The New World Symphony Doesn't Always Mean Death

Dear Muse,

Saturday was my 24th birthday - and I began it in one of the strangest ways I've ever begun a birthday: by singing with my church's choir at the memorial service of James Patrick Adams, a college student who died in a car accident on Feb. 28.

I use the term "strange" instead of "depressing" because that's how I felt during the service: strange. Strange because I was surrounded by grieving and sniffling churchgoers, but was unable to feel a thing because I didn't even know the guy. Strange because he was a student at Carleton College, the "rival" college of my alma mater (St. Olaf College). Strange because the accident happened on a road my St. Olaf friends drive on often. Strange because Adams was a few months younger than my brother, and was about to turn 21 on March 17. Strange because he sounded like a guy I honestly would have liked, full of joy and passion for everything in life, from the colors of a sunset to the comraderie of an ultimate frisbee tournament (which was where he and 4 others were driving to when the accident occurred). The combination of these factors wracked my mind with such a whirlwind of thoughts that I had no room for sadness.

While all those things were strange in a general sense, the strangest musical part of the service was when my choir sang "Going Home", a religious adaptation of Dvořák's New World Symphony. My question is, why the New World Symphony? 

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To be honest, I can appreciate the idea that the church goes for when incorporating the New World Symphony into a funereal hymn. "Going Home" is a beautiful song to use as a farewell, because one can interpret the "new world" as Heaven, and "going home" as going to Heaven/God when your time on Earth is done. Where James Patrick Adams is concerned, I thought it was one of the best songs his family could have chosen to say goodbye with. (See Youtube clip below.)





Nevertheless, I can't help but notice an ostensible connection between the New World Symphony and Death. "Going Home" surely must have been played at countless other memorial services and/or funerals. And it isn't just the church hymn that bothers me; the New World Symphony seems to have funereal significance elsewhere in the media. Case in point: Gisaburō Sugii's 1985 Japanese animated film, Night on the Galactic Railroad.  [CAUTION: Spoilers in the next paragraph.]

When my choir was singing "Going Home" on Saturday, I couldn't help but recall that scene from near the end of Night on the Galactic Railroad, in which the train stops at a station and the characters hear Dvořák's New World Symphony playing (see Youtube clip below). Of course, if you've seen the movie, you know that almost everyone on the train is dead, and the train is heading toward Heaven/the Afterlife/Some Equivalent Thereof. If the New World Symphony's presence in the movie isn't in some way connected with Death, I'd like to hear any arguments to the contrary.





But, despite its heavy association with Death, the New World Symphony doesn't always mean Death. After all, that's not what Dvořák had in mind when he wrote it. According to the wikipedia article, Dvořák actually composed his symphony to reflect the spirit of African-American spirituals and Native American music, as well as capture the feelings he experienced when seeing America's "wide open spaces."

Furthermore, my first memories of the New World Symphony aren't associated with Death; they're associated with my dad's university history classes. Having sat in on more than one of his classes when I was living at home, I know that he always starts them with a piece of iconic music (related to the lecture, that is). One of his regular favorites to use when beginning and ending his "History of the U.S." course is the New World Symphony. For him, the symphony isn't about Death at all - it symbolizes a new introduction; adventure; exploration; discovery. It is emotionally stimulating and (if you're an enterprising young academic) intellectually invigorating, a call to journey across more of our world rather than a call to leave it behind.

So you see, Dvořák's New World Symphony can be just as joyous and fulfilling as it can be sad and gloomy. While it was a perfectly good farewell tribute for James Adams, it is also a good incentive for people to learn about America's history and music (or the wide world in general). Make no mistake: it has equal value on both accounts. Personally, I'm going to keep enjoying it as a symphony of exploration rather than a symphony that makes you sad. But if I'm ever called upon to sing "Going Home" for another memorial, I won't forget that the symphony's mournfulness is just as important as its brightness.


                                                                              Till next time,
                                                                                        Ariel


P.S. If you're interested in watching the complete Night on the Galactic Railroad, you can check out the subtitled version here.  (I strongly urge you to do so; it is a beautifully animated film, albeit a bit slow-paced.)

3 Creepy Selections of Halloween Music

Dear Muse,

Every year around Halloween, you can expect to hear these familiar favorites: Danse Macabre, Night on Bald Mountain, Nightmare Before Christmas songs, Michael Jackson's Thriller, etc. They're all fitting choices for the holiday, and anything with a Vincent Price monologue is good for a few shivers here and there.

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But, these pieces have become pretty routine. There are three others that I don't hear often enough at this time of year, even though I think they're just as good - or better - at making people jittery after dark. (At least, that's how they affect me.) Thus, here are my three ideas for additional Halloween music to listen to. (And if it turns out that these are actually quite common Halloween tunes, or are nothing new and exciting for your ears, I still would highlight them because they creep me out the most.... or make me want to creep under the bed.)

