Monteverdi's surprise

My brows furrowed in consternation. ‘What is this?’ I wondered. From far below the solid and, dare I say, slightly stolid intonation of plainchant carried upwards to my seat. ‘It can’t possibly be Monteverdi.’ I was sitting in the rausing circle (or stingy seats as I prefer) at the Royal Albert Hall for the Proms. And having listened to Monteverdi’s Vespers many hundreds of times, I knew each section like the back of my hand. Easily one of my favourite pieces of music, its endless variety has delighted me for years. But I had never heard it with the plainchant antiphons before each movement. I later discovered that Monteverdi had originally intended it so. But once the tenor sang,  the trumpet-like Deus in Adiutorium I knew it was my favourite piece. I cannot emphasise how incredible this music is. For everyone out there who reads these words, if you have not listened to the Vespers of 1610 then I urge you to do so. I personally prefer Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s 1990 recording. If there is one thing you need to do before you die it’s this. No other composer can match Monteverdi for his ingenuity and the sheer gorgeousness he created. 

Gardens, Nature's Graveyards

It is a truth universally acknowledged that people like a bit of greenery. Why else would we insist on having those pointless voids of space known as gardens. Perhaps it’s a vestige of our primeval past, before the emergence of agriculture and civilisation, before humanity crammed itself into sprawling metropolises. When our distant ancestors still hunted and gathered their food, meaning the more lush and fertile an area the more it could provide. Before we even had bread let alone became breadwinners. Though most of us have now left that way of life behind it remains imprinted on our DNA.

Despite being inspired by the natural world gardens are still fundamentally different to it. The natural world is constantly evolving and changing. As beautiful as they are (or at least as we exclaim so), nature’s intricately complex ecosystems are brutal places, ‘red in tooth and claw’. Plants and animals kill and eat one another. It is the cycle of life, and nature is more concerned with survival than mere aesthetics. Being a vegetarian I might try to ignore it but there’s no pretending otherwise. Gardens might be inspired by the natural world but they lack its vitality, its infinite process of development and change. Instead they are carefully tended to, flowers and plants being selected with discrimination and then lovingly doted upon. A garden is an artwork in the archaic sense, a composition created through artifice. There is nothing in nature that resembles the choreographed flowerbeds and fastidiously trimmed hedges of dedicated horticulturists. This is a ‘civilised’ version of nature, stripped of its chaos. Any untrammelled flourishing is quickly stamped out in favour of a regime of coercion. If a butterfly, zig-zagging its way freely through the air, represents the natural world then its dead equivalent encased behind glass represents a garden.

A garden is an exclusive place too, founded on principles of strict segregation. Only those plants with prior approval are permitted to vegetate there, within the confines imposed. But intruders are swiftly and brutally exterminated. Any weeds unfortunate enough to have strayed into forbidden territory are violently uprooted. Neither are animals welcome within the horticultural stronghold. Domestic cats are one exception, even if only given leeway to avoid a dispute with disgruntled neighbours. But creatures lacking a human master can expect no mercy. Moths will be squashed. Squirrels shot at. Poison will be smeared over every leaf and branch to punish any intruder for their audacity. A garden is a graveyard, those species lucky enough to be selected growing over the carcasses of the less fortunate.

Maybe instead of endless hours watering, pruning, clipping, uprooting, poisoning, shooting and killing we should adopt a different approach. Allow our gardens to develop as Mother Nature intended, not as fragile and moribund artworks to be admired like an animal in a cage but as evolving ecosystems. We should treat them like Tibetan mandalas, to be erased upon completion as a reminder of life’s transience.