Expert: Stephen Levine - 6/12/2007

Question
QUESTION: I recently returned from a 5-week trip throughout Europe (Amsterdam,
France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Swiss Alps), and will be creating an artistic
photographic work-in-motion, edited down from hundreds of digital photos
of people and places. May I ask your recommendations for a soundtrack of
approximately 10 minutes in length that’s reflective of the region as well as
the merging of history with modern times? I am open to anything (solo
instrument? full orchestra?), but won't be certain till I play the music behind
the photographs and feel what's working. What I *do* feel will work is a
relatively straightforward melody that continues to build with great passion,
allowing me to match its quickening pace with dramatic cuts, pans and
dissolves of Western Europe’s people, its most famous sites, and its nooks
and crannies. Given all that, what moves you?

ANSWER: the 1st thing that comes to mind that fits the length and build up is ravel's bolero...give me a day or 2 to come up with some others...

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks. Ravel's Bolero occurred to me, too, but perhaps go for something not as
well known with previous associations.

Answer
i thought so too...here are a few others
mendelssohn-hebrides overture
vaughan williams-fantasia on a theme of thomas tallis
R.Strauss-alpine symphony...especially the 1st 5-10 mins..
scriabin-poem of ecstasy
sibelius-finlandia
holst-planets suite...you have 9 movements to choose from
mussorgsky-night on a bare mountain
honegger-pacific 231

(it's a musical portrait of a train journey)
smetana-the moldau

let me know how you get on