredon Hill - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZY_JTU6ynA

What do you exactly mean by represent in your question? Music is said to be able to describe or imitate elements of nature such as water or birds, or human activities like fencing exercise but can it represent something? Do you mean conjures up? Can music conjure up a particular place in the mind of a listener who does not know the place? Or by the title of the thread, do you mean music that is recognisably about a certain place in Britain to British people (not necessarily British nationals)?

[Lat-Literal]

What do you exactly mean by represent in your question? Music is said to be able to describe or imitate elements of nature such as water or birds, or human activities like fencing exercise but can it represent something? Do you mean conjures up? Can music conjure up a particular place in the mind of a listener who does not know the place? Or by the title of the thread, do you mean music that is recognisably about a certain place in Britain to British people (not necessarily British nationals)?

Hello doversoul (without wanting to increase the cringe factor which I'm good at) one of my very favourite people on this forum (which is always based on immense appreciation - thank you), I think you have tapped into what matters to me more. The environment generally. To offer discussion on anything else may be overly political and artificial. But. yes, I think we can or attempt to do Britain. I've seen your Portugal thread and what would initlially draw me in is the word "Portugal". What is significant is the anxiety about battered British identity.

People arrive vaguely but there are clear concepts.....I suspect from an internationalism-brings-joy-for-everyone we have to maintain an element of coherence.

History and culture are everything - they work when adjoined. Get rid of the combine of English tea and Scottish whisky - yep, we will be overtaken by foreign forces inside three years. Guaranteed! I mean it. I'm a historian! The first thing that will go down the drain is/are (people are) people. But, hey to the music. We may concentrate on lesser new generations but how dismal that would be. And for all of the way with words that some people have, division is a 17 year old chav with one too many pathetic tattoos. That's a fact among the over 40s.

Sorry, if some pushy kid born in 1992 - female or male - tells me that Loch Lomond isn't mine - and yours, I was born 1962 and sorry. It's all mine and mine and mine and yours and yours and yours. We shall meet at the point of winkles and kimonos and that point is unassailable. I'd go to war against the dangerous and inane crassness. Violently. I especially revel in the context of that word here. I know better for me and I know better for them and I know better for you. Couldn't give a toss about liberally handing it over to ultra-nationalist offsping. Forget a pickpocket in a pub. To snatch Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland is downright theft including for people in England who migrated here with whom I always align.

Back to the recuds........!

[Quarky]

Well, a vast amount of RVW's output was linked in one way or another to British Places, not to mention compositions by Elgar and Britten.

But I'm going to plump for the defence, with a personal favourite. Scarborough Fair.

[Serial_Apologist]

Lots of English pieces on the theme of London seem to evoke the incidental aspects of the (a) big city - the contrasts twixt noise and bustle on the one hand and the tranquillity surprisngly just around the corners, not just in the parks or at night. I think there are parallels at least with the spirit Debussy drew from Spain in the second of his three orchestral Images, if not any direct influence from that source. Also the "sense of place", aura or what a great landscape architect called "the genius of the place" (quoting some ancient greek philosopher no doubt), might in the case of England, at least, express this country's having been first in line for industrialisation, and the sense of grieving for, and mythologising of, a past which not only romanticises by overlooking uncomfortable realities (viz feudalist oppression, pestilence, shortness of life) but even assumes pre-lapsarian yearnings. It's a general thing, I think, rather than something one can cite specific works or composers as epitomising. British composers, right the way through, seem to have a special affinity with the outdoors - music associated with the outdoors - a facility less favoured at any rate by those of other nations - certainly not those of the Austro-German lineage, in which the programmatic seems more focussed on the personal, people, and "absolute" musical values, meaning one doesn't visualise landscapes listening to say Brahms string quartets and symphonies - though I dare say an Austrian might claim Mahler perfectly captures the Austrian Alps! Perhaps it's a case of identification with the familiar?

