Generally speaking, people dislike high-pitches (sirens, alarms, etc.), but really like low pitches (hence, the car that drives down your street at 2am with booming bass speakers.)

Ottorino Respighi wrote a series of pieces based on pine trees around Rome (it sounds strange, but it’s true.) The second movement of this piece depicts pines near a lonely catacomb. The descent into the deep, dark, subterranean grave is musically painted with some deep rumbling bass – provided by the bass instruments, of course, but especially by the lowest pipes of the organ.

Because, you know, I’m all about that bass …

If you live anywhere near where  I do, the rain is really coming down today!

Art imitates life; you can find all kinds of musical attempts to capture the spirit of a good cleansing storm. You got your gentle snow storm, your generic winter storm, and then you got your classic thunderstorm, compliments of Gioachino Rossini and his opera, The Barber of Seville. Like most Italian opera, it’s light and elegant.

Rainbows! (did you expect something else?)

American composer Christopher Theofanidis‘ best known work is Rainbow Body. Its title comes from Buddhism, when an enlightened soul becomes one with the universe at death.

What I find important about this piece (as well as much of Michael Daugherty‘s works) is its blatant dismissal of the Art Musical styles that dominated the latter half of the 20th century. Gone are the games of playing with dice to write music, number grids and matrixes, electronic beeps and farts; these pseudo-intellectual approaches to composition had slowly eroded away the Art Music audience by the late 70’s.

Rainbow Body shows a real attempt to reconnect with audiences who had become suspicious of modern music (it’s Copland-esque at times), but also has some neat effects which mark it as new and forward looking.