MAGGIE HINCHLIFFE | No More Walks in the Wood: Trees and the Anthropocene in Art Song

How do we listen to art song depicting the natural world in the context of climate change?

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On a sweltering 90-degree day in the Piney Woods of East Texas, the sun pierces concrete streets like glass. Wearing sunglasses, a hat, and a loose-fitting dress, I try to stay cool on the straight, one-mile walk down the road, which is generally pleasant except for the lack of shade and unforgiving heat. In my bag are a water bottle, my lunch, and an iPad full of classical music. The university is within sight. I look forward to stepping on campus, where trees will provide me with shade and air conditioning will provide me with comfort as I accompany opera rehearsals and coach undergraduate voice students.

Just before entering the music building, I stop to admire a relatively young longleaf pine tree. I recently learned that these trees are endangered in the area, and I smile as its branches and pine needles bring me the relief I’ve been looking for. I take off my cap and glasses and sweat drips from my forehead. As I continue inside, I realize the funny circumstance before me: I am about to coach a junior voice major on her recital repertoire of Manuel de Falla’s “Asturiana”—a song about a tree.

Sitting at the piano bench in my office and with my iPad set up for the day of rehearsals, I ask the student to tell me about this song. What is her interpretation of the text? Is the song sad, nostalgic, or tragic? I encourage her to brainstorm so that she can tell a story with her voice, more than just the notes and rhythms on the page.

“It is sad,” she says. “And I am singing to a tree.”

We discuss. The song is based on Spanish folk tradition with an anonymous text that reads (in English):

            To see if it might console me
            I drew near a green pine.
            To see me weep, it wept.
             And the pine, since it was green,
             wept to see me weeping! ¹

The student is right: the speaker of this poem is undeniably sad and chooses to cry to a nearby tree. But why, and where? I remind her that “Asturiana” refers to the mountainous Asturias region in Spain and this tree may represent an entire forest or mountainside, just as Falla’s reinterpretation of folk music evokes differing cultural traditions and identities around the country. ² We translate this into musical ideas, like adding rubato and dynamic contrasts to create a more powerful longing. We also talk more generally about Spanish music and rhythmic patterns. I point out the repetitive octaves in the piano part, which is foundational to the piece (like a tall, foundational tree), and this helps the student who struggles with counting before each of her entrances. She leaves with more confidence in her singing, but a question lingers as I move onto the next coaching: What does the pine tree mean to Falla? What does it mean to us?

On my walk home, I see the longleaf again, this time with a new perspective. Like the green pine of Asturias, this tree comforts me (and suffers with me), although for very different reasons. We are in Texas, not Spain, and it is the hottest summer on record. In fact, the tree might suffer more than I do; it lives in an often unusually hot climate, and, unfortunately, as an endangered species.

Since moving to Texas three years ago, I have learned about the unique history of the Piney Woods region and the story of the longleaf pine. This forest once covered over 90 million acres of the Southeast from East Texas to Virginia, supporting an amazing diversity of plant, animal, and insect species. Lawrence S. Earley writes in his book, Looking for Longleaf that travelers in the 1700s often “could not quite get their minds around the immensity of the forest,” inspiring writers like John Muir to comment with awe. ³ The reason for its impressive survival was its ability to thrive with fire; frequent lightning storms that sparked low intensity burns cleared out competing species and allowed the longleaf ecosystem to thrive where other species could not. “Fire in longleaf pine forests,” Earley writes, “is like rain in a rainforest.” ⁴

Since the eighteenth century, however, exploitation through logging, turpentine, and tar industries devastated longleaf forests, leaving behind fields of stumps and dead trees. The forest was often mistakenly viewed as an inexhaustible resource where workers could move into a region, deplete the forest of its trees, and move on. Earley describes this as “cut-and-run logging,” adding that “even today it is considered the most shameful chapter in the history of the American timber industry.” ⁵ This technique disrupted the entire longleaf ecosystem, leaving it vulnerable to destructive wildfires. When the field of forestry finally emerged at the turn of the twentieth century, scientists expressed their concerns that “only decades separated the pines of the South from utter annihilation.” ⁶

