Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean
Jul. 17th, 2013 02:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dormouse1953I'm reading 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson as the moment as part of my reading for the Hugo voting. There's a section where a couple of characters are walking through a tunnel on Mercury and one is an expert whistler so he passes the time by whistling classical compositions. At one point, he realises he is under Ives crater - it does exist apparently - "He whistled 'Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,' which Ives had incorporated so memorably into one of his wild compositions."
Well, that's an understatement. It was probably the tune Ives quoted most. (I'm something of an Ives fanatic.) I recall one commentator saying it was easier to list compositions in which he didn't use the tune, but that is probably overstatement the other way. Certainly it's in the 2nd and 4th symphonies and the 4th of July movement from the Holidays symphony and the 2nd (Concord) piano sonata and the 2nd string quartet. And those are just the compositions that immediately come to mind. I'm sure it's in one of the violin sonatas but I can't remember which.
Well, that's an understatement. It was probably the tune Ives quoted most. (I'm something of an Ives fanatic.) I recall one commentator saying it was easier to list compositions in which he didn't use the tune, but that is probably overstatement the other way. Certainly it's in the 2nd and 4th symphonies and the 4th of July movement from the Holidays symphony and the 2nd (Concord) piano sonata and the 2nd string quartet. And those are just the compositions that immediately come to mind. I'm sure it's in one of the violin sonatas but I can't remember which.
