# theme: music for reading Moby Dick



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I'm going to be reading this work for my first time - so what should be my soundtrack? 

I'm aware of several of those "sea shanties" disks, but I don't any of them. I wonder if anyone has a favorite or a recommendation? 

Plus, what else would be appropriate? You can think thematically (ie Debussy's La Mer or Elgar's Sea Pictures) or in terms of mood.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

HOVHANESS - And God created great whales.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Some classic sea music: Korngold's score to The Sea Hawk and Captain Blood.

















For Starbuck, Bach's Coffee Cantata. And for the part about St. Elmo's fire, queue up John Parr's old hit Man in Motion.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Moby Dick?


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I would have thought a hybrid of the music of Billy Budd (maybe for when the sea is calm) and the Flying Dutchman (when it's turbulent). Just don't give it a modern makeover with any new-age drippy-hippy whalesong rubbish!


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## GoneBaroque (Jun 16, 2011)

Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 1?

Rob


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## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

@science, if you're a fast reader, how about _4 Sea Interludes _by Britten  :lol:


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## notesetter (Mar 31, 2011)

Peter Mennin - Concertato Moby Dick (1952)

Mennin is not exactly a household name in American music but is well respected. You might be able to snag a download for reasonable cost.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

*Bernard Herrmann*, best known for his film scores for Hitchcock, actually wrote a cantata called Moby Dick, but I haven't heard it (as far as I know, it's pretty obscure?)...


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## Sofronitsky (Jun 12, 2011)

How you can listen to Debussy's La Mer and read Moby Dick at the same time without going crazy is beyond me.


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

Moby Dick is about a whale but a shark is like an angry whale. And as for a land shark...


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## GoneBaroque (Jun 16, 2011)

samurai said:


> @science, if you're a fast reader, how about _4 Sea Interludes _by Britten  :lol:


If you need more time include the Passacaglia.

Rob


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## cmhodge (Mar 11, 2011)

I believe there are whales depicted in the scherzo of the Vaughan Williams Antarctica symphony. And the Sea Symphony is great too.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

A little out of genre, but there is a marvelous work for concert band by Frances McBeth called "Of Sailors and Whales" which is based on the characters in Moby Dick. The five movements are:

1) Ishmael
2) Queequeg
3) Father Maple
4) Ahab
5) The White Whale


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## Iforgotmypassword (May 16, 2011)

Well, I know you're looking for classical suggestions but I can't help but post this since its a concept album about Moby Dick.









Oh and this band too.









But really, don't listen to these whilst reading, it doesn't help with concentration haha.

I would say probably some Tchaikovsky would work pretty nicely, like the Slavonic March and similar works.

Very heavy piece, good for the somber themes that are involved throughout Moby Dick, but still with moments of careless hopefulness that adventure is portrayed as having.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Moby-Dick has been set as an opera (Jake Heggie). Here's the prelude:


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

Haydn: Creation - und Gott schuf große Walfische, Rollend in schäumenden Wellen
Wagner: The Flying Dutchman Overture


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## KenDuctor (Mar 7, 2014)

Surely by now you have read the book. What music did you choose ? Moby dick was a tough read for me. Melville has a unique style.


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

Sid James said:


> *Bernard Herrmann*, best known for his film scores for Hitchcock, actually wrote a cantata called Moby Dick, but I haven't heard it (as far as I know, it's pretty obscure?)...


No longer obscure in 2014.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

View attachment 37354

Call me Ishmael


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

KenDuctor said:


> Surely by now you have read the book. What music did you choose ? Moby dick was a tough read for me. Melville has a unique style.


I have, and once I realized that it's essentially a big "fish story" (you know, with a bit of literary/philosophical stuff thrown in) I enjoyed it very much. I hope I get to read it again sometime.

I don't remember what I listened to but I didn't get to Korngold or Herrmann, so I missed the big stuff. I wouldn't swear my memory's correct, but I think it was a lot of Elgar and Debussy and Ravel. I intended to get Shaw's recording of sea shanties but I never did.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

It's a wonderful read, and if you do start to get bored, you can skip whole sections of whaling lore and you'll miss some of the richness, and some of the allegory, but none of the plot. And if you absolutely arent enjoying yourself after a couple of hundred pages, skip ahead and read from the chapter titled "the symphony" to the end. I don't know what to say about the first hundred pages -- before they actually get to sea -- but once the Pequod gets under way, any kind of sea music works . . . La Mer, Sea Symphiny, the sunrise from Daphnis et Chloe (which for no good reason always reminds me of the open ocean), the Tallis Fantasia always works for no discernible reason, and in fact, the Vaughan Wiliams Fifth is good seafaring music. A good accompaniment for Ishmael's wonderings ashore at the beginning would be the first movement of the Rustic Wedding Symphony. You don't want anything too intense until the end. The adagio of the Mahler fourth would work. If you want an air of menace, the outer movements of the Mahler sixth for the beginning and end. Of course you'll want a cup of Starbucks coffee.

(I have an appropriately named grandson for whose third birthday I want to get a "Call me Ishmael" T-shirt.)


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Philip Sainton's film music.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_s...nton,popular,178&rh=i:popular,k:sainton&ajr=2


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

GGluek said:


> (I have an appropriately named grandson for whose third birthday I want to get a "Call me Ishmael" T-shirt.)












I should open a shop.


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## JohnD (Jan 27, 2014)

Sofronitsky said:


> How you can listen to Debussy's La Mer and read Moby Dick at the same time without going crazy is beyond me.


LOL! It would make me seasick.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

science said:


> I'm going to be reading this work for my first time - so what should be my soundtrack?
> 
> I'm aware of several of those "sea shanties" disks, but I don't any of them. I wonder if anyone has a favorite or a recommendation?
> 
> Plus, what else would be appropriate? You can think thematically (ie Debussy's La Mer or Elgar's Sea Pictures) or in terms of mood.


Peter Mennin wrote an 11 minute piece "Moby Dick". Too lazy to go back and see if anyone else noted this (no pun intended).


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

hpowders said:


> Peter Mennin wrote an 11 minute piece "Moby Dick". Too lazy to go back and see if anyone else noted this (no pun intended).


This is either shorter or longer than Led Zeppelin's Moby Dick, depending on how long they take the drum solo.

More seriously, I wouldn't suggest listening to any music while reading Moby Dick. Multi-tasking is the devil's work.


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