Marking the 500th anniversary of the arrival in America of Christopher Columbus in 1492, Pete Myers takes us on a fascinating tour of the classical music that was created and inspired by the Americas.
In this first part, we listen to European composers with links to the New World: the Czech composer Anton Dvořák, who wrote one of the most magnificent musical homages to America, Giacomo Puccini’s “The Girl from the West”, and Arthur Benjamin’s “Jamaican Rhumba”. How did life in America affect the great Igor Stravinsky? How did growing oranges in Florida inspire the British composer Frederick Delius? And how could Darius Milhaud not be influenced by his many years of life in Brazil?
Producer: Pete Myers
Broadcast: January 4, 1992