The arrival of the floating matchboxes was the forerunner of the Atlantic Ocean trade routes which were the beginning of the story as Rudge announced. Then came the continent itself. Then and now it is a confrontation of awesome proportions. The continuing ambiguity of American space is its mystery. Like certain other nations, America seems to defeat time passing.
Centuries pile up, one upon another.
This, David Rudge made clear at the outset of our voyage, reflects in America's musical personality. The first part of the lecture was more talk than music, but he made clear the complexity of the root beginnings of the subject. He emphasised how the US is a nation with an awful lot of space, so much, indeed, that it is a wonder anything as formalised as music ever materialised. We moved through these early centuries by covered wagon. And finally we sped past on the great railroads.