Classical music like you’ve never experienced before provides a glimpse into a forgotten world
In her memoir A Sketch of the Past, Virginia Woolf refers to life’s ‘moments of being’, the powerful, transcendent points of expanded consciousness that resonate in the memory and make up core facets of our psyche. I remember a walk in remote Wales on the brink of becoming a teenager – approaching a mass of black pines, I listened to Coldplay’s Cemeteries of London on my iPod, the air swirling with mysterious, exciting possibility. Those ~deep~ minor chords and the onslaught of pubescent hormones were a potent mix for a little brain in a vast, beautiful forest – the feeling has stayed with me, and connects to those other times I’m moved to take a step back and see under the surface of things, to a realm of emotion, connection and magic. Back in another forest, an orchestral one this time, the world swelled and opened up again.
Creative Director Matt Belcher’s vision for The Orchestral Forest sees the audience experiencing a classical concert from within, free to wander between the ‘trees’, our orchestra blooming from scattered podiums across Sinfonia Smith Square’s hall. The programme celebrates the hidden beauty of the UK’s ancient rainforests, with Belcher’s guide to the performance informing us that at one time, ‘as much as 20% of the UK was covered in temperate rainforest. Today, as little as 0.07% remains. Most have been replaced by conifer plantations – dense, silent monocultures that are intensively grown and felled on repeat…as a result, these forests are now among the rarest and most vulnerable in the world.’
The Orchestral Forest tells the story of Britain’s ancient woodlands, with classical pieces from composers inspired by nature’s majesty, soundscapes from temperate rainforests in Wales, Cornwall, and Scotland, and verdant lighting design from George Andrews. Moving amongst the musicians, you are encouraged to follow the sounds, the unique set up allowing for an immersive musical experience which places the audience in control of how they hear the music. There’s nothing quite like feeling the rich vibrations of cello strings up close amidst the soaring harmonies of a professional orchestra, the gorgeous, complex movements of modern composer Dobrinka Tabakova’s The Patience of Trees heard from this position sparking transcendental joy.
Further pieces in the programme included Felix Mendelssohn’s lively Overture from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Vagn Holmboe’s Prelude to the Pollution of Nature, Nadia Boulanger’s Vers la vie nouvelle, and Michael Nyman’s Strong on Oaks, Strong on the Causes of Oaks. The musicians have fun with the latter in particular, relishing the impossibly fast-paced concluding minims in response to Maxime Tortelier’s thoughtful, energetic conducting. First violin Emma Purslow shines – a born performer, she corralls her ensemble with great skill and enthusiasm.
A larger space would have done greater justice to this transfixing vision – the audience size meant that freely wandering between sections isn’t wholly possible, with care taken to navigate the crowd and avoid disturbing the performers somewhat detracting from the listening experience. Large numbers also meant that you might get temporarily stuck in parts of the room, and if right by a microphone, the corresponding section may drown out the balance of an overall composition. While raising awareness of these precious remaining pockets of rainforest, the scale and human motivations of their destruction is only hinted at, with no clear action signposted for listeners to take in order to help protect and revive them. However, such a shake up of format to the classical tradition, creating an eye-opening celebration of these ecosystems is a spectacular treat – I can guarantee you’ve simply never heard music performed quite like this before.