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| The Glories of the Vegetation of the Tropics Rise Before My Mind (more vividly than anything else). |
It’s about
time I posted some more of my own Darwin music to this site, as there’s a full
hour of it written. This an excerpt from The Glories of the Vegetation of theTropics, the first of Three Soliloquies for
Baritone and Classical Guitar (see Darwiniana tab for description). These three
settings of writings from Voyage of the Beagle and Autobiography represent a personal
journey of the mind, in his own words, starting with the sensual delights of
the Brazilian jungle.
You’ll have
to sing along with it (the guitar and ‘voice’ rendition) as it’s not yet been
performed, although I’m convinced there’s a ready audience for Darwin’s words
in music. I worked on the guitar settings with a well-known, world-leading classical
guitarist who is up for playing in public, as is a leading Oxford baritone for
singing. All we’ve got to do is find a suitable concert format. Let me know by
comment if you have any ideas!
The clip is
quite short, as rendered music is pretty terrible compared to real humans. But the
underlying words are also interesting as amongst Darwin's most 'deist',
conventionally referring to the God of Nature. Other extracts will be less so.
If he wrote it, I’ll set it (edited musical sense but as lightly as possible). In
the meantime, you can sing:
"The
primeval forests undefaced by the hand of man...no one can stand in these
solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath
of his body.”
The words on
the rain-forest are quite poignant given what’s happening to it and were quoted
by David Attenborough on (I think: Planet Earth 2) before panning out to reveal
a completely razed ex-forest. I think we’re all a little disgusted today (10th
March) to hear that a sixth episode of ‘Wild Isles’ will not been screened withthe rest to avoid the inconvenient truth of the real environmental
impoverishment of the British/Irish Isles, because of fears its themes of the
destruction of nature would risk a backlash from UK rightwing politicians and press.
But, back to
beauty:
“In my last
walk I stopped again and again, to gaze on these beauties, and endeavoured to
fix in my mind (forever) an impression which at the time I knew sooner or later
must fail”
A version of
what he witnessed from the Beagle Diaries:
29th
Feb 1832
The day has
passed delightfully: delight is however a weak term for such transports of
pleasure: I have been wandering by myself in a Brazilian forest: amongst the
multitude it is hard to say what set of objects is most striking; the general
luxuriance of the vegetation bears the victory, the elegance of the grasses,
the novelty of the parasitical plants, the beauty of the flowers — the glossy
green of the foliage, all tend to this end. — A most paradoxical mixture of
sound and silence pervades the shady parts of the wood, the noise from the
insects is so loud that in the evening it can be heard even in a vessel anchored
several hundred yards from the shore. Yet within the recesses of the forest
when in the midst of it a universal stillness appears to reign. To a person
fond of natural history such a day as this brings with it pleasure more acute
than he ever may again experience.
5th
March 1832:
King &
myself started at 9 o’clock for a long naturalizing walk. — Some of the valleys
were even more beautiful than any I have yet seen. — There is a wild luxuriance
in these spots that is quite enchanting. — One of the great superiorities that
Tropical scenery has over European is the wildness even of the cultivated
ground. Cocoa Nuts, Bananas, Plantain, Oranges, Papaws are mingled as if by
Nature…
(In fact,
the ‘primeval forests’ weren’t that undefaced, having been cultivated by the indigenous
peoples).
In the interests of strict accuracy, the statement above concerning the 6th episode of 'Wild Isles' is contested by the BBC, with some justification at https://twitter.com/bbcpress/status/1634245237378785280. While stating that the 'separate film' was never in the '5 part series', it will only be made available on i-player after the release of all 5 - so it is in fact, 6th in a series of films. If it describes important environmental, conservation and farming issues but is not part of a 5-part spectacular DA series, it seems strange to withhold it and would merit more explanation to avoid the impression of 'managing the message' for awkward government-bbc interaction reasons.
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