ANTARCTICA EXPERIENCED THROUGH MUSIC

Capsule Comments on CDs about Antarctica

© Valmar Kurol (2010)

NOTE: This valuable resource is kindly provided by Valmar Kurol (Montreal Antarctic Society/Societe Antarctique de Montreal).

Valmar Kurol can be reached directly at mtl.ant.soc@sympatico.ca

Launched: 27 May 2004. Last Updated: 19 February 2006; 9 December 2006; 7 July 2007; 15 July 2007; 5 January 2008; 3 August 2008; 15 February 2009; 1 September 2009; 1 February 2010.

There is no other music like the toneless music of millions of years of accumulated silence, through which come bars of unearthly colours. There is no need for ears to hear the fugues played on this ice organ. Here nature has set aside for man a domain of beauty and inspiration such as he cannot know elsewhere on this planet - Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd (The National Geographic Magazine, Oct. 1947).

In his 1986 treatise, The Ice - A Journey to Antarctica, American author and history professor Stephen Pyne argues that “traditional fiction could not find enough material in the Antarctic experience or the Antarctic environment to construct typical novels. The range of potential experiences was much smaller than elsewhere, the opportunity for surprise much less. Modernist literature was more inclined to follow Joseph Conrad into the Heart of Darkness than to pursue Robert Scott into the Antarctic’s Heart of Whiteness. Instead the Antarctic has been largely a wasteland for imaginative literature.”

If one substitutes music for fiction/literature, the above comments may be just as appropriate. The visual and spiritual superlatives of Antarctica are now frequently expressed through photographs, movies and coffee table books but to a lesser extent through music. What kinds of tunes and rhythms does the seventh continent inspire? Is there an Antarctic sound? Whatever the answers to these questions, it seems that there is a scarcity of Antarctic-themed music for those with an appetite for it. The classical repertoire appears to be minimal and it is the pop artists who have been making more Antarctic musical noises, in some cases literally. While earlier songs may have focused on urging listeners to keep the continent pristine, much of the current crop seems to hold Antarctica as a mirror/metaphor for the coldness and isolation people feel in their day to day lives.

The following is a consumer’s guide to recorded music that I have found over the past fifteen years, now mainly through the Internet. There are very few themed discs devoted entirely to Antarctica, but there are now many CDs with individual songs entitled Antarctica or about The Ice. While this site is meant to be a listing and not a critical or sociological discussion of the music, there are occasional commentaries, which stand to be corrected or debated, as well as comments by some artists about their tracks. A few non-music CDs have been included for their Antarctic content (theatre, recitation, comedy routines) but CD audio books have been excluded, with one exception where the material was considered to be noteworthy.

The amount of music being made about Antarctica seems to be increasing in recent years due to:

1) the relative ease of visiting Antarctica, through tourist cruises, for direct inspiration;

2) the establishment of Artists and Writers programs by governments of countries with bases in Antarctica, which provide financial, logistical and promotional support;

3) the increasing focus on the continent (particularly now because of the widescale interest in global warming);

4) the ease of composing and recording music with consumer oriented software and digital instruments and 5) the increased possibilities of finding a worldwide audience and marketplace through the Internet with personal web sites or download/distribution sites with digital files, without the need of CDs.

Of course, none of this guarantees that interesting, popular or quality music will be made. To return to the questions at the beginning of this introduction, (What kinds of tunes and rhythms does the seventh continent inspire? Is there an Antarctic sound?), based on this discography, the answer is, it’s everything and anything people bring from their own varied backgrounds. The music listed herein includes the beautiful, inspirational, comical, harsh and discordant to the outright boring.

Finally, many thanks to all the composers and performers who have taken the time to provide comments about the reasons and inspirations for their Antarctic-themed music. This has greatly helped to animate the discography. Any additions to the music listing are welcome. – Valmar Kurol, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (mtl.ant.soc@sympatico.ca)

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Classical Antarctica: Ralph Vaughan Williams

SINFONIA ANTARTICA (Seventh Symphony) by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Perhaps you have seen the vintage 1949 film Scott of the Antarctic. The background music, by one of Britain’s greatest 20^th century composers, was later arranged into his Seventh Symphony, which premiered in 1953 and is still considered to be the mother of all recorded Antarctic music. The scoring includes a wind machine and conveys the struggle and desolation of Robert Scott’s final journey. It is a dark, deep, dreary and depressing work, not to be played on a Walkman or iPod on an exercise bike. There are many recorded versions and listeners may find their individual tastes and preferences among the various issues.

The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s recording of this work in 1998 with conductor Kees Bakels, on the budget-priced NAXOS label, is a real bargain at a third of the price of some of the more expensive ones. The booklet notes are informative but why, oh, why feature a cover photo of Greenlanders hunting in the ice, when this is supposed to be the South? Naxos 8.550737

The second release in 1998 of this classic Antarctic music, performed by the Hallé Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli, is no spring penguin. The full symphony was premièred in January 1953 by Barbirolli and the present performance was recorded in June 1953. This reissue on CD is now the oldest of the eleven performances of the Symphony that were recorded and issued on disc.

The issued performances are:

1. Sir John Barbirolli, Hallé Orchestra (Manchester), recorded June 1953; 1998 EMI 7243 5 665434 2 7

2. Kees Bakels, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, recorded September 1996; 1998 NAXOS 8.550737

3. Andrew Davis, BBC Symphony Orchestra, recorded March 1996; 1997 TELDEC 0630-13139-2

4. André Previn, London Symphony Orchestra, recorded 1968; 1995 BMG/RCA Classics 74321 29248; also issued as 1985 RCA VICTOR Gold Seal BMG 60590-2-RG and as 1987 RCA VICTOR Gold Seal 6781-2-RG

5. Raymond Leppard, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, recorded March 1992; 1993 KOSS Classics KC - 2214

6. Leonard Slatkin, Philharmonia Orchestra, recorded June & November 1991, November 1992; 1993 BMG 09026-61195-2 (this release has been discontinued)

7. A) Adrian Boult, London Philharmonic Orchestra, recorded November 1969; 1991 EMI Classics CDM 7 64020 2

B) Boult’s original mono recording by the same orchestra in December 1953 was reissued in a collection of Vaughan Williams’ symphonies in 2002; Decca 4732412. Also issued in 1989 as Decca/London 425 157-2

8. Vernon Handley, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, recorded April 1990; 1991 EMI Eminence CDM 7 64034 2; the same performance is also available on a Classics for Pleasure compilation (2002) EMI 7243 5 75313 2 0

9. Bryden Thomson, London Symphony Orchestra, recorded June 1989; 1989 Chandos CHAN 8796

10. Bernard Haitink, London Philharmonic Orchestra, recorded 1985; 1986 EMI CDC 7 47516 2

SINFONIA ANTARTICA/SCOTT OF THE ANTARCTIC (2009)

This is a superb compilation CD of British music and vocal recordings related to the Golden Era of polar exploration, curated by James Nice. The main track is Ralph Vaughn Williams’ famed Sinfonia Antartica (7^th Symphony), which was completed in 1952 and was the reworking of his themes for the soundtrack of the 1949 film Scott of the Antarctic. The version here was recorded in 1953 by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Adrian Boult. Also on the CD are seven thematic extracts from the film, totalling 8½ minutes, with the titles Prologue, Pony March, Penguins, Climbing the Glacier, The Return, Blizzard and Final Music, most of which are recognizable in the full symphony movements. Most of the music composed for the film was never recorded or included in the film and only the shortened excerpts were used. It’s performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Ernest Irving and recorded in 1948. Fortunately for aficionados, the full original film score became available on a CD for the first time in 2002 on the Chandos label, with Rumon Gamba conducting the BBC Philharmonic. (See below in this section.)

The real gems on the disc are two versions of the song ‘Tis a Story That shall Live For Ever, recorded in 1913 by Stanley Kirkby and Robert Carr, two vocal artists of the era. According to the informative CD booklet liner notes, “‘Tis a Story That Shall Live For Ever was written by P. Pelham and L. Wright, and first released on 78 rpm disc on March 5, 1913 by Victory Records, sung by Robert Carr (B47, 1668). The song pays fulsome tribute to Scott’s ill-fated expedition of 1910-12, and press ads for the Victory disc promoting it as ‘In Memory of Captain Scott and his Heroic Comrades’. Two months later, on May 6, 1913, another edition of the Carr recording was issued by Diploma Records with a pictorial label, ‘in commemoration of the British Hero - a record that should be in everyone's repertoire’. It seems that Scott himself left no sound recordings to posterity. The Stanley Kirkby version of ‘Tis a Story That Shall Live For Ever, which opens this CD was released on a green label Zonophone 78 rpm disc in 1913. Billed as ‘English Descriptive’, with orchestral accompaniment, the other side of the 78 featured Kirkby’s version of Be British, a song based on the Titanic disaster. Kirkby was a popular and versatile baritone who made many hundreds of recordings. (Zonophone 1050, X-2-42486).”

In addition, the CD presents two recitations by Ernest Shackleton, one of which has appeared on commercially available historic recordings and the other has been invisible. According to the interesting liner notes, “Sir Ernest Shackleton made two different sound recordings following the British Antarctic Expedition 1907-09, otherwise known as the Nimrod Expedition, the first of three expeditions to the Antarctic led by Shackleton. It was financed without institutional support and relied on private loans and contributions, including sponsorship from HMV, who also donated a gramophone and ‘a bright lot of records to cheer the weary months in the snow-bound regions’. The first Shackleton recording was made in New Zealand on June 23, 1909 and released as a 78 disc on HMV (D377) as A Description of the Dash for the South Pole. Even by the standards of the day the recording was crude, and although Shackleton claimed at this time that “I can talk much better than I can write”, this recording hardly does justice to his skills as an orator. At the same time Shackleton was under pressure to complete an account of his 1907-09 polar expedition, published as The Heart of the Antarctic in November 1909, and ghost-written by Edward Saunders. The reverse side of the HMV disc featured the recording The Discovery of the North Pole, made in 1910 by Commander Robert Peary, who commanded an American expedition said to have reached the North Pole in 1909, although today this claim is widely disputed. The Shackleton recording remained in the HMV catalogue as late as 1939. Less well known, the second Shackleton recording, titled My South Polar Expedition, was made in London on March 30, 1910 and released on Edison Blue Amberol cylinder (4M-473). An exceptionally rare sound recording, at the close Shackleton can be heard - just - asking the engineer whether his recording was successful.” CD41-024; www.ltmrecordings.com; (See also VOICES OF HISTORY 2 - Arts, Science & Exploration (2005), THE VERY BEST HISTORIC VOICES (2007), HISTORIC VOICES IX - The Voices Collection (2008) and ‘TIS A STORY THAT SHALL LIVE FOR EVER (1913) in the “Non-Classical, all or significantly Antarctic” commentary.)

FROM VAUGHAN WILLIAMS’ ATTIC – Ralph Vaughan William’s Personal Collection (2009)

This CD is a collection music transcribed from Vaughan Williams’ personal collection of 78 rpm recordings of various performances from 1925 to 1948. Vaughan Williams’ classic 1953 Sinfonia Antartica (7^th Symphony) was developed from the soundtrack music of the British Ealing Studio’s 1949 film Scott of the Antarctic. The seven short movie pieces (totalling eight minutes), played by The Philharmonia Orchestra in 1948, conducted by Ernest Irving, were first issued on a 78 rpm record and represent various key scenes from the movie and most of them are recognizable in the later full symphony movements. Track titles include Prologue, Pony March, Penguins, Climbing the Glacier, The Return, Blizzard and Final Music. Dutton CDBP 9790

THE FILM MUSIC OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Volume I (2002)

What may be Vaughan Williams’ best film score, the music for Scott of the Antarctic, released in 1949, is now presented as a whole for the first time on CD. In the film, less than half of the original score was used; many of the movements played on this CD were shortened for the film and have not been heard in full, others were not used at all. Vaughan Williams later reworked the film score into the Sinfonia Antartica (7^th Symphony), which still remains the standard for classical Antarctic symphonic music today.

The 41-minute suite on this CD contains all the music composed for the film over eighteen separately titled themes, nearly as long as the full symphony. It is a treat to hear the never-before-heard themes and music, which has, dare we say it, been frozen and iced over for more than 50 years. The suite was played by the BBC Philharmonic under Rumon Gamba. Chandos Chan 10007

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS - SYMPHONY NO. 6/ FILM MUSIC (2000)

Vaughan Williams’ classic 1953 Sinfonia Antartica (7^th Symphony) was developed from the soundtrack music of the British Ealing Studio’s 1949 film Scott of the Antarctic. The present CD of Vaughan Williams’ film music may be the first to present the original film music in disc format. The seven short pieces (totalling eight minutes), played by The Philharmonia Orchestra in 1948, conducted by Ernest Irving, were first issued on a 78 rpm record and represent various key scenes from the movie and most of them are recognizable in the later full symphony movements. Pearl GEM 0107 www.pavilionrecords.com; The same pieces were also released on another Pearl compilation, BRITISH FILM MUSIC Volume 1 (2000), which has a cover photo of a sun blaring over a typical Antarctic coastal scene of mountains and pack ice. Pearl GEM 0100.

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Other Classical Antarctica:

ICEBERG by Pascal Contet and Wu Wei (2009)

This a French disc of unusual music from a pair of instrumental virtuosos, French accordionist Pascal Contet and Chinese sheng (a giant-sized mouth organ originating around 3000 B.C.) artist Wu Wei, based in Germany. The CD is a showcase of avant-garde and improvised music, with track titles inspired by the names of different forms of icebergs. Title includes Blocky, Pinnacled 1, Amery Ice Shelf, Bergy Bit, A Song of Ice, Pinnacled 2, Wedellsee, Wedge, Icebreaker, Bergie Seltzer and Dome. The high pitched timbres and free-form soundscapes, like the ice they portray, may offer a slippery and challenging footing for listeners grounded on more traditional musical landscapes. According to the liner notes, “Iceberg is especially marked by a desire for sound transformation and introspection particular to the music of Pascal Contet and Wu Wei. A very pure approach, sweetly and sensitively moving, which reveals their association as far more transcendental and spiritual than experimental. Iceberg is a voyage, sliding massively, regularly like an ice-breaker come to crack a visible layer of immaculate pack-ice, provoking the instantaneous capturing of fugitive breaking before the ice reassumes its majestic immobility. In a deceptively calm environment, the music works as if in a process of irisation. Propelled by a shimmering ballet of two instruments answering each other,…even at times losing themselves in each other…And despite the apparent coldness of the decor, the whitish luminosity washed in the wake of this musical expedition, no feel of desolation, no dark thoughts. This Iceberg cruise is a symbol of hope. Hope generated by a will to surpass themselves acoustically, by a desire for sound cohesion of two musicians who have rid themselves for a long time now of all superfluous artifice and instrumental preconception.” Radio France SIG 11056; www.pascalcontet.com; www.wuweimusic.com

SYMPHONY NO. 1 FOR STRINGS: ANTARCTICA by Surtsey (2009) (Web site download only)

Dave Court is a Bath, U.K.-based electronic artist who goes by the name of Surtsey (derived from the name of a volcanic island formed in the 1960s off the coast of Iceland). This 30-minute minimalist work consists of five movements, including A Song for Rainfall, A Song for Snow, A Song for Ice, A Song for Wind and Respite. The swaths of sorrowful synthesizer strings combine elements of electronic ambient music with the string orchestra styles of Pēteris Vasks and Arvo Pärt, in which each change in tone is a major musical event. The moods and sounds of Antarctica bring to mind the sadness and suffering in the music of these two East European Baltic artists, as well as in that of Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs), a surprise international hit in the 1990s for the Polish composer. While Antarctica may not offer the richness of sounds and variety found in the music of these world-class artists, it conveys a very strong melancholy and is about Robert Scott’s 1910-12 South Pole expedition.

We asked Surtsey about his music and he told us, “The piece was in part inspired by Robert Falcon Scott and the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition. It was originally written as a single 35-minute ambient work but was split into movements to emphasise the thematic changes. There was also originally a short reprise after the third track, tentatively entitled The Flag but I cut this from the release version as I was unsure about the way it interrupted the flow of the other pieces. The titles refer to the worsening weather conditions that the party encountered, with the exception of the final track, Respite, referring to the brave sacrifice of Captain Oates and the tragic death of the rest of the party over the next two weeks, being a release from the perceived burden of their obligations and inhospitality of the continent. That piece ends with a series of coherent major chords which are intended to draw a stark contrast to the consistently minor and atonal themes of the rest of the movements. The work overall was written to evoke emotions of emptiness, isolation and helplessness, except the last track, which, ironically, was written to convey a feeling of hope. A motif is introduced halfway through the first movement and recurs in the second, third and fourth, but not in the fifth, in an effort to reinforce this. The other motivation was that I’ve always harbored a fascination for the Antarctic, since I was a child. It seems to hold a powerful and menacing yet fragile beauty, which I find hard to explain.” Download available free of charge under a Creative Commons License at www.monocromatica.com/netlabel/release/tube171.htm; www.myspace.com/surtseymusic

ON COURSE by Laurie Altman (2008)

Laurie Altman is an assistant professor of music at Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, New Jersey. He has received many classical commissions for compositions and has performed as a jazz artist in numerous clubs and events worldwide. This CD is a compilation of his compositions dating from 1985 and contains the 13-minute, 3-part Suite, Three Antarctic Songs for Baritone and Piano, which includes the tracks On Course, Within Limitless Space and Does an Emperor Penguin Meditate. The baritone is Elem Eley, with Laurie Altman at the piano. The second piece is the 5½-minute On Course for Instrumental Octet, which includes flutes, clarinet, piano vibraphone, violin, maracas and conductor. Laurie told us that “the Antarctic pieces found their inspiration from a trip that my wife and I took to Antarctica in February of 2006. The CD contains two On Course Pieces: An instrumental Octet and a setting of three Antarctic poems of mine for Baritone and Piano. There were numerous other pieces that emerged as a result of that trip as well.”

According to the liner notes for Three Antarctic Songs, “I became haunted with trying to find a sound that would take me closer to the emptiness, the vastness, the color and pristine stillness of that place. (Wide spacings; few clusters; a joining of some – ancient and new). The two outer pieces of the set, On Course and Does an Emperor Penguin Meditate are short and relatively straightforward in their presentation. Within Limitless Space truly attempts to capture the emptiness and vastness to which I alluded earlier. The three falsetto insertions were almost like a voice, Shackleton’s perhaps, speaking (da lontano) from the sea, a faint ember, “seemingly to nowhere”. On Course, the instrumental octet, is the most overtly programmatic work on the CD. It is to be heard with the breeze in your face, fourteen knots of speed underfoot, all attended by weather, ship motion and the natural elements of light, birds, ice and seals all around. Structural content is almost song-like: AABCA with an intense and dramatic ostinato mantra carrying the piece and its players forward and On Course. It is for me a tone painting, a work of color and vibrancy, never wavering in both its intensity and relentlessness.” The cover photograph of misty blue-grey pancake sea ice was taken by Laurie’s wife, Jeannine Hummel, on this 2006 trip with National Geographic.

Lyrics for On Course, about being in the Drake Passage: “The thrust, the push forward,“Steady”, “Port Ten”, “Starboard Five”, pitch and roll, a wave, the hint of a breeze, “Midships”, getting there, vacuous space. Waiting, observing, fingers chilled, tears, the wind, frigid, unremitting, “Steady”, the sky, grey, painted on, sculpted, an Albatross alone in search of, diving, drifting, “Port Ten”, Seals floating, the thrust, the push breathless, surrounded all sides, water spraying, “Starboard Five”, everything moving, “Steady”, forward, getting there, fleeting, head wind, getting there, the thrust, the push, getting there, forward, forever, On Course. On Course.”

Lyrics for Within Limitless Space, about being in the Weddell Sea: “Within limitless space, an ice field blue, white and grey. Four a.m., a sky, textured, tufted with light shards. Pin pricks, crystals expanding, rolling, compressed, broken, blue, a Petrel in flight, seemingly, to nowhere. Within limitless space, The weight of an iceberg, below itself, rolling, calving breaking apart, the eye sees beginning, limitless space to be filled (a music score), the horizon. A Chinstrap Penguin, floating sideways, seemingly, to nowhere. In a turn a mountain broken off, something larger, before the sea, yielding to nothing but itself. A lone Weddell Seal, asleep, awakens to space, limitless (no less tomorrow than today). Warmed by the sun deep in a dive, seemingly, to nowhere.”

Lyrics for Does an Emperor Penguin Meditate?, on Booth Island: “Thirty five days, molting, tall upon snow and ice, frigid, a promontory, wind, fifty knots, barely, a quiver. Determined, elemental proof of something so unique, a way of being. Do you question As you wait. Do you Dear Penguin, ever Meditate?

Albany Records TROY1041; www.albanyrecords.com; www.lauriealtman.com

MUSIC FROM SEVEN CONTINENTS Vol. 3 by the Cincinnati Boychoir (2008)

Founded in 1965, the Cincinnati Boychoir, directed by Randall Wolfe, gives numerous local subscription concerts and has performed with the Vienna Boys Choir, symphony orchestras, and gives concerts for community organizations as well as touring internationally. Their latest CD includes four song tracks related to the seventh continent, Southward, The Maid’s Lament and The Ice King by Gerald S. Doorly and Humpback Whales by Wendy Mae Chambers. The Morning was the relief ship sent to resupply Robert Scott’s Discovery Expedition of 1901-04 and during its 1902 voyage to Antarctica, the third officer, Lieut. Gerald Doorly, a talented pianist and entertainer, and the chief engineer, J.D. Morrison, as lyricist, collaborated on a collection of songs that were performed during musical evenings on the ship’s piano, accompanied by riotous noisemaking. More in the vein of Victorian parlour songs than sea shanties, the songs were published in 1943, apparently in a very tame version of the originals. Wendy Mae Chambers is a New Jersey-based pianist and composer who travelled to the Antarctic Peninsula in 1999 and recorded a solo piano CD ANTARCTICA SUITE, which included Humpback Whales. Randall Wolfe told us that in concert “The boys make sounds of whales and dolphins (and can imitate the sounds remarkably well), while some boys pour water from one plastic pitcher into another and also back and forth between plastic glasses, while other boys make bubble sounds with their lips. We ask the audience to close their eyes and imagine travelling underwater to Antarctica. The boys love this music!” www.cincinnatiboychoir.org; (see also THE SONGS of the ‘MORNING’: a Musical Sketch by G. S. Doorly (2002) in this section below and also ANTARCTICA SUITE by Wendy Mae Chambers (1999) in the following “Non-Classical, all or significantly Antarctic” commentary.)

