The Well-Tempered Ear
YOU MUST HEAR THIS: No piece captures the mixed emotions of Memorial Day better than Charles Ives’ “Decoration Day”
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Memorial Day, 2022.
It is the annual holiday to remember those who died in military service to the country. (Below are flags placed each year at the tombstones in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.)
If you want to honor survivors and current service members, that would be Veterans Day on Nov. 11.
All weekend long the radio has been playing music and the television has been showing war movies.
A lot of the music is familiar and repeated every year: Sousa marches and Morton Gould suites, elegies by Gustav Mahler, Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein; requiems by Mozart and Fauré; a hymn by John Williams and other movie scores. This year has also seen the playlist include rediscovered works of homage by African-American composers such as William Grant Still.
But only this year did The Ear finally hear — thanks to Wisconsin Public Radio — the one piece that, to his mind, best captures Memorial Day with its blending of consonance and dissonance, its mix of major and major keys, of familiar or “found” music and original music.
It is called, simply, “Decoration Day” and it was composed in 1912 — but not published until 1989 — by the 20th-century iconoclastic and early modernist American composer Charles Ives (below, 1874-1954). It ended up as part of a work the composer called “A Symphony: New England Hollidays.”
See if you agree with The Ear.
Listen to the 8-minute performance by “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band in the YouTube video at the bottom.
Listen to the deep anguish and and sense of loss conveyed in the opening, when a solemn remembrance procession goes to a cemetery to plant flags and lay flowers and wreaths to “decorate” the graves of the fallen.
Listen carefully and you will hear a faint version of “Taps” and ringing church bells in the atmospheric music.
Then as so often happens in reality, life suddenly intrudes in the form of a celebration by a loud marching brass band as it leaves the cemetery for the celebratory marches, picnics and fireworks.
But at the end, the darkness briefly returns. The sense of loss lingers long after the actual death and long after the holiday has been celebrated.
There is no closure.
Just resignation.
Just living with loss.
Here is the background from Wikipedia about how the holiday started as Decoration Day after the Civil War and when it evolved into Memorial Day in 1970: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day
And here is biographical background, with the actual sources and depictions of “Decoration Day” — just go down the page to compositions and click — about Charles Ives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ives
Did you know and like Charles Ives’ music?
Does “Decoration Day” impress or move you?
What music most embodies Memorial Day for you?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: On this Memorial Day, The Ear honors not only soldiers but also civilians, COVID-19 victims and all those responders and workers who serve the public
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Memorial Day 2020.
It is of course a largely military holiday. Most of the planned public events will be to honor those who died in service to their country. That usually means fallen soldiers and deceased veterans.
It also means that military cemeteries – like Arlington National Cemetery, below — will be decorated with American flags.
But The Ear doesn’t think we should forget that there are many ways to serve your country and protect the public, many kinds war and self-sacrifice.
Let’s not forget civilians, especially since worldwide more than twice the numbers of civilians died in World War II than did members of the armed forces. Lives are taken as well as given.
A larger definition of “national service” also seems especially timely since this weekend the U.S. is likely to surpass 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 during the coronavirus pandemic. They include many first responders and frontline workers (below) as well as grocery store workers and delivery drivers. Even “small” occupations have big heroes. There is no reason not to be more inclusive.
There are traditional kinds of music to honor the dead. They include requiems and elegies, military marches and funeral marches. And in the comment section you should feel free to suggest whatever music you think would be appropriate.
But The Ear found a piece he thinks is both unusual and ideal.
It is called “Old and Lost Rivers” by the contemporary American composer Tobias Picker (below). It is a beautiful, moving and contemplative piece, based on an actual place in Texas, that you can hear in the YouTube video at the bottom.
But you should know this about the work’s title.
With rivers, “lost” doesn’t mean forgotten or misplaced.
One dictionary defines it as “a surface stream that flows into an underground passageway” – and eventually often becomes part of a larger body of water such as a lake or the ocean.
It can also mean rivers that appear during heavy rain and then disappear when they evaporate during a drought.
Somehow, those images serve as fitting metaphors for our losses and that music seems a very appropriate way to honor those who sacrifice themselves and disappear in service to others.
The Ear hopes you agree.
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Classical music: Here is music to mark Memorial Day. What pieces would you choose?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Memorial Day 2017, when those soldiers who died in war and service to their country are honored. (Below is an Associated Press photo of the National Cemetery in Washington, D.C.)
Many blogs, newspapers and radio stations list classical music that is appropriate for the occasion.
But one of the very best compilations that The Ear has seen comes this year from Nashville Public Radio.
Perhaps that makes sense because Nashville is such a musical city.
Perhaps it has to do with other reasons.
Whatever the cause, this list gives you modern and contemporary composers and music (John Adams, Joseph Bertolozzi and Jeffrey Ames) as well as tried-and-true classics (Henry Purcell and Edward Elgar, Franz Joseph Haydn and Frederic Chopin).
It even features some music that The Ear is sure you don’t know.
Take a look and many listens:
Do you agree with the choices?
Do you like them or at least some of them?
Which ones?
Which music would you choose to mark today?
Leave a name and, if possible, a link to YouTube in the COMMENT section.
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Today is Memorial Day 2016. What what classical music would you play? And should civilians be included and honored along with the military?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Memorial Day 2016, originally called Decoration Day because people placed flowers on the graves of soldiers who had died or been killed.
But as Decoration Day turned into Memorial Day to honor all military personnel, including the living, the holiday has also become the occasion for marches and parades, for picnics and start-of-summer celebrations.
What music would you play to best honor the occasion and those who served, were wounded or fell?
The Ear has looked for new compilations.
So far, the best one remains, after five years, one that appeared on the Deceptive Cadence blog for National Public Radio or NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104341851
It comes with names and audio clips.
What pieces of classical music would you choose?
But here is a more controversial question: Should we also include and honor civilians on Memorial Day?
Modern wars — World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan — have turned countless civilians into fatalities and casualties. In fact, in many cases, civilian casualties of war far outnumber military ones.
It is inarguable: Modern wars have drafted or conscripted or forced civilians into action, and not just into the military.
The Ear does not think that honoring civilians who were injured or fell in the wars detracts from honoring veterans and the members of the military who did so.
Maybe civilians should even have their own day to mark and honor their sacrifices?
What do you think?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Armed Forces Day, cemetery, civilian, Decoration Day, grave, Gulf War, Korean War, marches, Memorial Day, military, Military personnel, National Public Radio, NPR, parade, picnic, summer, United States, United States Armed Forces, Veteran, Vietnam, Vietnam War, World War II
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