Natural Selection

N ATURAL SELECTION

Nature’s endless splendour is celebrated in a slew of concerts in the MSO’s 2023 program. Here, Elissa Blake looks at some of the highlights.

The deepest roots of music – as in humans purposely engaged in making organised sound – are fathomlessly old and bound to the natural world its makers knew themselves to be a part of. In the thousands of centuries before music became the artform we understand today, humans paid tribute to the world around them by using their voices, bodies and instruments made from nature itself. In the early chapters of his book Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening, British writer and broadcaster David Hendy describes a world in which prehistoric music makers mimicked bird song, the sound of flowing water, the evensong of insects and frogs, the roar of thunder. In echoing caves and reverberant rock shelters, drumming might sound like flocks of birds taking wing, or a herd of stampeding wild horses. Since then, composers of all stripes have continued to conjure the natural world in their music, and in 2023, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra will explore some of the most evocative and affecting works. 

THE COMING SEASON

The MSO’s Season Opening Gala (24 February), features Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs: Spring, September, Going to Sleep and At Sunset – all of them (At Sunset in particular) suffused with impressions of the world the great composer would soon leave.

In the Nature’s Majesty program (2 and 3 March), MSO Chief Conductor Jaime Martín will lead the Orchestra through a program inspired by the mountainous landscapes of Europe (Strauss’ An Alpine Symphony) and Victoria’s Dandenong Ranges (captured in Margaret Sutherland’s Haunted Hills).

In September, in the concert Schumann and Mendelssohn: Abundant Spring, the MSO will play Schumann’s 1840 Symphony No.1, his Spring Symphony in which we hear the world come alive after a long winter’s sleep. While in the MSO’s Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Smetana concerts (15 and 16 September) – featuring pianist Joyce Yang – audiences will encounter nature in Czech composer Bedřich Smetana’s Má Vlast (My Fatherland), a work partly inspired by the ebb and flow of the Vltava River as it winds through Prague. And in the Beethoven and Dvořák: Nature’s Transcendence program (18 November), Australian composer Maria Grenfell’s River Mountain Sky will feature; a celebration of Tasmania’s landscape of rivers and mountains over the course of a day – from orange and pink skies at dawn, to bright sunshine bouncing off rushing water, to quiet, clear, dark nights under vivid stars.

“Nature is something that resonates with everyone. As a theme, it came up almost immediately in our first conversations on programming...”

THE RIGHT TIME TO EXPLORE

At a time when the fate of nature is becoming increasingly paramount in people’s minds, it felt right for the MSO to engage with the subject, says John Nolan, the Orchestra’s Director of Programming. “It’s something that resonates with everyone,” Nolan says. “As a theme, it came up almost immediately in our first conversations on programming with Jaime [Martín]. Even in works we’re presenting that aren’t explicitly referring to nature, it’s there as a common thread.”

Many of the works being presented are inspired not only by nature but also the culture, legends and stories nature inspired, Nolan explains.

“Dvořák – whose Fifth Symphony features in Ears Wide Open in October and the Beethoven and Dvořák: Nature’s Transcendence program in November – loved spending time in nature. He embraced hiking, birdwatching and gardening. There’s even a collection of his garden implements and straw hats on display at the Czech Museum of Music. Dvořák and Smetana were both concerned with creating a national style of music that drew inspiration from their

The MSO’s Green Orchestra Initiative

The MSO’s commitment to sustainability is also inspiring its inaugural Green Orchestra Initiative. The Orchestra is now one of many arts organisations worldwide working towards reducing the

homeland; both natural and cultural. In these works, we can hear the influence of Bohemian folk songs as well as getting the sense of the beautiful landscapes.”

That drawing together of myth and nature is also evident in the music of the Australian composers in MSO’s 2023 programming, Nolan adds.

“Margaret Sutherland’s Haunted Hills and Peter Sculthorpe’s From Ubirr [which will be heard in the MSO’s Chamber presentation Clarinet Quintets] are both inspired by the Australian landscape but are also contemplations of the First Peoples that have occupied this land for thousands of years. Similarly, Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace, is a vivid depiction of place, people and time during a violent period of Australia’s colonial history.

“And Maria Grenfell’s River Mountain Sky is such an evocative piece. It’s so easy to hear birdsong and bubbling streams.”

FORCE OF NATURE

To experience something of nature at its most forceful and profound, it’s impossible to go past Strauss’ An Alpine Symphony, to be conducted by Jaime Martín. Written in 1915, this mighty tone poem is powerfully influenced by the mountain landscapes (and ferocious storms) Strauss experienced as a boy in the Alps.

“It’s such a wonderful depiction of the scale and magnificence of the Alps, starting just before dawn and taking the listener through the full day,” says Nolan. “It has one of the most vivid depictions of a storm in all music and it’s a wonderful experience for newcomers to the orchestra.”

The work draws on every facet of a symphony orchestra to evoke the scent of pine trees, the rush of cascading water, the excitement of an approaching electrical storm. Strauss’ original score called for up to 125 players, including a “thunder trio” of timpani, bass drum and metal thunder sheets, augmented by a wind machine and piccolos for lightning.

“You rarely see a bigger orchestra on stage than with the Alpine,” Nolan says. “It’s such an immense sound, absolutely epic in terms of its colour and range, and yet so accessible for people new to the experience of orchestral music.”

MSO Chief Conductor Jaime Martín agrees: “Strauss’ Alpine will bve an ideal piece to show the incredible lush sound of this wonderful Orchestra – it is a huge part of the repertoire.” ■

“Maria Grenfell’s River Mountain Sky is such an evocative piece. It’s so easy to hear birdsong and bubbling streams.”

Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony is certainly the peak of natureinspired composition.

carbon footprint of their operations. One of the main prongs of the initiative is to try and reduce the amount of printed material used by the company in an aim to eliminate the carbon pollution that comes with the printing and shipping of hard copy scores, and taking bulky portfolios on the road. Another is the production of printed concert programs on fully recyclable, 100% carbon-offset paper stock, introduced in late 2022. Over time, the MSO’s musicians will move from sheet music to playing from largeformat electronic tablets, an initiative the MSO will join European orchestras in pioneering.