Widespread misunderstanding and fear of fire slowed conservation progress. It was also not widely understood that people had burned the woods intentionally for centuries before; it was not just lightning storms that set the longleaf forest aflame. In partnership with the Alabama-Coushatta tribe in Texas, the Nature Conservancy states that “government regulations and compulsory fire suppression practices, along with the forced removal of Indigenous peoples from their lands” erased the tradition of burning, which along with destruction from the timber industry, erased the once thriving longleaf forest. ⁷ It wasn’t until the 1980s and ’90s that the U.S. Forest Service and other organizations successfully implemented prescribed burns again across the South, although this was accompanied by arguments that continue today over which restoration process works best, like how frequently the forest should burn.

In early 2024, I had the opportunity to see a prescribed burn in person. My partner and I visited with Shawn Benedict, East Texas Forest Preserve Manager with the Nature Conservancy, who showed us the Roy E. Larson Sandyland Sanctuary before and during a scheduled burn. At one point on our visit, he paused at an area of forest that had been successfully restored over a few decades of work and said, “I call this one my Mary Poppins unit.” We laughed, unsure of what the title implied. He continued, “because it’s practically perfect in every way.”

Shawn cares deeply about his work and told us stories of the common disruptions from weather events and private concerns. On that same visit, we witnessed a tense conversation between him and a neighbor who disapproved of the fire. (Shawn assured the neighbor that it was well-managed and under strict control.) We also talked about disruptions caused by hurricanes, wind patterns, or periods of draught. In order for the trees to eventually become “practically perfect,” the weather has to cooperate so that it is safe and productive to burn. Ten feet of water during Hurricane Harvey, for example, pushed years of planning another few years behind schedule.

Learning about the longleaf has changed my perspective of where I work and live. On evening walks, my partner and I try to distinguish between a longleaf tree and its competitor, the loblolly. When hurricane and storm warnings light up my phone, I imagine Shawn’s worry over postponing a burn effort. I also find it deeply ironic that the university’s mascot is still a lumberjack and students cheer “Axe ‘em!” at events across campus, even within the School of Music. Learning the ecological story of East Texas has changed my perspective of the repertoire I play and teach and caused me to question the students’ engagement with it. Is this music still relevant or relatable to young musicians? And the composers—did they ever consider environmental issues while writing the songs we continue to perform?

“Is this music still relevant or relatable to young musicians? And the composers—did they ever consider environmental issues while writing the songs we continue to perform?”

When I think of historical songs about trees, the quintessential example that comes to mind is Franz Schubert’s “Der Lindenbaum” from his beloved song cycle, Winterreise. The linden tree in this song is central to the story, almost like an additional character. Its presence first reminds the heartbroken protagonist of happier times when he would enjoy its shade in the summer (with a lover who has now rejected him) and then it speaks to him, tempting the traveler with the idea of “rest,” (or more likely, death) on his current winter journey. “Come here to me, old chap,” English tenor Ian Bostridge loosely translates the tree as saying, “Here you find your rest.” ⁸ Personified in this way, the linden tree becomes not only an important character, but also a turning point in this early stage of the cycle, since the wanderer eventually ignores temptation and perseveres onward, telling us, “I didn’t turn back.” ⁹ The linden tree’s appearance in Winterreise is not random or without greater meaning; this tree has appeared in art and culture in Germany and throughout the world for centuries. The tree itself, which is native to Europe but is now also found in Asia and North America, can grow as tall as 130 feet with wide, green leaves that in summertime are accompanied by fragrant, yellow-green clusters of blossoms. ¹⁰ In German culture, the tree was long viewed as holy, symbolizing peace and justice to the people who lived 2,000 years ago. In Norse mythology, it was associated with Freya, the guardian of life and goddess of fertility. Dances and celebrations would take place under its blossoming flowers in the summer, and later, during the Middle Ages, the tree was often planted near churches. ¹¹ By the 1500s, wood from the linden tree was seen as having mythological and religious meaning and artists who used the wood for sculpture did so with great consideration. “A way to see the carver’s treatment of [the linden wood],” writes art historian Michael Baxandall, “is as active respect.” ¹² The linden tree has since lived on in literature, art, and music, such as in poet Wilhelm Müller’s “Die Winterreise” and Schubert’s subsequent song cycle.

