Seasonal sounds and solar sights. Liner notes on an old record likens a symphony to a spring garden, wind in the trees, and dazzling flower heads.

Western classical culture celebrates the sky gods—church music and courtly dances called by divine kings. “Above ground”, celestial, heavenly. Not about the guy below.

In contrast, modern music celebrates the earth, metabolism, secret passages, bright air, immediate surroundings. Stravinsky’s ecstasies, Debussy’s shimmering colors, Faure’s haunting melodies.

Improvisational music, such as jazz, matches the random, popping surprises of the perennial garden, antiphony in the meadow, massive shifts of the projected landscape. “Brilliant corners”, said Thelonius Monk.

Rhythm and interval . . . birds, bees . . . crickets, frogs. Rustling leaves . . . bubbling stream. Cow in the field, horse in the road, march in town, carnival in June. Harvest festivals beginning soon. Faintly echo a rural nation. The roots of the players—black, brown and white—tap the wellspring of a universal language.

Mama sings a lullaby. Calls us to supper. Stands on the hill behind the hanging garden, beneath a grove of trees. Summer, laden, passes the interval. Chants the verse, varies the line, changes the rhythm.

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