[Lat-Literal]

Lots of English pieces on the theme of London seem to evoke the incidental aspects of the (a) big city - the contrasts twixt noise and bustle on the one hand and the tranquillity surprisngly just around the corners, not just in the parks or at night. I think there are parallels at least with the spirit Debussy drew from Spain in the second of his three orchestral Images, if not any direct influence from that source. Also the "sense of place", aura or what a great landscape architect called "the genius of the place" (quoting some ancient greek philosopher no doubt), might in the case of England, at least, express this country's having been first in line for industrialisation, and the sense of grieving for, and mythologising of, a past which not only romanticises by overlooking uncomfortable realities (viz feudalist oppression, pestilence, shortness of life) but even assumes pre-lapsarian yearnings. It's a general thing, I think, rather than something one can cite specific works or composers as epitomising. British composers, right the way through, seem to have a special affinity with the outdoors - music associated with the outdoors - a facility less favoured at any rate by those of other nations - certainly not those of the Austro-German lineage, in which the programmatic seems more focussed on the personal, people, and "absolute" musical values, meaning one doesn't visualise landscapes listening to say Brahms string quartets and symphonies - though I dare say an Austrian might claim Mahler perfectly captures the Austrian Alps! Perhaps it's a case of identification with the familiar?

Thank you very much for a serious contribution.

What I am not quite getting clearly is the likely distinction - although possibly implied - between Britain urban and rural. Arguably, folk music straddles these areas more and over years although I am not wholly convinced and I'd love to have examples of the jazz rural. There are issues, aren't there. All the Richard Straussians and any kind of UK crossover. That is fairly obvious so your Debussy quotation is truly - and more - thrilling. Well done. Whether that quite gels with your Anglo-German synopsis I am not sure. But, yes, it is tough to equate "The Witch of Atlas" with "That's Entertainment". Neither is especially locally specific but Burns would be favoured north of the border for being from north of the border while memories of being on a green London Country bus makes Weller's early days in far away Woking not especially irrelevant to those of us just inside the current Mayor of London's national boundary.

Blimmin' 'eck - I'm feeling so tired I thought I just heard Brendan Foster saying he retired in 1980:

The Jam - That's Entertainment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UigR_AAP97Q

[Richard Tarleton]

Well, a vast amount of RVW's output was linked in one way or another to British Places, not to mention compositions by Elgar and Britten.

But I'm going to plump for the defence, with a personal favourite. Scarborough Fair.

To be able to test this scientifically, we'd need a great piece of music linked to a place but which no-one knew, and which didn't have a title, which one could approach with a completely innocent ear. Britten...Aldeburgh...the sea...seems straightforward. A coastline which, like the music, I know very well. But if I were to hear the Four Sea Interludes for the first time, without being told the title, or what it was from, would I be able to tell it was about Suffolk, or even the sea? Why not Lincolnshire, or Northumberland, or the Lake District, or the Somerset Levels? It's only about Aldeburgh (or the Borough) because Britten says it is. Likewise, take a piece like Cockaigne (a piece I can't stand, as it happens). It's words that give us those mental images which are impossible to shake off. (Same with birds - cuckoo and quail fairly straightforward, but lark? Being of a perhaps overly-literal cast of mind, I don't think I'd have said "Ah, skylark" on, er, hearing the first skylark of spring ascending . And I'm a serious birder.)

Music is abstract. I can think of lots of music where the the country or region can be identified, but as often as not it's because unmistakeable folk tunes, or rhythms, have been incorporated in it (S. Spain, Hungary....). All too often we read or hear the title before we hear the music....Britten...Venice....La Serenissima....basically it's just shimmery music.

[Quarky]

I'd love to have examples of the jazz rural.

Jazz is notoriously urban, I think. And really it has to be songs, which firmly plants the listener into the place in question.

How about some swing with George Formby? A little stick of Blackpool Rock?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQ6Wmbi5ig

Perhaps more to your taste - John Surman - Road to St.Ives Album, with various rural references.

[cloughie]

I've always thought that American songwriters deal with" place" in a much more comfortable way than their British counterparts.
If this is the case, I'm not really sure why. The more powerful attachment to state than county may be something to do with it, or perhaps the much greater distances between major settlements may have some bearing.
Who knows? and probably off topic anyway ......

There are some great Cornish place names which lend themselves to our local songs.

[doversoul1]

Thank you for your kind words, Lat. I hope you enjoyed the Early Music Show.

As Richard Tarleton says, music is abstract. I think any association with place, or most things for that matter, can only be based on acquired knowledge and the knowledge of ‘musical grammar’ which makes us aware of what to listen out for. One of the most famous places associated with music must be Alhambra but this is because we are told by the title, the photograph on the CD cover etc., When it comes to British music, aren’t the works that have something like meta-musical element that is said to be an essence of places in Britain composed by a small-ish group of composers from a certain era in history whose works have come to be known to represent British-ness?

But I'm going to plump for the defence, with a personal favourite. Scarborough Fair.

Yes! Simon & Garfunkel