“Instead of visiting the zoo, spend some time in the native habitat of your local symphony orchestra,” writes pianist and blogger Jeremy Denk in a front-page article in the Sunday (4/15) New York Times Book Review. “You will meet the badgering bass player, whose disparaging wisecracks you cannot quite hear; the flustered, quivering flutist who just wishes the oboist would play in tune (the feeling is mutual); and many other creatures, docile and gruff. Bernie Krause’s new book, ‘The Great Animal Orchestra,’ is not about this beastly symphony; it is about the symphony of beasts that surrounds us, a vast orchestra in the process of being silenced, perhaps even more endangered than our human animal orchestras. Krause’s term for this symphony is ‘biophony’: the sound of all living organisms except us. … Krause spends many pages challenging the human monopoly on musicianship. He asserts that in the wild, animals vocalize with a musicianly ear to the full score of the ecosystem—a mix of competition and cooperation. Since animals depend on being heard for various reasons (mating, predation, warning, play), they are forced to seek distinct niches. … He critiques all of Western music, calling it ‘self-referential’ and complaining that we ‘continuously draw on what has already been done, traversing a never-¬ending closed loop that turns in on itself like a snake devouring its own tail.’ ”
Posted April 16, 2012
