About David Rothenberg – Somewhere between mankind and the natural world

David Rothenberg is a very special composer. With his several pieces he follows one certain approach: to explore the connections and relations between humans and nature. He does this through improvising with different sounds of different varieties. I almost struggle to describe his technique, as it seems to be music and sound patterns, but also a somewhat philosophical and spontaneous approach. He seems to be completely guided by his own intuition and that of nature. 
Listening to his pieces, reading about David Rothenberg, and researching him, I gained the feeling that his pieces somehow portray a synthesis. This synthesis is the result of his improvised thoughts and feelings that he illustrates with his own playing of music and producing of sounds and the sounds that are produces by nature (like whales singing, nightingales piping and whining, etc.). 

He also seems to see his own production of sounds as a way to interact with nature and to get a closer insight into the animal world and its way of producing sounds and music. By improvising into these animal sounds, David Rothenberg attempts to put himself in a position of communicating with animals and their world but at the same time not seeing their music and sounds as a language that he needs to translate into his own. Rather, he chooses a way of adapting to using music as a form of communication and expression. 

What I think of David Rothenberg’s approach is hard to say, as I have not heard him in a live performance and thus cannot fully understand how he improvises, reacts and plays. But from what I have read about him and from the recorded pieces I have had the chance to hear, I definitely can state that I am impressed by his technique and perspective. I find it plausible to connect with nature through music and the production of sounds. Through the process of joining in on nature’s way of sound production, Rothenberg’s pieces gave me the impression of intertwining with nature and the world of different animals. The interaction of Rothenberg with the sounds that several animals make, drew me closer to understanding nature in general and maybe also helped me in gaining a different perspective when listening to birds, whales, and insects. Interestingly, nature or more specifically, animals, have produced sounds other than language since the beginning of their existence, while humans use the production of sounds as an art form and distinguish between that art and language, their way of communicating. It has become clearer to me that humanity could also see the production of sounds as something more connecting when it comes to the interaction with nature.