Music and Geography

This contribution explores geography of The Magic Flute, a Singspiel (a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder and premiered on 30 September 1791 at the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, just two months before the composer's premature death.
The geographical interpretation of this work is carried out using the theory of territorialization of Angelo Turco.

The assumption that motivates this paper is that the songs may offer us an original
key to geography by providing useful information on the ways in which men represent themselves through the representation of an existing territory, or of a desired/imagined one. In particular, the essay will examine the work of Paolo Conte, one of the main Italian singer-songwriters as his songs contain stimulating narrative figures that we can consider archetypes of territoriality. This is particularly true at least as far as two interesting geographical figures are concerned, i.e. the province and the elsewhere. The first is a slow and opaque territory, characterized by a lifestyle centred on a different rhythm from those of the metropolis, and on the desire to escape from his greyness; the second is, geographically, the exotic, the novelty, the thrill that breaks the monotony. Through the description of these figures Conte’s songs can give us many information on the way men sense the places.

The garden city model and the British pastoral sinfonism, two products of the same utopia (Abstract)

The comparison of two apparently disjointed processes like the development of the garden city and the British pastoral symphonism, can serve as a framework to explain the ambivalence of ideas from confronted social sectors of the British society of the late nineteenth-century. From the perspective of cultural geography, and under a methodology applied to music that explains it as a mean of communication, it is shown that both ideas not only displayed a utopian character, but also came from a common kernel; the look to the ideal of rural life as counterpoint to the British town during the second industrial revolution with the aim of creating a national identity feeling.

The songs of lumberjacks in the Northeastern United States provide perspective on the ontologically creative relationship between humans and geography in one of the more environmentally destructive activities of the Anthropocene: timber-extraction. The Western doxa (Bourdieu 1972) of environmental activism and sustainability reinforces a narrative of hegemonic destruction in the relationship between humans and nature.  By mapping liminal experience onto the landscape, the songs of lumberjacks reveal that, at its core, the relationship of humans to geography is also an ontologically creative one, regardless of its destructive outcome.  Decolonizing geography necessarily involves exploring this ontologically creative relationship to better understand the seemingly paradoxical expressive and destructive processes implicated in that relationship. Adducing a work song from the nineteenth century, this paper reveals the imaginative way lumberjacks expressed this ontological relationship. From their multivalent landscape (Massey 2005) lumberjacks localized and mapped experientially the liminality of their working lives onto the landscape.  Several lumberjack songs exist that evidence this “geo-anthropomorphic” mapping of liminal experience onto the landscape, but “The Jam at Gerry’s Rock” was – and remains – one of the most popular work songs, not only among lumberjacks but also among others whose work involves intimately liminal engagement in the physical landscape.

TURISMO MUSICALE: STORIA, GEOGRAFIA, DIDATTICA MUSICAL TOURISM: HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, DIDACTICS 20-21-22 novembre 2019 Sede della Camera di Commercio, Industria, Artigianato e Agricoltura Piazza Stradivari - Cremona Comitato Scientifico: Nicholas BARAGWANATH, University of Nottingham Lars BERGLUND, Uppsala Universitet Rosa CAFIERO, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Milano Elena DELL’AGNESE, Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca, Vicepresidente International Geographical Union Guido LUCARNO, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Milano Gigliola ONORATO, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Milano Raffaela Gabriella RIZZO, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Milano Angela ROMAGNOLI, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Dipartimento di Musicologiae e Beni Culturali di Cremona e European Mozart Ways

TURISMO MUSICALE: STORIA, GEOGRAFIA, DIDATTICA MUSICAL TOURISM: HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, DIDACTICS 20-21-22 novembre 2019 Sede della Camera di Commercio, Industria, Artigianato e Agricoltura Piazza Stradivari - Cremona Comitato Scientifico: Nicholas BARAGWANATH, University of Nottingham Lars BERGLUND, Uppsala Universitet Rosa CAFIERO, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Milano Elena DELL’AGNESE, Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca, Vicepresidente International Geographical Union Guido LUCARNO, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Milano Gigliola ONORATO, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Milano Raffaela Gabriella RIZZO, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Milano Angela ROMAGNOLI, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Dipartimento di Musicologiae e Beni Culturali di Cremona e European Mozart Ways

Linked to research on identity in performnace, Midleton Rare is an album of Irish traditional music featuring accordion player John Cronin and banjo player Daithí Kearney who performed regular sessions in Wallis’ Bar in Midleton, Co. Cork from 2008-2012.

This recording is a snap shot of the session in Midleton but draws heavily on the music of Sliabh Luachra and particular accordion players Johnny O’Leary, Denis Doody, Jackie Daly and John Brosnan. It also features music sourced to John’s father DD, a fiddle player from Glenamuckla in the parish of Newmarket, Co. Cork.

Alex Monaghan of Irish Music Magazine said: "Cronin and Kearney are playing dance music, and it shows… a very enjoyable duo recording".