Music from Pole to Pole:
Cloud Formations from Antarctica to the Arctic
Tuesday 15 October 2024
A review of the concert by Pamela Harling
How to connect with nature through music? The City of London Sinfonia, who are now based in Smith Square Hall (formerly St Johns Smith Square) are exploring that question over three concerts this year. The middle concert in October linked different cloud formations with appropriate pieces of music. Dr Simon Clark, a science communicator and atmospheric physicist, guided us through the common cloud formations found on a journey between the Antarctic and Arctic. He started by talking about the names of clouds and, of course, gave credit to our own Luke Howard for being the person to think of a system for naming different types of cloud. Clouds are composed of water droplets or ice crystals and different climatic zones and land forms create different cloud characters.
The programme started in darkness with a performance of In manus tuas by Caroline Shaw for solo cello. This transported the audience to an eerie otherworld- the world of clouds. After the introduction by Dr Clark, the concert then moved to the Antarctic with the help of three of Webern’s 5 movements for string orchestra, Op. 5, spiky spectral pieces that suggested the ice crystals that form nacreous – or polar stratospheric – clouds. In the second movement, Webern’s stark, elliptical style conveyed the austere terror of a frozen landscape, while the third and fourth movements built a sense of the frosty thinness of the air.
From the Antarctic the journey swept out over the Southern Ocean. The Southern Ocean can be notoriously turbulent, with crashing sea ice and powerful winds, but when most calm stratocumulus clouds, benign flat formations that indicate weather change, form. These were evoked by Nocturne in B, Op. 40 by Dvorák.
More oppressive nimbostratus clouds – dark grey formations that produce continuous rain or snow – took the audience to South America, and the Epilogue to Witold Lutosławski’s Musique funèbre immersed the audience in intense atonal melancholy. Moving north up the continent, Osvaldo Golijov’s fantastic diabolic Last Round – a tribute to the Argentinian tango composer Piazzolla – accompanied images of the thunderous arcus cloud as it swirled up a manic discordant tango.
Musically it was time now for a powerful tempest courtesy of that giant of the cloud world, the cumulonimbus. The Sinfonia gave a breakneck performance of the Tempest movement from Marin Marais’ Alcione opera dazzling in its strength and nimbleness.
This was followed by Summer from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, evoking altocumulus castellanus cloud formations, while the third movement once more conjuring up a thrilling, exuberant storm. As the cloud name suggests, this cloud resembles castle turrets and often presages a thunderstorm.
In the North Atlantic it was time to experience the cirrus cloud. Here Thomas Adès’ O Albion, from his Arcadiana, provided a contemplative moment to the evening - just like lying in an English field watching wispy ice-crystal formed clouds passing overhead.
Finally, the Arctic was achieved, where the noctilucent cloud was introduced, another ice-crystal formation, which is distinctive for being formed right up in the mesosphere. Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s unearthly translucent Spectra (movements four, five and six) played by three instruments felt just right for evoking this phenomenon, which can only be observed at the poles. Once the notes had faded away, the evening ended with the same three instrumentalists playing the Aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Dr Clark reminded the audience of the beauty of our cloud wrapped planet and the current threat of global warming.
Hopefully, the Sinfonia will perform this concert again, so that more people can be inspired by the beauty of clouds and music.
The programme started in darkness with a performance of In manus tuas by Caroline Shaw for solo cello. This transported the audience to an eerie otherworld- the world of clouds. After the introduction by Dr Clark, the concert then moved to the Antarctic with the help of three of Webern’s 5 movements for string orchestra, Op. 5, spiky spectral pieces that suggested the ice crystals that form nacreous – or polar stratospheric – clouds. In the second movement, Webern’s stark, elliptical style conveyed the austere terror of a frozen landscape, while the third and fourth movements built a sense of the frosty thinness of the air.
From the Antarctic the journey swept out over the Southern Ocean. The Southern Ocean can be notoriously turbulent, with crashing sea ice and powerful winds, but when most calm stratocumulus clouds, benign flat formations that indicate weather change, form. These were evoked by Nocturne in B, Op. 40 by Dvorák.
More oppressive nimbostratus clouds – dark grey formations that produce continuous rain or snow – took the audience to South America, and the Epilogue to Witold Lutosławski’s Musique funèbre immersed the audience in intense atonal melancholy. Moving north up the continent, Osvaldo Golijov’s fantastic diabolic Last Round – a tribute to the Argentinian tango composer Piazzolla – accompanied images of the thunderous arcus cloud as it swirled up a manic discordant tango.
Musically it was time now for a powerful tempest courtesy of that giant of the cloud world, the cumulonimbus. The Sinfonia gave a breakneck performance of the Tempest movement from Marin Marais’ Alcione opera dazzling in its strength and nimbleness.
This was followed by Summer from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, evoking altocumulus castellanus cloud formations, while the third movement once more conjuring up a thrilling, exuberant storm. As the cloud name suggests, this cloud resembles castle turrets and often presages a thunderstorm.
In the North Atlantic it was time to experience the cirrus cloud. Here Thomas Adès’ O Albion, from his Arcadiana, provided a contemplative moment to the evening - just like lying in an English field watching wispy ice-crystal formed clouds passing overhead.
Finally, the Arctic was achieved, where the noctilucent cloud was introduced, another ice-crystal formation, which is distinctive for being formed right up in the mesosphere. Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s unearthly translucent Spectra (movements four, five and six) played by three instruments felt just right for evoking this phenomenon, which can only be observed at the poles. Once the notes had faded away, the evening ended with the same three instrumentalists playing the Aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Dr Clark reminded the audience of the beauty of our cloud wrapped planet and the current threat of global warming.
Hopefully, the Sinfonia will perform this concert again, so that more people can be inspired by the beauty of clouds and music.
