Research Guides: Lesser-Known Composer of the Month: Brief Sketches: Music for Thanksgiving

Music for Thanksgiving

As a holiday, Thanksgiving has not inspired the kinds of musical outpourings that some other major holidays have achieved. When it does show up in a musical context it is as likely as not to be part of a set that includes other holidays as well, and even then a piece about Thanksgiving is something of a rare bird.

Presented below are a handful of pieces that buck the trend.

Resources:

Amy Beach: Four Songs for Children, op. 75: no. 2, "A Thanksgiving Fable"
This simple song concerns the machinations of a hungry cat concerning a mouse in the middle of its Thanksgiving meal. The mouse is disinclined to follow along. The text is viewable here.
Edward MacDowell: Sea Pieces, op. 55: no. 3, "A.D. MDCXX"
The title of this piece refers to the year of the Mayflower voyage, which MacDowell depicted through a combination of slowly rocking figures and hymnlike melody. Like other sea-inspired pieces of the set, it is preceded by an introductory poem:

The yellow setting sun
Melts the lazy sea to gold
And gilds the swaying galleon
That towards a land of promise
Lunges hugely on
Charles Ives: A New England Holiday Symphony, movement IV: Thanksgiving Day
This movement began life as a set of organ pieces, which Ives only later arranged for orchestra. He takes a characteristically idiosyncratic approach to depicting the holiday, contrasting sections of simple, folklike melody with moments of stern Puritan character, portrayed via simultaneous major and minor chords, one scale degree apart.
Peter Schickele: Brass Calendar: no. 11, "November: Thanksgiving"
This is one movement of a set of twelve for brass quintet, depicting one holiday or characteristic event for each month of the year. November is of course Thanksgiving, here represented as a simple chorale melody that accumulates voices with each repetition.
Molly Mason and Jay Ungar: Harvest Home Suite, movement II: Autumn (Thanksgiving Hymn)
This chamber suite for by folk duo Mason and Unger follows the progression of seasons, beginning with the autumn harvest, here represented by Ungar's fiddle tune "Thanksgiving Waltz."

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