»Nature is simply brimming with melodies!«

What places in nature do you particularly enjoy spending time in?
I love the mountains, forests and especially quiet, solitary mountain lakes.

Does nature inspire you as an artist?
Absolutely! In nature I observe shapes and phenomena that seem to make sense when translated into music, and possess an innovative power. I have made use on several occasions of physical or molecular-biological processes as the starting point for the structure of a new composition. Those places in nature inspire me most where there are not many people, places that seem barren and deserted. Sound has a completely different meaning in such places. The absence of people radiates a strange sense of peace and tranquillity, both visually and in terms of time and sound. In these locations, too, sound follows its own wonderful, natural logic…

What do you think nature and music have in common?
Music as we perceive it in our culture doesn't really have much to do with the phenomena that we observe in nature. Our music is always defined by a specific demeanour, culturally formed and intentional. It always evolves – or rather, is heard – in a special context. Nature exists independent of any human intention or interpretation, of any cultural influence or metaphoric references. It is constantly changing, independent of such human coordinates as time and space. Nature has no need of Man.

Where do you like to spend time in nature?
Usually near the sea (it's easier to do in Greece), in the summer, sleeping on the beach, looking at the stars at night, with no electricity… But also walking on a mountain, or in a forest, swimming in a river. Everywhere is so beautiful.

Does nature inspire you as an artist?
Yes, and I realize it even more because I live in the centre of Athens, where nature is nearly absent. Nature effects the way I listen to sounds. The way I listen to my own voice. The way I sing. It changes my point of view about what is important and what isn't. It affects everything.

What do you think nature and music have in common?
Well, maybe the sound?

Where do you like to spend time in nature?
In my vegetable garden!

Does nature inspire you as an artist?
»Nature restored my health, people won't leave me in peace.« (Florian Boesch is quoting the last two lines of Justinius Kerner's poem »Wer machte dich so krank?« - Who made you so ill?.)

What do you think nature and music have in common?
The ability to heal!

Where do you like to spend time in nature?
I have no preference. Any place in nature that allows me to refresh myself.

Does nature inspire you as an artist?
Yes of course. Nature, through its various manifestations (variety of landscapes, lights and colours, poetry of the seasons, infinity of sounds, rhythm of the waves, the breeze in the trees...) exerts a fascination on me, generating a multitude of emotions that can inspire me to melodies and also inspires my way of singing.

What do you think nature and music have in common?
First of all, nature abounds with so many melodies. Then, nature and music have therapeutic effects. They feed our soul. They stimulate our creativity, have a poetic dimension and they give vibrations and limits.

Where do you like to spend time in nature?
I love to spend time on the Belle-Île – that's a little island off the Atlantic coast of France. One side of the island is rugged and rocky, while the other side is gentle and peaceful. And in general, I like being in the mountains – it's a special experience, being so high up.

Does nature inspire you as an artist?
At all times, yes! I think there is a reason why composers like to retreat to the countryside. If you create something new, you try not to get too far away from nature itself – you try to keep the balance between us and our origins.

What do you think nature and music have in common?
They are probably based on the same things. The first scientific studies of the connection between mathematics and our harmonies appeared a very long time ago. But that is only the physical dimension… On another level, music and nature may share the fact that they are both immeasurable and have the ability to intimidate us, but can also give us a unique feeling of emotional security.

Where do you like to spend time in nature?
I am particularly fond of the atmosphere in the mountains, but for a contrast I also like working with timber in my family forest.

Does nature inspire you as an artist?
Definitely. Alongside human encounters and exploring different art forms, for me nature is the greatest source of inspiration where the expression of the human voice is concerned.

What do nature and music have in common?
We all probably experience music as an especially deep means of expressing human emotions. I focus a great deal on the German-language art song, in which descriptions of nature often reflect the character's inner feelings – in Schubert’s »Winterreise«, for example. For me, these are the most intensely emotional moments, when three levels – music, text and nature – give us the chance to get so close to ourselves  as is otherwise scarcely  possible.

Where do you like to spend time in nature?
In places where there are few people and I can be undisturbed, preferably with both mountains and the ocean.

Does nature inspire you as an artist?
It gives me the power and peace I need to find myself again. That's extremely important to me as an artist.

What do you think nature and music have in common?
They both form the basis of my existence.

Where do you like to spend time in nature?
I love to be among fragrant trees and mountains. When the air is refreshing and the sun filters through gently rustling leaves. I love listening to waves at the beach or water rushing in a stream or river. I love hearing various bird calls and trying to see how many calls I can identify.

Does nature inspire you as an artist?
I am inspired by the grandeur and beauty of nature but also by the big-picture balance.

What do you think nature and music have in common?
Nature doesn’t contain a lot of perfect squares. There is so much to be learned by observing the overall balance which certainly never troubles itself about being unsymmetrical. Wouldn’t it be great if we could be like that? I think art is like that. Sometimes it isn’t pristine, but if there is a balance in the big picture, that's more important. Also nature and art can both be very cathartic and cleansing experiences for my soul. The stunning variety of tone colors and shapes in Dvorak’s masterpiece »Rusalka«, for example, mimic nature with sound. You can hear the water gurgling, the roots stretching down into the deep earth! As the main character Rusalka herself changes, her music becomes more dramatic and angular. We hear her developing a human soul which grows from love and longing into rage and self-loathing, into betrayal and ultimately revenge. All of this is in the music. And all of that is in nature.

Where do you like to spend time in nature?
I come from the Basque country, where I had the chance to grow up surrounded by nature.

Does nature inspire you as an artist?
Absolutely! Nature has its own rhythm and its own special atmosphere – and as an artist you are constantly exploring things around you.

