2025, animals, Family, Music, Nature, Uncategorized

Animal Sounds

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I have always loved the music of Sibelius, and was tickled to hear that he described the third movement of his violin concerto as “a polonaise for polar bears”. What a visual! It is a sort of lumbering piece. I also love the pieces he has done that are inspired by swans.

Carnival of the Animals and Peter and the Wolf are family favorites. Many composers were inspired by animals, like Delius On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring and Vaughan Williams Lark Ascending. Satie wrote about a dreamy fish, and Scarlatti wrote a keyboard sonata called the Cat Sonata. Vivaldi wrote about the goldfinch. Then, of course, there is Gershwin:

What are your favorite animal-inspired musical pieces or songs?

44 thoughts on “Animal Sounds”

    1. The post didn’t show up but when I tried to post it again, it told me that I’d made a ‘duplicate comment.’ Ugh, WP.

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    2. Musical bears are a recurring theme in music and literature, especially bears that play the fiddle.

      Laurie Lewis tells a story about fiddling bears:

      And Albert Bigalow Paine, in 1898, told the very charming story of the Arkansaw Bear:
      https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/arkansaw-bear-a-tale-of-fanciful-adventure-book-4243/

      Then there is the Teddy Bears’ Picnic, which Vern Sutton performed from time to time on MPR…

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  16. I know Hayden has a symphony called The Bear, as part of it sounds like a dancing bear. I can’t listen to it as I know how poorly treated performing bears are.

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