It wasn't that long ago -- 1911 -- that the race to be first to the South Pole was underway by expedition parties under Raold Amundsen for Norway and Robert Falcon Scott for Great Britain. They both succeeded in reaching the pole, but Scott's party never made it back, dying of exposure en route.
Ralph Vaughan Williams was commissioned to write some incidental music for a movie on the subject in 1948. He was taken by the story, and expanded his project into his Symphony No. 7, his Sinfonia Antartica, to depict the majesty of the seventh continent and the tragedy of the doomed expedition.
Mozart's Attic Thursday August 17th at 10:00 PM