3 Creepy Selections of Halloween Music 

1. "Puss-in-Boots and the White Cat" (Tchaikovsky)

Yeah, I know what you're probably thinking: "Classical cat music?!? I mean, if it was about black cats, that would be one thing - but what's scary about Puss-in-Boots?!?"

Well... do you remember the scene in Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty when Maleficent bewitches Princess Aurora to touch the spinning wheel? The animation was creepy enough, but as a kid I was far more freaked out by the music accompanying it. That music was "Puss-in-Boots and the White Cat," from Act III of Tchaikovsky's 1889 ballet The Sleeping Beauty.  

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Coincidentally, this piece was not part of any scary scene in Tchaikovsky's ballet; it actually was part of the happy ending. At the wedding of Princess Aurora and Prince Désiré, fairytale characters perform dances - Pas de caractère/Pas de quatre - to celebrate the royal union. While the dance of Puss-in-Boots and the White Cat was not intended to be frightening in Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty adaptation, Disney used it to great effect in the Scary Spindle scene. Its haunting strains still echo in my memory today. 

2.  Any of the Harry Potter soundtracks (from the first two movies) involving Voldemort, the Forbidden Forest, the Chamber of Secrets, wandering the halls at night, or anything else ominous (Williams). 

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OK, I know this is kind of cheating, since it isn't one specific piece of music. But these soundtracks combined represent "Eerie Harry Potter music." They're all hair-raising in different ways, mainly because they all serve as buildup to the reveal of something scary. 

What do I mean by this? Think of the library scene in the first movie: the buildup of ghostly chamber music enhances the ominous atmosphere and creepy imagery (like Harry's disembodied hand carrying a lantern through the dark) and adds to viewers' unease before the actual shock of the screaming book happens. It is scenes like this one where Williams' music excels in stimulating deep-seated fear.  

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Sorceror's Stone and Chamber of Secrets have many more scary scenes than the other movies in the series do, simply because the music adds to their overall suspense and mystery. Scenes with Voldemort/Quirrel in the Forbidden Forest, Knockturn Alley, bloody messages etched on the walls, spiders scuttling through the passages, or Harry's journey to the Chamber of Secrets are frightening mainly because the music creates such good suspense. It makes the viewer that much more receptive - and the payoff much more striking - when the scary whatever-it-is materializes on screen. It's why I could be more afraid of Voldemort in Sorceror's Stone and Chamber of Secrets than of the later Voldemort or even the dementors; more than any other Harry Potter soundtrack, the first two movies' soundtracks foreshadowed Voldemort as a terrifying and ghastly figure before I even saw his face. For that reason, when he finally revealed himself to Harry, he was just as awful as the music suggested.  

Thus, I say kudos to Williams: more than any other composer, he knew how to make Harry Potter legitimately unnerving.  

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3.  Fifth Movement of Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14: "Songe d'une nuit de sabbat"/ "Dreams of a Witches' Sabbath" (Berlioz)

This piece I saved for last, because it is the closing movement of Berlioz' dramatic Symphonie Fantastique. According to Michael Austin's translation, the 1855 version of the symphony can be summarized as follows: 

 A young musician of morbid sensitivity and ardent imagination poisons himself with opium in a moment of despair caused by frustrated love. The dose of narcotic, while too weak to cause his death, plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by the strangest of visions, in which his experiences, feelings and memories are translated in his feverish brain into musical thoughts and images. His beloved becomes for him a melody and like an idée fixe which he meets and hears everywhere. (see Programme of the symphony)

Over the course of the symphony's five movements, the young musician has five different dreams (see translation for further detail). After being beheaded in the Fourth Movement, he awakens in the Fifth Movement at a witches' sabbath - or in the underworld - to behold a score of demons who have amassed for his funeral. As the music builds to its climax, his beloved is revealed to be at the head of the procession.... and then he awakens from his nightmare.  

"Songe d'une nuit de sabbat" is truly unique in its eeriness. Its sweeping crescendoes and crashing notes make me jump with their suddenness, its bell dirges pierce the movement with gloom, and its skittering strings and sonorous brass animate every ghoulish and batlike beast that can be conjured by the imagination. Berlioz' Fifth Movement masters the art of interchanging grand with grotesque; funereal with demonic; lugubrious with gleeful. It sums up all the best musical elements of the supernatural, leaving a deeper impact on my memory than any other piece of Halloween music ever composed. In my personal opinion, this makes it the creepiest selection of Halloween music I have ever heard.