What do you think nature and music have in common?
They can have a great deal in common in certain pieces of music, as composers have always been inspired by nature.

Where do you like to spend time in nature?
I love to take walks in the mountains. I can breathe in a very special way there, with both my body and my mind.

Does nature inspire you as an artist?
Nature inspires me as a person, and the artist and the person are one and the same…

What do you think nature and music have in common?
Maybe the fact that they enable us to experience time differently. They give us the chance to forget our own human time boundaries  and open up a wider look at the world.

Where do you like to spend time in nature?
My favourite place to be is a forest.

Does nature inspire you as an artist?
Its sounds inspire me: I am especially interested in birdsong, in the sounds of wind and water. That's why I like being on the beach – I like to hear the wind and the waves…

Do you see anything that nature and music have in common?
Certainly. I think music began to imitate the sounds of nature a long time ago, so that nature is the primary source of music.

Where do you like to spend time in nature?
I’ve always felt very inspired by great mountains. However, I don’t feel the need to walk in the mountains themselves, rather I enjoy being near them, seeing them from a distance is inspiring for me. Other than that I enjoy walking amongst trees, along nature paths in parks, but I don’t feel the need to do that too often! Mostly I love seeing very interesting cloud formations in the sky, or brilliant and interesting sunsets.

Does nature inspire you as an artist?
Nature inspires me as a human being, but not necessarily as an artist. Perhaps I should say that if I’m conducting any work from any genre or period that is somehow connected to, or inspired by, nature, this is always very inspiring. However, as a composer I don’t feel that I am particularly inspired by nature or that I need nature to inspire me in order to compose.

What do you think nature and music have in common?
What do nature and music have in common? Music and nature are two of the most amazing and wonderful things in life!

Where do you like to spend time in nature?
What is nature ? You have to travel a long way to find a landscape that hasn’t been touched by human beings. But as an inveterate city dweller I have always liked the idea of »rus in urbe«. Living as I do almost next to Hampstead Heath, I would have to choose it as my favourite place to be with trees and birds and grass and ponds. The fact that it also has a Vermeer, a Rembrandt and a couple of Bouchers (in Kenwood House) is an added attraction.

Does nature inspire you as an artist?
Only indirectly. Schubert is full of images of nature; but he was a city dweller like me, and nature was a sort of imagined ideal for him, as it is for me. Something that exists and inspires in tension with and opposition to all that we hate about the modern world.

What do you think: What do nature and music have in common?
Very little I would say, at least in the obvious sense. There is a fantasy at large among writers and critics and, sadly, some musicians, that there is a »natural« way of performing »classical« music, without artifice. All music is, more or less, artificial, mannered, constructed. Beethoven has a little joke about it in his song cycle »An die ferne Geliebte«, where towards the end of a highly-wrought piece of word setting, he has the words »ohne Kunstgeprang erklungen«. But then of course, as I said in my first answer, very little of what we call nature is natural. The wilderness is maybe a different thing, but it too is often created by human action – think of the landscape loved by so many European Romantics, the Scottish Highlands. The truly natural is probably extremely scary.

Where do you like to spend time in nature?
My home is by the Baltic sea, so naturally I go rowing and fishing in the summer, and I walk on the frozen sea in winter. Another favourite area of mine are the national parks in Lapland, where I’ve spent many days cross-country skiing.

Does nature inspire you as an artist?
Yes, I think in many ways. One is that in my profession, I need a long concentration span. The world wants us to move faster and faster, but I can always shift to a slower speed by going into the forest and watching it evolve very gradually.

What do you think nature and music have in common?
I think both are absolutely necessary for the survival of humanity.

Where do you most like to spend time in nature?
Anywhere where it's quiet.

Does nature inspire you as an artist?
Definitely. Nature is a constant inspiration. In music, too, the playing should be »natural«, NOT artificial.

What do you think nature and music have in common?
A great deal, for example the motion of the air or the water. Or the forest in German Romantic music by composers like Schumann or Brahms.

Where do you most like to spend time in nature?
I have always been attracted by the mystery and wide expanses, the inner rhythm and the silence of the ocean. I could look at the sea for hours, breathing it in and dreaming it.

Does nature inspire you as an artist?
Everything inspires me. I often feel afraid of nature.

What do you think nature and music have in common?
The elemental force and unpredictability.

Where do you most like to spend time in nature?
If I can choose, the ocean will always be part of the mix. Perhaps it's the desire for a type of movement that is unfathomable and never recurs exactly the same.

Does nature inspire you as an artist?
Absolutely, it fills me with astonishment. Nature gives us emotion and sensuousness.

What do you think nature and music have in common?
Nature is a model of harmony and growth. Likewise the call of a bird, this is musical expression. But the sky knows no past, present or future. It's simply there.

In art, it's the musician who has to takes responsiblility and represent connections. The need to do so produces music.

Where do you like to spend time in nature?
As four metropolis-dwellers, we in Brooklyn Rider enjoy our occasional interludes in the presence of nature’s majesty; whether it be a festival in the Swiss Alps, an idyllic residency on an island in the middle of Lake Superior, or a concert-day hike up a fjord in the Arctic Circle, these moments allow us to slow our rhythm down and humbly consider our place on this Earth as stewards, both individually and collectively, for this planet and each other. 

What do you think: What do nature and music have in common?
Nature and music have a unique sense of scale, in that one note, one musical gesture, can be the lament of one person, and can also contain all the hopes and sorrows of an entire people; the universe in one tiny atom. Osvaldo Golijov’s piece “Tenebrae” captures this seeming contradiction. The human conflicts that populate our Earth and occupy so much of our daily lives recede into serene beauty when looked at from a cosmic perspective.