It is hard to decipher, though, whether or not Müller or Schubert wrote about the linden tree (or other wildlife) with a greater intention to make a statement about nature. Müller grew up in a small town north of Leipzig that his son later described as “an oasis of oak trees,” but musicologist Susan Youens points out that there is “no actual evidence that the poet drew on autobiographical material for his winter journey,” but rather only “the intuitive perception of well-loved landscapes.” ¹³ While she praises Müller for his innate gift for describing nature, critics of the poet argue that his poetry was “simple” when compared to that of other Romantic literary figures at the time, such as Heinrich Heine. Schubert, who grew up in the musically rich city of Vienna, is often credited with bringing greater meaning to Müller’s work through his expert setting to music with text-painting and duet-like incorporation of the piano. (The triplet pattern in the piano throughout “Der Lindenbaum,” for example, could be interpreted as the rustling of tree branches or the trembling demeanor of the traveler.) ¹⁴ Many scholars also point out that Schubert’s and Müller’s untimely deaths at ages 31 and 32—along with their suffering beforehand—are strong indications that their works were at least in some part motivated by their personal traumas.

In that way, Winterreise is most commonly viewed as a story of personal struggle. Poetic descriptions of nature and musical text-setting that elaborate on those images function as an external reflection on the internal experience. One interpretation written by Cecilia Baumann and M. J. Luetgert compares the song cycle with the process of someone becoming aware of a terminal illness through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They ascribe Müller’s “conventional images” of nature to these shifts in mental state. ¹⁵ In this case, “Der Lindenbaum” could be seen as the bargaining stage, since the traveler negotiates between reflections on the past and future possibilities. Another author claims that this song is symbolic of life itself in that “life constantly moves ahead” and “it is futile to try to find peace and happiness by attempting to reconstruct blissful moments of the past.” ¹⁶ These interpretations, along with countless others, declare that nature in Winterreise and in “Der Lindenbaum” serves its purpose as something onto which man can project himself and his own perceptions of the world.

The linden tree’s appearance in Winterreise as a symbolic rather than literal representation of nature allows room for interpretation on the concert stage, but this historical performance also requires the twenty-first century musician to imagine an ideal natural scene that contrasts with interpretations of nature today, especially within the United States. When I practice “Der Lindenbaum” in East Texas, I think of the longleaf tree outside my window, its complicated past, and uncertain future. Is this tree a symbol of the South? To me, the longleaf represents a history of exploitation and misunderstanding, similar to many other natural resources in the country like bison or coal. It is hard to imagine an idealized American landscape without addressing its complicated history.

Songs from the American classical canon sometimes engage with this dissonance, either directly or with an added historical lens. An example of the latter is a setting of Joyce Kilmer’s poem, “Trees,” which he wrote in 1914 at the height of the timber industry and beginnings of the forest restoration effort. It was set to music by Oscar Rasbach and then incorporated into a Disney Fantasia-like movie depicting idyllic landscapes and chirping birds. The poem begins, “I think that I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree” and concludes, “Poems are made by fools like me/But only God can make a tree.” ¹⁷ The music is equally sentimental with a simple, lyrical melody that follows the phrase structure of the poem and emphasizes the word “God” with a fermata. This song is sincere but represents a period of conflict in scientific innovations; if “only God can make a tree,” then humans could never recreate something as beautiful in their efforts to restore the forests, and any attempt would be futile. This misunderstanding “made lumbermen disregard the discipline of scientific forestry,” according to Earley in Looking for Longleaf . ¹⁸ The tendency to idolize nature in this way overshadowed the need for human intervention as well as the dire state of the ecosystem.

