From Mont Blanc to the Matterhorn, the Ether Game Brain Trust went on a musical mountain trek this week to explore the music of the Alps. Bring your alphorns and edelweiss, and browse our playlist below. 

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Symphony No. 1 in c, Op. 68 According to many of his contemporaries, included Robert Schumann and conductor Hans von Bülow, 19th century composer Johannes Brahms was expected to continue the mantle of Beethoven. No pressure, right? In fact, these daunting expectations may be partly to blame for the symphony appearing relatively late in Brahms’ career. There are similarities to Beethoven’s Fifth. Both works open with dark and ominous feelings, which, over the course of four movements, lead to a sense of victory. Brahms took over a decade to write the work, and finally completed the symphony after finding inspiration on a vacation in the Swiss Alps. On a walk through the mountains, Brahms heard an alphorn playing a triumphant tune, carried on the alpine air. He decided to transcribe the tune, and sent the music back to his friend Clara Schumann on a postcard under which he wrote the lyrics “High in the valley, deep in the mountains, I greet you a thousand times.” Eight years later, the alphorn tune appeared as the final theme for his first symphony. 

Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) William Tell: Pas des soldats Rossini’s opera has many musical references to the Alps, both in its well-known overture and throughout the opera’s four acts. Set in 14th-century Switzerland around the creation of the Swiss confederacy, Rossini’s grand re-telling of the folk hero William Tell is his longest opera and his last. The pastoral landscape is evoked through musical themes like a traditional alpine cattle-call using flute and English horns. Ballet sequences with Swiss soldiers and a shepherd’s chorus portray everyday life, and the musical climax of the opera depicts a thunderstorm on the shores of Lake Lucerne. This provides the setting for Tell’s legendary marksmanship and the famous incident with the apple and crossbow.

Rodgers and Hammerstein (1959) Climb Ev'ry Mountain We couldn’t present a show about the Alps without acknowledging the musical  to which they serve as the famous backdrop and overarching metaphor. The Sound of Music follows the musical nun-turned-governess Maria as she wins the hearts and voices of the von Trapp children, and their solemn father, a retired WWI captain with the Austrian Navy. Captain von Trapp is recommisioned by the Nazis, but declines, citing his fierce loyalty for Austria. He, his now wife Maria and the children escape over the Alps to saftey, as a reprise of Climb Every Mountain introduces the ending credits in the musical film directed by Robert Wise. Climb Ev’ry Mountain, which first appears at the end of Act 1 in the stage production, is sung by the head abbess of the convent to which Maria first belongs. The song is famously difficult for the range and power it requires. Recordings from the film are often mis-attributed to Peggy Wood, who played the Abbess. However she wasn’t able to hit the high A-flat at the end of the piece, and so the song was dubbed by Margery McKay.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949) Eine Alpensinfonie [An Alpine Symphony], Op. 64 If you’re looking for a spot to feel “on top of the world” while in Europe, the Alps would certainly be the place. For Richard Strauss, the grandiosity of the Alps could only be matched by a composition of mammoth proportions played by an equally grand orchestra. The work requires 120 or more musicians and unusual percussion instruments. In his score, Strauss calls for a THUNDER SHEET, THUNDER MACHINE, and a WIND MACHINE. This tone poem—the last that Strauss wrote—follows a party scaling one of the larger mountains in the Alps, a trek he experienced firsthand. In his youth, Strauss partook in a particularly rough hiking expedition. At one point the party lost their way, and during the descent, they were pummeled by a nasty thunderstorm. Luckily for us, the harrowing experience resulted in great music.

Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Der Alpenjäger [The Huntsman on the Mountain], D. 588 1817 marked a happy year for the young Franz Schubert. He was invited to lodge with the family of a former student and devote all of his time to composition. This period is mostly marked by Schubert’s progress in choral and orchestral writing, but he continued to write Lieder, or German art song, as well. It was at this time that he met and kindled a friendship with bass-baritone Johann Vogl. Vogl greatly admired Schubert’s style and advanced his reputation in several prominent Vienese music circles. In response, Schubert wrote many songs for Vogl to perform, including this alpine piece, The Huntsman on the Mountain. Schubert chose to set this piece in 6/8 meter, indicative of the pastoral music that was played by mountain folk, and as if he were imagining the Alpine air himself, he marks the word “fresh” at the start of the piece.

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) Catalogue d'oiseaux: 1. Alpine Clough Though Messiaen derived inspiration from a myriad of sources throughout his career, birds were one of the most enduring influences on his music. Messiaen had always been fascinated by bird songs, which to him were symbolic of the mystical qualities of nature.  He traveled throughout Europe, transcribing bird songs by ear, and translating them into his own unique musical language. His composition “Catalog of Birds” takes bird calls from around France and incorporates them into a massive multi-movement work for piano, with its first section named for the Alpine chough. The chough belongs to the same family as the crow, but with their distinctive colored bills, the Alpine chough and the red-billed chough are placed in their own genus Pyrrhocorax.

Ferenc Farkas (1905-2000) Concertino rustico: III Allegro vivace Hungarian composer Ferenc Farkas differed from his contemporaries in that, instead of being inspired by the likes of Bartok and Kodaly, he went to Rome and studied under Respighi and became influenced by neoclassicism. A large orchestral vocabulary and fluid synthesis of many musical styles are major aspects of the Italian neoclassical school, and Farkas was exemplary at both. He experimented with folk styles and genres of the past, which included writing music for the alphorn. Essentially an extended wooden trumpet with an upturned bell, the alphorn was originally used by herdsmen as a calling instrument. They were also used for summoning to church and to war. The clear tone of the alphorn immediately recalls a pristine rustic landscape in the mountains. There are currently around 20 traditional alphorn makers in Switzerland, though modern plastic ones with the ability to telescope for ease of storage have recently been invented, as they can often be as long as 10 feet.

Thea Musgrave (b.1928) Turbulent Landscapes: Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps In 2003, the Scottish composer Thea Musgrave wrote an orchestral suite of six movements, with each movement inspired by an artwork painted by JMW Turner depicting a turbulent event.  Each movement in the suite is musically independent, however they all share a common trait in that each has a musical “protagonist” represented by a solo player from the orchestra. In the 3rd movement, a barely seen Hannibal (characterized with a solo horn) urges his army (the strings) forward despite the developing snow storm. For the storm, Musgrave uses percussion and flutes, using a technique called flutter-tongue.  The journey is increasingly arduous as the snow thickens, but at last the storm clears and a distant sunny Italy is seen in the distance

Elton Britt (1913-1972) Chime Bells Elton Britt got his first guitar by mail when he was ten years old and growing up in a tiny town called Zack in the Ozarks. Inspired by Jimmie Rodgers records, he taught himself to yodel and learned breath control by swimming underwater for long periods of time. His music career began when he was asked to substitute for a fellow yodeler in a singing group who broadcasted live country music on the radio daily in Los Angeles. He recorded as part of several country groups before releasing his own significant solo record Chime Bells in 1934.  He continued to release singles for the RCA Victor label throughout the 1940s and became the first country musician to sell a million records when his patriotic song “There’s a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere” reached gold status in 1944.