# Thunder and lightning, eruptions, and floods



## RobertoDevereux

Last night I went to see Andris Nelsons conduct Beethoven's 6th (it was really well played!), and as I was going home, I was thinking, what other pieces do I know that have orchestral "storm music" in them? Here are the ones I could come up with (all of which I like):

1. Benjamin Britten's Sea Interlude No. 4 Storm
2. The storm music from Beethoven's 6th Symphony
3. The storm music from Rossini's "La Cenerentola"
4. The storm music from Rossini's ouverture to Wilhelm Tell

Can you help me expand on this list? And do you know of any other pieces that depict natural events, earthquakes, cataclysms, etc.?

Thanks!

RD


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## KenOC

Just a few of many pieces with or about storms:

Vivaldi - Summer (from Four Seasons)
Sibelius - The Tempest
Tchaikovsky - The Tempest
Haydn - Symphony #8 "Le soir" - Finale
Haydn - Thunderstorm chorus from The Seasons (Summer)
Strauss Jr - Thunder and Lightning Polka
Berlioz - Royal Hunt and Storm
Grofe - "Cloudburst" from Grand Canyon Suite
Debussy - La Mer (3rd movement)
Strauss - An Alpine Symphony


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## SuperTonic

R. Strauss' Eine Alpensinfonie and Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite both depict storms.
Hovhaness' Mt. Saint Helens Symphony (No. 50) Jon Leifs' Hekla both depict volcanic eruptions. 

I'm sure I'll think of some more in a minute, but these came to me right away.


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## KenOC

Earthquakes are a little harder. But John Williams, maybe?









Or this, which has some truly spectacular earthquakes:


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## TxllxT

Rameau: Les Boréades suite in the Frans Brüggen interpretation has all the thunder & lightning one could wish for. Really spectacular!


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## TxllxT

Porgy and Bess has tornadoes


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## Mahlerian

Mahler's Kindertotenlieder: "In diesem Wetter"
Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique: the pastoral movement ends with a gathering storm
Stravinsky's television opera "The Flood" has an instrumental depiction of the Biblical event
Takemitsu's "Waves" for clarinet solo, horn, trombone, and bass drum


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## Ukko

The Johnson City Flood - Stanley Brothers.


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## Weston

Does a snow storm count? Vaughan-Williams Symphony No.7 "Sinfonia Antartica" even uses a wind machine thingy.


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## Lisztian

Liszt wrote a few storms in his day.





 (Jesus calming the waves, followed by a depiction of a rainbow).





 (Chasse-Neige/Snow-Storm).










 (the middle section).

He also wrote a good one in his other oratorio, _The Legend of Saint Elisabeth_.


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## RobertoDevereux

Weston said:


> Does a snow storm count? Vaughan-Williams Symphony No.7 "Sinfonia Antartica" even uses a wind machine thingy.


Yeah!  It certainly counts! I was thinking of any natural phenomena or even object. P.S. Never heard VW's 7th - it's on my list now. (This is a good year for exploring his music here in London as it's the 55th anniversary of his death)

RD


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## RobertoDevereux

Wow! I must admit I was nowhere near knowing all these pieces (and I thought I was good  ). I'm really curious to hear them now. An interesting observation though - in the lists above there are very few pieces that evoke a storm at sea - most of them are "inland events"!  Three more that I could remember:

Glazunov's "The Sea" has some sea storm music
The Ouverture to Der Fliegende Hollander
The opening scene of Verdi's Otello

RD


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## SuperTonic

RobertoDevereux said:


> Wow! I must admit I was nowhere near knowing all these pieces (and I thought I was good  ). I'm really curious to hear them now. An interesting observation though - in the lists above there are very few pieces that evoke a storm at sea - most of them are "inland events"!  Three more that I could remember:
> 
> Glazunov's "The Sea" has some sea storm music
> The Ouverture to Der Fliegende Hollander
> The opening scene of Verdi's Otello
> 
> RD


Also, Debussy's La Mer, 3rd Movement


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## Guest

Brumel's Missa Et ecce terrae motus (Earthquake Mass).


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## joen_cph

A few more:

Vitezslav Novak´s large "The Storm"-cantata has a terrific opening in particular.

Sigismund Thalberg:"The Ghost Ship", ballade for piano

Gösta Nystroem: 3rd Symphony "Sinfonia del Mare"

Jon Leifs: "Geysir" for orchestra

Jean Fery Rebel:"Le Chaos" from "Les Elemens"

Langgaard: Symphony 15, "The Sea Storm"


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## Mahlerian

Two more, linked by a common theme:

Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time: VI. Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes (depicts the upheaval caused by the seven trumpets of Revelation)
Mahler's Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection": The fifth movement begins with the upheaval of the apocalypse.


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## DrKilroy

KenOC said:


> Strauss Jr - Thunder and Lightning Polka


This polka is my favourite.  The bass drum really sounds like a thunderclap!






Best regards, Dr


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## TxllxT

Pletnev's Tempest has got a fantastic recording with down-down-down-into-subacoustic basses, that will rumble your belly inside out and alarm your neighbours


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## TxllxT

Part 4: Stürmisch bewegt. Haitink's explosive entrée (with the Concertgebouw Orchestra) for me is still the best of all Mahler's 1st Symphonies..


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## joen_cph

Max von Schillings:"Meer der Stürme", Symphonic Poem

Felix Draeseke:"Sturmgedanken" for piano

Langgaard: Symphony 6, "The Heaven-Storming"

Langgaard:"The Fire Chambers", fantasia for piano 

John Field: Piano Concerto 5, "L´Incendie par l´Orage / Fire by Lightning"


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## elgar's ghost

The second movement to Gavriil Popov's Symphony no. 5 - also a 'pastoral' symphony.

