Musical works about nature: a selection of good music with a story about it

Pictures of the changing seasons, the rustling of leaves, bird voices, the splashing of waves, the murmur of a stream, thunderclaps – all this can be conveyed in music. Many famous composers were able to do this brilliantly: their musical works about nature became classics of the musical landscape.

Natural phenomena and musical sketches of flora and fauna appear in instrumental and piano works, vocal and choral works, and sometimes even in the form of program cycles.

“The Seasons” by A. Vivaldi

Antonio Vivaldi

Vivaldi’s four three-movement violin concertos dedicated to the seasons are without a doubt the most famous nature music works of the Baroque era. The poetic sonnets for the concerts are believed to have been written by the composer himself and express the musical meaning of each part.

Vivaldi conveys with his music the rumble of thunder, the sound of rain, the rustling of leaves, the trills of birds, the barking of dogs, the howling of the wind, and even the silence of an autumn night. Many of the composer’s remarks in the score directly indicate one or another natural phenomenon that should be depicted.

Vivaldi “The Seasons” – “Winter”

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“The Seasons” by J. Haydn

Joseph Haydn

The monumental oratorio “The Seasons” was a unique result of the composer’s creative activity and became a true masterpiece of classicism in music.

Four seasons are sequentially presented to the listener in 44 films. The heroes of the oratorio are rural residents (peasants, hunters). They know how to work and have fun, they have no time to indulge in despondency. People here are part of nature, they are involved in its annual cycle.

Haydn, like his predecessor, makes extensive use of the capabilities of different instruments to convey the sounds of nature, such as a summer thunderstorm, the chirping of grasshoppers and a chorus of frogs.

Haydn associates musical works about nature with the lives of people – they are almost always present in his “paintings”. So, for example, in the finale of the 103rd symphony, we seem to be in the forest and hear the signals of hunters, to depict which the composer resorts to a well-known means – the golden stroke of horns. Listen:

Haydn Symphony No. 103 – finale

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“Seasons” by P. I. Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Tchaikovsky

The composer chose the genre of piano miniatures for his twelve months. But the piano alone is capable of conveying the colors of nature no worse than the choir and orchestra.

Here is the spring rejoicing of the lark, and the joyful awakening of the snowdrop, and the dreamy romance of white nights, and the song of a boatman rocking on the river waves, and the field work of peasants, and hound hunting, and the alarmingly sad autumn fading of nature.

Tchaikovsky “The Seasons” – March – “Song of the Lark”

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“Carnival of Animals” by C. Saint-Saens

Camille Saint-Saens

Among musical works about nature, Saint-Saëns’ “grand zoological fantasy” for chamber ensemble stands out. The frivolity of the idea determined the fate of the work: “Carnival,” the score of which Saint-Saëns even forbade publication during his lifetime, was performed in its entirety only among the composer’s friends.

The instrumental composition is original: in addition to strings and several wind instruments, it includes two pianos, a celesta and such a rare instrument in our time as a glass harmonica.

The cycle has 13 parts describing different animals, and a final part that combines all the numbers into a single piece. It’s funny that the composer also included novice pianists who diligently play scales among the animals.

The comic nature of “Carnival” is emphasized by numerous musical allusions and quotes. For example, “Turtles” perform Offenbach’s cancan, only slowed down several times, and the double bass in “Elephant” develops the theme of Berlioz’s “Ballet of the Sylphs”.

The only number of the cycle published and performed publicly during Saint-Saëns’ lifetime is the famous “Swan”, which in 1907 became a masterpiece of ballet art performed by the great Anna Pavlova.

Saint-Saëns “Carnival of the Animals” – Swan

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Sea elements by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

The Russian composer knew about the sea firsthand. As a midshipman, and then as a midshipman on the Almaz clipper, he made a long journey to the North American coast. His favorite sea images appear in many of his creations.

This is, for example, the theme of the “blue ocean-sea” in the opera “Sadko”. In just a few sounds the author conveys the hidden power of the ocean, and this motif permeates the entire opera.

The sea reigns both in the symphonic musical film “Sadko” and in the first part of the suite “Scheherazade” – “The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship”, in which calm gives way to storm.

Rimsky-Korsakov “Sadko” – introduction “Ocean-sea blue”

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“The east was covered with a ruddy dawn…”

Modest Moussorgsky

Another favorite theme of nature music is sunrise. Here two of the most famous morning themes immediately come to mind, having something in common with each other. Each in its own way accurately conveys the awakening of nature. This is the romantic “Morning” by E. Grieg and the solemn “Dawn on the Moscow River” by M. P. Mussorgsky.

In Grieg, the imitation of a shepherd’s horn is picked up by string instruments, and then by the entire orchestra: the sun rises over the harsh fjords, and the murmur of a stream and the singing of birds are clearly heard in the music.

Mussorgsky’s Dawn also begins with a shepherd’s melody, the ringing of bells seems to be woven into the growing orchestral sound, and the sun rises higher and higher above the river, covering the water with golden ripples.

Mussorgsky – “Khovanshchina” – introduction “Dawn on the Moscow River”

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It is almost impossible to list all the famous classical musical works in which the theme of nature is developed – this list would be too long. Here you can include concertos by Vivaldi (“Nightingale”, “Cuckoo”, “Night”), “Bird Trio” from Beethoven’s sixth symphony, “Flight of the Bumblebee” by Rimsky-Korsakov, “Goldfish” by Debussy, “Spring and Autumn” and “Winter road” by Sviridov and many other musical pictures of nature.