These sounds of nature, and so many others, are always there in background, and tuning in can really touch you, mind and soul. The sounds can be calming and soothing, they can ground you and focus you, and they can energise and inspire you.

I really came to appreciate the music of nature when I was writing my latest novel, Concerto. The hero, a pianist composer named Umberto, loses his eyesight, and as a result his other senses become more sensitive. He notices tastes, smells, sensations and sounds so much more. While writing the book, I got into the habit of closing my eyes often and experiencing the world as Umberto does. I realised that there is so much music in nature.

As I wrote the book, I was keen to bring in this impression, for though he has stopped composing, Umberto is a musician at heart, and he cannot fail to notice nature’s music all around. Umberto tells the heroine, Catriona:

‘Dawn comes with a musical silence, the soul hearing the melody that the ears cannot. It’s the best time of day on the lake. Everything seems so quiet to normally-sighted people, but since I lost my sight I can hear so many hushed noises I wasn’t aware of before.’ He smiled and turned his face upwards in the gentle morning air. ‘You see, amore mio, Como softly whispers to me. I can hear the plop of a jumping fish, the flutter of a bird’s wing as he dives into the water to catch his prey, and the soft murmur of the lake lapping the shore. It’s all music. Sometimes it’s the melody of the lake’s rippling surface as the breeze dances above it, or the sound of the swell as it crashes a symphony over the rocks.’

Catriona is a music therapist, and she has come to Lake Como to try to guide Umberto back to composing. Her first thought, upon learning how Umberto perceives the world around through his aural capacity, is that the surroundings at Como can inspire Umberto to return to his piano and play once more.

Many composers are inspired by nature. Beethoven would go for a walk every day before composing; his Symphony No. 6 (known as ‘Pastoral’) was a homage to the countryside that he so loved. Claude Debussy wrote works encapsulating landscapes and the sea, and Richard Wagner was inspired by hiking in the Alps and through wooded valleys.

Perhaps the most famous example of a musician finding inspiration in nature is Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, incorporating so much of nature’s music. Here is Concerto No. 1, ‘Spring’:

If you close your eyes and listen, you can picture the scene, as described by Vivaldi in the accompanying sonnet:

Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song,
and murmuring streams are
softly caressed by the breezes.
Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar,
casting their dark mantle over heaven,
Then they die away to silence,
and the birds take up their charming songs once more.

Largo
On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy branches
rustling overhead, the goat-herd sleeps,
his faithful dog beside him.

Allegro
Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes,
nymphs and shepherds lightly dance
beneath the brilliant canopy of spring.

Evidently, although Umberto in Concerto can no longer see nature, he can hear its symphony – and this can be a rich source of inspiration for him. When Catriona suggests this to him, Umberto is closed to the idea. He tells her:

‘Cara, in life, you must never go back. Things are never the same and the disillusionment if you do can have much deeper consequences than you could ever imagine.’

But nature exists in cycles. The leaves grow on the tree, and then they wither and fall – and then they regrow. If Umberto can take inspiration from nature, he can begin anew; he can compose once more, and he may even compose all the better now that he is so in tune with nature.