ANTARCTICA SAGA (AMUNDSEN TO THE SOUTH POLE by Mike Hannickel (c. 2007) (Web site download only)

Mike Hannickel is a composer and music director in California’s Rocklin Unified School District, specializing in elementary and junior high band and orchestras. He has also conducted his compositions in Hollywood-area studios and scored for independent movies, documentaries and other productions. Two of his school compositions for wind band include the 3-minute regal march Antarctica Saga (Amundsen to the South Pole) and the more playful 2-minute Penguin Promenade. While not issued on a commercial disc, the two pieces have been recorded as demos and are available for free download and/or listening at the Web sites mentioned in this listing. Mike told us in 2009: “Since my publications are mostly for school-aged musicians, I often try to incorporate some historical, scientific, or literary component so teachers will be able to use the music as a jumping off point for other lessons. Antarctica Saga was also an opportunity for young bands to sensibly use non-traditional instruments and sounds (water glasses, etc.).” www.curnowmusicpress.com; www.jwpepper.com

STRING THEORY and CINEMATIC WINGS by Jeffrey Gold (both 2007) (Web site download only)

Gold, based in Utah, is a multi-talented film producer, composer, playwright and university film/theatre educator. From an early start as a published physicist and mathematician, while still an undergraduate, his films, compositions and plays have premièred in both the U.S. and Britain and won many awards. His collection of instrumentals on String Theory includes the tracks Shackleton (Theme) and Shackleton (South Georgia Island). Cinematic Wings has Shackleton’s Return and Antarctica by Air. All of these are beautiful, lush, majestic pieces with rich symphonic strings. Jeffrey told us that “The motivation for the tracks is the inspiration that Antarctica alone generates. There are people drawn to Antarctica for reasons they do not understand; I am one of those people. I suppose it is the pristine serenity and Shackleton’s adventure is the best survival story in existence.” www.jeffreygold.com

ELEPHANT by Stefano Ianne (2008)

Ianne is a Ravenna, Italy-based composer of modern symphonic music, at times reminiscent of minimalism and a more pastoral Philip Glass. With three CDs, Ianne’s music is rich with melodic strings and quiet arpeggios. This CD, largely themed about a boy and an elephant, was recorded live at the Dal Verme theatre in Milan by the theatre’s resident orchestra in 2007. It has the track Amundsen and we asked Stefano about it in 2009. He said: “Yes, the track Amundsen is related to the polar explorer Roald Amundsen. When I was young, I had intentions to be an explorer and I’ve studied Amundsen. His story is wonderful and his passing away, which happened in order to try to find Umberto Nobile in the North Pole, is truly mysterious.” Nobile was an Italian explorer whose dirigible-type airship crashed during the return flight from the North Pole in 1928. Many international search and rescue planes were used in the rescue operation. Polar hero Amundsen was on one of planes, which disappeared and was never found. Sconfinarte; www.ianne.org; www.myspace.com/stefanoianne

ICELIGHT by Michelle Ende’ (2006)

Michelle Ende’ is a Tampa, Florida-area resident and began her musical training at a young age with piano and organ and later continued with conservatory training in composition and orchestration. Her classical and choral works have been recorded by the Bay Area Philharmonic and the Bay Area Chamber Works, which specialize in local area composers. She is now a professor of International Economics. With over 20 CDs, her output has been prodigious, particularly in the last ten years. This CD is the last of three Planetary albums and consists of four long ambient tracks taking us into the mysterious fogs, ice and twilight of Antarctica. From the liner notes: Fog: “Within this landscape there exist vast caverns of fog, lifting images in and out of sight. The landscape varies in its shades of grey and white and fog moves over the ice in a creeping fashion revealing magnificent towers of ice, vast caverns and glacier valleys.” Icelight: “No sunlight or moonlight. Only icelight, a kind of half light in which all things appear grey; another shade of ice as it were. Small points of light drift through the overcast clouds, but it is only a halo; no real light or warmth.” Chiaroscuro: “From this darkness of clanking ice and strange noises, the signs of Spring come drifting in slowly. Icelight gives way to new light; sunlight, warm light, life light.” The most sprightly and melodic of the tracks is Penguins: “The only life here are the penguins atop the ice. Only they break up the general sameness of the icescape. Cold winds huddle them together; the only source of warmth.” Michelle told us in 2009 about her inspiration for the music: “I was exposed to Happy Feet (the movie), March of the Penguins (the movie) and had just finished watching a documentary on Scott and Shackleton and I was moved by the beauty of Antarctica.” www.annuitmusic.com

SHADOW DANCES - GUITAR MUSIC BY NIGEL WESTLAKE - Played by Slava Grigoryan (2006)

Australian Grigoryan (a native of Kazakhstan) recorded this performance of fellow Australian Nigel Westlake’s Antarctica – Suite for Guitar and Orchestra in 2004 with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. The guitar concerto was completed in 1992 and had its origin from his soundtrack to the IMAX film of the same name. The four movements, totalling 23 minutes on this CD, rework musical ideas from the film, as well as developing others not included in it. The four tracks are The Last Place on Earth, Wooden Ships, Penguin Ballet and The Ice Core – Finale. ABC Classics 476 5744; www.rimshot.com.au (Nigel Westlake’s web site)

PLANET EARTH - Music from the BBC TV Series – music composed and conducted by George Fenton (2006)

BBC’s massive 11-part television documentary about the earth’s various and extreme habitats goes from pole to pole and oceans to mountains. The ICE WORLDS instalment includes the following lavish symphonic themes performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra: Discovering Antarctica, The Humpbacks’ Bubblenet, Everything Leaves but the Emperors, The disappearing Sea Ice, Lost in the Storm. EMI 0946 381891 2 1; www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/planetearth

DREAMINGS by Gondwana Voices (2006)

Gondwana Voices is Australia’s national children’s choir, for ages 10 to 16, established in 1997 by artistic director/conductor Lyn Williams to perform new and traditional music, which showcases the country and its peoples. It has traveled internationally and is committed to commissioning works from Australian composers. On this disc is also Principal Guest Conductor Mark O’Leary, who is the founder and director of another Australian children’s choir, Young Voices of Melbourne. The CD contains an Antarctic-related piece, Australian Daniel Walker’s ode to the Southern Ocean’s wandering albatross, The Wanderer. According to the liner notes, the composer writes, “The Wanderer is about living your dreams. The inspiration of this piece was the albatross, a lone traveler soaring on the Antarctic winds, his destination wherever the currents may take him. I have always been in awe of these magnificent birds, and the text I have written in some way pays homage to their grace and determination.” The lyrics are: “Let me go where the wind will go, let it take me over southern shores. I will ride on the ocean air, I will travel across ice and foam, far from home. And where no road will take you, where few have gone before, it’s far beyond the ice-floe far below where my spirit calls. Antarctic land! land of unearthly light, where pale horizon escapes eternal night. Wumara, warawara.” Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABC 476 9093; www.gondwanavoices.com.au; (See also BIRRALEE 10^th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT LIVE (2005), referenced in this section.)

SHOULD THIS BE FOUND: SIX SONGS ON SCOTT’S LAST EXPEDITION by Perry Goldstein (2005) (Web site download only)

Perry Goldstein is Undergraduate Studies Director in the Department of Music and Director of the College of Arts, Culture and Humanities at State University of New York at Stony Brook. As a composer, his music has been heard in many countries and he specializes in saxophone and other wind instrument works. This 34-minute opus consists of six vocal pieces about the phases of Scott’s tragic Terra Nova South Pole Expedition of 1910-12, including The Voyage Out, Land at Last, Penguins, Impressions on the March, In Winter Quarters and Summit, the Pole and Beyond, performed by the United States Military Academy Band of West Point, New York, directed by Col. Thomas Rotondi. Jr. The soprano is Sergeant First Class MaryKay Messenger. The song texts were compiled by the American novelist Richard Powers from Scott’s own eloquent words, written in his classic expedition journal. While a melodic, operatic treatment of the history of the Expedition may not be quite the expected vehicle to portray the physical hardships encountered in Antarctica, it continues in the trend of contemporary historic opera and is a worthy addition to the Antarctic repertoire. It would be interesting to imagine a stage performance or multi-media presentation of this work. Perry told us in 2009 that “I encountered the Scott story by chance while watching American Public Television one day many years ago. The documentary was especially moving when it described the letters Scott wrote about his men and to his wife when it was clear that he wasn’t going to survive. I thought at the time that it would make a very moving set of songs, and years later I had the chance to try my hand at it when I was commissioned by the West Point Band to write a set of songs. The text was compiled from Scott’s diaries by Richard Powers, a friend and acclaimed novelist.” The performance, including text and program notes, is available for free download at www.usma.edu/band/recordings/found.htm

WORKS by Brian Bennett (2005)

This is a 4-CD box set of four of Brian Bennett’s film scores, which includes the soundtrack of GREAT NATURAL WONDERS OF THE WORLD, a 2002 Christmas/New Year BBC Natural History film produced by Peter Crawford and narrated by the ubiquitous Sir David Attenborough. One of the tracks in this visit to various landscapes of the earth is South to Antarctica, a sweeping orchestral theme portraying the icy mysteries of the continent. Brian Bennett, in addition to having won many awards for his film and TV compositions, arrangements and productions, was awarded the OBE from the Queen of England in 2004 for his services to music. Brian is also a drummer and member of Britain’s iconic rock group, the Shadows, which began as the backing band for Cliff Richard in 1959. They became one of the most successful acts in Britain in the 1960s and went on to great acclaim as an independent instrumental group with countless records. www.brianbennettmusic.co.uk

JOURNEYS by Young Voices of Melbourne (2005)

Young Voices of Melbourne is an Australian choir, founded in 1990, by its director, Mark O’Leary. With 130 singers between 6 and 18 years of age, it has traveled internationally and is committed to the performance of new Australian music. One of the tracks on this disc is the 6½ minute Shackleton, for 3-part voices and piano, by the Sydney, Australia composer and performer Paul Jarman. The piece is from his song cycle Turn on the Open Sea, which pays tribute to the adventurers of the sea. It was commissioned for the Sydney Children’s Choir in 2001. According to the liner notes, “The triumphant story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance expedition to the Antarctic in 1914 has become one of the popular tales of modern exploration. Against all odds, Shackleton and his men survived a two-year ordeal, trapped without a ship, during a freezing winter in the most remote and unexplored region of the globe. Thanks to intuitive leadership and incredible persistence, Shackleton not only returned to Europe, but did so without losing a single crew member. The impossible boat journey across the great Southern Ocean in the 20-foot ‘James Caird’, and the successful navigation of South Georgia remains the greatest quest in the annals of the sea. On returning to England, several of the crew enlisted to fight on the red fields of Flanders, and within weeks, two men perished in battle.” The song is a very beautiful hymn to the irony of their return – simple, elegant and one of our favourite Antarctic melodies. Lyrics are:

“Old man, looking out to the sea, This time he’s leaving, Windswept hair and strong old bones, Now gently fading no longer sailing.

Oh many years ago, can you remember? The haunting cry of a ship that drowned, Beneath the ice floe of the Weddell Sea.

Times were hard, but we made it over, Made it over, they wonder why, Through the cold, but we made it over, Made it over, they’ll never know.

Two years trapped in the southern sea, Far from our homeland, Roaring waves and wailing winds, May well defeat us, but hopes were high. Oh please tell me why, we’re most forgotten, Far away from a world at war, Who needs a hero, Who needs to know?

Times were hard, but we made it over, Made it over, they wonder why, Through the cold, but we made it over, Made it over, they’ll never know. Why, why, did we have to come home to war? Why, why, why? Try, try, tell me what are we fighting for? Try, try, try.

Then, on the red fields of Flanders, All men were fallen, A bloody war, fought on every shore, Brought pain and sorrow to a sailing man.

But I still hear the steam whistle blowing, ‘Twas the day of wonders, Frozen tears and heartfelt cheers, Never forgotten, We made it over.

Times were hard, but we made it over, Made it over, they wonder why, Through the cold, but we made it over, Made it over, they’ll never know.

Why, why, did we have to come home to war? Why, why, why? Try, try, tell me what are we fighting for? Try, try, try.

Why, why, did we have to come home to war? Why, why why? Try, try tell me what are we fighting for? Try, try, try.

We made it over! We made it over!” YVMCD006; www.yvm.com.au (See also NEW LIGHT NEW HOPE by Gondwana Voices (2003) and BIRRALEE 10^th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT LIVE (2005), referenced in this section.)

BIRRALEE 10^th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT LIVE (2005)

Brisbane, Australia’s Birralee Voices is a community-based organization of nine choral ensembles, largely for children and includes ages 5 to 25. It was formed in 1995 and is directed by Julie Christiansen. It has travelled internationally, won awards and promotes a variety of cultures, while promoting Australian composers. Their anniversary CD includes Paul Jarman’s Shackleton, which is reported to be one of the most widely performed choral works in Australia. According to the booklet notes, “It doesn’t seem to matter how many times Shackleton is performed around this country and overseas, young people love to sing it and audience members love to hear it.” A second Antarctic-related piece on the CD is Australian Daniel Walker’s ode to the albatross, The Wanderer. According to the composer, “The Wanderer is about living your dreams. The inspiration of this piece was the albatross, a lone traveler soaring on the Antarctic winds, his destination wherever the currents may take him. I have always been in awe of these magnificent birds, and the text I have written in some way pays homage to their grace and determination.” The lyrics are: “Let me go where the wind will go, let it take me over southern shores. I will ride on the ocean air, I will travel across ice and foam, far from home. And where no road will take you, where few have gone before, it’s far beyond the ice-floe far below where my spirit calls. Antarctic land! land of unearthly light, where pale horizon escapes eternal night. Wumara, warawara.” www.birralee.com (See also NEW LIGHT NEW HOPE by Gondwana Voices (2003), JOURNEYS by Young Voices of Melbourne (2005) and DREAMINGS by Gondwana Voices (2006), referenced in this section.)

ANTARCTICA by Elizabeth Brown (2005)

Elizabeth Brown, a New York (Brooklyn)-based composer and flautist, is a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient and has composed for various commissions. One of her pieces is Antarctica, a 7-minute alto flute solo with prerecorded sound accompaniment. While it has not been released on CD, Elizabeth provided a recorded copy of her performance of it. The flute seems an ideal instrument to convey ethereal Antarctic impressions and the background instruments, windscapes, breathing and vocalizations provide some great atmospherics. In 2008 Elizabeth provided us with her program notes for her composition: “During the winter of 2004-05, Sara Wheeler’s book Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica was my bedtime reading. I started to dream about Antarctica, and this music was born in those dreams. I chose alto flute because of its range and timbre, and the taped portion consists of natural sounds recorded in my Brooklyn studio. Antarctica was commissioned by Patti Monson, who premiered it on July 16th, 2005, at the Bang on a Can Summer Institute at Mass MoCA.” www.elizabethbrowncomposer.com

MARCH OF THE PENGUINS Original Score by Alex Wurman (2005)

Whether a cynical marketing ploy or a desire for cultural adaptation, the English version of this French film has serious narration by Morgan Freeman and a studio orchestra playing a pleasant New Age soundtrack by composer Wurman. There are titles such as The Harshest Place on Earth (played on not so harsh-sounding harps, flutes and tinkling piano), and other musical excursions such as Walk Not Alone, The March, Walk Through Darkness, First Steps and Arrival at the Sea. The soundtrack sounds great with the film but as a self-contained listening experience is a bit too sweet to convey convincingly the harsh Antarctic home of the Emperor penguins. The film became a huge hit, particularly for a documentary and the English version won the Oscar for best documentary feature film of 2005. Milan M2-36131; www.marchofthepenguins.com; (See also LA MARCHE DE L’EMPEREUR by Emilie Simon (2005) in the following “Non-Classical, all or significantly Antarctic” commentary.)

AMSTERDAM – Brass Band Music of the Netherlands (2005)

This CD of tracks from various composers, played by the accomplished Provinciale Brassband Groningen, conducted by Siemen Hoekstra, includes Antarctica, by Carl Wittrock, a Dutch composer and conductor (b. 1966). The liner notes explain that “Carl Wittrock became inspired by huge ice fields surrounding the south pole. Colorful and majestic sounds provide the composition with a fascinating view of this “6^th” continent. This composition is a free impression of the spectacular scenery in the Antarctic. Melodies are linked together to convey the various aspects of the landscape. These melodies together with their simple harmonic accompaniments make this work pleasant for both the listener and the musician.” Carl told us in 2007 that “The main reason was the impressive nature. It is very beautiful, but also untouchable and dangerous. The composition was made as a sort of movie music without movie.” Gobelin Records 05.002; www.gobelinmusic.com

INTRODUCING THE FANFARE BAND - Fanfarekorps Koninklijke Landmacht (2003)

The same piece of music, Antarctica, by Carl Wittrock, is also on this Dutch compilation CD of brass band music by the Royal Netherlands Army (FKKL) Fanfare Band, conducted by Jan Nellestijn. Gobelin Records 03.001 & 03.002; www.gobelinmusic.com

ANTARCTICA - Johan Willem Friso Kapel (unknown date)

Carl Wittrock’s Antarctica, also appeared on another brass band compilation disc of the same name, now discontinued, conducted by Gert Jansen. CD not verified.

AUBADE: Organ Music by Ohio Composers: Karel Paukert, Organ (2004)

This is a CD of solo organ recitals by Paukert, a distinguished teacher, concert performer and the long-time Curator of Musical Arts at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Included on the disc is the 6½-minute track Erebus by Monica Houghton, an award-winning composer and composition teacher for the Cleveland Institute of Music Department of Preparatory and Continuing Education and Joint Music Program with Case Western Reserve University. Her music has been performed internationally. Erebus was written in 2003 as a tribute to her older brother, a geographer and mountaineer who passed away in November 1979 in the tragic crash of the Air New Zealand plane that was on a sightseeing flight over Antarctica. It crashed into Mount Erebus in the McMurdo Station area and all 257 people on board were lost. According to Monica’s note in the CD booklet, “In Greek mythology, Erebus was the son of Chaos and the father of Aether (brightness) and Hemera (day). Erebus and his sister Nyx (night) were also said to be the parents of Eros, the god of love, and of Charon, the ferryman at the river Styx. Often, Erebus is referred to simply as ‘the place of shadows.’ Mount Erebus was so named by the British explorer James Clark Ross, who discovered it in 1840. The world’s most southernmost volcano, Mount Erebus is situated on Ross Island, adjacent to McMurdo Sound, on the New Zealand side of Antarctica. The mountain rises directly from the sea to an astonishing altitude of 12,444 feet, where, on a clear day, a plume of smoke can be seen emanating from its summit. My brother had both a professional interest in and a personal love of mountains. I have tried to write a piece of music that will do honor to my brother’s memory, and at the same time convey a sense of the awe and majesty that is characteristic of such a great mountain as the one that took him away from us.” The Cleveland Museum of Art/Azica ACD 71229; www.monicahoughton.com

MUSIC TO PICTURE by Brian Bennett (2004)

This CD is a compilation of Brian Bennett’s great film and television music from TV mysteries, documentaries and films in various musical styles, spanning thirty years. Also included are full tracks that did not make it to the final productions of other broadcast works. Included is the melodic, orchestral The Shackleton Variations, described in the CD booklet as “Brian’s musical interpretation of Ernest Shackleton’s heroic Antarctic explorations.” Brian Bennett, in addition to having won many awards for his film and TV compositions, arrangements and productions, was awarded the OBE from the Queen of England in 2004 for his services to music. Brian is also a drummer and member of Britain’s iconic rock group, the Shadows, which began as the backing band for Cliff Richard in 1959. They became one of the most successful acts in Britain in the 1960s and went on to great acclaim as an independent instrumental group with countless records. FLYCUB20108; www.brianbennettmusic.co.uk

THE HAROUN SONGBOOK - CHARLES WUORINEN SERIES by Charles Wuorinen (2004)

This is a collection of excerpts from Wuorinen’s opera Haroun and the Sea of Stories, which is based on author Salman Rushdie’s 1990 children’s book of the same name. Rushdie wrote the book as a fable and allegory after the well publicized fatwa that led to his life of escape underground. The story revolves around a professional story teller who loses his gift of gab. His son then goes on adventures to return his father’s livelihood. The music on the CD, for four singers (soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and bass-baritone) and piano accompaniment, was written by Charles Wuorinen, an acclaimed modernist composer, pianist and conductor who was the youngest composer to win the Pulitzer Prize in music in 1970. The lyrics are by English poet and journalist James Fenton. One of the adventures is a polar trip with the short track To the South Pole. Sample lyrics: “It’s getting even colder And the waters are losing their colour. We’re going the right way! We can tell! Before it was filthy! Now it’s Hell!...You can stop a cheque. You can stop a leak or three. You can stop traffic, but You can’t stop me. To the South Pole. Full speed ahead to the South Pole…To the South Pole…These are the waters of neglect. These are the seas of disgrace. Give me a year and I expect I could clean this place.” Albany Records TROY664; www.charleswuorinen.com

MIRRORS OF FIRE - Australian Guitar Originals - Played by Tim Kain (2004)

Australian Kain, together with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, perform (in 1997) Nigel Westlake’s Antarctica - Suite for Guitar and Orchestra, a 22-minute guitar concerto completed in 1992 that had its origin from his soundtrack to the IMAX film of the same name. In four movements, it reworks musical ideas from the film as well as developing others not included in it. Tall Poppies TP169; www.tallpoppies.net

The same recording of Antarctica - Suite for Guitar and Orchestra, with Tim Kain, is included in OUT OF THE BLUE (2004), a compilation of three works by Westlake, performed by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Porcelijn. ABC Classics ABC 462 017-2; www.rimshot.com.au

MUSIC FROM SEVEN CONTINENTS Vol. 2 by the Cincinnati Boychoir (2004)

NEW LIGHT NEW HOPE by Gondwana Voices (2003)

Gondwana Voices is Australia’s national children’s choir, for ages 10 to 16, established in 1997 by artistic director/conductor Lyn Williams to perform new and traditional music, which showcases the country and its peoples. It has traveled internationally and is committed to commissioning works from Australian composers. One of the tracks on this disc is the 5½ minute Shackleton, a very moving, beautiful song by the Sydney, Australia composer and performer Paul Jarman. The performance by choir and piano is especially enriched by the accompaniment of a string section. The piece is from his song cycle Turn on the Open Sea, which pays tribute to the adventurers of the sea. It was commissioned for the Sydney Children’s Choir in 2001. It is a bittersweet tale of the survival Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance Expedition’s Antarctic expeditioners and their return to a world still at war. On this disc, the conductor is also Mark O’Leary, who is the founder and director of another Australian children’s choir, Young Voices of Melbourne, which performed the same piece on one of their CDs. Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABC 472 822-2; www.gondwanavoices.com.au (See also JOURNEYS by Young Voices of Melbourne (2005) and BIRRALEE 10^th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT LIVE (2005), referenced in this section.)

ANTARCTICA - NHK Television 50^th Anniversary Nankyoku Project (2003)

NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), Japan’s sole public broadcaster, commemorated the 50^th anniversary of TV broadcasting in Japan in 2003 by establishing an HDTV broadcasting station in Antarctica in 2003. Located at Syowa Station, Japan’s base, this was Antarctica’s first such station and the first time a film crew stayed there for more than a year. 153 live programs were made, including the showing of a solar eclipse, distributed to the Discovery Channel in North America, auroras and natural scenery. The commemorative CD (Japan Version) contains some very melodic orchestral tracks, accompanied by various exotic Oriental musical instruments plus a jazzy solo guitar track, conducted by Yoko Matsuo. Titles include Horizon, White Wind, Dry Valleys, Silence and Dawn. As we haven’t seen the TV programs, it’s not easy to relate the very pastoral-sounding CD music by itself to the Antarctic, without the visuals. Toshiba-EMI Ltd. Eastworld TOCT-25014

ICESCAPE FOR ORCHESTRA by Chris Cree Brown (2002)

Chris Cree Brown is the Director (Academic) of the School of Music and Senior Lecturer at University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, as well as the composer of a variety of music. The 16-minute work resulted from a trip to Antarctica in 1999, supported by the Artists to Antarctica programme of the New Zealand Antarctic Institute (Antarctica New Zealand). His first work produced under this programme was UNDER EREBUS (2000), a 15 minute electroacoustic piece, that according to the liner notes was an “attempt to create an expressive work of ‘sonic art’ that reflects my personal interpretation of the environment of Antarctica and my experiences there.” The range of sounds includes walking on snow, skuas, radio communications, wind, seals, penguins and a whiteout. Other Antarctic compositions by Chris include Circulus Antarcticus, a dance commission with Bronwyn Judge, a choreographer who went down to The Ice as part of the 2000 Artists to Antarctica programme and Antarctic Heart, music to go with a video by the sculptor Virginia King, who was the other artist to travel to Antarctica in 1999 under the Artists to Antarctica programme. www.music.canterbury.ac.nz/CCBrownlink/chrispers.htm

MUSIC FOR THE SCOTIA CENTENARY (2002)

The 1902 Scottish National Antarctic Expedition under William Bruce was a successful, but today under heralded, two-year voyage of discovery during which Coats Land, along the Weddell Sea, was discovered. The expedition was also the first to use a motion picture camera in Antarctica as well as the first to document the use of bagpipes to serenade emperor penguins (by Gilbert Kerr). To celebrate the centenary of this expedition, The Royal Scottish Geographical Society, The Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, B.B.C. Enterprises and piper Ian MacInnes collaborated to produce this CD.

