Voted on multiple occasions to be Britain’s most popular piece of classical music, Vaughan Williams’ ethereal piece The Lark Ascending was, to my teenage ears, completely unlike anything I’d heard before. I was mesmerised by its dark and light contrasts and the best musical representation of a skylark’s song a human could produce. The soaring notes seemed to capture how I felt about the countryside and nature, with their blended sense of loss and rejoicing.
This year, the Suffolk Philharmonic Orchestra (SPO) will tour Suffolk with their performance entitled Lark’s Flight over Suffolk. The Lark Ascending forms the centrepiece of the programme, alongside many of his lesser-known works and folk tunes. Suffolk Wildlife Trust will be speaking at each performance, too, particularly about skylark conservation. Our Learning Team is also working with the SPO on a programme to enthuse school pupils about skylark conservation, as well as exploring how nature can inspire us.
It is easy to forget how this ode to the English pastoral landscape was composed in 1914, supposedly as Williams watched ships engaging in fleet exercises at the start of World War I. Memories of the English landscape and its wildlife would sustain soldiers facing the horrors of that war. For example, letters sent between the Stopher brothers and their Suffolk family are full of poignant references to (and even pressed examples of) wildflowers, which, sadly, they would not live to see again.
The Lark Ascending endures as a fitting tribute to the skylark, one of our best loved species of Suffolk farmland. It remains on the conservation Red List, having experienced a staggering decline of 62% between 1970 and 2015. Fortunately, skylarks are making a comeback in Suffolk thanks to painstaking conservation work, including the efforts of our Wilder Landscapes Team and the landowners we work with. Endeavours are being made to stem the overuse of pesticides and encourage farming practices which provide habitat for skylarks to nest, such as allowing winter stubble to remain and cutting sileage on grassland later in the season. Successfully breeding on many of our reserves, a singing, soaring skylark brings joy to anyone who hears it.
We hope that the Lark’s Flight over Suffolk will increase awareness of this precious species whilst simultaneously bringing the beauty of Williams’ seminal work to a new generation.
