Home for the Harvest : Music for Thanksgiving —Various artists (Albany 1058)
Nature’s abundance – this is what harvest festivals around the world have always celebrated. But America’s great harvest festival, Thanksgiving, celebrates something else besides. Ever since Pilgrim newcomer and native Wampanoag sat together at a common table in the fall of 1621, Thanksgiving has been a reminder of our deep connection to family, friends, neighbors and (as the Founding Fathers would put it) Nature’s God. In music for instruments and voices, symphonic excerpts, dance tunes, spirituals and hymns, here are selections that find the ties that bind us. And never has such music been needed more than right now.