The first half of the disc consists of seven traditional Scottish country dance tunes with titles such as Antarctica Bound, The Ice Cap, The Piper and the Penguin played by Neil Barron and his Scottish Dance Band. The main event, however, is a 24-minute orchestral suite, South, by Dundee composer Gordon McPherson, played by the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, conducted by Nicolae Moldoveanu. It was commissioned by the orchestra, the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and supported by the Scottish Arts Council and has now been performed internationally. From an appropriately windy opening through some jangly, icy dissonances, this performance can take a proud place amongst the very few recorded orchestral pieces that have attempted to portray the moody, icy seventh continent. RSCDS CD032; www.rsgs.org

THE SONGS of the ‘MORNING’: a Musical Sketch by G. S. Doorly (2002)

The Morning was the relief ship sent to resupply Robert Scott’s Discovery Expedition of 1901-04. During the Morning’s 1902 voyage to Antarctica, the third officer, Lieut. Gerald Doorly, a talented pianist and entertainer, and the chief engineer, J.D. Morrison, as lyricist, collaborated on a collection of songs that were performed during musical evenings on the ship’s piano, accompanied by riotous noisemaking. More in the vein of Victorian parlour songs than sea shanties, the songs were published in 1943, apparently in a very tame version of the originals.

The present hearty and robust recording was undertaken as a Discovery centennial project and the Chorus contains all the adult male descendants of Gerald Doorly, along with professional colleagues and interested friends. The CD booklet includes the lyrics and words of the spoken passages between songs. All royalties from the sale are to be divided between the Dundee Heritage Trust and the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust for their work on the original Expedition’s historic artefacts. Reardon Publishing; www.reardon.co.uk

THE LIVING EDENS by Laura Karpman (2001)

This is the soundtrack from the American PBS television series about the natural wonders of the world that was broadcast over 1997-2001, produced by Alastair Fothergill, with narration by Peter Coyote, Linda Hunt, Sally Kellerman and James Coburn. Laura Karpman, the Los Angeles-based composer of the music, has won four Emmy awards during her career, including two for episodes of The Living Edens series. She has scored for many other films and television programs, has won additional awards and has also composed for opera, classical and other concert music. Included on the disc is the 4-minute orchestral track South Georgia Suite as well as the 2-minute CD closer South Georgia End Credits. Laura told us in 2009 that “We were thinking of a very classic approach, along the lines of a modernist Vivaldi “winter””, when asked about the instrumentation and musical styles used in the tracks. This music was from the episode South Georgia Island: Paradise of Ice and the production crew spent eight months of filming around the island, spread over two years. South Georgia is an isolated sub Antarctic island in the South Atlantic and is home to the world’s greatest concentrations of fur seals, southern elephant seal, King penguins and albatrosses. www.laurakarpman.com

INTO UNCHARTED SEAS by John Hearne (2001)

John Hearne, a British composer/singer/conductor based in Scotland, was commissioned by Dundee Orchestral Society to write an overture to commemorate the centenary of the launching in Dundee of Robert Scott’s Antarctic ship RRS Discovery in 1901. The ship itself has been preserved in Dundee, whose Symphony Orchestra premièred the 13-minute piece in 2001. It is a dramatic and undulating score, portraying the rough and tumble of the seas the ship must have sailed through in its long voyages. Although the piece has not apparently been released commercially on CD, we are grateful to John Hearne and Scottish Music Centre for making it available to us. www.scottishmusiccentre.com

SEA STAR by Martin Kiszko (music) and Anne Ridler (words) 2001

Martin Kiszko, of Polish-British origin, is a Bristol, UK-based composer who has orchestrated scores for over 200 films and TV productions, including works for the BBC and ITV. Anne Ridler (1912-2001) was an editor and librettist, considered to be Britain’s leading female poet. Sea Star is a 27-minute choral-orchestral work, performed by the Spiritual Sounds Festival Orchestra & Choir at Clifton Cathedral (Bristol) and conducted by David Ogden.

The composer-orchestrator, Martin Kiszko, told us: “The cantata was inspired by an Antarctic voyage I made in 2001 as well as from the desire to write a work about humankind’s journey from the sea to space.” While the words were completed first, the score remained incomplete for several years and the liner notes explain that “A turning point for the musical birth of Sea Star came in 2001 when I visited Antarctica. For the first time many of the images that Anne had created in the poem were experienced first hand: ice covered worlds, floes and hummocks, the stillness or energy of the sea, the vast sky; the slow bubbling of ice thawing and cracking or the sound of ice shelves calving into the sea causing waves to break against the shore. Sea Star’s first tutti orchestral chord, followed by the ebb and flow of gentle strings represent the first beats heard and the aftermath of such a calving in the Antarctic panorama. Other sections of the score aim to emulate the pattern of the landscape – the textures of snow and ice, the sky and changing light – these images assisted the interpretation of the text. Sea Star is a journey of even greater proportions than my Antarctic expedition. It travels from the depths of the oceans with its nascent aquatic life-forms, through land and sky to the far reaches of space where other waterworlds exist in the icecaps of Mars and ice-belts of Saturn. As the characters in the text ascend these levels, it is as if they are on a quest to understand their destiny.”

Anne Ridler’s text for the icy, Antarctic-influenced section of the cantata, subtitled The Earth, follows:

“But while ice covers your world, You do not wake. Cowled in darkness, Uttermost depth of sleep. Ice built of water – water built into solids, Condensed to crystal, unique in all the moving worlds, Yet cousin to other constellations: Ice moons, ice planets, plunging comets. You do not wake…Cowled in darkness, Uttermost depth of sleep. On the surface, a dazzling whiteness; Journeying inward, multiple rings of ice terrains; Floes and hummocks, pinnacles, bastions, Fractured and folded.”

Martin’s web site also mentions that during his 2001 Antarctic trip, he “composed, performed and claimed a world first by for a spoof Antarctic National Anthem (someone had to do it!)” As to a recording of it, Martin advised us that “As for the Antarctic National Anthem – this is a spoof piece recorded in Antarctica on video and not available I’m afraid.” HOXA HS 2052-LE; www.martinkiszko.com

SHACKLETON’S ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE – Original Giant Motion Picture Soundtrack Composed by Sam Cardon (2001)

Cardon is an American Emmy award-winning composer, who also worked on a 2002 Winter Olympics project. The IMAX film’s superb opening iceberg panorama is not to be missed, and the juxtaposition of historic photos of the Endurance Expedition with the present-day recreation flows seamlessly throughout this first-class film. The film score, played by the Northwest Sinfonia, conducted by Kurt Bestor, provides a variety of music: majestic orchestral themes, marching band music, melancholic Celtic pipes, fiddles, banjos and a Hovhanessque horn solo, reflective of the era and the activities the music portrays. Musical tracks include, among others, Wintering in the Pack, Hope and Survival, Into the Unknown/A Stern Night, A Grim Landfall and On to South Georgia. A more informative liner/booklet with notes about the music, the Endurance and filming expeditions would have been a welcome inclusion with the CD. WGBH Music (BMI)/ White Mountain Films Music JR74222

SHACKLETON – Original Score by Adrian Johnston (2001)

This was a two-part four-hour TV dramatization of Shackleton’s Endurance Expedition, directed by Charles Sturridge and featuring the prominent British actor Kenneth Branagh in the title role. Although said to be thoroughly researched, the film received some criticism for spending too long on the pre-Expedition details and not nearly enough time on The Ice, Elephant Island, South Georgia or the final rescue. The attractive orchestral sound track by British composer Johnston is performed on CD by the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Terry Davies. Track titles portray scenes such as Sighting Ice, Locked in the Ice, Antarctic Night, Five Miles a Day, Sighting Land and Cracking Ice. Channel 4 Music C4M00172

SIR PETER MAXWELL DAVIES

Of special interest to classicists, the British Antarctic Survey and the London Philharmonia Orchestra commissioned prolific British composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies to compose an Antarctic Symphony, his 8^thSymphony, for its première in May 2001. In 1997-98 Sir Peter spent three weeks at Britain’s Rothera Base on the Antarctic Peninsula experiencing life there. The BAS said, “Through this commission we hope to raise awareness of Antarctica as a unique scientific laboratory among people whose interests normally lie within the Arts. In turn we at BAS very much look forward to learning more about the world of serious music.” Sir Peter’s eloquent Antarctic diary is available at his web site and a CD recording and/or downloading of the symphony is also available at www.maxopus.com. The 41-minute recording by the Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra in 2003 provides a range of sounds from dissonances to melodic passages, reflecting the composer’s impressions and observations of his trip.

A stylistically similar companion piece, the 21-minute High on the Slopes of Terror, was composed in 1999 for the National Association of Youth Orchestras and was the first musical work resulting from Sir Peter’s Antarctic trip. The title refers to the extinct volcano on Ross Island near McMurdo Sound, Mt. Terror and the virtuoso work was recorded in 2001 by the UK’s Chetham’s Symphony Orchestra, the youth orchestra of Chetham’s School of Music. This piece is also available for download or on CD from Sir Peter’s web site at www.maxopus.com (site unavailable at this revision date).

LULIE the ICEBERG - Music by Jeffrey Stock, Story by Her Imperial Highness Princess Hisako of Takamado of Japan (1999)

Based on the Princess’ children’s book, written after she saw a lone iceberg drifting off Greenland, the “magical tale centers around a quest for the origins and destiny of life as seen through the eyes of an innocent and very brave iceberg, Lulie, as he embarks on a courageous ocean journey between the Arctic and the Antarctic, the two oldest living continents on the planet”. One of the movements is entitled South Pole.

Recorded at Carnegie Hall, the performance is narrated by Sam Waterston and the musicians include the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Betty Baisch's Choral Associates, Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Pamela Frank (violin) and Paul Winter (saxophone).

This CD is hard to miss with the colourful iceberg, emperor penguins and humpback whales on the cover. Produced in co-operation with UNICEF and Icebridge, a forum of scientists and educators dedicated to the promotion of knowledge about the polar regions and the oceans. Sony Classical SK 61665

ON THE LAST FRONTIER by Einojuhani Rautavaara (1999)

This Finnish classical composer has become well known to North American audiences in recent years, particularly for his haunting 1972 Cantus Arcticus, an ode to the land of the Arctic Circle. On the Last Frontier (A Fantasy for Chorus and Orchestra, 1997) is based on the composer's interest, going back to childhood, in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Published in 1837, this novella about Pym and a group of sailors marooned on a tropical island at the South Pole with a race of savages is considered to be seminal in Antarctic fiction and has spawned numerous like-minded stories. As Rautavaara approached his 70^th year, he took the book's closing plot and developed his own rich musical themes of imagined lands not yet explored. Ondine ODE 921-2

WALKING WITH DINOSAURS - Music from the BBC TV Series - composed by Benjamin Bartlett (1999)

The BBC Concert Orchestra takes us back in time to the Mesozoic era when dinosaurs ruled the land. The soundtrack includes the rather short Spirits of the Ice Forest which “explores the exotic woodland Antarctic - mirrored by a romantic theme tinged with Hispanic harmony” and the peaceful Antarctic Spring. BBC Music 7243 523458 2 3

2000 TODAY - a World Symphony for the Millennium - composed and conducted by Tan Dun (1999)

An international consortium of television broadcasters commissioned this dynamic musical mosaic for a millennium satellite transmission. The music presents a combination of classical western instrumentation including the BBC Concert Orchestra, choirs, soloists, world instruments and chants “to capture the poetic spirit of the world’s regions”. Included is the percussive Antarctica. Sony Classical SK 61529

LUBOMÍR BRABEC PLAYS BACH IN ANTARCTICA by Lubomír Brabec (1997)

The CD title is somewhat misleading as this music was recorded in the Czech Republic; however, the liner notes indicate that classical guitarist Brabec performed these works on his 1997 trip to Antarctica on board a Greenpeace ship and at one of the bases. “Just as Antarctica was unknown, not to mention unvisited, in J. S. Bach’s day, Bach himself was only known to a narrow group of connoisseurs. I think there are certain parallels: the grandeur, monumental beauty and power of Bach’s music, and the mysterious fascination and power of this mystic continent that belongs to no-one and yet everyone. In both these entities, Antarctica and Bach’s oeuvre, we can sense the presence of something transcendent, something that goes beyond us. It was to the greater glory of this principle, God, that Bach wrote this music.”

Brabec may be on to something here, as we await someone to lug a grand piano or bring a brass band to the shores of Antarctica for what might truly be the first professional recording of a musical performance on the continent. Supraphon SU 3338-2 131

FROM AUSTRALIA – John Williams, guitar (1994)

This CD of world première recordings by Australian composers includes Antarctica - Suite for Guitar and Orchestra by Australian Nigel Westlake. Westlake wrote the score for the IMAX film Antarctica and later reworked it into this longer 1992 guitar concerto in four movements. Highlights are the stately Wooden Ships and a shimmering piece called Penguin Ballet, which captures emperor penguins frolicking beneath the ice. Sony Classical SK53 361

ANTARCTIC SYMPHONY – various composers (1993)

This CD is a compilation by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation of existing older, non-Antarctic classical music, interspersed with the actual sounds of Antarctic wildlife and human activities on The Ice, in an effort to evoke a feeling of Antarctica. The music includes pieces by Vivaldi, Duruflé, Boccherini, Roussel, Sibelius and Nielsen. The non-musical interludes include a kitchen sink of sounds of penguins, seals, petrels, skuas, katabatic winds, huskies, ships moving in ice, helicopters and radio room/flight operation conversations.

According to the liner notes, “Antarctica is a wilderness most people have some idea of, though very few have been there. Perhaps Australians are more aware; Antarctica is closer to us, though still very inaccessible. We have a national responsibility for part of it, and ‘part’ is a very large area indeed. Many of us will know someone who has been there, maybe even someone whose life was changed by spending time there. The race to the South Pole, lost to Amundsen by Scott and his party, the drawn out suffering and human loss as they tried to return – these are among the Australian epics, tales to children and remembered by adults.

The makers of this record haven’t visited Antarctica, though they received the sound recordings from people who have. For us, the sound effects were the introduction to the Antarctic world. As on the previous discs in this series, the idea is to appeal to the aural imagination, stimulating it with music and natural sounds, together and side by side.

The first paradox we found was that Antarctica seemed to demand the inclusion of some human sounds. In our other wildernesses, bush and sea, music provided the humanising element. In ANTARCTIC SYMPHONY there are even more bird and animal presences than in Sea Symphony, but the sounds captured on tape constantly remind the listener that any human presence is a struggle against the elements. We have introduced human voices for the first time, so that we can wonder that people are there at all.

“Symphony” mainly implies music from the European tradition. The sounds, rather than the music in this series, evoke the landscape, but it is no accident that music which can live with Antarctica was composed close to the northern, Arctic wastes…

Paradox No. 2: the trackless wastes of ice and snow seemed to call for a wider, not a narrower range of music and musical emotions. A strange environment, so that strange music is not out of place, like Boccherini’s startling eighteenth century phantasms of a Spanish city by night. Humour, from the dogs and their bluff handlers, releases an energy and directness typical of the music of Roussel, the ship’s officer turned composer. The seasons in Antarctica, we imagine, could hardly be like those of Vivaldi’s Venice, but his music, matching a poem describing an icy winter scene, seems right as our soundscape approaches the great southernmost continent…” ABC Music/Phonogram/Polygram 514 639-2

ANTARCTICA - The Film Music, composed by Nigel Westlake (1992)

The 37-minute CD of the score of the IMAX film Antarctica has thirteen mostly short orchestral tracks of various themes portrayed in the movie, four of which were developed into the previously mentioned guitar concerto. The CD is well played and recorded and the music, conducted by Carl Vine, conveys the dramatics of its theme titles. Tall Poppies TP012; www.tallpoppies.net; www.rimshot.com.au

TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH - Original Soundtrack Recording - music composed and conducted by John Scott (1988)

This is the soundtrack for the William Kronick-produced, written and directed documentary film about The Transglobe Expedition, led by Ranulph Fiennes. Over a three-year period ending in 1982, the team circumnavigated the globe along its polar axis from North to South Poles, being the first to do so. The orchestral music is a pleasant listening journey and the Antarctic tracks include the titles Shackleton, Reaching Antarctica, On to the South Pole and The Scott Tragedy. Prometheus PCD102

DAS OPFER (THE SACRIFICE) by Winfried Zillig (1936) (appears to be unrecorded)

This opera was based on an original prize-winning play, Captain Scott’s Expedition to the South Pole, which was completed in 1930 and premièred successfully at the Hamburg State Opera, by unbalanced German physician and writer Reinhard Goering (no relation to his infamous WW II namesake), who pursued themes of man’s self-determination and perseverance in his writings. In 1936 he began the libretto for the opera to be based on his play, with music by German atonalist Winfried Zillig. Called The Sacrifice, it was first performed in 1937 but had only three performances, although it furthered Zillig’s musical career. The operatic work was revived in West Germany in 1961 and presentations included penguins as a Greek chorus to the dissonant score, which is still in print and available for purchase through music publishers on the Internet.

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Non-Classical, all Antarctic or with significant Antarctic content:

WHITEOUT - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2009)

This is the soundtrack disc to the Antarctic who-done-it action movie of the same name, based on the main character from the Whiteout comic book series by Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber. It features Kate Beckinsale as Carrie Stetko, a U.S marshal on Antarctica who has to investigate a murder on the continent, which may be related to a secret drilling project. The movie received tepid, or more appropriately, frosty reviews for the plot. The dark and dramatic orchestral soundtrack music, composed by John Frizzell, has tracks with titles such as Aurora Australis, Base Camp, Vostok Attack, Frost Bite, The Storm Approaches, Last Plane Out, and The Whiteout. Varèse Saraband 302 066 986 2; www.whiteoutmovie.com

CINEMATIC MUSE by Brandon Visel (2009) (Web site download only)

Brandon Visel is a California-based film composer whose album consists of orchestral and acoustic music inspired for film. Included are two tracks, Antarctica 1 and Antarctica 2, which were part of the soundtrack music written for the 60-minute documentary film about artist Lita Albuquerque’s December 2006 large-scale art installation, Stellar Axis: Antarctica on the Ross Sea Ice Shelf near McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. The two tracks are meditational and Oriental-sounding and the soundtrack music on the documentary admirably conveys the sense of tranquility and grandeur of the wide, white flat landscape of the Ice Shelf. Lita Albuquerque is a California-based large-scale installation artist, painter and sculptor, known internationally for earth art in natural landscapes. Stellar Axis: Antarctica was funded under the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program in 2006 and the project consisted of ninety-nine blue spheres being spread over the icescape, aligned with and mirroring the brightest stars in the sky above. This was a major logistical undertaking with three years of preparations and involved the manufacture of the spheres and assistance from an astronomer, photographer and cinematographer. The actual installation, documentation and dismantling took three weeks and was done under demanding environmental constraints and regulations. The event also included overhead filming and a performance by McMurdo Station staff portraying the motion of the stars at the poles. The progress of the whole enterprises was filmed over the years by artist and documentary filmmaker Sophie Dia Pegrum, also based in California. Sophia explained to us about the project and music: “The Antarctic is a deeply affecting place, both geographically and philosophically. One of the most wonderful things about working on this project was working with the composer Brandon Visel, who captured the feel and grandeur of the experience beautifully. His score really became the adherence that the film needed. It is hard to express such a place of terrific violence and beauty visually. After coming back I felt almost hopelessly inadequate to represent the experience.” Music tracks available from iTunes and CD Baby.com; a DVD of the film is also available via Sophia Dia Pegrum. www.brandonvisel.com; www.myspace.com/brandonvisel; www.77below.com; www.stellaraxis.com; www.litaalbuquerque.com; www.sophiadia.com

ERNEST SHACKLETON LOVES ME by GrooveLily (under development in 2009)

GrooveLily is a New York, N.Y.-based vocal/violin/keyboard/drums pop/rock trio (Valerie Vigoda, Brendan Milburn, and Gene Lewin) that has been together since 1994 and in recent years has expanded to musical theatre, with successful collaborations in numerous musicals. A current project is Ernest Shackleton Loves Me, described by the group on its Web site as a “one-woman fever-dream musical” about a video games music writer who is contacted by Ernest Shackleton, who “shares his Antarctic journeys with her as both struggle toward new horizons.” It’s based on a book by Joe DiPietro, with lyrics by group members Valerie Vigoda, who is also the sole actor and music by Brendan Milburn. In August 2009, early-stage workshop performances were held in Palo Alto, California and in October three more pieces were presented at a pub theatre evening in New York City. One of the songs from it, We’re On Our Way, is a rousing banjo-backed sea shanty about leaving home, sung by Ernest Shackleton’s character (Brendan Milburn), who promises to find land and return to his darling wife, available from iTunes. Valerie Vigoda, the group’s vocalist and violinist extraordinaire, told us in 2009 that “We have been intrigued by Shackleton for several years, and are writing a one-woman musical in which the main character discovers and is changed by his amazing story. We just did a workshop and 3 readings of the show at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, which helped us immensely as we develop the piece. We are hoping that we can do a full production before too long, and incorporate some of the actual visuals from Shackleton’s Endurance journey as projections during the show. The rest of the music, we hope, will be available when we get farther along.” www.groovelily.com

TICKET TO ANTARCTICA by KevOz (2009)

Kevin Osborn is a Chicago-based independent synthesizer/keyboard artist who has recorded many New Age and instrumental albums in various styles during the past ten years. His recent cruise to Antarctica inspired this album. Kevin explained to us: “My wife and I went on an Antarctic cruise in January 2008, mostly because it was one of our last continents to visit; little did I know that it would become one of my favorite trips of all time! I had such a wonderful time there that I was inspired to create an album of music about my experiences on Antarctica. The wonderful sights, the sounds - whether it be choruses of penguins or just the calm near the Lemaire Channel, the feelings and emotions. I’ve done my best to pour it all into an album. This is the first time I’ve created an album based on my travel experiences and it probably won’t be my last, as I’ve had such a blast putting the music and artwork together.” The CD liner notes further explain: “The first cruise I ever took was a trip to Antarctica with my wife. You might be thinking, “Why would you go there - wouldn’t it just be freezing cold? What about the Caribbean?” I must admit, it sounded strange to me at first, too. But, I got more and more psyched about it as our trip drew nearer. And by the time our boat left Ushuaia, Argentina, I just couldn’t wait to see the “great ice”. As we passed through the rough waters of the Drake Passage en route to Deception Island (our first of several destinations), my excitement was building to a crescendo. Just what would I see? How would it feel? I knew it would be an experience I’d never forget, and I just couldn’t wait to get there…In short, Antarctica is a place like no other on Earth – or, I’m guessing, any other planet. It’s equal parts beautiful, eerie, jubilant, and somber. And this is my Ticket To Antarctica. May it be yours, too.” The 11 tracks include Ticket to Antarctica, Crossing the Drake Passage, Deception Island, Zodiac Cruise, Blue Ice, Penguin Dance, Antarctic Lullaby, The Last Continent, 20 Hours of Sunshine, Iceberg Maker and Return Voyage. Kevin’s Web site has a separate Antarctica section along with detailed travel notes to each track. www.kevoz.com

ANTARCTICA: THE MUSICAL by Dogmatic Music (2009)

Dogmatic Music is a quartet of teachers and musicians from the New South Wales region in Australia, which has been recording and entertaining in a variety of musical styles since 2004, with help from many other family members. They have performed at public and school events and their music and theatre pieces have been used by schools directly. Antarctica: The Musical is their fourth CD and contains 14 tracks with various Antarctic themes, including karaoke instrumental tracks for a sing-along. The song styles range from rock to country and rap. Titles include: Antarctica, 200 Million Years Ago, Aristotle Rap, The Sailor’s Song, The Seals’ Lament, Antarctic Anthem, Antarctic Fever, Crevasse, Shackleton, Scott of the Antarctic, Mawson Walked, I’m a Whale and The Penguin Stomp. According to the CD booklet, “The songs are easy to play and sing. Each one tells a story or carries a message about some aspect of Antarctica, from its formation and exploration, to its hostile but delicate environment and the creatures that inhabit it. Together, they present a unique, engaging and enjoyable learning experience.” The CD comes with a songbook of music and lyrics, a classroom study guide and script/libretto for a primary school play with up to 17 narrators. The group told us in 2009: “This music and play was written for upper primary school students as most study Antarctica as part of the Human Studies and Its Environment course in schools in New South Wales, Australia. Our music is meant to be fun, the idea being to engage students in music and drama while they learn about Antarctica’s ancient and more recent history, the explorers, Antarctica’s animals and environment. All upper level primary students (10-12 year olds) in New South Wales, Australia, are required to study Antarctica so it’s pitched at that level. One of our group, Paul McGee, was teaching the topic for years and found that students remembered more and engaged with the topic more through music and drama.” KIA009; www.dogmaticmusic.net

SHACKLETON’S VOYAGE by Eureka (2009)

Eureka is the 51-minute musical project of Germany’s Frank Bossert, an established rock musician, who tells the story of Ernest Shackleton’s famous Endurance Expedition of 1914-16 in a series of 15, largely instrumental tracks, themed around the various phases of the Expedition and its survival stages. Frank told us in 2009 that “I saw a documentary on the German/French TV channel “ARTE” in the year 2000/2001 and I was so fascinated by the story and the character of Ernest Shackleton that I had the idea of creating a concept album in an art rock style. It took a few more years to realise this.”

