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Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I actually get really irritated with the intrusion of Christmas onto Thanksgiving - "Black Friday" starting on Thanksgiving is driving me right up the wall. While I believe less government regulation is better, this is a place where I wish someone would cry "stop".
OK - off my soapbox. I have a ton of appropriate Christmas music - everything from Bach's Christmas Oratorio to "A Charlie Brown Christmas". But I always have difficulty coming up with appropriate Thanksgiving music. Maybe a mental block, but the only 3 I can think of:
Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 132
Beethoven Pastorale Symphony
Copland Appalachian Spring (yeah, I know - this is like the character in Mystery Men who calls himself the Blue Rajah without wearing a stitch of blue.....but what holiday is more American than Thanksgiving, and what music is more American than Appalachian Spring?)
So - any other ideas?
Follow Ups:
Turkeys - Learn to Strut Yo Stuff......Man: "How did you prepare the turkey?"
Wife: "I just told it straight - you're gonna die."
Edits: 11/28/15
Frank, Sarah, Dinah, Norah.
Cantus: "A Harvest Home"
Happy listening,
Jim
"The passage of my life is measured out in shirts."
- Brian Eno
As a New Englander I feel I should recommend something by Charles Ives, but honestly I can't.
...my favorite holiday, too.
You are encouraged to eat and drink to excess then take a nap and you don't have to buy anyone presents - it doesn't get much better!
Both easy to find on YouTube.
JM
I have his 6th as well on Varese Sarabande; same compelling voice.
"Let's not kid ourselves," Roy Harris once wrote. "My Third Symphony happened to come along when it was needed."Remarkably modest, that!
Yeah, it just happened to come along...
I think it is one of the few perfectly-realized American symphonies. The form of the symphony is a perfectly-sized container for the inspiration and the craft.
The hymn-like opening with musical exclamation points in the upper strings, for me, says "This is American music" as only a few other pieces in any genre do.
So, of course, here's a great BBC performance under Grant Llewellyn...
Ciao,
John
PS1: Seeing as Ormandy's LP AFAIK never made it to CD, I think that Neeme Jarvi/Detroit on Chandos is my favorite that you can buy new today.
PS2: I met Roy and Johanna Harris in Nashville in 1979 when I was graciously invited to the lack of a better word wrap party for his residency at the Blair School. A few months later, he was gone... . I did get to tell him how much the Third Symphony meant to me.
Edits: 11/27/15
.
William Schuman's "American Festival Overture" and (by way of William Billings) "New England Triptych"
The third movement of Ned Rorem's Third Symphony
Howard Hanson's "Merry Mount Suite"
"The Masque" from Leonard Bernstein's Second Symphony
Jim
http://jimtranr.com
William Byrd, perhaps?
Or maybe some Buxtehude. & you could have a "Buxtehude - A - Nannie" Thanksgiving !!!
(I've never really heard his music , but his name is fun to throw around though !; Well I get a kick out it anyway !)
aa
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
I tend to prefer American composers. My personal choices include.
George Gershwin
Howard Hanson (esp 4th Symphony)
Alan Hovhaness (esp Mysterious Mountain)
Charles Loeffler (symphonic poems)
Louis Gottschalk
Duke Ellington
Erich Korngold
William Grant Still
Boston Six composers:
Amy Beach
Arthur Foote (esp his chamber music)
John Knowles Paine
Horatio Parker
Edward MacDowell
George Chadwick
There are others too. I just sort through the pile to find something interesting.
There are only a few non-American composers I ever play on Thanksgiving Day. Dvorak's New World Symphony and his American Quartet (No. 12). I also sometimes include Myaskovsky's 21st Symphony (1938), which was commissioned for the 50th Anniversary of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
"Life without music is a mistake" (Nietzsche)
My favorite New World is Antal Dorati's--believe it or not.
As far the American Quartet goes, my fave the Melos Quartet might never have made it to CD, so I defer to the Prince of Snarkness, I mean David Hurwitz, who thinks that the (new line-up of the) Talich's Quartet's is the best in modern sound. CD La Dolce Volta 254.
I have started listening on Steinway Streaming, and it is very fine.
ATB,
John
Excellent, John! I actually think Dave will appreciate that! ;-)
I certainly agree with the Dvorak works you mentioned too. I couldn't begin to name a favorite New World recording however - Neumann's early digital one, Harnoncourt/Concertgebouw (believe it or not!), Ancerl, Paray (if you like it hepped up!) - all come immediately to mind, and that's just for starters! I haven't heard the Phase-4 Dorati performance in decades, so I don't remember it all that well. As for the American Quartet, again, there are lots great recordings featuring both Czech and non-Czech groups. One which I haven't heard (which I suspect would be excellent) is the Zemlinsky Quartet on a Praga SACD.
jm
The Tender Land by Copland. The excerpts on Sony with Copland and NYCO cast is excellent as is the suite w/o voices. I prefer with voices. There is a harvest celebration scene with chorus.
"If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them" - Sol Hurok
The last movement of the Ives "Holiday Symphony" is "Thanksgiving or Forefathers Day".
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