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Hebrides Overture’s disappearing notes highlight the plight of humpback whales

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A Cambridge team frustrated by the apathetic response to biodiversity loss has developed a dramatic new way to highlight the demise of nature – and people are listening.

Driven by the observation that human activities are silencing nature, researchers have linked a piece of classical music, Mendelssohn’s ‘Hebrides Overture’, with the loss of an iconic species: the North Atlantic humpback whale.

They divided the score into decades, then scrubbed out notes in proportion to the decline of the whale population as the music – and time – progresses.

The roughly 30,000 notes in the original score approximate to the number of humpback whales in the sea in 1829, when the piece was written. But then extensive commercial whaling began – and by 1920, two thirds of all humpback whales were gone.

Listen and see the audience reaction to a live performance of the piece at the 2022 Wilderness Festival.

Find out more: https://www.bennettinstitute.cam/hebridesredacted

Film credit: Tom Besley

#humpbackwhale #cambridgeuniversity #conservation #whales #mendelssohn #orchestra #classicalmusic
Category
Academic
Tags
Cambridge University, Cambridge research, Mendelssohn’s ‘Hebrides Overture’
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