These days, so many traditional skills and practices are being lost,
and a wide range of working sounds, like clanging, scraping, and spinning,
is only a reminiscence of a bygone era.

The song “Gretchen am Spinnrade” (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel)
was composed by Franz Schubert to words by Goethe.
You can find the poem and its English translation at www.oxfordlieder.co.uk

The song was later arranged for piano solo by composer Franz Liszt,
a virtuoso pianist himself.
The music amazingly describes the constant spinning movement along with Gretchen’s emotional turbulence:

“This old hammer rings like silver …”
Enjoy some hammering sounds from the “Railroad Worksong”,
which dates back to the late 19th century, in an up-to-date performance by
Mark Knopfler and the Notting Hillbillies:

“The Harmonious Blacksmith” by George Frideric Handel
takes us back in time, when the blacksmith was a vital part
of the community. 
This is not Handel’s original title, and there are some colorful explanations
as to how this piece got its name; One of them suggests that Handel had heard a blacksmith singing and borrowed the tune.
The piece was composed for harpsichord, an intricate keyboard instrument which required a very high degree of workmanship on its own:

At times when machinery and artifacts were works of art,
no wonder Handel himself composed pieces for a musical clock:

For more old-world tasks, enjoy our post: Laundry Day