Composers have always sought to reproduce the sounds of nature in music as faithfully as possible. It was not until the invention of sound recording, however, that composers were able to do what had previously seemed impossible: bring the authentic voices of the natural world directly into the concert hall.
In Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Cantus Arcticus, birds are no longer merely the object of musical imitation, but become genuine participants in the performance, at times even its soloists. Armed with a tape recorder, the Finnish composer travelled to the northern wetlands and the regions around the Arctic Circle to record their calls, including those of migrating swans. He then wove these recordings into the orchestral texture, creating a fascinating musical documentary of the natural world.
The avian motif returns in a very different, more playful guise in Anders Hillborg’s Clarinet Concerto, known as Peacock Tales. From the outset, the work was conceived as something more than a virtuoso showpiece: its early performances combined music with masks, mime and dance. Virtuosity is interwoven with humour, jazz energy and theatrical tension, while the whole takes the form of a brilliant masquerade, at times demonic.
The concert will conclude with Cosmic Symphony, a suite assembled by the Canadian conductor Nicolas Ellis from excerpts drawn from the operas and ballets of the French Baroque master Jean-Philippe Rameau. It tells the story of the birth of the Earth, the power of the wind and raging storms. In the work’s final section, however, Ellis has prepared a surprise: to depict the explosion of a supernova, he has woven into the suite a strikingly avant-garde passage from Jean-Féry Rebel’s ballet Les Élémens—a harsh evocation of chaos.
Bartłomiej Gembicki