In addition to a few tracks of narration by British thespian Ian Dickinson, there are veteran guest artists on vocals and instruments such as Uilleann pipes and whistle to provide a Celtic flavour, in keeping with the origins of some of the expeditioners. Track titles include The Last Adventure, Departure, The Challenge, Grytviken Whaling Station, Heading South, Icebound, Plenty of Time, The Turning Point, Going Home, Into the Lifeboats, Elephant Island, In Search of Relief, The Rescue and We Had Seen God. The music, in a progressive rock style with guitars and synthesizers, at times symphonic, matches the moods of the themes of the songs. Lyrics for Going Home: “We lost our ship in a wasteland of ice. No time to look back if we want to survive. We missed our aim, but what still can be done is to save everyone. No glorious fame, ship and stores are gone, we’re left on our own – we’re going home! We’re going home now – Our ship is gone but our will is strong. We’ll survive – We’re coming home. We’re going home now – No mission’s won but our hope is not gone. We’ll return – we’re coming home. We drag our boats through impassable heights. No time to waste – we just fight for our lives. We missed our aim – we just fight for our lives. We missed our aim, but what still must be done is to save everyone. No glorious fame, ship and stores are gone, we’re left on our own – we’re going home.” Ironically, at that point they still had months of camping on ice, Elephant Island and the South Georgia rescue still ahead of them. There is also the poignant and arguably the most memorable track, Will You Ever Return, sung by a female trio, from the unusual point of view of Shackleton’s wife Emily (lyrics: “So long ago, that I heard your voice, so long ago, that I felt your loving touch. All the tears that I’ve cried for you, all the prayers that I’ve sent, All the love that I feel, Can not bring you back home, All the fears that have passed, All the darkness around, can not give me an answer now – Will you ever return? So long ago, that I saw your smile, So long ago, that I fooled around with you. So long ago, that I held your hand, So long ago, that I danced around you.” The CD includes a very complete booklet with Frank Hurley’s famous expedition photographs illustrating each track, as well as track explanatory notes. The CD cover also has a Hurley photo of the Endurance, frozen in the ice. SPV 28022 CD; www.eureka-music.de

SONIC ANTARCTICA by Andrea Polli (2009)

Andrea Polli is a digital media artist who is an Associate Professor of Electronic Arts at the University of New Mexico and formerly an Associate Professor of Film and Media at Hunter College, part of the CUNY organization. According to her Web site, “Her work addresses issues related to science and technology in contemporary society. She is interested in global systems, the real time interconnectivity of these systems, and the effect of these systems on individuals. Polli’s work with science, technology and media has been presented widely in over 100 presentations, exhibitions and performances internationally, has been recognized by numerous grants, residencies and awards including UNESCO. She currently works in collaboration with atmospheric scientists to develop systems for understanding storm and climate through sound (called sonification).” During the 2007/08 Antarctic season she spent seven weeks in Antarctica under the U.S. National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, recording interviews and videos with weather, climate and earth scientists and recording the sounds of natural and work-related mechanical and human activities. Areas travelled included McMurdo Sound, the Dry Valleys and the South Pole. The resulting CD, limited to 500 copies, presents 10 tracks, including recordings of helicopters and radio transmissions from the Williams Field landing area, sounds from Taylor Glacier, Castle Rock and Lake Hoare, weather balloon launching activities at the South Pole and polar philosophy from a cast of prominent researchers on their activities and on global warming. Gruenrekorder Gruen064/LC09488; www.andreapolli.com; www.gruenrekorder.de

LES EXPÉDITIONS POLAIRES FRANÇAISES by Paul-Émile Victor, Robert Gessain and Claude Lorius (2008)

This a 3-disc spoken-word package, by three eminent French polar explorers, academics and scientists, in their native French language. Paul-Émile Victor (d. 1995) is well known for his 1934-35 traverse of Greenland and a year spent in the study of Inuit culture, for founding after WWII the Expéditions polaires Françaises, France’s then-leading polar organization and for his Antarctic research from the era of the 1957 International Geophysical Year onwards. His CD covers both polar areas and there is a 17-minute Antarctic interview from 1962, which was conducted with students from a French school. Robert Gessain (d. 1986) was a doctor and ethnologist and was also on the Greenland expedition with P-É Victor and his CD is related to Inuit culture, recorded in 1982. Claude Lorius has been a prominent glaciologist from the days of the 1957 International Geophysical Year and was notably involved with ice coring at the famed Russian Vostok Antarctic base. He became president of the Expéditions polaires Françaises following the death of P-É Victor. In 1992 he established the French Institute for Polar Research and Technology. Lorius’ CD contains a 1986 interview with French students about Antarctic science and there is a further segment recorded in 2006 related to the then upcoming 2007-09 International Geophysical Year. There is an extensive 48-page booklet with the box set, describing the background science and culture of their work and discussions.

This commercially released disc is a real gem for its record of significant polar activities from people who were directly involved. It sets an example for other nations to record and disseminate to the public the records of their own accomplishments, in whatever fields. Frémeaux & Associés FA 5211

ANTARCTICA - Music and Nature Sounds (2008) (Web site download only)

The Belgian Biosphere label specializes in relaxation music, including sounds of nature and environmental themes in various New Age styles. This disc includes both frothy and languid New Age and ambient-style instrumentals with titles such as Daybreak on the Ice field, Snow Dreams, Parad’ Ice, Flight Over the Antarctic, Iceberg, The Wild Continent, Crystal Desert , Glacier at Springtime and Love Season. Available on various music download sites such as iTunes. www.biosphere.com

SERVE CHILLED by Medwyn Goodall and Tim Rock (2008)

Cornwall, U.K.-based Goodall is a prolific master New Age composer, musician and producer of thematic CDs. According to the liner notes, his latest melodic work is “inspired by a unique environment under threat from global warming…the CD also incorporates the actual atmospheres of snowstorms, ice caves and under a frozen sea. The sounds of penguins, whales and seals weave in and out of the music as it takes you across a white world.” The CD liner has a great photo of a sinister looking, weather-sculpted iceberg as well as penguins and seals on icy shorelines. MG Music MGCD105; www.mgmusic.ltd.uk

ANTARCTIC SONGBOOK by Ian Tamblyn (2008)

Ian Tamblyn is a veteran Ottawa-area musician, playwright and educator/guide on nature cruise ships, who has made trips to both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. During the 2007-08 Students on Ice Expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula, which included about 64 international students and 25 educators/chaperones, Tamblyn was the team minstrel. He told us that the “songs were written for the most part on the expedition”, with a few from his previous CDs. These songs are a tribute to Antarctica and according to the liner notes, “added a whole new way of understanding, appreciating and digesting everything we were experiencing. Most of the students had them memorized before we returned to South America! And now we have this CD as a lasting memory, gift and legacy for the International Polar Year and our incredible journey of discovery to the bottom of the world.” The tracks of melodic, acoustical folk-rock include such titles as Paradise Bay, Albatross, Gentoo Penguin, With the Whales-Deception Island and The Emperors. Students on Ice is a Gatineau, Québec-based award-winning program led by Geoff Green, dedicated to providing high school and university youth with educational expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic regions, accompanies by world-class teams of scientists, environmentalists and other specialists. ITCD-2008; www.tamblyn.com; www.studentsonice.com; (See also ANGEL’S SHARE (2004) and THE BODY NEEDS TO TRAVEL (1997) by Ian Tamblyn in the following “Individual Antarctic songs” commentary.)

ELEGI FOR ROALD AMUNDSEN by Hornorkesteret (2008) (Web site download only)

This anniversary tribute collection to polar hero Roald Amundsen may well be one of the most original and unusual recorded musical portrayals of an Antarctic theme. Jonas M. Qvale is the founder and a member of Norwegian group Hornorkesteret, formed in 1999 as an experimental art project, which has played in concert halls, museums, in the woods, on mountaintops and contributed to films and theatre. He told us that “I run a band called Hornorkesteret, The Norwegian Polar Orchestra, and we play soundscapes and experimental music on stringed reindeer antlers, stones, drums flutes, logs, ice, coffee percolators and other things. Our main musical concern is the forces of nature, and in particular how they are expressed in the Polar Regions. We have also been very inspired by polar exploration and the period from 1860-1920, when the last “white areas” on the globe were charted and “conquered”. We also find inspiration in the animals of the Polar Regions and their struggle to survive.

By amplifying the reindeer antlers with contact microphones, we are able to get a range of unusual sounds - from the underwater calls of Arctic and Antarctic animals like walrus, seals, various whales and penguins to creaking ship hulls, ice floes, ice shelves breaking off and howling winds.

We have just released an MP3 single commemorating the 80 years since polar hero Roald Amundsen disappeared in the Arctic with the seaplane Latham 47. The title track, Elegi for Roald Amundsen features the vocals of another great Norwegian polar hero, Fridtjof Nansen, taken from his speech at Amundsen’s funeral. Two other tracks related to Amundsen are included on this release, Mot Sydpolen (Towards the South Pole), an imagined soundtrack to the trek towards the Pole in 1911, and Mandolin Under et Vindu (Mandolin Under a Window), which looks at Amundsen’s youth and his early determination to make a name for himself in the Polar regions. Finally, a live version of the title track is included, recorded at the memorial monument at Amundsen’s birthplace in Borge, Norway at a memorial ceremony on the 18^th of June 2008, complete with birdsong and rustling leaves.”

Towards the South Pole is a wonder of feral squawks, bleats and percussion, underlain by a menacing bass and as marching music might be more than adequate to encourage anyone to trek to the Pole and back. www.hornorkesteret.no; www.myspace.com/hornorkesteret

An off-shoot project began in 2001 with Hornorkesteret recordings that were inadequate due to technical and other sound problems. These were organized along with material from other electronical sound sources under the cultural sharing network ORIGAMI ANTARKTIKA. According to their website, the goal is “to freeze down, time-stretch, to punctuate or blur these sounds. To submerge everything in the black waters of Lake Vostok, perhaps never to come back, perhaps to become new soundscapes one day. The low activity of this unit is due to extremely cold temperatures. When things are frozen, the atoms don’t ‘die’ or stop moving, they just slow waaaay down.” www.myspace.com/origamiantarktika

SOUNDS OF AUSTRALIA – THE NATIONAL REGISTRY OF RECORDED SOUND – National Film & Sound Archive (2008)

According to the CD booklet notes, “The National Film and Sound Archives of Australia develops, preserves, maintains and promotes a national audiovisual collection” as an Australian statutory authority created in 2008 from a previous non-statutory agency. The National Registry of Recorded Sound was begun in 2007 “as a way of highlighting Australia’s rich sound heritage. Each year, ten entries are added to an ever-growing list of iconic sound recordings of all genres (not just recorded music but also spoken word, radio serials, advertising jingles and so on), from all periods and across all sound media. The CD presents various musical groups, indigenous musicians and Aboriginal songs. A puzzling inclusion is Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1910 recording of My South Polar Expedition. This is the less well-known of his two recorded recitations about the British 1907-09 Nimrod Antarctic Expedition. This Expedition was not known as an Australian venture, although it did have several Australian crewmen and scientists (including Edgeworth David and Douglas Mawson, who later went on to Antarctic fame in his own right.) ABC 476 6812; www.nfsa.gov.au; (See also HISTORIC VOICES IX – The Voices Collection (2008) following in this section.)

HISTORIC VOICES IX - The Voices Collection (2008)

This CD of speeches by famous people such as Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein and Babe Ruth includes Ernest Shackleton’s My South Polar Expedition, a recitation from March 30, 1910 and the lesser known of the two separate recordings made by him. It describes the British 1907-09 Nimrod Antarctic Expedition led by Shackleton. Unfortunately, for a series such as this, the CD does not have any background liner notes to any of the tracks, indicating recording dates or the contexts of the speeches. Also on this disc is a 20-second excerpt track Reaching the North Pole by Robert Peary, from the recording The Discovery of the North Pole, which was recorded in 1910 by Peary about his expedition, which claimed to have reached the North Pole in 1909. This latter recording was on the reverse side of the first, better known 78 rpm recording made by Shackleton in 1909, A Description of the Dash for the South Pole. Saland Publishing SP180; (See also the compilation disc SINFONIA ANTARTICA/SCOTT OF THE ANTARCTIC (2009) in the “Classical Antarctica: Ralph Vaughan Williams” commentary section at the beginning of this Discography and THE VERY BEST HISTORIC VOICES (2007) following in this section.)

THE VERY BEST HISTORIC VOICES (2007)

According to the CD cover, the disc includes “25 rare recordings from some of the most important people at the turn of the 20^th century”, such as speeches from five American presidents, Commander Robert Peary (talking in 1910 about the discovery of the North Pole), Thomas Edison, Oscar Wilde, Harry Houdini, Buffalo Bill Cody and an 1890 speech by Florence Nightingale. Also included is Ernest Shackleton’s My South Polar Expedition, a recitation from March 30, 1910 and the lesser known of the two separate recordings made by him. It describes the British 1907-09 Nimrod Antarctic Expedition led by Shackleton. Also on this disc is the track The Discovery of the North Pole, which was recorded in 1910 by Peary about his expedition, which claimed to have reached the North Pole in 1909. This latter recording was the reverse side of the first, more commonly known 78 rpm recording made by Shackleton in 1909, A Description of the Dash for the South Pole. The CD was compiled by Bill Seper (Illinois, U.S.A.). Blue Denim Records 92107; (See also the compilation disc SINFONIA ANTARTICA/SCOTT OF THE ANTARCTIC (2009) in the “Classical Antarctica: Ralph Vaughan Williams” commentary section at the beginning of this Discography and HISTORIC VOICES IX - The Voices Collection (2008) in this section.)

ANTARCTIC by Mac Lauren (undated) (Web site download only)

Mac Lauren, from Hobart, Tasmania is an Australian singer-songwriter who has travelled his native land, designed and built green power units and been an electrical contractor. He overwintered in Antarctica and produced three songs from his experiences for his web site. Peace of Mind is a relaxing guitar/harmonica instrumental. The other two tracks are sung in a husky baritone and are very expressive of the strong emotions of beauty and longing brought out by The Ice. Lyrics to Antarctic: “And the beauty of it all becomes clear, as we draw near. South of here there’s an ocean as wide as any known. Grey mountains marching endlessly, the albatross above surfs the air, fortune we share. Antarctic, the beauty of silence, land of the storm. Lift off the deck into a perfect sky, perfect sky. Once around the ship and we’re climbing high. Around the horizon cathedrals float in a frozen sea. I recall her icy breath over me. Antarctic, the beauty of silence, land of the storm. Antarctic, the beauty of silence, land of the storm.”

Lyrics to Return to Australia: : “Where have you been, long lost son? Finally, spring has come. Stretch the days. Draw the life, back to this land, this land of ice. Why does a world so cold, bring fire to the soul? This line on the map in the mess, reading daily, sailing south southwest. Moving an inch a day, slowly and surely coming our way. Red ship is in the bay. Stand by to R.T.A. I’ll never leave you cold. I’ll warm your heart and soul. I’m tired of loving over the phone. I’m meant to hold you. I’m coming home. Red ship is in the bay. I’m on for R.T.A. I’ll never leave you cold. I’ll warm your heart and soul, your heart and soul. Red ship is in the bay. Stand by to R.T.A. We’re coming home.” www.maclaurenmusic.com

CARTOGRAPHER by E.S. Posthumus, featuring Luna Sans (2007)

According to the liner notes, “In 1929, the ancient map “Piri Reis” was discovered in Constantinople. The map is extraordinary because it depicts bays and islands on the Antarctic coast which have been concealed under ice for at least 6,000 years. What civilization was capable of such exploration that long ago? On “Cartographer”, we imagine that these explorers were from the tiny island of Numa in the Southern Indian Ocean. As advanced seafarers, they navigated every corner of the Earth. We have created a language unique to them and tell stories through song that describe their creation, discoveries and ultimate demise.” Piri Re’is (Admiral) was an Ottoman seafarer and cartographer who compiled a now controversial map of the world in 1513. The surviving part shows the coasts of Western Europe, Africa and the Brazilian regions of eastern South America. The South American outlines have been claimed by some writers since the mid-1960s to show an ice-free eastern Antarctic Peninsula coast, though this is unproven. Many others believe this interpretation belongs in the fantasy world of Von Daniken’s Chariot of the Gods.

The composers of the music are two brothers based in Los Angeles, California, with the unlikely-sounding names of Helmut and Franz Vonlichten, also reported to be pseudonyms for two real brothers who have written numerous soundtrack pieces for TV programs and film studios. The music on the disc is big orchestral World Music, largely with a Latin sound with some Mid-Eastern influences. The package contains two discs, one with vocals by the wonderful Luna Sans to lush instrumental tracks and the second has an even fuller all-instrumental treatment. It’s great listening, but with the tropical flavour, it takes a great imagination to pretend that any of the lands portrayed musically could be overlain by miles of ice today. Wigshop Records WS2237; www.esposthumus.com

ANTARCTICA SUITE by Hunter Johnson (2007) (Web site download only)

Hunter Johnson is a California-based musician who grew up in Southeast Asia and moved to Portland, Oregon for his high school years. He has worked independently as an artist and producer for musical projects and for television. This downloadable suite of 13 melodic, instrumental synthesizer pieces began as musical impressions for the paintings and photographs of the visual artist, J. J. L’Heureux, also based in California. L’Heureux has visited the continent five times and has been an Antarctic expedition artist with Quark Expeditions. The themed track titles will be familiar to any Antarctic visitor and include Wilderness Theme, Encounter with Sea & Ice, All Ice Melts, Penguins in Paradise Bay, Frozen Rivers, Walk to the Rookery, Dawn Down Iceberg Alley, White Wilderness, Lemaire Passage, Ice Caps Melting, Crossing the Circle and Zodiac Exploration. In late 2007, Johnson accompanied L’Heureux and a Swiss filmmaker on board the Golden Fleece, a 65-foot motor sloop, which circumnavigated South Georgia, and is composing background music for the video adventure. www.hunterjohnsonmusic.com; www.jjlheureux.com; www.penguinspirit.com

ANTARCTICA by Gill de la tourette (2007) (Web site download only)

De la tourette (Steven Tevels) is a Belgian native and electronica artist. His 39-minute, 6-track Antarctica is a bleak, minimalist ambient work and according to the web site “is a concept CD dedicated to the experimental pioneers who discovered and explored Antarctica...The first impressions of an untouched mighty new land. Extreme circumstances, never ending icy winds, random noisy silence, white absolute monochrome landscapes, hunger, cold, no daylight in winter, the suffering, tiredness and isolation...An audiosonic story, a melodic journey through a world of dissected and strangely reassembled tones. On first listen, these soundscapes could easily sound like a stuttering mess, but give it time and the stutters become a string orchestra and the glitches become the delicate sound of a glockenspiel…” ca080; www.clinicalarchives.blogspot.com; www.myspace.com/gilldelatourette

ANTARCTICA by Metamorfrozen (2007) (Web site download only)

This dynamic 80-minute ambient work, containing 10 instrumental tracks, on a Polish net label dedicated to industrial, dark ambient, power electronica and experimental music, is “especially for all explorers of Polar landscapes.” Titles include Metamorformation, Polar Plateau, Snow Petrels Over the Pole, Diamond Dust, Dark Days Under Mount Terror, Aurora Australis, Subglacial Lakes, Winds Over the Cold Emptiness, Ice-o-lation and Mountains of Madness. No information on the artist in the Web site. KEMn53; www.kaos-ex-machina.pl/promotions

ERNEST SHACKLETON BIG BAND ORCHESTRA (2007 and 2005) (Web site downloads only)

The ESBBO is the ambient recording project of the Lille, France-based artist who records under the name of Kaneda. His eight-track, 41-minute Artic Opera from 2005 is described on the Web site as “polar ambient...a journey into Antarctica with sounds from ice and sea”. The seven-track, 46-minute Rest in Ice from 2007 is described as “polar, always polar.” In 2009 Kaneda told us: “The reason for the “Ernest Shackleton Big Band Orchestra” is really simple. In fact, since I was very young, I’ve always been fascinated by Antarctica and other very cold places. I started producing ambient music a few years ago and had no name for the project. I just used my surname, Kaneda. After a concert, I asked a friend about his feelings. He just said that it was “polar”. No other words...that was the only word he could say about my music. So I found that “polar” was accurate and I searched for a name. While I was looking at a video about Ernest Shackleton, I realized that the technology didn’t allow his team to record sounds but only pictures. I imagined that Ernest Shackleton is still alive and continues his journeys through polar lands and I’m his sound engineer.” www.knd.world.free.fr; www.myspace.com/kanedafeatmoineau; www.archive.org

ENDURANCE by Irezumi (2007)

Irezumi is a former techno artist, based in France, who has created an album of richly desolate ambient music based on Shackleton’s Endurance Expedition. Haunting voiceovers on several of the tracks add to the imagined reality of the drama on ice, water and land, as portrayed in the music. A six panel digipak of bleak black and white photos, of what looks like Frank Hurley’s photographs of South Georgian mountains and glaciers, adds to the listening experience. As to the reason for the CD, a representative of the record label told us that, “Irezumi read some stuff about Shackleton, I think he also saw some documentaries. And it was enough for him to make an album.” Snowblood Snow01; www.myspace.com/irezumimusic

TILL ANTARCTICA by Elisa Korenne (2007)

Till Antarctica may well be the catchiest, upbeat, can’t-get-it-out-of-your-head Antarctic tune we’ve come across. It’s the theme song for the play Antarctica, which was written by Carolyn Raship and premièred at the New York City Fringe Festival in 2007. The play is about two schoolgirls who meet at school and plan to go to Antarctica to find the magnetic South Pole. Elisa Korenne is a New York-based singer/composer with numerous songwriting awards to her credit. While the song has not yet been commercially issued on a CD, we are eager to see take its rightful place as one of the greats of recorded Antarctic tunes. A song sample may be heard on the myspace website listed below. Sample lyrics: “Blue ice may freeze our feet, Blubber’s all there is to eat, I’m with you…No matter where you want to go, I’ll stay by your side, you know, I’ll see it through, I’ll stay with you, Till Antarctica. If penguins steal our sleeping bags, You break your legs on the icy crags, I’m with you. The wind could wail loud and cold, Snow blindness could take hold, I’m with you, I’m with you.” Elisa told us that “I haven't been to Antarctica (the only continent I haven't been to!) and I hear it’s incredible. My images of Antarctica come from a variety of sources. Mainly, they come from the text of the play itself. The song was almost an accident. I was at a writing retreat trying to write a musical, and I was procrastinating. I read the play, and figured I ought to at least write a song based on it as a fun exercise if I wasn’t going to be writing my musical. The other places my images come from are photographs I’ve seen of my friend kayaking the Arctic and photographs of the Endurance journey in Antarctica.” www.elisakorenne.com; www.myspace.com/antarcticatheplay

ANTARCTICA - Nature Recordings by Global Journey (2007)

