Finding music selections for this chapter has been frustrating, but perhaps we're being too picky. Anyhow, here's a piece that perhaps fits. It's by Jascha Heifetz, from his It Ain't Necessarily So (Legendary Classic and Jazz Studio Takes) CD, released in '05 on the DG label. (1:35)
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From DREAM TRACKS - THE RAILROAD AND THE AMERICAN INDIAN 1890-1930 by T.C. McLuhan
The Golden Era of railroading overlapped considerably with the Golden Era of photography. Both set the stage and paved the way for the modern tourist. In addition to using paintings and illustrations, the Santa Fe Railway extended its campaign for a monopoly of the tourist market by circulating grand and enchanting photographic images of Indian life and the scenery of the Southwest to advertise its lines, to encourage settlement, to attract tourists, and simply to generate excitement. This was achieved by contracting for the services of a wide variety of professional, commercial, and amateur photographers.
Conservatively, one would estimate that there must have been hundreds of photographers in the employ of the Santa Fe Railway during the formative years of its advertising program. Regrettably, we know the names of but a handful of the corps of photographers who produced images of Southwest life under the aegis of the railroad. Given photography's uncertain and youthful status as an art form, photographers of that time were less likely than modern photographers to credit themselves as the creators of particular photographs. Authorship also got lost in the shuffle of the mass production of images.
Many of the photographs the railroad purchased were colored by other artists or by coloring firms. Other photographs were severly cropped to fit the rectangular format of the magic-lantern slide. In general, the railroad felt free to modify photographic images so that they conformed to the requirements of its promotional themes for postcards and lantern slides.
For Southwestern "theme" music, it's hard to beat Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite. Performing here is the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Rico Saccani. It's from their BPO Live: American Classics CD, released in '07on the BPO Live label. (5:23)
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a Continued from DREAM TRACKS
Invented in the middle of the seventeenth century, the magic lantern foreshadowed contemporary motion-picture technology. It evolved into what Edison described as "an instrument which does for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear." The magic lantern was probably one of the most popular instruments ever made. It worked its charms at first on children and was later taken up by families as home entertainment and by the sciences as an educational tool. Millions knew its enchantment.
The lantern shows projected and retrieved fantasy and introduced a vivid new world. They rocked one into dreams that often only money could buy. They were the perfect vehicle for railroad publicity. As the capacity of the magic lantern evolved, its shows produced a form of cinematic illusionism with a tapestyry of hand-colored photographic images, projected by a powerful arc light, that rendered a stirring and unforgettable luminosity. The lantern effect was magic. Pure sentience. There was something of the campfire experience in watching these illuminations. Fields of light. Fleeting moments frozen in time and transformed into a permanent record. a
