Landscapes in Music

Using landscape as its concept, this book explores orchestral music that represents imagined physical and cultural spaces, natural forces, and humans and wildlife. Comparing works from Europe and Russia alongside the compositions from the US, Canada, Japan, and China, it offers an understanding of the links between music and the worlds around us.

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Using landscape as its unifying concept, this engaging book explores orchestral music that represents real and imagined physical and cultural spaces, natural forces, and humans and wildlife. Spanning continents and centuries, David Knight links contrasting forms of music through unifying themes of time and space; waterscapes; imagined and mythic spaces; the search for meaning in extreme landscapes; and realms of death, survival, and remembrance. The author also underscores the importance of the physical spaces in which music is performed. Orchestral works are rarely perceived in geographical terms, but Knight, himself an accomplished geographer and musician, offers a deeply satisfying approach to interpreting and appreciating a wide range of music. Comparing classic masterworks from Europe and Russia alongside more recent compositions from the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, and China, this innovative study offers a fresh understanding of the links between music and the worlds around us.