Global Journey is a music, audio and video programming and distribution firm, dedicated to many and various lifestyle and nature themes, with offices in the U.K. and U.S. Its CDs are composed and performed by professional musicians and artists and the firm specializes in non mainstream markets. The Antarctica CD is a 51-minute presentation of wind, pounding water, storms and various wildlife sounds. According to the liner notes Antarctica is “a place of such raw beauty and unspoilt landscapes, a stunning wilderness of great importance. The polar experience is one of awe inspiring imagery from the Southern Lights (Aurora Australis) and whale-watching to the amazing penguin colonies and the glacial configurations.” Global Journey CD GJ3715; www.global-journey.com

ANTARCTICA - A Portrait in Wildlife and Natural Sound (2007)

Originally released on LP in 1971, this 48-minute British CD is a collection of 16 tracks of natural Antarctic sounds, including penguins, seals, birds, ice movement, blizzard, spring, rough seas and huskies. It was recorded over 1969-70 and produced by the then British Antarctic Survey meteorologist/filmmaker and later author, Edwin Mickleburgh. He has provided an extensive liner booklet with copious notes about the nature and wildlife of each recorded scene. Saydisc CD-SDL219; www.saydisc.com

ICE – PIANO SLIGHTLY CHILLED (2007) by Fiona Joy Hawkins; ANGEL ABOVE MY PIANO by Fiona Joy Hawkins (2006)

Fiona Joy is an Australian painter and pianist whose 2006 CD of romantic New Age piano presents a suite of Antarctic Interludes, which includes Crystal Desert, Dance of the Penguins, Flight of the Albatross and Angel Above My Piano. Her 2007 CD, with added percussion and accompaniment, contains Antarctic Wings, a perkier sounding reprise of Flight of the Albatross from her 2006 disc, as well as Snow Bird, a vocal version of the same piece. She told us, “I went out of New Zealand and into Hobart, Australia on an Orion Expedition Cruise (2005) - we went to the Antarctic Continent – most boats only go from South America to the Peninsula. I believe that less than six boats go there each year – we went to the lowest latitude you can sail to. The boat was fantastic and had two pianos on board – thus I could write as I looked out the window. As I am a conceptual writer, I need subject matter, and Antarctica is perfect to write music about. In my mind I captured what it is like, I hope other people agree – I guess it’s always something personal. I have to be honest, there were several places I went that I could hear no music whatsoever – it was simply too desolate and there was too much hardship (Scott’s Hut) – but the beauty of the ocean, the glaciers, the sunset, the mountains and the wildlife were irresistible to write about.” Fiona’s Antarctic video clips, including scenes of her playing the piano on the ship, have appeared on www.youtube.com (use Penguin Whisperer in the search box). Little Hartley Music FJH002 (2006 disc) and FJH003 (2007 disc); www.fionajoyhawkins.com; www.littlehartleymusic.com

THE ANTARCTIC BALLADS by Cliff Wedgbury (2006)

Cliff Wedgbury is a Cork, Ireland-based literary writer and performing artist and broadcaster who has produced his own folk song tribute to the heroes of the Golden Era of Antarctic exploration of the early 1900s. According to the liner notes, he was originally inspired as a youngster in 1956 when he visited the R.S.S. Discovery, the ship used on Robert Scott’s 1901-04 first Antarctic expedition, which was then docked in London, England. In 2009, Cliff told us that “My interest began one hot summer Sunday afternoon when my late father took myself and my older sister up to central London from our home in the suburbs, to visit Capt. Scott’s first Antarctic ship “Discovery”, which was berthed at that time on the Thames. After that visit and the stories he told us of Antarctic exploration, I saved up my pocket-money and purchased a second-hand copy of “South With Scott” by Lt. Teddy Evans. As a teenager I learnt folk guitar, and began writing songs, but it is only in the past nine years that I wrote the Antarctic ballads, spurred on by reading, “Unsung Hero” by Michael Smith, about Irishman Tom Crean. I sang at the unveiling ceremony of his statue by his two surviving daughters. I also sang my ballads below decks on “Discovery” with Scott’s grandson, Edward Wilson’s nephew David, and Lt. Teddy Evans’ son Broke. Last November (2008), I sang at the Shackleton Museum in Athy, Co. Kildare.” The CD has 12 tuneful songs, sung in an earnest, earthy baritone voice with guitar accompaniment. Titles include five ballads, The Ballads of Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton, Teddy Evans, Of The Invalid and Tom Crean. Other songs include Soldier, Soldier, Where The Icebergs Flow, Sailor Boy, Sweethearts and Wives, Daddy Will You Tell Us, Emily’s Song and Each Dawn Seems So New. The CD comes with a booklet with the Scott and Shackleton histories, all the song lyrics plus music notation for The Ballad of Ernest Shackleton and The Ballad of Tom Crean, who was a hero of both Scott’s and Shackleton’s expeditions. www.myspace.com/cliffwedgbury

ANTARCTICA SONGS by The Aquatic Ape Theory (2006) (Web site download only)

TAAT is the alter ego of San Diego-based Jim Behrens. This collection of folksy roots rock was recorded at the Australian Antarctic base, Davis Station and mixed onboard the supply ship RSV Aurora Australis. Tracks include White White (sample lyrics: “White white, everywhere you look is white, Sunlight comin’ up from below. My face is turning red, it’s time for me to go to bed and dream of dreams of home. I’ve been puttin’ in my time of workin’ on the line, and in this strange empty place filled with snow, day turns to night, someone forgot to turn off the lights.”), Sun Dogs, Amery, Vegemite and In a Tent (In a blizzard).

We asked Jim in 2008 about the background of his music and he provided the following remarkable biography: “I am a geophysicist, and was fortunate enough to spend two summer seasons working in Antarctica as a post-doc at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. I made a website during my second season (2006-07) where you can learn about the project and day-to-day life in the Antarctic: http://loose-tooth.ucsd.edu. At the top of the ‘science’ page there is a link to a YouTube video I put together that gives a good summary as well. On the ‘links’ page there is a link to photographs from the 2005-06 season, when the songs were written and recorded.

I brought my guitar and harmonicas, along with a bare-bones recording rig, during that first season, 2005-06. I spent two solid months living in tents on the Amery Ice Shelf as part of a 6-person field team, which is when I wrote the songs and lyrics. We were collecting seismic data by laying out geophone arrays and setting off small charges of dynamite, to measure the thickness of the ice and the depth of the seawater beneath us. One of the women in the team (Marianne Okal) was a classically-trained violinist, she brought a mandolin which she played wonderfully, and we wrote the music to Amery together, and she wrote her part for Sun Dogs. The album cover photo is a timed self-portrait of us posing in front of the midnight sun out on the ice shelf. We spent the final month of the season based back at Davis Station, where I stayed up late many nights to record the tracks in an empty room in the science building. The hard walls and high ceiling created a nice natural reverb. There is a band hut at Davis as well, and there were a surprising number of musicians down there that season. I set up and recorded the drum tracks in the hut one afternoon, after most everything else had been recorded to a click track. I played all the instruments except for some of the mandolin parts. I mixed the songs during the two-week icebreaker transit back to Hobart, Tasmania, and sent them off to get mastered once I returned to California.

The lyrics for White White, Sun Dogs, and Amery are my interpretations of and meditations on life on the ice shelf: being so far from home and spending the holidays with a small group of relative strangers; the overwhelming beauty, remoteness, and hostility of the environment; the interpersonal conflicts as well as the camaraderie; the mental and physical strain that accumulated over two months out there. I came up with the bridge for White White while on a long snowmobile transit one fine morning. The line ‘sun dogs, halos, iridescent rainbows’ refers to the unusual atmospheric optical effects that occur in the cold, clean air down there. One night when I got out of my tent around 2 am and a low fog had settled on the ice shelf, there were sun dogs projected into the fog that looked to be about 10 meters away from my face. Astonishing. Vegemite is about me learning to love the stuff. The expedition was run by the Australian Antarctic Division, and so there was an endless supply of Vegemite. I wrote that one in about 10 minutes, and recorded the guitar and vocals on the first take. In aTent (In a Blizzard) is actually two overlapping ambient sound recordings, made with the internal mic on my laptop, in two different tents on successive nights during a week-long blizzard. I had intended to record some spare, simple guitar to go with it, but ran out of time. I brought gear down again for the second season, but it was shorter, and when I was at Davis Station I had many more opportunities to get out on long multi-day hikes in the local area, which I couldn’t pass up. I made time for music as well, but was mostly jamming with the other musicians at the base, and never really got any substantial recording done.

Well that’s probably more that you wanted to know, but it’s not often that someone asks me about the music I make, which is my true passion in life. I always travel with at least a guitar, and am always writing songs as I go. I got about halfway through a proper album earlier this year, but had to put it on hold – I’ve been at sea in the Arctic now since May, but all the background noise on a ship makes it a bad place to record. Anyway, I’ll be back home soon, and back to my studio with new songs in my head.” www.jimbo.cc

HELLO ANTARCTICA by Max Marlow and Ma5kin3 (2006) (Web site download only)

Max Marlow is a German electronic musician whose 26-minute Hello Antarctica suite of five ambient tracks contains some appropriately sinister, icy themes that would be ideal background soundtracks for a creepy movie involving escapes through deep glaciers, crevasses and underground caverns. Metro024; www.retropublik.net; www.myspace.com/maxmarlow

THE COLDEST PLACE ON EARTH by Green Bean Music (2006)

Green Bean, based in Evanston, Illinois was formed in 2002 by teacher Bill Corrough and songwriter/producer Ryan Bassler to create enjoyable musical productions for students, teachers and parents. Their web sites says that, “Kids want to hear and sing songs that their big brothers and sisters listen to, not songs that sound like what adults think they like.” There are twelve musicals in their CD catalogue and this is a great one, about Antarctica, with the tracks The Coldest Place on Earth, Race to the Pole, Ice Formations, Antarctic Penguins, and Which Way is North. The up-beat songs are in three sets, with the first performed by Green Bean, the second has vocals by a group of children and the third has instrumentals only, for a sing along. The performance package also includes a data disc with the lyrics, music, spoken parts for the musical presentation and additional information about Antarctica with Web site references. Ryan told us that, “Our music company has been writing 2-3 musicals a year, and one of the recurring themes has been the Continents, so Antarctica was bound to happen sometime. Probably one of the only times you'll hear 200 kids singing about Ernest Shackleton.” Polyholiday Records phcdr206; www.greenbeanmusic.com

BLOODY SEA by Merzbow (2006)

Merzbow is a Japanese experimental electronic music project begun by Masami Akita in 1979. Alone or with numerous collaborators, he has released numerous CDs as well as books and articles about subcultures and recently, animal rights. Music may be a generous description of his abstract synthesizer mosaics, which might otherwise be described as noise. The present CD is a three-part Anti-Whaling Song, which may take more than three listenings to absorb. The sound is harsh and difficult to listen to, in keeping with the harsh, bloody and unpleasant topic.

The CD cover notes present a strident polemic against so-called Japanese scientific whaling in the Antarctic, which begins: “In November, 2006, the Japanese whaling fleet will set sail for the icy waters of Antarctica. Their target - 50 Humpback Whales, 50 Fin Whales and almost l000 Minke Whales. In the next l6 years, unless this obscene ‘scientific whaling’ program, known as JARPA 2, is stopped, the Japanese whaling fleet will slaughter l7,000 Minke Whales, 800 Humpbacks and 800 Fin Whales. The murder of these beautiful creatures spells the end of the global moratorium on the killing of whales as Japan’s so-called ‘scientific whaling’ is nothing more than a commercial killing operation. The Japanese Government subsidises its whaling industry with thousands of dollars each year. Japanese warehouses are piled high with mountains of unused whale meat. School children are given whale hamburgers and sausages in an attempt to turn them on to eating whale meat. The truth is that the market for whale meat in Japan is almost non-existent. Yet still the Japanese Government pursues its deadly agenda of turning the world’s oceans into a slaughterhouse for whales. Old whalers who worked in Antarctica in the fifties, when thousands and thousands of whales were killed, cannot wipe the memories of the hideous slaughter from their minds…..

Tell your family, friends, workmates that the whales will die unless we, the people act. There is legal action which can be taken to stop the slaughter. There is hope. Miracles can happen, but we must create the magic. The whales demand no less. The great mind in the waters is calling on caring humans to ensure their survival. This call is nothing less than the crossroads of our humanity, our survival. Do it!” VIVO2006022CD; www.merzbow.net

DARK ADVENTURE RADIO THEATRE PRESENTS H. P. LOVECRAFT’S “AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS” (2006)

The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society (of Glendale, California) has adapted one of Lovecraft’s best regarded stories in the form of a spooky 75 minute radio play in the way it might have been produced in the 1930s. If you ever thought that early life oozed out of a tropical Antarctica, then this is for you. The story, originally written in 1931, appeared as a serialized edition in Astounding Stories in 1936 and was published as a novella in 1939. Byrd-era Antarctic technology is combined with unbounded sci-fi imagination in a university Antarctic expedition gone wrong. Despite the exaggerated imagery, this classic story asks a good question – how far should science go for the sake of curiosity? It concludes that some things are better left unearthed. www.cthulhulives.org

HP LOVECRAFT was also the name of a 1960s eclectic Chicago and later Marin County, California folk rock/ psychedelic band, which issued two records in 1967 and 1968. Both were issued as a CD package in 2000 and the second, HP LOVECRAFT II (1968) contains the track At the Mountains of Madness. Apparently about a bad acid trip, no Antarctic content is discernible, despite the notable title. Collector’s Choice Music 314542821-2; www.collectorschoicemusic.com

HAPPY FEET - Music from the Motion Picture (2006)

The Warner Bros.’ film about Mumbles, the Antarctic penguin who can’t sing but can tap dance up a storm became an early box office success and won the Oscar for best animated feature film of 2006. The recycled dance music of the soundtrack is sung by many currently hip singers but unfortunately there was no apparent attempt here to create fresh music that would be Antarctic in lyrics or mood. Warner Sunset/Atlantic CD83998; www.happyfeetmovie.com

ANTARCTIC JOURNAL – Original Soundtrack composed by Kenji Kawai (2005)

South Korean director Yim Pil-Sung has made an Antarctic mystery and psychological thriller about six expeditioners crossing the continent. After they find a journal from another expedition that disappeared 80 years ago, turmoil and terror abound. The soundtrack is pretty bleak and bare, likely matching the mood of the film, which has not yet caught any publicity in North America. Sony Music Direct (Japan) Inc. MHCP 840

ANTARCTICA - Musical Images from the Frozen Continent by Craig Vear (2005)

Vear, a British electro-acoustic composer and musician, won an Arts Council England Fellowship, in conjunction with the British Antarctic Survey’s Artists and Writers Programme, to spend three months over 2003/04 on British bases in the Antarctic Peninsula area. The result was the multi-media Antarctica, which includes a small book of his diaries and other commentaries, a CD of recorded Antarctic wildlife sounds, ice breaking and glacial melting, and a DVD. The DVD includes an electro-acoustic composition comprised of original field recordings of wildlife, mechanical and human sounds, portraying the interactions of the people with their environments. Enlighten Entertainment Ltd.; www.ev2.co.uk

LA MARCHE DE L’EMPEREUR by Emilie Simon (2005)

This is the soundtrack for the French film of the same name by Luc Jacquet (English title: March of the Penguins), a soaring flockumentary about the harsh frozen world of Emperor penguins. The original French version of the film has actors cutely voicing penguins while the English version has narration by Morgan Freeman and a different soundtrack. The original French film music, by Simon, a French singer and instrumentalist, is in an electropop New Age style with English vocals, reminiscent of Icelandic singer Björk. Some of the song titles include The Frozen World, Antarctic, Baby Penguins, Aurora Australis. All is White, Footprints in the Snow. Barclay 9827008. There is also a version of this disc with the English title MARCH OF THE EMPRESS (2005) Milan M2-36276; (See also MARCH OF THE PENGUINS Original Score by Alex Wurman (2005) in the preceding “Classical Antarctica” commentary.)

VOICES OF HISTORY 2 - Arts, Science & Exploration (2005)

In this second set of vocal recordings of famous people from the British Library Sound Archive, there is a 3.48 minute recitation by Ernest Shackleton titled A description of the dash for the South Pole, recorded on June 23, 1909. Shackleton very briefly outlines the British Antarctic (Nimrod) Expedition of 1907-09, which he led and which was the first to scale Mount Erebus and send men to the South Magnetic Pole. Shackleton and three others came within 112 miles of the South Pole itself, before conditions made them turn back. He ends with a quote from Robert Service, famous for his poetry of Canada’s northern Yukon area. British Library NSACD 19-20; www.bl.uk/soundarchive; (See also the compilation SINFONIA ANTARTICA/SCOTT OF THE ANTARCTIC (2009) in the “Classical Antarctica: Ralph Vaughan Williams” section and LET US NOT FORGET – A Tribute to the Phonograph - Historic Speech Recordings (1973) in this commentary section.)

YETI SOCIETY by Harald Grosskopf (2004)

Harald Grosskopf is a veteran German drummer/percussionist and composer in the electronic music world for his own groups as well as a performer with other artists. His fifth solo album, with an iceberg on the back cover, has Shackleton’s 1914-16 Endurance Expedition to Antarctica as its overall theme. The interesting, tuneful beat-heavy tracks include Circumspection, Bravery, Elephant Island, Endurance, South Georgia, Broad Liquids and Endeavourance. Harald explained to us in 2009 the reason for his general Antarctic theme on the album: “I was very much inspired by reading the incredible logbook/diary of Sir Ernest Shackleton. His strength and intelligence made them successfully cross, in a tiny lifeboat, the damned cold southern ice sea for more than 600 miles, with most primitive navigation tools, in rough seas with bad sightings (upon sun and stars) and saved his comrades’ lives, after another year of several painful tries, with the loss of just one man out of thirty something…Most thrilling!” Groove GR 110; www.haraldgrosskopf.de

HIDDEN LANDSCAPE: LAKE VOSTOK by various artists (2004)

Eight Australian musicians have each contributed a track of ambient music in this disc dedicated to Antarctica’s largest subglacial lake. It is located under more than two miles of ice and believed to be up to 15 million years old. The water in the lake, from the melting of the underside of the ice sheet, may be up to one million years old. The dark toned music on the disc, while not a bubbly listening experience, captures well, the timeless and languid nature of water hidden over frozen eons of time. These would be great soundtracks for cinema. Track titles include some very descriptive themes: Silent Voices of the Extremophiles-Bright Steel Blind Waters, Under a Blue Sun, Atlantis Blueprints and Beneath the Lake-Subatomic Movements. The 72-minute CD was compiled by Australian ambient musician and promoter Zac Keiller and includes one of his own pieces, Beyond the Ice-Submergence-Exploration. He told us in 2008 that “I was watching a documentary on Lake Vostok one day and the idea of the lake inspired my imagination. I thought that the premise would lend itself to some fascinating sound pieces, and luckily it all worked out.” Dreamland Recordings (no record # given); www.dreamlandrecordings.com

LAKE VOSTOK by Sternenspringer (2004) (Web site download only)

Sternenspringer is the musical project of two Frankfurt, Germany-based ambient/techno electronic musicians, Jürgen Rieger and Gerd Neusser. This 23-minute, 4-track work, Lake Vostok, named for Antarctica’s mysterious subsurface lake, has the following description in the Web site: “icy textures and tricky rhythmic elements fill the range, that sternenspringer span in each track - a movie for the big screen in four aural scenes.” The duo told us in 2008 that “for the sternenspringer music we are looking always for a kind of topic. In this case we read an article in a newspaper (journal) and were fascinated about this natural phenomenon and decided to create some techno/electro tracks. We hope the music mirrored this unique natural spectacle.” Tonatom.038; www.tonatom.net; www.sternenspringer.de

BIRD SONGS IN THE ANTARCTIC INCLUDING SOUTH GEORGIA & FALKLAND ISLANDS (2004)

Recorded from the Explorer II, this 31-minute British CD has tracks of 24 birds and penguins recorded from the Antarctic Peninsula area, South Georgia, Falkland Islands and Ushuaia. Mandarin Productions MP CD5; www.mandarinproductions.com

MUSIC FROM CHRISTOPHER KULIKOWSKI’s RETROGADE by Stephen Melillo (2004)

Quickly shot in a short time with a low budget, this sci-fi film stars Dolph Lundgren. It’s about a group of scientists, travelling back from the future to the present time, who land on the Antarctic pack ice, where the polar research vessel, Nathaniel Palmer, is chasing a comet and has itself become trapped in the same ice. Throw in some deadly extraterrestrial bacteria and mutinous space travellers, and things are not looking good on board the ship. Unfortunately, the film has had no exposure in North America and may have limited distribution/availability on DVD. Although the CD package is bare bones with only a track listing, Stephen Mellilo’s entire score, including the track Antarctica, is suitably spooky and may be better than the film. Mellilo, an American conductor, educator and composer, has scored over 950 works for films, ensembles and symphonies and his work has been nominated for Academy and Emmy awards. Stormworks; www.cdbaby.com

ANTARCTINA by YNEY (2004)

This CD of instrumental tracks related to Antarctica was recorded in Moscow by a trio of established avant-garde Russian musicians (Yuri Orlov, Andrei Kireev & Igor Shaposhnikov). The bouncy, though repetitive, percussive electronic music has titles such as Appearance from Above, Stroll, Flight over the Continent, Fly Out, Return to Bosom and Light of the Antarctina Star. While the CD booklet is in Russian, the track titles are also listed in English. Electroshock Records ELCD 041; www.electroshock.ru

T & T’s REAL TRAVELS IN ANTARCTICA - Original Soundtrack Music composed and recorded by Thomas Downie (2004)

A 23-minute disc containing 12 themes with titles from numerous places along the Antarctic Peninsula, such as King George Island, Deception Island and Lemaire Channel. The short melodic orchestral sounding pieces are from T & T’s Antarctica DVD of a 2004 Peninsula trip on board the M/V Orlova. TTRT004; www.ttrealtravels.com

ALIEN VS. PREDATOR - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, music by Harald Kloser (2004)

As much we always look forward to the very rare movie set in Antarctica, this one could have just as easily been based in a desert or in a jungle. The Antarctic became irrelevant to the theme of aliens fighting it out in a pyramid built deep in the ice by three ancient cultures. The eerie instrumental soundtrack music, similar to that of another spooky Antarctic movie, The Thing, contains a tune entitled Antarctica and likely the first and only musical track ever to be named Bouvetøya Island, the most isolated island on the planet, in the Southern Ocean. Varèse Sarabande 302 066 605 2; www.avp-movie.com

SEA OF GLORY America’s Voyage of Discovery - The U.S. Exploring Expedition 1838-1842 by Nathaniel Philbrick, read by Dennis Boutsikaris (2003)

While CD audio books are otherwise not being listed in this music Discography, this 5-CD, 6-hour package is the exception, and is a superb invitation/teaser for reading the book by Philbrick. According to the cover notes, “The U.S. Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842 was one of the most ambitious undertakings of the nineteenth century. They discovered a new southern continent, which Wilkes would name Antarctica. They were the first Americans to reach the treacherous Columbia River; the first to chart dozens of newly discovered islands all across the Pacific. The story pivots around Charles Wilkes – a self-destructive dynamo who undermined his own prodigious feats by alienating his crew and officers, fighting battles with his sponsors, and jealously guarding what should have been a proud national legacy.”

Polar historian Laurence Kirwan described the U.S. Ex Ex as the worst prepared and most controversial expedition to sail the Antarctic seas (ref. Lonely Planet Antarctica). Although Antarctic exploration was only part of its mandate, it managed to follow 1250 miles of East Antarctic coastline, later known as Terre Adélie and Wilkes Land, making, arguably, the first east continental sighting just days before the French Expedition under Dumont d’Urville. CDs 2 & 3 cover the voyages to the South Shetland Islands and along the Adélie Coast, respectively. Penguin Audiobooks 80023-6; www.penguin.com; (See also FAIR WINDS AND A FOLLOWING SEA by The Boarding Party (2003) - The Old Peacock - in the following “Individual Antarctic songs” commentary.)

