Railroad Suite
Vanessa McClintock
Love Theme // Sierra Steam // Troubled Despair / Blue Night
Saturday Night // High Rail / Finale
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The title, RAILROAD SUITE, reflects the sources of inspiration for the work. The composer had worked on the Southern Pacific Railroad, Sacramento Division, and primarily over the Sierra Nevada Mountains for eighteen years.
Her travels on the rails led to, and provided for, many experiences which are the basis for the "impressions" depicted in her music. In addition to personal experiences, the composer was inspired by the heart-warming book by Kay Fisher, A Baggage Car with Lace Curtains. The book is about her first year of marriage; she the bride of a Signal Repairman, together living life in a baggage car converted into a home and struggling through the hardships on the railroad of the Depression Era.
RAILROAD SUITE was premiered inside the California State Railroad Museum, in Sacramento, on October 21, 1990. Dr. Les Lehr conducted his American River College wind ensemble. The concert was funded by the Teichert Foundation.
The entire work begins, and ends, with this music. And, though you might not hear it right off, fragments and variations of this "Love Theme" are used throughout the entire work to tie it all together. In other words, love is the unifying factor. This music portrays the love of a newlywed couple as they embark upon their life, and life's struggles, together.
This segment is not of grace, nor of beauty. It is about brute strength, about relentless energy, and sheer power. Imagine sleeping in your converted home on wheels that sits on a sidetrack while a massive steam locomotive with its main driver wheels measuring six to eight feet in diameter passes just outside your window on the main line track, literally only a few feet away. Any closer and you would be swept up in its wake. Then, following that immense first jolt, come eighty or more freight cars collectively adding to the passing earthquake. Imagine a young bride, asleep in her baggage car home for the first night, awakened with the awesome presence of that locomotive pounding the Earth just outside her door.
These next two sections segue from one to the other. The first, "Troubled Despair", relates the emotional experience of waiting for a train (with its steam engine) in a crowded train depot during the Depression Era. As the locomotive spits and hisses its steam, she entertains doubts about the uncertain present compete with those of the unforeseen future. "Blue Night" recalls a liquor bar in Truckee, California during those 1930's, as well as in the more economically depressed parts of Reno and Sparks, Nevada, thirty years later.
It is said that the Chinese built the railroad to Promontory Point, Utah, from the West} and that the Irish built it from the East. But for many, many years in the western region, the track workers who maintained the railroad bed—its rails, gravel ballast, and large wooden ties— (often known as "gandy dancers") were predominantly of Mexican heritage. This music celebrates a Saturday night at the end of a long and arduous work week. The music is festive and exuberant, while the people dance away the night.
Earlier we heard a portrayal of the enormous struggle of the steam locomotive pulling a freight train up and then over the high Sierras, not unlike the Greek legend Sisyphus. "High Rail" expresses the feeling of an entire train slowly starting up, gaining momentum, reaching maximum speed, floating on the rails like wind on sand, and eventually coming to a rest. The rhythms of the train are not a fixed "clickety-clack" but shift and jump unsuspectingly. The flow of inertia is not consistent, breaking like a wave but quickly regaining its crest before it falls.
As the train comes to rest from off the high rail, the music flows into the "Finale". It is a recollection of the "Love Theme" and brief reprises of the other themes throughout the work. It reminds us of the love of the young couple beginning their new life, and the romance of the railroad that is a part of us all.
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