Nature depicted in Classical Music
Beethoven
Beethoven
Beethoven was one of the most famous composers who often celebrated nature. His “Pastoral”, the first movement of symphony No.6 evokes the beauty of rural surroundings. Beethoven said “I am happy as a child at the thought wandering among clusters of bushes, in the woods, among trees, herbs, rocks. No man loves the country more than I; for do not forests, trees, rocks re-echo that for which mankind longs.”
(David B.Knight ‘ Landscape in music’ (2006) p.4)
The piece describes a landscapes with its flowing brook, distinctive bird songs such as the Cuckoo. Beethoven's work expands instrumental conventions to take the listener beyond the obvious, he takes the listener back to the real world through the language of instrumental music.
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms he is a great walker. He has a passionate love of nature. He has a habit to wake up at 4 or 5 O'Clock in spring and summer. After making himself a cup of coffee. To go walking into the woods enjoy the delicious freshness of early morning. To sit down and listen to the singing of the bird.
That gives him an idea to compose Brahms’s Horn Trio in E-flat Major, Op. 40 was inspired by one of his walks. In Recollections of Brahms that tells you a story about you walking into the woods and listening to the singing of birds. Sometimes it’s raining but not sad because Brahms said “my view is so fine. Even when it rains, I have only another kind of beauty.”
(David B. Knight “Landscape in music” (2006) p.11)
Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Debussy was a man that liked to read books. And he liked to look at the sky when he reads. He liked watching sunset. That gives him an idea to compose Nocturnes L.91 No.1 depict offers a musical portrait of the sky’s rolling clouds. The music develops gradually and subtly, much like a sunset does. The part of this piece (Nocturnes) is La mer Debussy thinking about Sea landscape. The sea when sunset. The orange light hits your skin. Imagine you sitting on the beach and watching the sunset.
(David B. Knight “Landscape in music” (2006) p.17)
Edvard Grieg
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Edvard Grieg
“When I was your age … I did not yet feel, in relation to nature’s towering mountains, the sense of sadness that has since cast itself over my outlook … For me, mysticism has always prevented jubilation from taking the upper hand. I could indeed rejoice inwardly over the free life. But nature itself? Face to face with nature I stood in silent reverence and awe as if before God himself. Certainly I love science’s urge to clarity. But the mystical attracts me nonetheless …” Edvard Grieg
That makes him compose Edvard Grieg Til våren This reflection on the solemn mysteriousness of nature comes from a letter written in 1905 to his younger friend, Frants Beyer.
(David B. Knight “Landscape in music” (2006)
Olivier Messiaen
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Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen
Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen December 10, 1908 April 27, 1992 was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex; harmonically and melodically he employs a system he called modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from the systems of material generated by his early compositions and improvisations. He wrote music for chamber ensembles and orchestra, vocal music, as well as for solo organ and piano, and also experimented with the use of novel electronic instruments developed in Europe during his lifetime.
Bird song
Birdsong and the 1960s
Olivier Messiaen composed the birdsong. While he had long been fascinated by birdsong, and birds had made appearances in several of his earlier works. He took this development to a new level with his 1953 orchestral work Réveil des oiseaux its material consists almost entirely of the birdsong one might hear between midnight and noon.
You can watch score at look at the shape of the notation. Shape look like a Bird singing
Research From “The Soundscape R.Murray Schafer The Sound of life p.29”