ANTARCTIC MOSAIC by Maurizio Bianchi (2003)

Italian composer of sonic dissonance, Bianchi has produced a 74-minute two-part collage and pastiche of electronic sounds and noises. According to the English translation of his Italian liner notes, “Being eager for immaculate spaces and for spheres of pure sentiment, I felt need to take inspiration from the so-called “frozen continent”, the unique place in which the human presence doesn’t completely contaminate the habitat yet. The hostile surroundings and the prohibitive temperatures rendered possible the perpetuation of the most uncontaminated and stimulating “frozen paradise”. Yes, this is the most appropriate term as probably, in the beginning, Antarctica was an immense park or paradise; but after the post-Flood upsetting events (from the autumn of 2370 BC onwards), when unexpectedly and suddenly the temperatures fell many centigrade degrees, all at once this continent became cold, turning into the present Antarctica. All of this is well emphasized in the first track called “Antarctic”, while in the second one, “Mosaic”, the listener’s mind is projected into the immediate future, when, after the decontamination process of human presence on the Earth, the temperatures will return milder. Maybe even the ex-“frozen continent” will be colonized in a peaceful and rational manner by the “New Earth’s” members, a new human society which will transform the whole planet into a wonderful Paradise, to eternal glory of He Who from the beginning proposed that this is how it must be. To all of you, current members of that future “New Earth”, a warm and enthusiastic “Have a good listening!” EEs’T Records 15MB015

VOSTOK by Craig Padilla (2002)

Padilla is a northern California-based electronic musician and performer with a preference for older analog synthesizers. Vostok is a relaxing, 51-minute single-track ambient instrumental. As with Antarctica, nothing much changes for long stretches of time, but also nothing stays the same. According to the liner notes, “Inspired by the mysterious depths of the hidden lake under Antarctica, VOSTOK is a haunting voyage into an unknown space filled with wonder and awe. Padilla masterfully crafts a subterranean soundworld, transforming electronic instruments into subtle abstract beauty that feels no less organic than inorganic, in this visionary longform ambient work.” Padilla’s own liner notes describe it as “music realized in contemplation of the inner stillness reflected by a distant, sub-glacial lake beneath Antarctica. Jewel-like and crystalline, yet dark, cool, and ancient the muse of Lake Vostok flowed through me like a resonant glacier. Now this unique, vibrant soundscape flows to you. I hope that you find the vision and sonic space as riveting and transforming as I have. Peace.”

Craig told us in 2007 that “I hope you are enjoying the musical atmosphere. I remember when I recorded that piece: I had just read a fascinating article in WIRED Magazine about how satellites had discovered an unknown lake underneath a lot of ice. According to the article, once it was discovered, scientists theorized that the hidden lake may contain many keys to the origins of life since the water was uncontaminated by our atmosphere for millions of years! So, they began to drill a hole down to the water when they suddenly realized that by doing so they’d expose the lake to our atmosphere, and so they stopped the drilling by a few meters of hitting the water!

It was a very interesting story, to say the least! (Also during that time, I had been listening to some long-form ambient music that was nice, but not too terribly interesting from a musical/long song stand-point.) So, a day or so later, I went into the recording studio to create a long-form ambient piece that could be heard during sleep, but it also had to hold the interest of the listener. In other words, I didn’t want to create “wallpaper ambient music”. I wanted to make music that wasn’t distracting so somebody could study or sleep with it on in the background, and at the same time it had to be interesting so that somebody could sit down and just listen to it from beginning to end and enjoy the experience (and I think I was quite successful!)

I recorded the track live in one take! The light wind sounds and heavy slow-moving “glacial bass lines” made me think of the article I had just read; and the rest is history! This track was unlike anything I was recording at the time, but I really enjoyed it and still do! (And thankfully, so does my wife!)” Spotted Peccary Music SPM-1401; www.craigpadilla.com

ANTARCTICA REVISITED by Mr. I, Gary Huntbatch and Anise Abdulla (2002)

British Columbia, Canada-based teacher and musician-entertainer Mr I (Yurgen Ilaender) has produced many CDs about geography and science for kids. He told us, “I have worked in Montessori pre-schools for nearly twenty years now. Antarctica is a popular Montessori theme. The children can study an environment not spoiled by man. Lots of wonderful things happen in the classroom. The songs came from several years of teaching the young children about Antarctica.” The CD includes 17 tracks with titles such as Land So Far Away, Antarctica Song, Seals, McMurdo Station, Food Chain, Crusty Krill and An Ice Rap. The CD was completely redone is 2007 and reissued in 2008 with new vocals and instrumental tracks under the title of ANTARCTICA. ANT-6 and ANT-7; www.childmusicmri.com (See also ALL COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD by Mr. I, Gary Q & the Rainbow Singers (2009) in the following “Individual Antarctic songs” commentary.)

ELEPHANT ISLAND by Adam Schabtach (2002)

There is an eye-catching cover photo of the bleak ice-coated island of Shackleton’s legendary 1914-16 Endurance Expedition, taken by a retired Rear Admiral of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The musical content comprises a single 66-minute synthesizer piece composed and recorded in a continuous improvisation. It’s pretty much just a long drawn out monotonic ambient dirge - not an awful lot going on there, which in its way may well be echoing the survival routine of much of the Expedition. ATOM CD 17; www.atomiccity.com

TIME TRAVEL IS LONELY by John Vanderslice (2001)

Vanderslice is a San Francisco-based indie folk-rock artist/story teller and producer. His second CD is a concept album about his apparently fictional brother, who is a snow-trapped programmer at an Antarctic geology field camp. The nine diary entries in the liner notes reveal the mental decline of the brother, particularly after he loses his computer’s E-mail connection and hard drive to a virus. The songs, while not Antarctic in content, echo this state of regression, which ends with visions of Tiananmen Square and the sinking of the Kursk submarine. At first, the diarist is lucid: “I am not going to say it’s cold here, and I won’t tell you about the vast, infinite emptiness that draws every sad lonely feeling out of your breathless soul and drops it on the bluish snow, right at your polypropylene boots.” Later on, his mind wanders: “I am going crazy. I crawl out of my hut to scrape my windows, I can’t bear to be stuck in a white frosted box with nothing but the shortwave. The sun crests up around 9 pm and fades after an hour or so. Have I told you about whiteouts? USGS survival manual: a polar hazard where all horizon definition between land and sky, solid ground & coast, vanishes. We are in a whiteout. A little girl has been coming by at night, she lives at McMurdo Base, (which seems far) but she comes to talk she tells me my station is an ECHELON relay base. I need to look into this. She said I should smash it up! Ahh youth. I need to talk to you soon.” The CD cover has a striking but spooky drawing of a blue, black, white ocean frozen ocean scene with reddish sky with a silhouetted Endurance crushed in the ice. The CD itself is embossed with a crevassed modern van superimposed over the wreck of the Endurance. Barsuk Records bark17; www.johnvanderslice.com

WHALE CHASING MEN - Songs of Whaling in Ice and Sun by Harry Robertson (2001)

Harry Robertson (1923-1995) was a native Glaswegian who immigrated to Australia in 1952, worked during 1950-51 as an engineer with the Norwegian whaling fleet in the Antarctic and wintered over at South Georgia. He became a seminal influence in the Australian folk movement of the 1960s and made the above-titled LP in 1971. Through the efforts of his widow and friends, the LP was released on CD in 2001 by Australia’s National Screen & Sound Archive as its first folk reissue. Through spoken introductions and instrumental accompaniments, the songs and chanteys mince no words about the gruesome, hard scenes of the whaling experience and Antarctic references abound. The lyrics of the Antarctic track, The Antarctic Fleet, are:

“I went down south a-whaling, to the land of ice and snow, And eight-and-twenty pounds a month, was all I had to show, For being on a little ship like sardine in a can, And eating salty pork and beef, they stewed up in a pan.

Chorus: Heigh-ho! Whale-oh, Wi’ the Antarctic fleet, I’ve got a drip upon me nose and I’m frozen in the feet.
South Georgia is an island, it is a Whaling Base, And only men in search of whales, would go to such a place, No entertainment does exist unless you make home brew, Then we would have some singing and, we’d have some fighting too.

Our gunner came from Norway, like many of the crew, And others spoke wi’ Scottish tongues, as Whalers often do, But when the ship was closing in to make the bloody kill, The Scotsmen and Norwegians worked together with a will.

We sailed down to the Weddell Sea where the big Blues can be found, We chased between the icebergs and, we chased them round and round, And when they couldn’t run no more, and fought to draw their breath, Our gunners shot harpoons in them, till they floated still in death.

For months we sailed the ocean, and wearied with the toil, Of slaughter and of killing just to get that smelly oil, And when the savage storms blew and snow kept falling down, I often wished that I was back, in dear old Glasgow town.

It’s twenty years since I’ve been there, and I won’t go there again, I didn’t like the climate but, I liked the Whaling Men, And even in the sunshine now, when I walk along the street, I’ve got a drip upon me nose, and I’ve still got frozen feet.” ScreenSound Australia CD/SSA/WC0022; www.nfsa.afc.gov.au; (See also FOLKLORIC RECORDING: Folk Songs Sung by Harry Robertson and Don Henderson (1967) in the “Individual Songs” category below.)

THE ICESTOCK 2001 PROJECT (2001)

The first music compilation disc from Antarctica includes live performances at the Coffee House and the Women’s Soirée at the U.S. McMurdo Station. Organized by G.W. Krauss, the project was a labour of love, undertaken and completed by volunteers. While the cold weather and dry air may cause numb fingers and warped musical instruments, Icestock has now become an annual musical festival on New Year’s Day. The inaugural CD manages to cover a lot of ground, or should we say, icy terrain, through various styles over the 24 tracks. Information available at: kuwona@bigfoot.com

FROST 79º 40’ by Andreas Ammer, F. M. Einheit, Pan Sonic and Gry (2000) (Web site download only)

This is a 1998 live recording at the German Stadttheater Oberhausen and is a musical and spoken (in German and English) presentation of Robert Scott’s diary from his polar expedition and the tragic return attempt after his team reached the South Pole in 1912. The recording takes its title from the latitude of their final resting place. Ammer is a German freelance writer, television journalist and radio and stage playwright. Einheit (Frank Martin Strauss) is a German electronic musician and percussionist who has issued solo CDs as well as collaborations with others. The 25 tracks, of varying length, are backed by various electronic and industrial soundscapes providing a suitably bleak and dark musical backing to the narration and singing. F. M. Einheit told us in 2009 about the reason for the production: “We were curious why people do such things in order to bring fame home to the fatherland. Funny idea. There will be a re-release in spring 2010.” Available from iTunes. www.fmeinheit.org

BLUE SUBMARINE NO. 6 - AONOROKUGO - Original Soundtrack by the Thrill (2000)

Originally the name of a Japanese manga print comic book series, Blue Submarine No. 6 became a four part video animation TV program in 1998 and was reported to be in planning for a live-action movie. Based in the near future when the oceans have flooded most of the earth’s coastlines, the series’ villain/ rogue scientist has a base of operations at the South Pole and is trying to induce a polar switch with the aid of the South Pole’s geothermal energy, in order to teach his brand of humanity to mankind. War later ensues on Antarctica, with the good guys on Blue Submarine No. 6, part of a peacekeeping force, leading the way to confront the enemy. Antarctica, meanwhile, has been transformed into the tropics. The series finally ends with the pole shift stopped and an uneasy truce for the sake of humanity. Japanese big band/rock group the Thrill, formed in 1990, provides some very energetic music for the series. Toshiba-EMI Futureland TYVY-10036; www.thethrill.info

PENGUINS ON THE MOON by Sack Trick (2000)

The British Sack Trick is a revolving group of comedic musicians, in the vein of the late 1960s Bonzo Dog Band. This CD is a heavy metal/music hall/rock musical about a group of penguins in Antarctica who take a spaceship to the moon. However, the moon is not the tropical paradise they imagined and tiring of moon dust cheese and anxious for a meal of fish, “our intrepid explorers returned to the only place they ever truly called home, having proved themselves to be real lunar chicks.” An entertaining and well played musical trip, with illustrated cartoon lyrics, from a group of crazies. The CD was reissued in 2009 on its 9½ year anniversary and Chris Dale, the album’s narrator, bassist/guitarist told us in 2009 about the reason for the original CD: “The motivation was at first something quite random. We wanted to do an abstract concept album, and thought up two themes, penguins and the moon, just because they didn’t normally match. But then we got quite involved in the whole plot and concept and did a lot of background reading into both penguins and the moon. What started off as a bit of a joke, went quite deep in the end.” ORG 212; Raw Power Records RP-017; www.sacktrick.com

VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY Dedicated To The Memory Of Robert Falcon Scott by D. E. Farmer/Soulspace Music (2000)

Arizona-based composer and musician Farmer has recently issued this CD of contemporary, romantic instrumental synthesizer music as his score to an imagined movie about Scott's 1911-12 tragic South Pole journey. “What a marvellous story, and what a testament to the indomitable human spirit! I hope that the music somehow can act as a memorial of sorts to Robert and Kathleen Scott.” The 11 tracks include titles such as Entering the Ice Pack, Winter at McMurdo Sound, Tea at Mabel Beardsley's, Beat the Norwegians: The Race is On!, Arrival at the South Pole: January 1912, Kathleen Scott's Theme. mp3.com 39391 and 167618; www.soundclic.com

WHITE OUT by Johannes Schmoelling (2000)

Schmoelling is a former member of Tangerine Dream, an internationally successful German recording and touring synthesizer/electronic music group formed in the late 1960s. The current CD is a remixed and expanded version of the 1990 original. The 10 melodic instrumental tracks include titles such as White Out, Navigator’s Chatter, Icewalk, A Great Continent, A long Way Home. In his web site, Schmoelling explains his idealistic intuition that electronic music can create a spacious open landscape via the detour of the Antarctic.

“The sounds that I have used and changed will in no way deny their origin. They are noises; the sound of a sonar, the crackling and squeaking of radio sets, machines, the far-away screeching of birds – and if we close our eyes, then with each noise we immediately connect to some image of a landscape or surroundings. For me, this was a reason to compose entire noise passages – a kind of foundation out of which the music actually is born.

In a scientific book on the Antarctic, I read of an optical phenomenon, which occurs under certain conditions of temperature and of the air: WHITE OUT. It is a loss of space sensation. The white erases space, sky and earth flow into each other, a space without depth and without horizon is created.

Maybe a concept album is nothing else but a voyage, a departure to another place, which slowly uncovers itself, a shore that comes closer and piles up as a mountain of ice. Arrival, first announced over the radio, the whirr of machine noises, entertainment music filling up the crewmen’s room.

Suddenly (where on the map appeared just an immense white spot), there is firm ground under your feet and you see: garbage, food throwouts, tin cans, as if to be preserved for eternity, discarded oil residue and a tire rut leading to the horizon, where an industrial complex arises, and then unconsciously, the feeling that here, at the very end of the world, a war announces itself, that the machines are already in position, that the fronts are lined up, and when you look around, there is the oldest landscape in the world (a war with the purpose of eradicating the history of nature: WHITE OUT.)

As I finalized the work on the album, Reinhold Messner and Arved Fuchs departed for the Antarctic. Not like before (as was still done in the last century) to remove the white spots from the map nor with the aim (as at the turn of the century) to hoist the flag of every which country, but solely because of the landscape itself, purely because of its being such and nothing else (at the present time).

And I thought that as a child, even in my wildest dreams, it never occurred to me that just taking a walk could one day become a political act.” Viktoriapark VP 00-1; www.johannesschmoelling.de

A DISTANT MEMORY OF HOME - Music for Adelie Penguin 1993:207 by 90º South (2000)

This CD is a solo project of Briton Kev Fox, who explains in his web site: “The three titles on ‘A Distant Memory of Home’ were composed specifically for an event that took place in June 2000. Adelie Penguin 1993:207 is now a permanent exhibit in Cheltenham Museum as an interesting piece of Antarctic history. It was brought to England as a stuffed specimen by Edward Wilson, returning from his first Antarctic Expedition in 1904, but for many years he stood on a window ledge in Shurdington Village School. He was donated by the Wilson family, as a memento of the local hero, when he failed to return from the fatal attempt on the South Pole with Captain Scott in 1912.

Between June 2nd and June 4th 2000 the Penguin revisited the Village for a weekend of celebrations and over the three days I performed the tracks on ‘A Distant Memory of Home’ under the watchful eye of the penguin himself, in the 14th century village church.

Intending to portray a longing for the far-off icy wilderness of Antarctica the title piece was recorded live on Saturday 3rd June. The two remaining tracks were written to represent the penguin in his element (On the Ice Floe) and in his display case (In the Museum Case) and were recorded live in Jaguar Sound Studios, using only sources and themes from the title track.

The three pieces move through the freezing winds and seas of the South Polar regions and as the memories fade into the dusty solitude of a glass case, the sounds of the white continent still echoing in the distance.”

AAR002; www.ochre.co.uk/90south

THE BARRIER SILENCE by 90º South (1999)

The CD title was taken from Dr. Edward Wilson’s poem of the same name, written during Scott’s Terra Nova South Pole Antarctic Expedition of 1910-13. The CD was recorded in a studio at Cheltenham, U.K., home of Dr. Wilson and has as its cover a Wilson painting of Hut Point, headquarters of Scott’s first Antarctic Expedition of 1901-04. The back cover has a photo of one of the motor sledges used on the Terra Nova Expedition. A final Antarctic reference is included in the liner notes with a photo of Admiral Byrd’s airplane, Floyd Bennett, landing at his base, Little America at the Bay of Whales. The two instrumental Antarctic tracks on the CD include Hut Point and Cape Crozier, the latter a reference to the destination of the 1911 mid-winter polar journey described by Apsley Cherry-Garrard in his famous book, The Worst Journey in the World. The music, by Kev Fox, is a guitar/synthesizer/percussion-based ambient sound. Ochre Records OCH014LCD; www.ochre.co.uk/90south

ANTARTICA by Gale Revilla (1999)

Gale Revilla is a prolific Nevada-based composer and synthesizer artist with over 20 spiritual New Age CDs in her catalogue. This one includes titles such as Horizons, Crystal Storms, The Lost City, Ice Goddess, Antartica, Aurora Australis, Adelie Coast and Leviathan Temple. Her assistant informed us that “Gale had studied about Ancient Civilizations from many books for decades. One of her favorite topics was Atlantis and the Ancient land of Lemuria. Those were the foundations that motivated her to compose the ‘Antartica’, ‘Lost Continents’ and the ‘Mystic Lands’ albums. Another of her favorites in Ancient Civilizations and Empires was, Ancient Egypt. This brought on her motivation to compose her award winning album Series, ‘Pharaohs’. Another album that deals with the Dark Age Empires and Dragons is her album, ‘Draconis’. Her Native American albums deal with her ancestors and their dying ancient language. So three were composed in dedication to her ancestors of centuries past: ‘Day of the Wolf’, ‘Liquid Visions’ and ‘Whispering Winds on the Red Road.’” Morning Star Records; www.galerevilla.com

ANTARCTICA SUITE by Wendy Mae Chambers (1999)

Wendy Mae Chambers is a New Jersey-based musician who visited the Antarctic Peninsula in 1999 as a tourist and subsequently recorded a CD of piano solo compositions inspired by her trip. The 13 instrumental tracks, which Wendy Mae said were modelled after Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, include titles descriptive of the wildlife and sights she saw, such as Blue Ice, Penguin Rookery, Albatross, Waltz of the Krill, Chinstrap Penguins, Humpback Whales, Weddell Seals and Skua. The chiming chordal and percussive sounds of her piano are very evocative of the various images she sets out to portray. www.wendymae.com

ANTARCTIC ARRIVAL - a Tribute to a Frozen Land by Valmar Kurol and Marc-André Bourbonnais (1999)

This Montreal, Canada-produced CD contains ten thematic instrumental pieces in New Age/light rock/classical styles, based on Kurol’s three visits to Antarctica in the 1990s. Titles include Antarctic Arrival, Never Mind the Icebergs, Flight of the Albatross, Antarctica World Beat Theme, Underwater Waltz, Penguin Stroll, Seekers of the Pole, Aurora Australis, March of the Glaciers, White Winter Curtain. There are also bonus tracks with vocal renditions of two of the instrumentals. The CD is available from mtl.ant.soc@sympatico.ca or www.antarcticarrival.com

ANTARCTICA by Douglas Quin (1998)

This is a CD of natural sounds from the field produced by Douglas Quin for the Wild Sanctuary series of wildlife recordings. Stereo/surround microphones were used to record Weddell and leopard seals, orcas, and emperor and Adélie penguins. Of special note are the creaks and groans heard from the Canada Glacier and Wind Harps from the Taylor Valley. The liner notes say that “To create this kind of magic with natural sound takes time, enormous patience, perseverance, and a keen compositional sense to make lyrical the material heard on this album. Sounds from the Antarctic present the ultimate test.” Miramar 09006-23113-2 (See also THE DREAMS OF GAIA by various artists (1999) in the “Individual Songs” category below.)

ANTARCTIC by Mónica X (1998) (Vinyl LP only)

Mónica X is a veteran Spanish DJ and music promoter/performer who has garnered European and international success with her touring. This is one of her earliest singles records and has the three tracks, Antarctic, No Frost (Extreme Cold Version) and Antarctic Melody. Beginning with frosty winds and chants of “cold”, the electronic disco music is surprisingly subdued for the genre. The record cover has a catchy purple/blue hue with a photo of icebergs, overseen by a pair of staring, icy eyes. Monica X told us in 2008 that the reason for the Antarctic record was that “this place is so far from Spain and we thought about this concept one summer with hot weather, so we did it to refresh our lives.” Dixland Records MX DIX 012; www.djmonicax.com

TRAVELLERS TALES FROM ANTARCTICA by David & Phil Massey (1998/1996)

This British CD of instrumental synthesizer New Age music is part of a collection of Relaxation, Ambient and World Music. The liner notes explain: “Perhaps the most awe inspiring region on earth – Antarctica. Her beauty, mystery, and presence has called to adventurers for eons and yet she still remains the most unexplored continent on or planet. This spiritually expansive Travellers Tale will unfold visions of space, grandeur and virgin beauty through a magnificent season of superb musical observation.” Some of the track titles include, Ice Bergs, Vinson Massif, Alone at the Pole, Glacier, Penguin, The Coldest Place on Earth. Northstar Music NSMCD 146; www.northstarmusic.co.uk

ANTARTIDA by John Cale (1995)

This is a musical soundtrack to a Spanish-American film by Manuel Huerga, not so much about Antarctica as a place but rather, as a state of mind. Cale is a former member of the rock group Velvet Underground. The music consists of short, sparse, haunting, melodic themes - Antarctica seems perfectly suited to be a source of inspiration for minimalist composition. Les Diques du Crépuscule TWI-1008

The theme song for this soundtrack has its origin in a Cale song, Antarctica Starts Here found on his 1973 solo recording PARIS 1919. Reprise/Warner Bros. Records Inc. 2131-2

A newer version of this song is also found on Cale’s PARIS S’EVEILLE (1992), a collection of his soundtracks and music for ballet. MASO CD 90042

The same song, Antarctica Starts Here, was covered in a 1992 mini CD, CANDY ON THE CROSS, by David J. MCA Records MCADM-54424

ANTARCTICA by Ian Tamblyn (1994)

Tamblyn is an Ottawa-area Canadian pop-folk artist and currently an Arctic tour lecturer. This recording is associated with the CBC radio documentary, Notes from the Bottom of the World, based on his trip to McMurdo Sound. The instrumental music is a combination of New Age/folk-rock/jazz influences played with crystalline, vibrant instrumentation, at times including penguin brays and Weddell seal squeals. Titles include The Weddell Planet, Erebus Ice Caves, Out on the Ice Fields, Ed’s Still Diving. One especially memorable song is The Penguin came from Pittsburgh. Attractive emperor penguin cover picture. North Track Records NTCD3. In the U.S. this CD is available as NorthSound NSCD 29532; www.tamblyn.com

ANTARCTICA by Richie Beirach (recorded 1985, issued 1994)

Beirach is an American jazz artist who improvises on elements of eclectic modern music. This solo piano Antarctica Suite, according to the liner notes, “unlike the musical pablum that assaults us daily, isn’t programmed to make you consume or conform. Only feel.” Titles include The Ice Shelf, Deception Island, and Neptune's Bellows. ECD 22086-2

ANTARCTICA - The Last Wilderness by Medwyn Goodall (1993)

Goodall, who lives in Cornwall, England, has recorded many CDs for the Dutch New Age music label, Oreade Music. It’s a pleasure to hear one of the few all-Antarctic CDs we have come across. There are six extended synthesizer and other instrumental pieces with titles such as All White, Endless Emptiness and Snow Kingdom Forever. Dreamy, peaceful music and gentle to the ears but we’re not entirely convinced we've been transported to Antarctica through the music. Mar 3812

POLAR SHIFT - A Benefit for Antarctica by various artists (1991)

A compilation of New Age instrumental and vocal music dedicated to the conservation of Antarctica. Performers include a number of single-name artists such as Vangelis, Yanni, Enya and Kitaro, along with ET's John Tesh. A very enjoyable, soothing palette of sounds. Informative liner notes give references for further reading though some of the addresses are now out of date. Private Music BMG2083-2-P

DEVOTION - THE BEST OF YANNI by Yanni (1997)

The instrumental Song for Antarctica, specially recorded for the previously-mentioned Polar Shift CD, is also found on several of Yanni's discs, including this hits compilation. Private Music 01005-82153-2

NUNATAK GONGAMUR by Thomas Köner (1990)

Köner is an internationally active award-winning German audio-visual media artist/electronic composer. His first CD, out of print and unavailable commercially, was an ambient collection of 11 untitled pieces that were based on Robert Scott’s tragic South Pole Expedition of 1911-12. The CD cover has an old photo of a sledge team with their dogs and ponies and a copy of a few of Scott’s last written words. According to reviewer Ned Raggett in the Web-based All Music Guide, “Köner's composition falls somewhere between a requiem for the loss and waste of the expedition and a haunting, extremely inhuman evocation of the endless snow and ice fields of Antarctica that the core members of the expedition struggled through and died in. The swathes of deep echo and occasional crumbling rhythm create an aura of paranoid fascination, at once weirdly soothing and increasing the nervous tension every chance it gets. When Köner adds variety to the music, the effect can almost be shocking - consider the sudden distorted whines on the third and fifth tracks, which with its slight echo treatment and the rumbling background moans could almost be a disturbing cry for help. Other times, tones barely lurk in the mix, only on the edge of hearing, like being caught in an endless cavern where something curious hides in the dim distance. The killer touch is the use of space throughout the album - silences of various lengths maintaining the air of mysterious threat.” This is a powerful description of music that consists of electronically treated gongs and cymbals, but the CD is a captivating soundtrack for desolation. BAR 002; www.koener.de; www.thomaskoner.com

ANTARCTICA by Vangelis (1983)

Synthesizer music from Koreyoshi Kurahara’s film of the same name. It told the story of the 1958 first Japanese Antarctic Expedition, which ended up stranding a pack of 15 sled dogs on the continent over a winter season. Best song is the title track, Theme from Antarctica, which still remains the definitive Antarctic mood music. Nothing else from the eight tracks on the disc matches this magnificent throbbing and pulsating piece which is the perfect accompaniment for sailing down the pristine Lemaire Channel or Gerlache Strait. Many amateur videos of the Antarctic have probably borrowed this theme for background music. Polygram/Polydor 815732-2. The original Japanese issue of the CD (Polydor 3112-22) has the classic photo of two dogs on the cover while newer issues have small silver or blue outlines of Antarctica. A rare and pricey limited-edition promo CD that may occasionally appear for sale on Web auction sites contains the full score of 24 tracks. These include further variations of the main theme, as well as shorter soundscape interludes and a few longer pieces.

