DESCRIPTION:
Silent Spring composed by Mark Fromm
Performed by the Trillium Ensemble, 5/19/13
Trillium Ensemble: Deidre Huckabay, flute; Rachael Stutzman, clarinet; Katie Palumbo, piano.

Program notes:
In the early 20th century, the increased ability of man to travel the globe also increased the mobility of non-human life. Insects, bacteria, viruses, fungi, and the occasional small mammal traveled as stowaways to new lands, and, without the proper ecosystem to keep their numbers in check in their new environment, many of them began to increase their numbers exponentially. Substances developed for use in chemical warfare found a new life after the Second World War as insecticides or herbicides to control crop-damaging pests. Their use continued to escalate, despite significant consequences. Ecosystems were disrupted, one pest would be eliminated only to see a rise in another unaffected pest, insects would develop resistance to insecticides, and all these poisons released into the environment would bio-accumulate and affect species higher up the food chain, notably birds and fishes, and eventually, humans.

In 1962, Rachel Carson, a native of Pittsburgh-suburb Springdale, published her landmark book Silent Spring, which documents the effects of this war on pests and its effect on the environment. Considered the beginning of the environmental movement, Carson called for controlled, directed use of pesticides and advocated for more natural, biological controls, especially by using the pests' natural predators and parasites. The book's title depicts a scenario in which, after reaching a tipping point in pesticide use, the following Spring is silent, absent of its usual birdsong, as all the birds had been eradicated. Carson took inspiration from the lines of the John Keats poem, La belle madame sans merci (1819): "The sedge is withered from the lake/And no birds sing."

In my piece, I create a pastoral scene inspired by the John Keats poem. The pianist/vocalist sings the line of the poem that inspired Carson; the rest of the poem is whispered in fragments by the ensemble to invoke the setting. The pianist/vocalist sings a soaring melody, representing birdsong. After a windy, airy, desolate section (representing the starkness of winter), the same music of the birdsong section returns, but with the melody notably absent.