"To me, the only authentic music has only existed in nature sounds. The harmonic sound of the wind in the woods, the rhythm of the waves, the tone of raindrops, broken branches, stones colliding with stones, different animal noises: this to me is true music." - Olivier Messiaen
On 22nd November Alessandro Cortello spoke about a number of composers from many different times and places, and how they were influenced by the sounds of nature.
Some of the very first music made by humans was influenced by animal sounds - for example, the throat singing of Inuit tribes. Vivaldi used trills and fast repeated musical figures to emulate the call of a goldfinch, and much later, Messiaen went further in an even more literal representation of birdcalls:
From a more lighthearted angle, we listened to works from Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals, and Alessandro gave a performance of Edward German's The Camel's Hump. It was interesting to note many similarites in the compositional techniques despite a huge range of backgrounds and approaches (birds are almost always portrayed by trilling flutes, for example) - it seems that the sounds of nature are deeply ingrained into human music.
It was an interesting afternoon with some excellent pieces - some familiar, some unknown. If you haven't attended one of our Zoom conferences yet, don't miss the next one (13th December)!