THE THING by Ennio Morricone (1982)

The soundtrack to the popular Antarctic sci-fi movie of the same name. Morricone has composed many highly regarded film themes but this electronic noodling, appropriate in the film, is less interesting as stand-alone CD music. Varèse Sarabande VSD-5278

IO SONO MURPLE by Murple (Vinyl LP - 1974) (CD reissues - 1992 & 2002)

Italian prog-rock group Murple’s only recording (I am Murple) was a concept album of largely keyboard-led instrumentals, with a few vocal tracks, that tells the tale of an Antarctic penguin who leaves home looking for paradise and winds up, apparently happily, in a zoo. The colourful CD booklet features drawings of icebergs and a mass of penguins. Mellow Records MMP 121 (1992 reissue) and Akarma AK 1035 (2002 reissue); www.murple.it

LET US NOT FORGET – A Tribute to the Phonograph - Historic Speech Recordings (1973) (Vinyl LPs only)

This is a three-LP set of original Edison Cylinder Recordings of various famous figures such as Thomas Edison, American presidents Taft (speaking in 1908 about Enforced Insurance of Bank Deposits, Rights of Labor, a topic currently appropriate) and Teddy Roosevelt, singer Sophie Tucker, Babe Ruth and others, from recordings of the early 1900s. Included is the 4-minute track Lt. Ernest Shackleton: Journey to the South Pole in 1907. The record label indicates it was “recorded in the Antarctic”. We have not verified the recording and assume this is the same Shackleton Nimrod Expedition track mentioned previously above in this section in VOICES OF HISTORY 2 - Arts, Science & Exploration (2005). Yorkshire Records 27026

THE SOUNDS OF ANTARCTICA by Hank Curth (1965)

New Zealand’s Kiwi Records was a related activity of A.H. & A.W. Reed, book publishers and began producing records to supplement its publications. According to the New Zealand Government’s online history site, “Under the Kiwi label more than just songs and music were recorded. In the 1960s people experimenting with new home hi-fi gear bought almost anything - recordings of bird songs, steam trains and even the sound of ice in Antarctica. Musicolour products such as The Sounds of Antarctica were early examples of multimedia publishing – a record package with colour books. - Reed Publishing (NZ) Ltd.”. According to the foreword, this Musicolor book “brings together a collection of color pictures and sounds which contain the essence of Antarctica and which will bring back memories to those who have served there. It is also hoped that it will help to give their friends an appreciation of conditions on that vast continent where so many scientists, servicemen and technicians from many nations all over the world assemble each year to continue their explorations.” The book was based on an idea by Lt. John Arthur Jaminet and was written by and many of the photos taken by Hank Curth, a Roving Reporter for the American NBC broadcasting company, who had logistics help provided by the U.S. Naval Support Force. Curth briefly describes bases in the McMurdo Sound area, the work of icebreakers, local activities by “men in Antarctica today and yesterday” as well as their dogs and describes various landscapes and wildlife. The 17-minute mini LP record that is part of the package was recorded by Curth and includes sounds of penguins, seals and skuas, an icebreaker making its way through ice, creaking of shore ice, airplane take-offs and flights and an interview with a New Zealander about huskies. Kiwi KM-3; www.nzhistory.net.nz

’TIS A STORY THAT SHALL LIVE FOR EVER by Stanley Kirkby (1913) (78 rpm single only)

Stanley Kirkby (born James Baker) ( was a British baritone, who recorded under several pseudonyms and was reported to have issued the largest number of records in Britain over 1900-1930, including the WWI hit in the U.S., It’s a Long Way to Tipperary. In 1913 he recorded ’Tis a Story That Shall Live For Ever, a song with orchestra and recitation in memory of Robert Scott and his fallen comrades in their ill-fated 1910-12 South Pole journey. The words were written by Lawrence Wright and Paul Pelham. The flipside of the Zonophone disc, mentioned below, is another sung by Kikby and the same authors, the melodramatic Be British. The lyrics of ’Tis a Story are: “What a glorious tale again is told, Of heroism grand, Of British men with British hearts, Out in the Great White Land, A band of heroes, brave and rue, See standing, side by side, Amidst eternal ice and snow, All faithful till they died.

Chorus: ’Tis a story that shall live for ever, As long as the world shall be, Of the men who died side by side, Over the frozen sea; All honour to the Sons of England, Inscribed shall be each name, In letters bold of brightest gold, On the Nation’s Scroll of Fame. ’Tis a Fame. What a glorious lesson to be learn’d, The mem’ry shall remain, Their great and noble sacrifice, Can never be in vain, And tho’ no sculptured monument, Can mark their resting place, Their deeds have rais’d a monument that time cannot efface. Chorus: ’Tis a story that shall live forever, As long as the world shall be, Of the men who died side by side, Over the frozen sea; All honour to the Sons of England, Inscribed shall be each name, In letters bold of brightest gold, On the Nation’s Scroll of Fame. ’Tis a Fame.

Recitation after second verse: I can see a sturdy little ship, Breasting the ocean wave, I can see a little band of men, Eager, strong and brave, I can see the Ice-bound coast line, Of that grim and silent shore, And then the icy desert, Where the deadly blizzards roar, The last farewells are spoken, For some of them must go, Into the unknown perils, Of a wilderness of snow. And then a blank as months go by, And who can tell the tale. Of how that gallant band of men - Succeeded, but to fail, Of one who bore up ’till the last, Then left without “Goodbye!”. Just the words - “I’m going out”, Then staggered out – to die, No wailing at their cruel fate, No counting up the cost, But just the simple message left – “We took the risk – and lost!”

Chorus: ’Tis a story that shall live forever, As long as the world shall be, Of the men who died side by side, Over the frozen sea; All honour to the Sons of England, Inscribed shall be each name, In letters bold of brightest gold, On the Nation’s Scroll of Fame. ’Tis a Fame.” 23903 Edison Blue Amberol; also on Zonophone Record 1050, X-2-42486, manufactured by The Gramophone Co. Ltd., Sydney, NSW, Australia; www.cylinders.library.ucsb.edu; Ref: Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound, p. 578. Another version of this song was recorded by Robert Carr, a British baritone who was a contemporary of Stanley Kirkby. Record not verified. KAL E 2071 5; Pioneer 124; (See also SINFONIA ANTARTICA/SCOTT OF THE ANTARCTIC (2009) in the “Classical Antarctica: Ralph Vaughan Williams” commentary for recordings of this song.)

THE BOUNDING BOUNDER aka ON THE BOUNDING SEA or THE SOUTH POLE by Harry Lauder (1909 and 1910) (78 rpm singles only)

Sir Harry Lauder (1870-1950) was a Scottish singer and humourous entertainer of the early 20^th century music hall era and achieved fame internationally and toured the U. S. 22 times over 3 decades. His song, The Bounding Bounder, written by Lauder and Randolph King, is a sea ditty that sandwiches between two sung choruses, accompanied by an orchestra, the first-person narrated story of Seaman Lauder meeting Shackleton in a pub and going on an Antarctic expedition with him, which apparently at least reaches Antarctica in two of the recorded versions. Today, the word “bounder” no longer conveys the aura of snooty Victorian class reproach that it once did, in a family of similar pejoratives such as cad, rogue, knave and scoundrel. The 1910 Edison British version is a longer, more complete version of the story than the 1909 Victor/Everest versions, which were reported to have been recorded Dec. 12 at Camden, New Jersey, U. S. A. 1909 recording: Victor 70010; Victor 55121-B; Everest Scala 883; 1910 British recording: 12119 Edison Amberol; www.victor.library.ucsb.edu; www.archive.org; www.cylinders.library.ucsb.edu

A third version of this song with longer story similar to the 1910 Edison version, indicated as being recorded on Sept. 30, 1909 as Zono X42940, is available on a compilation CD of Harry Lauder songs issued by W. J. Clark, FOO’ TH’ NOO (2002). WINDYRIDGE Windy CDR11; www.musichallcds.com

The Victor version of the song is available on another compilation CD of Harry Lauder songs issued by Mark Best, OLD TIME VICTROLA MUSIC PRESENTS SIR HARRY LAUDER #1 (1996); www.earlyrecordings.com

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Individual songs entitled Antarctica or about The Ice also appear on the following commercially or privately available discs. The styles range from New Age to thrash/heavy metal:

ENDLESS RAIL by Lakme (2009)

This is an Italian-produced CD of contemporary jazz/New Age/world music, all written or co-written by veteran Rome-based keyboard wizard Francesco Gazzara, who has had international recording and performing successes with his band Gazzara. He has able assistance on the CD from musicians on vocals, strings, flutes, percussion and electronics. One of the tracks is Antarctica, an electric piano-based shimmering, upbeat excursion to the Ice. Francesco told us: “The Antarctica track has been inspired by a (never released) documentary on the early expeditions of the 1900s. Lakme is a project mostly dedicated to music libraries and soundtracks, so is often inspired by TV and image work.” Terresommerse CD; www.gazzara.org; www.myspace.com/francescogazzara

MARCY & ZINA - THE ALBUM by Marcy & Zina (2009)

Marcy Heisler, lyricist and Zina Goldrich, composer, are two New York City-based major award-winning artists for both Broadway and off-Broadway productions. In addition to their work together since 1993, Zina has been a Broadway production keyboardist and conductor and Marcy has also written lyrics for many Disney projects. Together they have presented their music at various North American showcases. Their Web site says that with their first joint CD of musical comedy, “these hopeless romantics invite listeners to join them on their search for love from Antarctica to Baltimore, with a big stop smack in the middle of Manhattan.” Antarctica gets recognition from the duo in the track Los Pinguinos, about penguin romance. Sample lyrics: “Way down south in Tierra del Fuego, Near the tip of the Antarctic sea, Lived some penguins – in Spanish, pinguinos, And they’d frolic in the snow happily. But one penguin was not like the others, she was terribly, terribly shy. While the others would spoon, she’d just look at the moon And watch penguin parades pass her by…But one day, as she lay, Staring up at stars above, Another penguin looked her way, and fell in love…When I looked in your eyes of yellow, How my wildest dreams unfurled, And now that I’ve got ‘em, I’m here at the bottom, But sitting on top of the world!...” Yellow Sound Label YSL 566493; www.marcyandzina.com

VIDEO GAMES & POPSICLE STICKS by 28-200 (2009)

Denver-based Mister L and Aimee are the members of this alternate punkish rock duo. Their first full CD has the ecological-minded plea Antarctica. Lyrics: “I swam around the sea, to feed my family, what will the future bring, will I survive, to see one more night? My home melts away…no time to frolic and play. I have to survive one more night. Welcome to Antarctica. Numbers in decline, soon I’m glad to find, I must be on your mind, if I’m to survive. This I ask of you, do all that you can do, for me and others too, may not survive one more night. Welcome to Antarctica.” The duo told us that “Antarctica is about polar bears and the impact of global warming on their existence. The story of the song is told from the polar bear’s point of view. It is a plea to the human race. It is a plea for life. We believe that action must be taken immediately to ensure the survival of these beautiful animals. Hopefully, the song will raise awareness and prompt humans to make more responsible decisions in their daily activities.” Global warming may well disrupt nature and bring the bears south and the penguins up north! www.28-200.com

ANTARCTIC by Antarctic (2009)

Antarctic is a Jacksonville, Florida-based group. Its first CD, with a picture of pancake ice on the cover, is a collection of guitar-led melodic, progressive hard rock instrumentals. Despite the group name, there aren’t any tracks on the disc named after The Ice, so we asked Chris Jackson, guitarist, about the band name. If truth is better than fiction, he replied with a reason better than any imaginable: “Well, I used to work at a health food store in Jacksonville called Native Sun. One night I was doing the dishes in the backroom (this is when we were first forming as a band) and I looked at the dishwater in the sink and it made me think of the icy waters of the Antarctic. I thought to my self…that would be an interesting band name. So then we decided on the name, Antarctic. Not a terribly interesting story, unfortunately, but it’s how I thought of the name.” Hello Sir Records SIR 022; www.myspace.com/antarcticsounds

ALL COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD by Mr. I, Gary Q & the Rainbow Singers (2009)

British Columbia, Canada-based teacher and musician-entertainer Mr I (Yurgen Ilaender) has produced many CDs about geography and science for kids and has worked in Montessori pre-schools for many years. His current CD has the bouncy track, with children’s chorus, Antarctic Territories, which impressively touches on the politics, history, geography and wildlife in just over 3 minutes. Lyrics: “Does anyone own Antarctica? No, they don’t. Does any one country own Antarctica? No, no, they don’t. But if you look you will see many territories, and a territorial claim or two. From Mt. Erebus, to the Southern Sea, Seven sovereign states have made claims on eight territories. Do people live in Antarctica? Yes, they do. Do scientists work in Antarctica? Yes, yes, there are a few. From all over the world, Many different nations have built a research station or two. Did Robert Scott, in 1912, Have a sense of the importance of the ice shelves? Did Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian man, Have a sense of discovery, as he travelled across this icy land? Six months of winter, six months of summer, Six months of winter, six months of summer. Do fish live in Antarctica? Yes, they do. Ice fish live in Antarctica. And they’re super cool. They have anti-freeze so they won’t ever sneeze. And the ice doesn’t form and their blood doesn’t freeze. It’s the highest, driest, coldest, windiest continent on earth. Ninety-eight per cent is covered with ice - Antarctica! - Brrr, I’m cold. I’m hungry. You’re hungry? What do you want to eat? Let’s get an ice cream. Oh, my goodness, I’m freezing!” Facts & Fun AC-1; www.childmusicmri.com (See also ANTARCTICA REVISITED by Mr. I, Gary Huntbatch and Anise Abdulla (2002) in the preceding “all or significantly Antarctic” commentary.)

FROM THE ROYAL ARCADE by Rego (2009)

Rebecca Rego is a Chicago, Illinois-based singer-composer who leads her own performing band. Her first full CD of folk rock has the track South Pole. Sample lyrics: “I missed my life at the South Pole, Clean snow and a hundred below, You’ll never know that you were the last one alive.” Rebecca told us her inspiration for the track: “About two years ago I heard a story on Weekend America. People were sharing their favorite songs and a man was talking about how he loved the song Heart of a Saturday Night by Tom Waits. He was saying how he used to listen to it when he was living in the South Pole in a science research community. He talked about it and how much he loved it there, and how amazing it was to realize that when he went outside he was stepping on earth that no humans had ever stepped on before. Unfortunately he started to get seizures while there and had to be evacuated out. Even now he can’t go back because of his medical condition. He lives in St. Paul now. I ended up contacting him on Facebook. He’s very nice.” RWIM 001; www.rebeccarego.com; www.myspace.com/regorego

THE DEVIL’S HANDBOOK by Metro Manila Aide (2009)

MMA is a Liverpool, U.K.-based band whose debut release is a massive 4-CD set that covers ballads to hard and metal rock. Together since 2002, the group spent four years in the production of the CDs. Included is the track Deception Island, as well as a small map reproduction of the island in the CD package’s cover wrapping sheet. The song is a quiet one and has the perfect description of the surface rock colours that are visible when passing through the entrance of Neptune’s Bellows to the inside harbour. Lyrics: “A camera pans across the ocean, Midnight blue to grenadine green, Burning bushes billow, Blankets of grey-brown. This could be bloody hell or the holiest heaven. Not a woman or child will be left. Not a woman or a child will be forced to suffer.” Paul McBride, vocalist and guitarist, told us in 2009: “When we wrote this song I had no idea Deception Island was a real place. It was just the name I had in my head for this island I could see vividly in my mind and the narrative that accompanies it...I found the map by chance, doing my Googles. We would love to visit there ourselves one day and maybe have a gig?? Here’s dreaming!!!” www.metromanilaaide.co.uk; www.myspace.com/metromanilaaide

STINK BAIT by Rube Waddell (2009)

The San Francisco, U.S.-based quartet has taken on the name of one of the most dominant and eccentric pitchers in Major League Baseball in the early 1900s and member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. The group combines Americana music, blues, Vaudeville, ethnic, folk and whatever else the cat dragged in, played on traditional and homemade instruments, with performances in clubs and on the streets. According to their Web site, “When we walk through the forests, the birds around us become incontinent with fear.” The current CD was originally recorded in 1998 and was re-released in 2009 “with extra sauce”. It has the track Mawson’s Will, which tells the famous story of Antarctic explorer Douglas Mawson’s harrowing escape from near death after a crevasse accident that resulted in the deaths of his two sledging companions, Belgrave Ninnis and Xavier Mertz. All were members of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-14. Freddi (Mahatma Boom Boom) Price, the group’s vocalist, guitarist, trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist, told us in 2009: “Have you read the story of Mawson? If so, I can hardly give a better reason for wanting to tell the tale. It’s the very picture of despair and perseverance. What nobler topics to sing about are there? Sure, we could have sung about the glory of Scott and Shackleton or the success of Amundsen, but everyone knows those tales. We are more into the doomed voyages of the dismal and forgotten.” www.rubewaddell.org; www.myspace.com/httpwwwmyspacecomrubewaddell

OLD & NEW - Vol. 2 by Atopica (2009)

Atopica is the solo project of Finland-based Tomi Antikainen, who has produced many CDs of various types of music over 10 years. This CD is a compilation of his music composed over 1999-2009 and contains the track Antarctic Dream, a percussive synthpop instrumental tune that Tomi told us “was composed in autumn 2008 and I got inspiration from the movie Eight Below”. This was a 2006 American movie, updated from the original 1983 Japanese movie Antarctica, about a team of sled dogs that was stranded on the continent over a winter season. www.atopicamusic.net; www.myspace.com/atopica

PULSES ARE PLUSES by Jacob Vanags (2009)

Vanags is a young New York City-based piano rocker, currently studying at Hofstra University on Long Island, N.Y. His second EP, as part of a trio beefed up by horns and strings, has the wistful piano-based track Antarctica. Sample lyrics: “I head as far south as I can surely go, leave behind me all that I know, know, know. I stop when up is the only way to look back, to the place from which I just came. I shout, I shout out, nothing will hear the sound, it is swallowed by silence, it rings so loud…I beg, I plead please isolate me now, from the fury that pins all of us down but when the winds sweep and the glaciers break, that’s when I realize I need to see your face.” Jacob told us: “ Antarctica was the product of being alone in a room with a piano with the lights off…you might be able to tell? I am extremely proud of this song mostly because it was something I couldn’t explain to my bandmates before we recorded it. I explained how I would get string players to play the bulk of the sound and incorporate a choir at the end to bring it to a new level. They played along, and I think they now understand what I meant. I got the idea of writing about Antarctica after watching that amazing show called “Planet Earth.” It is somewhere I’m dying to go…a place to seclude you from your worries and the world’s worries. It’s an epic landscape with very little human interference. Imagine a cloudless night on the bottom of the world with the whole universe laid out above you. But the main point is that although it can open your eyes and free you from your stresses, it means nothing unless it’s shared with someone else.” In an interview with enochmagazine.com he said: “I’d have to say my favorite line is tucked within “Antarctica.” Right before the chorus I say, “I stand upright and upside down / at the same time to shake my thoughts out.” The whole song is about going to Antarctica to escape the troubles of one’s life and the troubles of the world itself…it’s about erasing stresses and hate and finding clarity on one of the most desolate places on Earth…Antarctica. So if you think of Antarctica as being the “bottom of the world” you would be standing “upside down” per se and also upright at the same time. All the thoughts that need clearing out filter “down” through the top of your head as if you were “standing upside down”. www.myspace.com/jacobvanags; www.myspace.com/jvnewyork

TERROR by Valutan (2009) (Web site download only)

Valutan is a Malmö, Sweden-based electronica/vocal duo consisting of J. Woulf and C. Manhattan. It’s murky, dark pulsing 40-minute EP has the tracks Terror, Mt. Terror, Erebus, Mt. Erebus. When asked about the Antarctic references in the titles, the group told us: “Well, it is Antarctica related in the sense that Erebus is used as a metaphor. Both the god, but also the ship and the mountain.” www.myspace.com/valutan; www.pitch9.com

ON MANITOU ISLAND/IN HOT DOG CITY by John Roeser Avenue (2009) (Web site download only)

John Roeser is a Chicago, Illinois-based musician whose debut record has the track Shackleton. Sample lyrics: “She went down in November, she sank beneath the waves, to the bottom of the sea. Mr. Shackleton, yes you, you knew your men and you led them through, now you’ve nothing left to prove. Thirty days on the icefloe, we didn’t lose a man, but we had to eat the dogs. One hundred days, Elephant Island, thought it was the end, but a miracle instead.” John told us: “I’ve always been a fan of the Shackleton story, and there was a great exhibit at the Field Museum here in Chicago a few years back. There was a period when I was into writing “history” songs, and I thought Shackleton would make for a good topic.” www.myspace.com /johnroeseravenue

