Playlist for the Great Outdoors

May 11 to 15 is Great Outdoors Week on Classical California. We’ll be bringing you music inspired by nature throughout the day, Monday through Friday. To get you in the mood, Classical California’s music programming team - Rik Malone, John Van Driel, and Ella Harpstead - are sharing their three favorite nature-related pieces of classical music. Explore all nine selections below, along with the reasons they think you’ll love them too.

Rik Malone

Smetana: Vltava (The Moldau) I remember when I was very young Captain Kangaroo used to play a short film on his TV show that was set to this music. It started with drops of rain on leaves in the forest, then followed the rain collecting into a stream, and finally a river – basically, the story of the piece as Smetana wrote it! I don’t know for sure, but this may have been the very first non-concert classical music video ever.

Copland: An Outdoor Overture Copland wrote this piece to be played by school orchestras, and that’s where I first encountered it, playing viola in the DC Youth Orchestra. I played it in concert halls, on the National Mall, on a barge in the Potomac River, and I even played it with Copland himself conducting.

Handel: Water Music This may be my all-time favorite piece of Baroque music. I love the melodies and the contrasts between festive and quiet passages; and since I love being on the water myself, any music written to be played on the water has a special place in my heart!

John Van Driel

Vivaldi: 4 Seasons Antonio Vivaldi’s 4 Seasons is arguably the most famous music associated with the Great Outdoors. 4 violin concertos that tell stories of birdsong, thunderstorms and shivering snow all based on accompanying sonnets. It’s early program music far ahead of its time.

Alan Hovhaness: Symphony No. 66, “Hymn to Glacier Peak” American composer Alan Hovhaness was greatly inspired by the world around him. His Symphony No 66, Hymn to Glacier Peak is a reference to the stratovolcanic Glacier Peak that Hovhaness could see from his home in Seattle, Washington. The symphony brings together the influence of Bach counterpoint, sweeping hymn like melodies and an almost spiritual reverence for nature.

Eric Whitacre: The River Cam Eric Whitacre spent a tern as a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University in the Fall of 2010. Every day he would walk along the banks of the River Cam, thinking about the sights, sounds and history of the English countryside. The result is one of the most moving moments in music.

Ella Harpstead

Jacob Shea: The Arctic Suite My favorite thing about music inspired by our planet is that it often places the listener in nature, sculpting a landscape through the notes. With scoring credits on popular nature documentaries like The Blue Planet, composer Jacob Shea easily places us in the Arctic Circle for a journey through ice, wind, ecological devastation, and breath-freezing beauty. I love the use of percussion to create icy sparkle, and the solo violin’s emotional rise and fall, played beautifully by Norwegian violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing.

Amy Beach: 3 Piano Pieces, Op.128 This set of short solo piano works includes “A Young Peterboro Chipmunk,” “Young Birches,” and “A Hummingbird.” Each piece is just so charming, and I picture the composer sitting on a quiet bench in New Hampshire, music filling her mind. The funny scurrying of a chipmunk, the characteristic flash of birch leaves in the breeze, and the impossibly fast darting of a hummingbird are so clearly heard in this music.

Maurice Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé: Daybreak Blue pre-dawn light, a cool breeze, and early birdsong give way to glorious sunrise in the “Daybreak” section of Ravel’s score for the ballet Daphnis et Chloé, which centers on the romance between a shepherd and shepherdess in ancient Greece. Every time I hear this piece, I marvel at those twirling woodwinds and the way bird calls leap from the orchestra. Many composers have scored a sunrise, but I like the way Ravel depicts all of the activity that goes on before cymbals crash and you realize the sun is up and the day is underway!