By contrast, John Hollander’s 1993 poem, “An Old-Fashioned Song,” and Ricky Ian Gordon’s subsequent setting for soprano and piano approach the topic more candidly. The text begins:

             No more walks in the wood:
            The trees have all been cut
            Down, and where once they stood
            Not even a wagon rut
            Appears along the path
            Low brush is taking over. ¹⁹

This scene is familiar; I’ve seen it in the longleaf forests near my home. The field is not only cleared but now overgrown with “low brush” that is more flammable and susceptible to dangerous fires than it was as a native forest. It is a nostalgic scene that the speaker then associates with old memories:

            This is the aftermath
            Of afternoons in the clover
            Fields where we once made love
            Then wandered home together ²⁰

Losing the forest is like losing their youth and young love. This speaker sees himself in the forest (as was the case in “Der Lindenbaum”) and reflects on the changes in his life after seeing changes in the landscape. Set to music in 1995, Ricky Ian Gordon elaborates on this emotional scenario. The piece is long at five minutes and seven printed pages and it is complicated for the pianist with busy rhythms and an elegant solo in the middle. Gordon writes the instruction, “Very Romantic” at the beginning, and the soprano’s phrasing climaxes at the words, “love,” (as in “where we once made love”) and “sky” (as in “when branches were the sky”). ²¹ Gordon seems to take inspiration from the poem’s title, “An Old-Fashioned Song” and elaborate on the nostalgia in the text. Ultimately, I see this as a piece that reflects on mistakes of the past and tragedies of the present when it comes to both nature and love.

In 2025, our relationship with trees is changed. Forests have been cut for development and fewer people have access to nature. In cities like Houston, trees are a luxury. An office building might provide a landscaped courtyard to enjoy on lunch breaks, a nearby park may provide relief from heat in the summer, or you might get lucky to find a parking spot beneath a tree at the grocery store. Scenarios like these are increasingly common as summers become more intense. Climate scientists call it the “urban heat island effect,” where hot temperatures absorbed by asphalt, concrete, and steel, and lack of shade throughout a city create dangerous conditions for its inhabitants. ²² Writer and activist Jeff Goodell warns that urban heat “turns even the simplest tasks of daily life into risky adventures.” ²³ As the planet changes and nature changes with it, our lives are transformed in unexpected ways.

Performing music about trees requires confrontation with the realities of nature today. In Texas, the effects of climate change are felt statewide: wildfires in the panhandle, hurricanes on the coast, flooding further inland, and extreme heat, draught, or unusually cold temperatures everywhere. ²⁴ Trees can be uprooted by storms, burned in fires, or provide life-saving shade in sweltering cities. Many have suffered from these changes already, like Shawn Benedict did when his longleaf forest flooded after Hurricane Harvey. In the twenty-first century, performing music about nature is ultimately intertwined with the Anthropocene—the term used to describe humans’ influence on the environment—and our interaction with the ongoing climate crisis.

Goodell concludes his book about heat with a call to action: “What tomorrow looks like depends on actions we take today.” I think art song is a unique tool for this cause. Songs connect us to issues beyond the recital stage and provide the opportunity to share unique stories. I hope art song inspires you to take action and leave the world better than you found it. ²⁵