WISTFUL WONDERS by So Shush (2009) (Web site download only)

So Shush is a veteran indie duo from Manchester, U.K. (Carole Smart and Ian Drumm), with strong melodies and instruments against ethereal vocals. Included on their album is the track Antarctica, their comment on the precarious state of the continent. Sample lyrics: “Ice crystals are falling, in shards of blue and grey, Lookin’ through my window, far across the bay, A pristine desert, untouched by human waste, A place for consecration, a place so far away, Ooh, it’s just begun, ooh, it’s just begun…The ice is really melting, life has gone away…Ice crystals melting, there’s nothing left to say…” The group told us: “With regards to the song - for us, our music and instrumentation seemed to evoke images of somewhere icy and pristine - Antarctica. Given the times we’re in, the song inevitably pays lip service to melting ice sheets, threats to ecosystems and the continent’s huge potential for damaging mineral and oil exploitation, even though it’s currently protected by Treaty. Hope this doesn’t sound pretentious.” Available from various Internet sites including iTunes. www.myspace.com/soshush

RUNNING OUT OF MINUTES by Dan Levy (2009) (Web site download only)

Based in Los Angeles, U.S.A, Dan Levy is an up and coming comedian who has performed at clubs and college campuses, mainstream comedy festivals and on TV. His first and live comedy album has the short track Shackleton, a hilarious rip about the stiff upper lips of the old explorers. Dan told us “I thought of the joke after taking a documentary course in college. One of the films we studied was one about Shackleton.” Our transcription of the track: “Crazy guy I learned about recently is Shackleton. You guys know who Shackleton was? He was, like, the first explorer ever to go to Antarctica. He got stuck in the ice and he survived. And he kept a journal and they read the journal on the Discovery Channel and I was listening, you know, and he was, like, “DAY 1, we are stuck on the ice, but WE WILL SURVIVE!” And I was thinking, that’s like, awesome, you know, cause if I was on that boat, like, I’d have a totally different journal, it would be, like, “DAY 1, screw that s..t, I’m freezing my b..ls off!” But he kept them going, you know, and made them hunt penguins to survive, which is so not fair because penguins are, like, cute and little and wobble, you know, is that really hard to hunt penguins?” www.danlevyshow.com

BIRD WINGS IN THE BLEAK by Libbie Linton (2009)

Libbie Linton is a folk singer/songwriter/guitarist and student at Utah State University, Utah. Her debut full record, following a 7-song home recorded disc called The Shackleton EP(2006), has the full band version of the mysteriously worded track Shackleton, I’m Solid, which was also featured on the EP in an acoustic version. Linton has been reported in media interviews as saying the track is not directly related to polar explorer Ernest Shackleton but has not revealed the reason for the title or the meaning of the ambiguous lyrics, which are left open for interpretation. The CD front and back covers bleak black and white images of Shackleton’s ice-stranded ship Endurance. Sample opening lyrics: “Shackleton, I’m solid only bored out of my skull and these two big wandering eyes they lie I’ve no one here at all make me out to be the one I wanted to be strong and sturdy for you not what you’ll never need.” MV-001; www.libbielinton.com

PIRATE FOR THE SEA - Original Motion Pictures Soundtrack by Aldo Shllaku (2009)

This is the soundtrack to the documentary/biographical film, by Rob Colby, about the life and career of Captain Paul Watson and his crews of volunteers. Watson was one of the co-founders the Greenpeace Foundation and since 1977 has been better known as the founder and principal activist of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS). The SSCS is a leading campaigner to protect marine wildlife around the globe, particularly seals on the Canadian east coast and whales, both in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. His entanglements with the Japanese Antarctic whaling fleet have been well publicized over the years and have been the subject of both films and TV programs. Pirate for the Sea debuted at the 2008 Telluride (Colorado, U.S.A.) Film Festival in 2008. The composer and conductor of the music, Aldo Shllaku is of Albanian origin, studied music in Montreal, Canada and is now based in Los Angeles, U.S.A., as a composer, director and arranger of a variety of music styles. The instrumental music on the soundtrack is played by a small orchestra in classical/New Age world music styles to fit the moods from the Arctic north through the equator all the way to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. This is an area surrounding Antarctica where the International Whaling Commission has banned all commercial whaling. It is in this area that Japan still carries on whaling under the guise of scientific research and against which the SSCS has taken its protesting actions. On the whole, the music on the disc is very melodic and generally serene but on its own, without the visuals, may not be reflective of the aggressive and unpleasant activities that have become the legendary public face of the SSCS’s voyages.

Included on the CD is Speeding into the Sanctuary, a 3-minute, 3-part musical portrayal of the area. Aldo told us that “The director/producer of the Pirate for the Sea, Ron Colby, saw another film that I had written the music for and contacted me to discuss. This is how I got involved. Once I saw the film and because of the subject matter, I immediately accepted. The Whale Sanctuary track was inspired simply by what this sanctuary is - an open, calm, safe ocean place for fish and ocean mammals...until the illegal hunting begins. I had a lot information for every scene because the director of the film was on board the ship with Paul Watson for the duration of the protection expedition.” Carpe Diem Music; aldoshllaku.com; www.seashepherd.org

SOMERSAULT SEASON by Laura Freeman (2009)

Freeman is a Texas, U.S.A.-based singer/songwriter/performer. One of her specialties is the creation of children’s music and educational programs to involve their imaginations, for which she has won awards. Her current CD includes Antarctica, a mandolin-driven continental European-sounding song that has the harsh climate and dressing requirements down pat. You can almost imagine Tevye from the Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof now singing this song as Tevye of the Antarctic in the Antarctic version of Fiddler on the Ice. Sample lyrics: “Today we are going to the bottommost part of the globe that we live on, way down south below Australia, to the South Pole, in Antarctica. So put on your warmest pants and your thickest socks and pull your hats down over your ears. Grab a scarf around your neck, put on a big parka and zip it up and put on some mukluks. Are you ready? Let’s all go to Antarctica, to Antarctica, to Antarctica. It’s very cold in Antarctica, oh I hope that we don’t freeze. Let’s look for penguins in Antarctica, in Antarctica, in Antarctica. I hear there’s penguins all around down in Antarctica. Oh, I hope that we don’t freeze. Because it’s cold, so cold, so cold, so very cold. It’s cold, so cold, oh I hope that we don’t freeze.” www.laurafreemanmusic.com.

BABY EINSTEIN WORLD MUSIC (2009)

The Baby Einstein Company specializes in developmental media and products for very young children and the CD cover bids us to “Bring the joy of music from around the world to your child.” This double-disc CD of musical themes from around the world, based on regional folk or classical tunes, includes the instrumental track Bonnie (references melody My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean) – An Antarctic Soundtrack, arranged by Bill Weisbach. It’s an interesting idea to use this old traditional Scottish folk song, believed to originate from Bonnie Prince Charlie’s era of the mid 1700s and lately repopularized by Tony Sheridan and the Beatles in 1962, as a representation of Antarctica. While the tune is barely recognizable in the 2-minute synthesizer track, it’s nevertheless a spooky, haunting and warmly appealing visit, complete with the background seal and whale sounds. Walt Disney Records D000358002; www.babyeinstein.com

YOU ARE THE SKY, AND I’M JUST THE PILOT by Ports of Aidia (2009)

Michigan’s hard rocking quintet ranges in style from pop to metal. Included on their CD is The Sky // Antarctica, apparently about a deep freeze being what it will take to save the world. Lyrics: “Open your eyes, Look behind the film, I can feel you through the wind, I can see you in the wind, I can see you in the wind, This cold winter air is freezing my bones and coating my lungs with a thin layer of hope, Hope to make it through the night, The sky will start its rebellion against all mankind, A planet frozen in time to cleanse us of all our sins, There must be a way out of this world. And if I don’t make it home tonight, You’ll find me under a city of ice, Buried in a tomb of a frozen sea, Now the clouds breathe for me. Bring on the cold fronts, Fix what we’ve done, Bring on the cold fronts, To fix us.” www.myspace.com/portsofaidia

HUMAN ACTIVITY SUITE: Sounding a Response to Climate Change by Brad Shepik (2009)

Shepik is a Brooklyn, U.S.-based jazz guitarist and has augmented his regular trio with two other musicians for this themed work, written for each of the continents. The CD includes the track Stir (Antarctica), a slow, meditative tune underlain by a sustained organ pad. Brad told us, “For the other continents I had very much in mind indigenous musical ideas as well as images and other reflections. For Antarctica, since there is no indigenous music I carried an image of ancient water being slowly but surely released, drip by drip, as in waking from a deep slumber.” According to the CD booklet, “With Stir, I thought about the Antarctic ice being infinitely old – this ancient ice that’s in motion, melting and moving. I see icebergs breaking apart when I hear this piece.”

The booklet further explains: “One of the many unfortunate aspects of the 2008 presidential campaign was a tiresome bout of obscurantism on the root cause of global warming. Hopefully, enough people are aware by this point that the cause is clear: human activity. Halting and reversing the effects of climate change, once the goal of a committed few, is by now a broadly shared concern. People have a way of waking up when scientific consensus shows that the planet’s future hangs in the balance. And the solution lies not just with world leaders and captains of industry, but with ordinary citizens of every nation. To remedy harmful human activity, in other words, we need different, better human activity, and we’re starting to see it happen. Music won’t solve the problem, but as one of our most elevated mechanisms of communication, it can raise awareness and spur us to action. Few seem better suited to this task than Brad Shepik, an American jazz guitarist who has traveled the globe and learned from a wide array of musical cultures. With Human Activity Suite: Sounding a Response to Climate Change, Shepik extends a long tradition of composers, in jazz and beyond, who have brought social consciousness to bear on their art.” Songlines SGL SA1576-2; www.bradshepik.com; www.myspace.com/bradshepik

THE YEAR OF THE ALIEN SOLDIER by Jon Sorensen (2009)

Scottish-born and U.K.-based Jon Sorensen has had a long career working on visual effects in major films (including Alien, The Empire Strikes Back, Superman 2, Time Bandits, Excalibur, Dragonslayer, Outland, The Watcher in the Woods and Moonraker) as well as directing commercials. He produced, directed and wrote his own independent science fiction debut film, Alien Blood, in 1999. Further work in sound design developed into music composition and in recent years he has completed 14 albums of atmospheric original music, which have been used in films and commercials internationally. His current CD includes the track Arrival in Antarctica, a multi-faceted otherworldly electronica instrumental. Jon told us in 2009 that “After many years of vivid colour dreams about Antarctica, I visited the continent in 2007. I flew to the Patriot Hills landing strip and the cross-wind landing was very dangerous and set my imagination going! The sheer drama and wonder of Antarctica! (I’m a great believer in following one’s dreams as a sign). The place has a cosmic sense of wonder and fascination. I used the diaries of Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Mind Over Matter, as a motivator when making my movie Alien Blood whenever I felt like giving up. He is a fascinating explorer and many good philosophies come out of his life and connections with Antarctica. When I was there, I shot some footage for my “ambient feature film” Seeker, which we may finish one day! Another short Antarctic piece of mine, On God’s Eye incorporates sounds of field recordings made when I was there. It wasn’t all peaceful and calm! It hasn’t appeared on any album as yet, but will appear on the Seeker movie soundtrack. It was composed as a companion piece for Arrival in Antarctica.” www.jonsorensen.co.uk;

KLANG by the Rakes (2009)

The Rakes are a British post punk indie rock band, formed in 2004 and have earned touring and recording success. Their third CD has the track Shackleton, which according to the band’s interviews, is about endurance. The song is about escapism and dissatisfaction with regular life and seems to express the essence of an explorer’s soul (“We’re all pawns in someone else’s business”) and “Dear God!! I will drink and I will smoke like no man before me has or ever will…I’m gonna run nude in Spain for the bulls, bounce the earth like a basketball for the animals, like Shackleton before me.” V2 Records International VVR701574; www.therakes.co.uk

VISIONS OF MODERN LIFE by Interface (2009)

The fourth CD from New York-based programmer/produce/vocalist Eric Eldredge’s electronic/techno music project includes the short 1½-minute track Antarctica. It’s a chilling, alien soundscape unlike the other beat-heavy tracks on the disc. Eric told us, “I created the wind sweep effects and the echoing noises as an interlude piece, and thought the name fit it rather well. It sort of reminded me of a windy, snowy, barren place.” Nilaihah records nr038; www.interfacemusic.net

KAP FARVÄL by Stiko Per Larsson (2009)

This Swedish disc of very melodic rock contains the track Antarctica, an ode to the coldness and isolation of lost love. Our very rough translation of the Swedish lyrics: “Through tunnels you can follow my tracks, I mix the ice with my last frozen tears, I claim this land as mine for my sorrow, victory and all the blood I have spilt. Through the silence you can sense a roar, it came from the soul which I left a long time ago, I know my plans were for two but here in oblivion there is only one place to be had. If you see me, then I let tears and ice become my castle, a new Poseidon. I stand here as a statue on the world’s floor. My lungs wonder why they are, as frozen air makes breathing so difficult. I swear at the stubborn flight, that my body never will find something safe. My fingers have not forgotten where they are going to live. Although the hand is a clumsy ice cold claw, I demand that my life will become a poem about how a man can win without any tricks.” Marley Produktion AB MACD941; www.stikoperlarsson.se

MOLECULAR HEINOSITY by Derek Sherinian (2009)

California-based Sherinian is a 20-year music veteran and keyboard ace who has toured and worked with acts such as Alice Cooper, Kiss, Dream Theater, Billy Idol and Buddy Miles. His latest solo CD is a forceful instrumental album, which includes the track Antarctica, which is part of a trilogy. According to Sherinian’s liner notes, “This pompous epic had to be worthy of a title grand as a continent, I think that we more than hit the mark with Antarctica.” InsideOut SPV 28142 CD; www.dereksherinian.com; www.myspace.com/dereksherinian2008

THE NAME OF SOMEONE by the Hafler Trio (2009)

This double CD is a Dutch reissue of British ambient sound recordings originally released in 1986/1988 and 1995/1996. The Hafler Trio was formed in the early 1980s as a duo with the U.K.-based Andrew Mackenzie and Christopher Watson (a co-founder of the Cabaret Voltaire group). It later became a Mackenzie solo project and in collaboration with other musicians over the years, he has produced many avant-garde recordings of ambient, conceptual sound art. One of the present CDs includes the 28-minute, 2-part track From (Antarctica) Brahma, (which was issued in 1995-1996 as a CD and book) and consists of mysterious drones and pingings. No information given with the CD as to the background of the tracks. However, we make reference to the 1999 Brazilian beer war/merger when one leading brewer, Brahma, acquired the other, Antarctica, with its popular brand of the same name. Korm Plastics paragraph 0.3, subsection 111 and paragraph 0.7, subsection 111; www.kormplastics.nl; (See also AMAZONICA by Bobby Brazil (2004) in this commentary section.)

ANTARCTICA by Maarten de Jong (2009) (Vinyl LP only)

De Jong is a Dutch electronica trance music producer, DJ and radio broadcaster. This record has three different mix versions of Antarctica, each track pounding and dancing its way to the core of the continent. Maarten told us that “I was watching a TV series about Antarctica on Discovery about ice melting and stuff…I was impressed and was still searching for a new title, that’s why I used Antarctica as the title for my song.” Oxygen Recordings OX039; www.myspace.com/djmaartendejong

ANTARCTIC BLUE WHALES by Oliva (2009) (Web site download only)

This is a collection of synthesizer-based instrumental New Age Music with whale and water themes that includes the 7-minute track gurgling but serene Antarctic Nights. Available from several Internet sites, including iTunes.

FIELD GUIDE TO THE WILDS by His Orchestra (2009) (Web site download only)

The Los Angeles, California-based multi-instrumental group, formed in 2006, has a tongue-in-cheek, joyful pop sound and a few of the members even act in mainstream TV shows. Their first recording has the track Antarctica, about a girl who “was the story I read to the people in bed, Who needed fantasy to sleep through the night, She was the feeling and joy of every girl and boy, when the end of school year arrived. Antarctica, I’ll take you to the South Pole, Antarctica, when you’ve got no place to go, Antarctica, I’ll take you to the South Pole, Antarctica.” Beware - this is one of the catchiest of Antarctic choruses, will take hold of you and not let you go. Available from several Internet sites, including iTunes. www.myspace.com/hisorchestramusic; www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYJASuDqtSk has a video of the song.

TRAPPED IN THE ICY SOUTH POLE by Sam Jones (2009) (Web site download only)

Sam Jones has written many children’s songs for SongsForTeaching.com, a major online source for educational music, lyrics, sound clips and teaching suggestions. One of his songs is Trapped in the Icy South, a waltz about Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-16 Endurance Expedition to Antarctica. Sample verse: “A ship that was called the Endurance, Was trapped in the snow and the ice, That hulk of a ship was left by its men, Just lying upon its side. Oh, Just lying upon its side. The horizon was barren as it could be, As far as the eye could see. But harnessed like horses the men pulled boats, With supplies and some rations to eat. Oh, with supplies and some rations to eat.” In 2009 Sam told us: “I am a teacher in California and I began writing songs to go with the stories that we read in second grade. God has blessed that, so I went ahead and wrote songs for the first and third grade stories as well. One of those third grade stories was about Ernest Shackleton’s trip through the South Pole - fascinating!!! That is the reason why I wrote that song.” www.songsforteaching.com

THE TROPIC RAT by Poison the Well (2009)

West Palm Beach/Miami’s Poison the Well is a hardcore rock band with six CDs since 1998. Their latest includes the track Antarctica Inside Me, about a constantly moving ballerina, dancing circles around the singer’s head, apparently leaving him very nervous and unsatisfied. “I sit under rain gathering the courage to do what my mind tells me? But I’ll just lay around. I’ve become a joke, a disrespectful being.” Come on guys, is Antarctica really like that? www.myspace.com/poisonthewell

WE SHALL INDEED TURN DIZZY THEN… by the Greenland Choir (2008)

The London, U.K.-based Greenland Choir is the duo of Adrian Hill and Davey Edwards on vocals and an assortment of instruments such as glockenspiel, xylophone, recorder and music box, augmented by various associates on vocals and instruments. Their first recording is an EP of light flavoured indie pastoral pop-rock. One of the tracks is Mount Erebus, which is also pictured in a drawing of a whale and icebergs on the front cover. The dreamy track does not seem to be too Antarctic but does say, “Let’s surround all the seas in the world. Let’s go to the South Pole.” Asyet 004; www.myspace.com/thegreenlandchoir

SELF TAUGHT MAGIC FROM A BOOK by Je Suis Animal (2008)

This is a quartet from Oslo, Norway with two female Norwegian vocalists and two males from Britain. Two of them met in art school in the U.K. and have been based in Norway since 2004. Their CD of dreamy, light pop-rock has the track Amundsen, a light hearted take on the famous Norwegian polar explorer. Lyrics: “Amundsen collected snowflakes, it was so nice, but I doubt his knowledge, of snow and ice. Who spoils the weather in June? Was it four-leaf clovers that stole his powers? I found Amundsen in the grass, Drinking snowflakes from a glass. Roald Amundsen, Roald…Amundsen collected snowflakes until 1928. They tried to freeze them but it was too late. Snowflakes are fragile, Moments they last, Heat from a finger, Beauty is past. Who scatters snowflakes? Who melts the ice? Who spoils the weather? Who makes it nice? www.myspace.com/jesuisanimal

EARTH SCIENCES by Laura Barrett (2008)

Laura Barrett is a Toronto, Canada-based indie pianist/singer/songwriter who has become known for her solo work as a vocalist who accompanies herself on the kalimba, a thumb piano. Her first solo EP record contains the track Deception Island Optimists Club, which was a finalist for the 2006 ECHO songwriting prize, sponsored by the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publisher of Canada. The inside of the CD booklet reproduces a large map, titled Deception Island, New South Shetland, drawn by Lieut. E. N. Kendall in 1829. Kendall was the expedition artist on board the HMS Chanticleer of the British Naval Expedition of 1828-31, under Henry Foster, which mapped the volcanic Deception Island, took pendulum and magnetic observations and charted other parts of the Palmer (Antarctic Peninsula) Coast. The old sealers’ harbour at Deception Island, Port Foster, is named after him. The track itself is hard to fathom since it seems to have no direct Antarctic references. Sample lyrics: “Living in paradise on Earth, No matter, no matter what you do, All of your dreams come true only to be, Replaced. So wish again. The sun is smiling. But always above you the idea raises its head. What would I do if the Earth fell apart? What would I? And we can't find our way out of here. Just sit back and wait for the answer to appear. And you'll say the end is near…” Maybe it does hint at future volcanic eruptions after all. Paper Bag Records paper 031; www.laurabarrett.net; www.myspace.com/laurabarrett

NOT EVEN DUST by Sleepout (2008)

This is the Chicago, Illinois indie rock group’s second CD and was inspired by Graceland Cemetery, which is the resting place of many of Chicago’s founders. Included is the track Ross Sea Party, a title associated with the under-heralded expeditioners who were to lay supplies from the Beardmore Glacier to Ross Island for Shackleton’s Endurance Expeditioners on their return to the Ross Sea from their planned Antarctic crossing over 1914-16. While Shackleton and his group never made it to the continent and became famous for their heroic survival and eventual rescue, the Ross Sea party had its own difficulties in being stranded with limited supplies. They provided their own stories of heroics in completing their supply-laying tasks. The song itself does not touch on this history and we asked Quinn Goodwillie, guitarist, vocalist and lyricist about the title in 2009. He told us: “The inspiration for the title came from a book I was reading when we were writing songs for Not Even Dust. The book was called “The Lost Men: The Harrowing Saga of Shackelton’s Ross Sea Party” (by Kelly Tyler-Lewis). I really enjoyed the book and the way it depicted the party’s willingness to survive against impossible odds. The desolation they encountered seemed to go hand in hand with some personal feelings I was dealing with while writing the album. I thought the title was fitting and descriptive of the overall mood of the song although the lyrics stray from the original source of inspiration.” Two Thumbs Down Records TTD 028; www.sleepout.net; www.myspace.com/sleepout

IN THE CIY OF DREADFUL NIGHT by Sunday Driver (2008)

Sunday Driver (named after a gene commonly found in mice) is a London/Cambridge, U.K.-based perfoming band whose first CD is an eclectic fusion of influences from Indian raga and tabla music, indie folk and light rock. Fronted by lead singer Chandrika (Chandy) Nath, the band has provided the soundtrack for an award-winning BBC radio show and has appeared on other radio shows and festivals. Chandy is a former physicist who spent four years with the British Antarctic Survey as a glaciologist, including five months in the field in Antarctica studying crevasses. Included on the CD are two of her Antarctic songs, Snow Song and Spindrift. A third song, Trip, while not on the CD, is found on a collection of live performances by various artists, including Sunday Driver, recorded at the Living Room in Cambridge: Living Room…Live, from Hope Street Music (2006), available by download only (see iTunes). Chandy told us about her Antarctic songs in 2009: “I used to be an ice scientist and the motivation for all three songs was from personal experience. I spent five months in Antarctica on a field trip at the turn of the century (1999/2000) and spent about 70 days in a tent on the Rutford Ice Stream. The songs are partly about the Antarctic itself and partly about the emotional impact of being so isolated.” Bakul Bagan Records BBR001; www.myspace.com/sundaydriverinuk

SOLDIERS’ SONGS: The Irish Abroad and Soldiering by Captain Mackey’s Goatskin and Stringband (2008)

Jimmy Crowley and Máirtín de Cógáin, veteran musicians specializing in Irish ballads, were originally from the County of Cork, Ireland and now reside in the U.S.A. Their first CD collaboration as a duo contains songs about the Irish in various wars and endeavours overseas. Included is The Ballad of Tom Crean, written by Cliff Wedgbury, with the catchy chorus: “He ran away to join the Navy when he was about 15, The farmer’s son from Anascaul the brave, the young Tom Crean.” The booklet notes state that “Much has been written about this legendary Kerryman recently as his star seems to rise; and Londoner Cliff Wedgbury, happily exiled in Cork City, has paid him this fine ballad tribute. The great explorers like Shackleton and Scott said they wouldn’t attempt a trip to the A