Music has the power to save the planet. Here’s how

 

Tom Service

Published: November 25, 2025 at 6:00 pm

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Can music change our lives?

It’s the only question about music that really matters, even if it draws wildly different answers: can music change our lives? Yes, it can! It brings everything from social cohesion to harmony between nations; it improves maths scores, adds billions to the economy, and inspires our souls, spirits and intellects. Or… no it can’t! It’s auditory cheesecake of no evolutionary importance; it’s gloriously, aesthetically and emotionally powerful, but ultimately pointless, nothing more than an – admittedly engrossing – form of distraction.      

Mastering the Impossible: The Hardest Pieces of Classical Music

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Music and the planet... flighting climate change and deforestation

But what if there was even more at stake: what if music could transform our relationship with the earth that sustains us? For composer Gabriella Smith, who also works as a climate restorer in her native California, a piece like her organ concerto, Breathing Forests, which had its British premiere at the BBC Proms this summer, isn’t just a metaphorical vision of the life-cycles of forests turned into musical form. For Smith, her music is a call to action.     

The shape of Breathing Forests, in which a forest grows, breathes and burns, is, she says, ‘a reflection on the complex relationship between humans, forests, climate change and fire’. Fire isn’t only the devastating, climate change-induced infernos of recent years; it’s also a vital, life-giving force of forest regeneration. The concerto ended with a breathtaking sound of hopefulness at the Proms, a gigantic, blazing radiance of major-key resolution; the forest of the orchestra and organ, and the physicality of the Royal Albert Hall, renewed.      

A connection with the planet... forged through music

The power of that moment, and the extremes of texture, volume and dissonance of organist James McVinnie’s performance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra were unforgettable. So what do we do with those memories and feelings, with that sense of connection to such powerful musical forces? They could become souvenirs of just another wonderful night at the Proms; they could open up journeys of exploration to hear more of Smith’s music; they could introduce you to repertoires of organ-inspired adventure that McVinnie has pioneered. 

But their power could go deeper. Maybe the sense of becoming part of these Breathing Forests of sound makes you think about the literal forests and elements of the earth that the instruments of the orchestra are made from. Perhaps you reflect on what that sense of being taken over by this music means: that it’s a revelation of our mutual interdependence, with each other as human beings and with every other species on earth, along with the planet’s climate and its geology.    

• Music and climate change: 6 of the best pieces of music responding to the climate crisis

That means we have a responsibility to look after every aspect of the world’s biomes, whether ecological or musical. Maybe, just maybe, that’s how a piece of music could start to change the world – one consciousness at a time.      

Tom Service

Columnist, BBC Music Magazine

Tom Service is a familiar voice to BBC Radio 3 listeners, the station on which he has presented Music Matters since 2003 and his own programme The Listening Service, in which he breaks down how music works. He is also a monthly columnist for BBC Music Magazine. For many years, Service wrote for The Guardian, where he was chief classical music critic. In 2012, he released two books published by Faber: Music as Alchemy: Journeys with Great Conductors and their Orchestras and Thomas Adès: Full of Noises, a series of conversations with the great composer and conductor. His PhD, undertaken at the University of Southampton, was on the music of contemporary composer and musician John Zorn.

The New Solo Instrument: Bach’s Brandenburg No. 5

Rising in stately spirals, J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 opens in the strings and flute before the keyboard enters. One of the most noble of the Six Brandenburgs, it uses the basic chamber music ensemble of flute, violin, and keyboard, augmenting it with a string orchestra.

by Emily E. Hogstad 

The keyboard, however, has a dual role. It performs as part of the basso continuo for the full orchestral sections and is also a solo instrument with the violin and the flute. The first movement ends with a tremendous solo cadenza for the keyboard, leaving the other two solo instruments aside. Because of Bach’s own reputation as a keyboard virtuoso, it is thought that he was the soloist for the first performance. Bach, always the innovator, created in this work the model for what would become the solo keyboard concerto. He lifted the keyboard from its subordinate position as merely part of the basso continuo (which function it still holds here) into a leading role as a solo instrument.

Lukas Foss with Leonard Bernstein at the piano, 1944

In this recording, made in 1957 in Boston’s Symphony Hall, The Zimbler Sinfonietta is under the direction of Lukas Foss, who is also the keyboard soloist. James Papoutzakis plays the flute, and George Zazofsky is the violin soloist.

Lukas Foss (1922–2009) was born in Germany and was quickly recognised as a child prodigy, beginning piano and music theory with Julius Goldstein in Berlin when he was only 6. With the rise of National Socialism, the family moved first to Paris and then, in 1937, to the US, where the family changed its name from Fuchs to Foss. He studied piano, composition, and conducting at the Curtis Institute and, in the summer, studied at Tanglewood with Serge Koussevitzky from 1939 to 1943, and also worked on composition with Paul Hindemith at Yale from 1939 to 1940. He was a lifelong friend of Leonard Bernstein, each conducting premieres of each other’s works. He followed Arnold Schoenberg as professor of Music at UCLA in 1953 and also taught at SUNY–Buffalo. As a conductor, he led the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (1963–1970), the Brooklyn Philharmonic (1972–1976, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (1972–1976), and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (1981–1986). He taught at Boston University from 1991.

James Papoutzakis backstage with the BSO

Flautist James Papoutzakis (1911–1979) played in the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops, entering the orchestra in 1937 and remaining until 1978. He taught widely through the Boston area, including at all the major music schools.

Zazofsky and his son Peter

George Zazofsky, a graduate of the Curtis Institute, joined the Boston Symphony upon graduation. As an activist, he founded the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM), which became part of the American Federation of Musicians in 1969.

The Zimbler Sinfonietta was founded in 1947 by Joseph Zimbler, cellist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It held annual concerts in Boston at Jordan Hall, and Foss, Papoutzakis, and Zazofsky were all noted soloists with the ensemble. The ensemble was one of the first string groups to perform without a conductor.

Performed by

Lukas Foss
James Papoutzakis
George Zazofsky
The Zimbler Sinfonietta

Recorded in 1957

Official Website