Musical notes
OWPG members pick pertinent pieces of music …
Mother Goose Maurice Ravel
Disappear
The War on D
The lyrics are n and the blissed downloaded it fallout from a f sun-drenched r Tarentaise with use the apt title
It was in the early 1970s when I �irst became aware of Ravel ’ s Mother Goose . Drifting from the TV in the next room , the last two movements caught my breath and in an instant transported me to the Esera valley in the Spanish Pyrenees ; from a grey Kentish winter to a soft evening midway between spring and summer in the �inal year of the valley ’ s innocence .
How could a piece of music I ’ d never heard before have such an effect ? How could an oboe , �lute , some brass instruments and a string section create a landscape the composer never saw for himself ? But it wasn ’ t just the landscape – although that was vivid enough , with its hanging glaciers , rocky crests , its ungrazed meadows with tumbling streams , its springtime �lowers poking through last winter ’ s snow , and the fragrant tufts of dwarf pine spread beneath my sleeping bag . No , it wasn ’ t just landscape that was created by Ravel ’ s music , it was the valley ’ s haunting beauty and the emotions it stirred which had held me in its spell year after year . I went there �irst for the climbing , then returned just to soak it all in .
All these things emerged from music that brought tears to my eyes . Fifty years on , it still does .
Kev Reynolds
The View Belongs to Everyone
Fun Lovin ’ Criminals
Other than the title , this song isn ’ t especially relevant to the great outdoors , but it ’ s such a chilled tune that it goes perfectly with simply sitting and gazing out across your favourite panorama . And I particularly like the idea that the view does indeed ‘ belong to everyone ’ despite efforts throughout history ( still ongoing ) to control who can enjoy what view , and when – perhaps never so much as over the last year or so .
Alf Alderson
8 outdoor focus / autumn 2021