There's also a nicely-done storm section in Britten's Noye's Fludde. I'm assuming that other works based on Noah also have storm music.


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## waldvogel

There's a great storm during the murder scene in Act III of Rigoletto.

Siegmund has to find refuge - anywhere - from the storm at the opening of Die Walküre.


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## Nereffid

Haydn's "Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross" ends with an earthquake.

Bach's Cantata BWV81, "Jesus schläft, was soll ich hoffen?" depicts Jesus calming a storm at sea.


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## DeepR

Scriabin's Prometheus is increasingly turbulent and ends with a supernova.


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## LouisMasterMusic

My name is Louis Solomons, and I was at that concert, RD, on Sunday afternoon (not night). It also included the Berg Violin Concerto. It was at the Royal Festival Hall. 

You've made a great start, but how about

Johann Strauss II: Unter Donner Und Blitzen (Thunder and Lightning), Polka schnell, Op.324

Hamish McCunn: The Land Of The Mountain and The Flood

Giuseppe Verdi: Storm Scene (from Rigoletto; a part of the opera that I don't know especially well).

Hector Berlioz: Royal Hunt and Storm (from The Trojans; I don't know this well either).

Nikolay-Rimsky Korsakov: "The Sea and Sinbad's Ship" and "Festival at Baghdad. The Sea. The Ship Breaks against a Cliff Surmounted by a Bronze Horseman".

Bedrich Smetana: Vltava (The Moldau) (from Ma Vlast, My Country).

Those are all I can think of for now, but this should be enough for you to get started, in addition to what you have mentioned already.


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## PetrB

Rameau, again.

Hippolyte et Aricie, Act I: Tonnerre 









...and again in Castor et Pollux


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## ptr

Mussorgsky - Night on the Bald Mountain

/ptr


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## Wicked_one

Some Russian snowstorm?


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## EllenBurgess

Strauss Jr - Thunder and Lightning Polka
Berlioz - Royal Hunt and Storm
these are sensational one to listen up, i liked it a lot


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## peeyaj

The first movement of Schubert's Unfinished had ab awesome "stormy" section, when the orchestra bursts into full gloom, with matching rainshowers.. Check the Kleiber version.


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## Wicked_one

Atterberg - 3rd symphony, 2nd movement.


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## mchriste

There's also a stormy night in Verdi's Rigoletto, though I would say it's more sound effects than really "storm music"... still, the wind machine and metal sheet rattling sounds good


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## isridgewell

Try Hekla by Jon Liefs. He is an Icelandic composer and Hekla describes the eruption of the volcano Hekla. The piece is also officially the loudest piece of classical music and uses an enormous amount of unusual "things" in the percussion department!


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## Wicked_one

isridgewell said:


> Try Hekla by Jon Liefs. He is an Icelandic composer and Hekla describes the eruption of the volcano Hekla. The piece is also officially the loudest piece of classical music and uses an enormous amount of unusual "things" in the percussion department!


Well, that felt interesting!  Thanks!


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## HaydnBearstheClock

More in Haydn:
depiction of winter leaving, i.e. of a winter storm: The overture to The Seasons, 




In The Creation: the Aria 'Rollend in schäumenden Wellen' depicts a sea storm.





In 'Und Gott machte das Firmament' there's also some tone-painting of lightning and storms.





Also check out The Storm here: 




The last movement of symphony no. 39 in G minor is stormy as well; if I'm not mistaken, this symphony is also sometimes referred to as 'Tempesta di mare'.




(Here at 11:19)

Also, the overture to Haydn's opera, L'isola disabitata:


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## sonnenuntergangstunde

SuperTonic said:


> R. Strauss' Eine Alpensinfonie and Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite both depict storms.
> Hovhaness' Mt. Saint Helens Symphony (No. 50) Jon Leifs' Hekla both depict volcanic eruptions.
> 
> I'm sure I'll think of some more in a minute, but these came to me right away.


Wow thanks, I haven't heard the Hovhaness before, but what amazing music!


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## dionisio

Considering myself more as an opera guy (hehe!), there's Verdi's Rigoletto and Wagner's Die Walkure!

But there's also the lightning bolts in the beginning of Verdi's Otello. The genius of Verdi is not making storm noises, is the subtle was of creating a path for bolts to come down from the skies to the ground.


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## meredull

I add the last movement "Storm" of the orchestral suite "The Sea" by Frank Bridge. Indeed, the music depicts a storm


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## nightscape

Mendelssohn's 3rd Symphony, 1st movement. There is a bit toward the end of that sounds like it is meant to signify rolling waves in a storm.


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## maestro267

The last movement of Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite has a storm, with vivid depiction of lightning strikes on suspended cymbal, woodwinds and piano glissandi, the latter each time getting longer and going right up and down the instrument.


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## Alfacharger

The second movement of the 1880 version (seven movements) of Rubinstein's Ocean Symphony is one long 18 minutes and change of storm.


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## Orfeo

-*Philip Sainton's *"The Island."
-*Alexander Glazunov's *"The Sea" & "From the Middle Ages" (first movement).
-*Sir Arnold Bax's *"Tintagel."
-*Jules Massenet's *Werther (a slight snow storm, ending of act III -> act IV).
-*Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov's*"Mtsyri" & Three Musical Tableaux from Ossian, Op. 56 (Lake Lyano).
-*Leos Janacek's* "Káťa Kabanová" (act III).
-*Vitezslav Novak's* "In the Tatra Mountain."


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