Classical Music Inspired by the Wind

Weather-Inspired Classical Music: Songs About Wind

Passive, aggressive, and everything in between, there is rarely a time when the wind cannot be detected in the air.

The Greek god of wind, Aeolus lent his name to an instrument, the Aeolian harp, strings threaded between two wooden blocks, hung up to allow the vibration of the wind to produce random sounds, and there are hundreds of different wind instruments throughout the world. Even the most basic—the wide blade of grass held flat between fingers—is one such instrument, and it is known that bird bones drilled with holes were used 40,000 years ago to create tunes.

The wind has helped to shape our planet through erosion creating some of the world's most well-known—and to some—sacred natural sculptures. Monument Valley in Utah looks like giant hands have fashioned towering structures and deep valleys. Uluru, or as some refer to it, Ayres Rock, is an iconic wonder, protected by the Anangu people of Australia, influencing their culture and traditional beliefs from Dreamtime.¹

9 Classical Music Pieces Inspired by Wind

1. Chopin: "Étude Op25 No 11 'Winter Wind'"
2. Szymanowski: "The Love Songs of Hafiz - The Infatuated East Wind"
3. Michael Burritt: "Scirroco"
4. Debussy: "Preludes Book I - Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest (What the West Wind Has Seen)"
5. Takemitsu: "And Then I Knew T'Was Wind 1930–1996"
6. Vaughan Williams: "Motet - The Voice Out of the Whirlwind"
7. Sibelius: "Four Lyrical Pieces for Piano - No. 2 Gentle West Wind"
8. Britten: "Nocturne - What Is More Gentle Than a Wind in Summer?"
9. John Luther Adams: "Dark Wind"

1. Chopin: "Étude Op25 No 11 'Winter Wind'"

You know something extraordinary is coming from the first deceptively simple statement, when the bass falls as the lead in to a great whirlwind of virtuosity. Winter Wind's strong dotted theme is passed to the bass clef for most of the work, while the right hand's work-out is a cyclone of activity swirling over the top.

Cascades of arpeggios and scalic runs stream through the air, billowing and puffing, an étude indeed to leave you catching your breath.

Coordination between the two hands is a given. Digital dexterity, finger and wrist strength and a sense of arching form is required to push this tormented study to the extremes ends of the Earth; powerful control of mind and body brought together as one.

As the American critic James Huneker quipped "Small-souled men, no matter how agile their fingers, should not attempt it."¹

2. Szymanowski: "The Love Songs of Hafiz - The Infatuated East Wind"

Rapturously wreathed in golds and silvers, Szmanowski's The Love Songs of Hafiz shimmer and glint with a swooning langour.

First written for solo voice with piano accompaniment in 1911, he orchestrated the piece three years later allowing him to colour in the exoticism of the middle east. Having travelled to these alluring climes in the 1900s he became interested in the poems of the 14th-century Persian poet Hafiz of Shiraz.²

The songs are suffused with influences from peer composers—Mahler, Richard Strauss, and Debussy, and while the cycle may be sumptuous there are small delicacies on offer that are reminiscent of Berg.

The second of the eight songs, The Infatuated East Wind blasts in with a thump from the timpani. As it pulses it mixes tenderness with opulence, winding in a romantic solo violin before blowing itself out.

Scroll to Continue

What is a "LOWES #00907 - 866-483-7521 NC" Charge on My Credit Card Statement?

Should I Watch..? 'Sonic The Hedgehog 3' (2024)

A List of Dams in Punjab

3. Michael Burritt: "Scirroco"

Michael Burritt is a percussionist and composer who features the marimba heavily in his work. He has been commissioned to write for the World Marimba and the Paris International Paris Competitions.³

Scirocco was written at the request of virtuoso marimba player She-e Wu.⁴ The Scirocco is the desert wind whisked up from the Sahara flying over the Mediterranean and Southern Europe and can occasionally reach up as far as Great Britain, carrying with it the sand from its origins - I know - my car was covered in it when I lived there after a storm.

Scirocco swoops up and down, curling over the dunes, the rather hard timbre of using bare wooden sticks suiting the emery feel of the grains of sand. Heat radiates from the lower pitches of the marimba, a mirage of reverberation under the intense sun.

4. Debussy: "Preludes Book I - Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest (What the West Wind Has Seen)"

Debussy's direction is 'animé et tumultueux' - lively and tumultuous. Restless from the start, the hushed arpeggios build and recede. Lurching and searching out like a predator, slaloming between trees, it is an unstable phenomemun, whipping a snake-like tongue, and one to be feared.

Gusts threaten stability, pushing, pulling, before the Zephyr grabs hold and the air is buffeted and a final hold-onto-your hat swipe floors the listener and the wind stamps triumphantly on its prey.

5. Takemitsu: "And Then I Knew T'Was Wind 1930–1996"

Takemitsu's windy observations are in direct contrast to Debussy's perilous and menacing westerly.

Using the instrumentation Debussy chose for the second sonata of his planned six, flute, viola and harp, Takemitsu delves into a bare and rather opaque sound world taking a rising motif from the Debussy sonata and weaves it into his own.

