While looking for content for my DES 680 animation about Green-Wood Cemetery, I came across Classical Archives. I was looking specifically for music by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, one of America’s first popular composers, to play during my animation. Gottschalk died in 1869 a the age of 40 from a suspected overdose of quinine in Brazil, and was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery. His grave was once marked by a statue representing the “angel of music” but at some undetermined time disappeared (what? How did that go un-noticed?!). Now the cemetery is raising funds to have a replacement made.
On the web site I was able to listen to previews of individual tracks, many more than were available on iTunes, and once I signed up for my (free but limited) subscription, was able to download MIDI files. I will probably decide on the snippet of the file I want to use for my animation and then buy a real recording as the MIDI files sound understandably electronic.
I think I’ve settled on a track called “Bamboula” which was one of Gottchalk’s most popular compositions, recalling the creole music he remembered from his childhood in New Orleans and sounds very much like the pre-Civil War historical era that I want to evoke in the animation, as the cemetery opened in 1838.
