The Mournful Sound

An Attack of Volcanic proportions Erupted through New York City skyline 

The two-jet Assault inflicted a Crash of Earthquake proportions, which collapsed the World Trade Center into a heap of smoking rubble: the deadliest 911 emergency in American history, on the morning of September 11, 2001, a day that lives in infamy.

9/11

More than 3000 dead.

But our dreadfully mournful sound goes back much further in time.

We had more than 2400 dead at the Pearl Harbor attack 60 years earlier, December 7, 1941, a remembered date that has persisted in infamy. The mournful sound on that day arrived as  whining engines of Japanese dive bombers. 

One appropriate way to ponder the tragedy of such immense death-events is to listen to the  sound of tragedy, as it has been rendered to music. On this 20th 9/11, I recommend Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, as performed by the Detroit Symphony:

Barber Adagio

Another military attack comes to my mind when considering the panorama of tragedy in this country’s history.

On June 25, 1879, our 7th Cavalry, commanded by General George Custer, attacked Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho people in the battle of Little Big Horn, which was fought in Montana, June 25-26, 1879.  700 American soldiers died. The death toll among the victimized natives is not known.

In that tragic battle, we white-privileged attackers were the aggressors.

44 years ago, this was the  mournful sound that I composed while pondering that tragedy:   

Sitting Bull’s Eyes     ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u71LxQ4YDb0)

Smoke