Add to this the human touch: admittedly low in the mix, the Hollywood-style chorus of voices is now supporting the rising string melody. Each time the melody moves upwards through a passing note, it uses a raised fourth note from the scale, (from the Lydian mode), a sound which is thoroughly associated with wonder, mystery and the miraculous. The sense of growing hope is reinforced through the rising melody, played in soaring strings. We hear a similar spirit in the opening brass chords of Sibelius’s Finlandia (written to express heroic patriotism and protest) which also includes the changes from major to its minor chord, and the use of two alternative chord sixes (natural and raised). We move between F# major and F# minor and alternate between two alternative chord sixes, D# major and D major (I’m spelling it as Eb for ease of reading) this tells us the outcome is not yet certain and yet the heroic sounding brass is positive – we are gaining hope.į# minor Eb (or D#) major F# major F# minor The harmonies have gone from being the somewhat static sound of pedal notes and drones, to the moving and developing chords of noble endeavour. Brass is the sound of the action hero, the fanfare is the sound of celebrating victory our iguana is a brave little soul, battling against the odds for survival.
The percussive action rhythms and string paired spiccato repeating notes are now joined by the epic sound of French horns. The emotional message is increased energy, like our heart-beat stepping up to meet additional extreme tension. We are drawn into the growing possibility that the miraculous escape may actually happen: we are now emotionally engaged in the outcome.įirstly, the tempo has changed: the composers have increased the speed of this (and the previous action sequence) by about 12 beats per minute, from around 138 bpm in the first three action sequences, now up to 150 bpm. The melody rises, the iguana ascends the rocks, our hope rises. Director Liz White described it as ‘a big, emotional piece where people are going to feel like they’re rooting for a character’. The music tells this story with breathless clarity.īecause of the story so far (see part 1 and part 2), we are now rooting for the iguana with heightened emotional involvement. This blog post is about 25 seconds of music, (beginning at 24 mins 45 seconds of the BBC Planet Earth 2, ‘Islands’ episode) and features the climactic ‘near miraculous escape’ of an iguana from racer snakes.
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