I recently returned from an interdisciplinary conference about using nature to address environmental challenges. I had a great conversation with a classical music composer.
He noted that trees have appeared as symbols and settings and even main characters in classical music. One of his favorite pieces is "The Pines of Rome," by the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi, written in 1924.
Respighi turned four groves of Italian stone pines into music. That species, Pinus pinea, is native to the Mediterranean region.
In the first movement, children play beneath the pines of the Villa Borghese. The music races with youthful energy.
Then the mood shifts as the music takes listeners to the pines near a cemetery. The deeper tones reflect the shadows the trees cast — and their symbolic roles in human life and death.
In the third movement, we hear the song of a nightingale perched in the pines. It was one of the first uses of recorded sound in orchestral music.
The last movement describes ancient Roman legions marching beneath towering pines along the Appian Way.
The music made me think about the beauty of nature in sound, and the passage of generational time, and the capacity of music to place me in a particular location.
That’s also what trees do for us. They stand still while generations pass beneath them, becoming witnesses to both history and imagination.
Sometimes, to be with trees, you can use an orchestra as well as a forest.