The trills of the flute and viola string harmonics drop the temperature of Debussy's wind in summer, playfulness giving way to colder climes.

Apart from taking inspiration from Debussy, Emily Dickinson's poem demonstrates the effect wind has on both the auditory and the tactile, as the verse expounds:

Like Rain it sounded till it curved/And then I knew 'twas Wind/It walked as wet as any Wave/But swept as dry as sand.

Takemitsu examines the poem in minute detail, the dusty sandpaper, the screeches, the ripples on water, the patter of rain; all is here, carefully laid out yet free of the constraint of conventional bar lines and meter, a musical scroll unfurled. It is as if there is self examination, an unsettling unknowing, but by the time the music reaches its conclusion there is acceptance of itself, an internal reconciliation of sorts.

6. Vaughan Williams: "Motet - The Voice Out of the Whirlwind"

Loud chords from the organ provides the dramatic impetus to spring Vaughan Williams' motet into life, the forceful whirlwind that is the response of God to Job's questioning of human affliction.

The work started out in music from Galliard of the Sons of the Morning from scene VIII of his ballet Job, and is for mixed choir and organ or orchestra. Fervent and questioning, God is taking Job to task, leading him through a series of the natural Earthly and cosmic foundations He laid down as a counter to Job's examination of suffering.

A stern, rather lecturing mood, carries the motet. Gruff chords from an uncompromising God end the work, a longer version of the opening, as if to labour the point.

7. Sibelius: "Four Lyrical Pieces for Piano - No. 2 Gentle West Wind"

Listening to this blind I'd be hard pressed to put my finger on the who composed it.

There is little of the hunger associated with Sibelius' raw orchestral compendium, except perhaps in the first chord, tipping you onto your toes, wondering if he is whisking you off on the wind to Eastern climes.

That initial promise is immediately swept away as it rolls up and down in waves of impressionism, trying on Debussy's hat and perhaps the scarf which once wound around Schumann's neck.

The wind here is certainly very gentle, caressing the face, bringing nature to genial life. Sibelius was probably pleasing himself here. As a lover of the outdoors, his mellow indulgent play with the style of two pianistic greats was affording himself a little amusement away from his usual breadth of expansive buffeting. Why not enjoy the movement of, for once, a force in benign mood?

8. Britten: "Nocturne - What Is More Gentle Than a Wind in Summer?"

Britten set the first stanza of Keats' beautifully wrought poem Sleep and Poetry in 1958 as the last of a cycle of eight poems, using the first line as his own title for the Nocturne.

The wind is a character visiting the occupants of nature. Flowers, trees, animals, and lovers are all touched with kindly and teasing attention from the gentle summer wind. But sleep is yet more serene yet still retaining some of the stirrings associated with a light wind, the undertone of the lullaby, and how you find that hair is tumbled in the morning.

The instrumentation for the Nocturne is airy, the solo tenor matched with the lighter tones of the string orchestra rather than the full band. In addition Britten selects seven solo instruments which usually appear singly for each poem of the cycle, but for this, the final song, two of them - flute and clarinet - flit about, mimicking birds and bees.

The strings open the song, a thin atmospheric breath travelling in from afar, carrying with it secrets from a previous visitation. They transfigure to provide soft nests of resting places as the singer tells of the joys waking from sleep, encountering sunrise and the prospect of a new day, and the cycle closes on a bed of optimism.

9. John Luther Adams: "Dark Wind"

Written for the unclassical combination of bass clarinet, vibraphone, marimba and piano, the treacly vibrations that emerge from the start are all enveloping. A strong band of soft dark cloth edged with tassles and tiny bells appear to slowly and comfortably swaddle until it then drags away, taking you with it bound up inside.

John Luther Adams is a composer very much in tune with nature, having preferring the company of the snows of Alaska rather than the crowded population of New York where he now resides.⁴

Further Reading

• 7 Classical Compositions Inspired by Snow
  Read about composers using snow as their inspiration: Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev, Vaughan Williams, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Liszt, and the little-known Sviridov. They all used snow in different guises to show off their art.
• 6 Classical Compositions Inspired by Storms
  All of us have encountered storms of one sort or another in our lives. Unsurprisingly, composers have written music to conjure them up. Read how Haydn, Johann Strauss II, Khachaturian, Beethoven, Berlioz and Britten have found inspiration from storms
• Classical Music Inspired by Rain: From Brahms to Schubert
  Rain is a life-giver. No wonder there are so many rain gods devoted to it. Read how composers have been inspired by rain: Chopin, Debussy, Brahms, Britten, Takemitsu, Schubert, Gerard Finzi, and Hamish MacCunn.

Citations

¹ autralia.com

² Edith Wharton's New York

³ Reperoire Explorer

⁴ Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester.

⁵ Steve Weiss Music

⁶ New York Times

Comments

Frances Metcalfe (author) from The Limousin, France on December 31, 2018:

Ha ha ha, Flourish - I hadn't thought about the association, but now his performance will never be the same! One that note Happy New Year!

Elaina Baker from USA on December 30, 2018:

Wow, after trying to ignore the pianist in the Chopin video’s hair (looks windswept!) I was entranced by the way he attacked the keys wildly like a hurricane after a bit. Very neat.