And if music became the witness of climate change? This is the crazy bet of a symphony orchestra, which will give a concert Saturday at the Philharmonic of the Elbe in Hamburg, with a very special program. This is an adaptation of Vivaldi's Four Seasons , a score revisited to "take climate change into account" and make it "audible". It was specially renamed For Seasons (" For the Seasons ") instead of Four Seasons (" The Four Seasons ").
>> READ ALSO - Ginkgo biloba, magic tree, new standard of resistance against climate change?
Listening, the work of Vivaldi sounds strange. The notes mimicking the song of birds are no longer there and the harmonious passages have become chaotic, by the talent and a six-month long work of a team of computer scientists and musical arrangers. Climate data was provided by research institutes and environmental agencies. Concretely, the sound has been modified by algorithms.
A sound modified by algorithms
In this new score, we can therefore hear the increase in global temperature, the frequency of extreme weather and its consequences, including the extinction of certain species of birds and insects. " For Seasons clearly demonstrates the impact of climate change and adds an emotional dimension to the current controversial debate, and we must not refuse to listen," says Alan Gilbert, the conductor.
In 1725, Vivaldi had included in his score poems describing nature, which he had himself made. "This is the spring that birds greet with joyful song," he wrote about the most burgeoning of seasons. The Four Seasons version 2019 are much less bucolic.