Johannes Brahms and the Train: Musings on Musicians and Steam 381 arrives in a station, where Parisian beaux hand their girls down from the coaches. The journey continues, but the train comes to grief in a dramatic derailment. There are two casualties, the soul of one flying to heaven and the other down to hell, followed by a funeral march. The heirs express their bitter sorrow in a cheerful Allegro vivace and Rossini ends with the words » Tout ceci est plus que naïf c’est vrai « .6 In addition to Rossini’s piano piece, there were other piano works by such enduring composers as Charles-Valentin Alkan and Scott Joplin. Works were also composed in other musical mediums. There were many popular and music hall songs about the railway published in England and the United States of America. Composers also wrote commissions. Hector Berlioz's cantata » Le chant des chemins de fer « , op. 19 no. 3, was written for the opening of the Paris-Lille section of the Chemin de Fer du Nord, and was performed at Lille on 14.6.1846.7 Melesio Morales’s orchestral fantasy » La locomotive « , performed for the opening of the Mexico–Puebla section of the Ferrocarril Mexicano railway (16.11.1869), is believed to be the earliest attempt at an orchestral interpretation of the sound of a locomotive. The Strauss family often used the train as inspiration, particularly for their more highspirited musical works, e.g. Johann Strauss' (Father) » Eisenbahn-Lust-Walzer « op. 89 (1836); Eduard Strauss’s » Bahn Frei! Polka Schnell « op. 45 (1869); and Johann Strauss II’s » Vergnügungszug, Polka Schnell für Orchester « op. 281 (1864). Scandinavian composers also wrote railway music, mostly pieces written on occasions of lines opening rather than on using the railway. While many of these early musical works originated because of the newness of the technology, ›railway music‹ did not stop when the novelty wore off. Twentieth-century composers continued to reference trains in their music, witness: Arthur Honegger’s » Pacific 231 « (1923); Elmer Bernstein’s soundtrack for the movie » Toccata for Toy Trains « (1959); and Steve Reich’s » Different Trains « (1988).8 6 Keith Anderson: Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868). Péchés de vieillesse: Volume VI, Album pour les enfants dégourdis (Excerpts) [music CD booklet] (= Rossini. Complete Piano Music 2. Alessandro Marangoni). Naxos, 2009, <http://www.classicsonline.com/catalogue/product.aspx?pid=645485>, 27.6.2011. 7 For details on the work’s history see Michel [Michael] Austin and Monir Tayeb: The visit of 1846, in: Austin and Tayeb: Berlioz in France. Lille, in: Austin and Tayeb: The Hector Berlioz Website 2011, <http://www.hberlioz.com/France/Lille.htm#1840>, 15.2.2011. For a description of the music, see Pierre-René Serna: Social Song and Ways of Utopia, Michael Austin transl., 2003, in: Michel Austin and Monir Tayeb: The Hector Berlioz Website 2011, <http://www.hberlioz.com/Special/prserna_ e.htm>, 27.6.2011.8 The most complete list of music relating to railways that I’m aware of is Phil Pacey: Music and Rail -ways, <http://www.philpacey.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/musrail.html>, 1.5.2011. See also: Railway Mu-sic, in: Oxford Dictionary of Music in: Oxford Music Online, <www.oxfordmusiconline.com>, 27.6.2011; and Vestergård (see Note 5).