NATURE IN MUSIC

Archaeological evidence known at this point of time report that the origin of the artistic activity dates back from more than 64,000 years, being its creator the homo neanderthalensis. In particular -and according to Science review- these are cave paintings in three Spanish caves located in Cantabria, Caceres and Malaga. Since then and to present day, man has expressed, from different artistic points of view, all the creativity that he has been able -or we would say,  has had the need- to transmit.

From our origins, the contact, relationship, and interaction with nature have  been and  are  evident. Many artists have benefited from that  to create  their work in any field, either  pictorial, literary, sculpture, musical, cinematographic, etc. It would be a very intense and arduous study to refer to all these areas so, in this article, we are going to  focus on the inspiration that some great composers,  who preceded us,  found in those areas and we will analyze three of their most relevant works.

We will start with Antonio Vivaldi, an Italian composer who lived between 1678 and 1741 belonging, therefore, to the musical style called Baroque. Vivaldi was a forefather, he was almost two centuries ahead of one of the most important musical resources  which is program music.

He published (c. 1725) Le quattro stagioni (The four seasons), four very popular concerts for violin and orchestra. For young music lovers, we will say that a concert is a music work where  the main melodies are played by one instrumentalist (or several) with the accompaniment of the orchestra (do not mistake with the show we call today a concert). At the same time, every concert (remember, a kind of musical work, not a show), is usually  divided into three parts, which musicians call movements. The concert nº 1 for violin and orchestra of the  aforementioned composer receives the subtitle of “ Spring”, nº 2 “ Summer”, nº 3 “ Autumn” and nº 4, by a process  of elimination, indeed, “ Winter”. These titles reveal the evident relationship between work and nature, but let’s go a little deeper. 

In “Spring”, Vivaldi describes with melodies the feelings that this season inspired him, using expressions such us “The awakening of  spring”, “The  singing of  birds”, “The babbling of  fountains” or “The storm”. But he also represents, musically speaking, the rustle of  leaves, the barking of a dog, or a shepherd’s nap. In the famous opening melody, we can perceive that explosion of life, colour, and feelings that this season transmits us:

It is followed by “ Summer”, where the Italian composer expresses the summer feeling with a slow melody, where everything is slowed down;  movements, breathings… Several birds appear again, such as cuckoos, turtledoves o goldfinches, and where the zephyr (warm wind from the west) plays its role too. But  summer rest is interrupted by annoying flies and a threatening storm  approaching , which finally takes place on the marvellous 3rd movement (Presto):

Autumn starts with a simple melody which describes the song and dance of a  group of farmers. And there is no  party without … a drunkard. Vivaldi describes him in his ethylic peak at first, and then, sleeping. But let us come back to nature. This 3rd concert is finished with a hunting described by the orchestral tutti, a lively melody with ternary rhythm which evokes the set out of hunters and dogs at the beginning of the hunting day.  The solo violinist -who plays the role of the wild game fleeing- answers  the orchestra:

Finally,   winter  comes . The ostinato on the strings describes the snow falling  which, together with dissonant chords, change the appearance of the work completely. We have gone from the warmth of the melody of the three previous concerts to a colder environment, where there are snow storms, icy winds and even chattering teeth.

 Let us turn now to a unique work. They all are, really, but this was written in the most horrifying environment that we could imagine: a  Nazi concentration camp  during the Second World War. In June of 1940, the French composer and pianist Olivier Messiaen was captured by the German army and taken to Stalag VIII-A camp (present day in Poland). There he met other musicians, such as the violinist Jean le Boulaire, the clarinetist Henri Akoka and the cellist Ètienne Pasquier. For this musical group he wrote Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time), whose  premiere took place in the concentration camp itself on 15  January 1941, for 5000 prisoners.

We will comment on the one called Abyss of the Birds, one out of  the eight parts into which this work of the beginning of the avant-garde musical period is divided into. It is about a heartbreaking piece for solo clarinet where a dualism is produced; on the one hand  happiness, freedom, light, the sky of the birds and, on the other hand,  darkness, fear, hopelessness -in short, the abyss- of the place where the composer was confined. 

 The first section, the birds, is masterfully described by Messiaen with very short, fast and high notes. The French composer studied the singing of 77 birds in depth, publishing seven piano books, entitled Catalogue of birds. The second section is expounded through a slow melody, dismal, sometime with very long notes, beginning in the lowest clarinet register, which becomes more tense, painful, dramatic as it progresses towards more high registers of the wind instrument.

In this example, nature goes beyond a simple relationship with music; it is human nature itself, diabolical in this case, which produced this composition genesis. With this short  approach we can understand the initial description of it as a “unique work”, which should make us think about the problems we humans get into,  sometimes leading us to such historic episodes as execrable as the Holocaust was.

To finish with something more joyful, although History must not be forgotten , otherwise we would be condemned to repeat it, we are going to refer to a funny work by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Poliot shmelyá (The flight of the bumblebee). It is not an isolated work, but it is part of The tale of Tsar Saltan opera, written by the Russian composer in 1899. The script of this work -Nationalist style- tells that Militrisa explains to her son Gvidon how his father abandoned them. The boy, within his imagination, transforms into a bumblebee that flies to Saltan’s court, his supposed father.

And, at this point, not only the boy undergoes a transformation, but the melody too. A previous note. In the 19th century a musical resource that is still present in movie soundtracks nowadays was used: the leitmotiv. This is a melody assigned to a character o a situation. Let us do a mental exercise; what is Indiana Jones’ theme?, Superman´s?, Jaws´?… every time we listen to these melodies our mind links them with their corresponding characters; this is leitmotiv.

Well, as we said previously, Gvidon’s leitmotiv is transformed masterfully int o his alter ego, the bumblebee, by Rimsky-Korsakov. Let us see in the score: 

We can see in the bumblebee leitmotiv the notes coincidences with Gvidon’s leitmotiv (notes in red).

To summarise, there are lots of musical examples which we could refer to when speaking about the relationship between music and nature: The sea by Claude Debussy, Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony “Pastoral”, The morning by Edvard Grieg, The trout by Franz Schubert, and a very long etcetera which we could use to complete many and very interesting pages.