Notes

1. Stokes, Richard, and Jacqueline Cockburn, The Spanish Song Companion (London: Victor Gollancz, 1992), 113. ↩
2. Ibid., 105. ↩
3. Earley, Lawrence S., Looking for Longleaf: The Fall and Rise of an American Forest (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 13-16. ↩
4. Ibid., 120. ↩
5. Ibid., 168. ↩
6. Ibid., 177. ↩
7. “How We Work with Fire in Texas: Managing and Restoring Texas’ Landscapes with Prescribed Fire,” The Nature Conservancy. ↩
8. Bostridge, Ian, Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession (New York City: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), 109. ↩
9. Ibid. ↩
10. “Linden-Trees.” Bulletin of Popular Information (Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University) 9, no. 13 (1923): 53-54. ↩
11. A. M., Ţenche-Constantinescu., et al., “The symbolism of the linden tree,” Journal of Horticulture, Forestry and Biotechnology 19 no. 2 (2015): 239. ↩
12. Baxandall, Michael. The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 31. ↩
13. Susan Youens, “Retracing a Winter Journey: Reflections on Schubert’s ‘Winterreise,’” 19th-Century Music 9, no. 2 (1985): 131. ↩
14. H. Lowen Marshall, “Symbolism in Schubert’s ‘Winterreise,’” Studies in Romanticism, 12, no. 3 (1973): 612. ↩
15. Cecilia C. Baumann and M. J. Luetgert, “‘Die Winterreise’: The Secret of the Cycle’s Appeal,” Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 15, no. 1 (1982): 45. ↩
16. Marshall, “Symbolism in Schubert’s ‘Winterreise,’” 613. ↩
17. Kilmer, Joyce, “Trees,” Poetry Foundation. ↩
18. Earley, Looking for Longleaf, 176. ↩
19. Hollander, John, “An Old-Fashioned Song,” Poetry Foundation. ↩
20. Ibid. ↩
21. Gordon, Ricky, A Horse With Wings: The Songs of Ricky Ian Gordon, (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Corporation, 1995), 127-133. ↩
22. Goodell, Jeff, The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet (New York: Little, Brown & Company, 2023), 77-78. ↩
23. Ibid., 81. ↩
24. United States Environmental Protection Agency, What Climate Change Means for Texas, August 2016, Washington, D.C.: National Service Center for Environmental Publications, 1-2. ↩
25. Goodell, The Heat Will Kill You First, 362. ↩

References

• Baumann, Cecilia C., and M. J. Luetgert. “‘Die Winterreise’: The Secret of the Cycle’s Appeal.” Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 15, no. 1 (1982): 41–52. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24777746.
• Baxandall, Michael. The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980.
• Bostridge, Ian. Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession. New York City, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015.
• Earley, Lawrence S. Looking for Longleaf: The Fall and Rise of an American Forest. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
• Goodell, Jeff. The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet. New York, NY: Little, Brown & Company, 2023.
• Gordon, Ricky Ian. A Horse With Wings: The Songs of Ricky Ian Gordon. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Hal Leonard Corporation, 1995.
• Hollander, John. “An Old-Fashioned Song.” Poetry Foundation. Accessed February 5, 2025. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57814/an-old-fashioned-song.
• “How We Work with Fire in Texas: Managing and Restoring Texas’ Landscapes with Prescribed Fire.” The Nature Conservancy. Accessed January 20, 2025. https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/united-states/texas/stories-in-texas/prescribed-fire-texas/.
• Kilmer, Joyce. “Trees.” Poetry Foundation. Accessed February 5, 2025. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/12744/trees.
• “Linden-Trees.” Bulletin of Popular Information (Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University) 9, no. 13 (1923): 49–51. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42961219.
• Marshall, H. Lowen. “Symbolism in Schubert’s ‘Winterreise.’” Studies in Romanticism 12, no. 3 (1973): 607–32. https://doi.org/10.2307/25599890.
• Stokes, Richard, and Jacqueline Cockburn. The Spanish Song Companion. Translated by Jacqueline Cockburn and Richard Stokes. London: Victor Gollancz, 1992.
• Ţenche-Constantinescu, A. M., C. Varan, Florian Borlea, Emilian Madoșă and György Székely.
• “The symbolism of the linden tree.” Journal of Horticulture, Forestry and Biotechnology 19 no. 2 (2015): 237-242.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. What Climate Change Means for Texas. August 2016 (1-2). Washington, D.C.: National Service Center for Environmental Publications.
• Youens, Susan. “Retracing a Winter Journey: Reflections on Schubert’s ‘Winterreise.’” 19th-Century Music 9, no. 2 (1985): 128–35. https://doi.org/10.2307/746578.

April 11, 2025