A Meditative Salute to Mother Earth with 'Symphony for Our World'
To the relatively short list of wordless television shows, add a lovely Nat Geo Wild special called Symphony for Our World.
Airing Sunday at 7 p.m. ET, Symphony for Our World celebrates Earth Day with an hour-long montage of spectacular nature film, accompanied only by an original musical composition from Bleeding Fingers Music and the rock band X Ambassadors.
In harmony with the visuals, the music alternately hums, dances, and soars. At times it sounds like traditional music scoring for a cinematic documentary, while at other times it moves to the forefront with crescendos for crashing waves or majestic sunsets.
It runs without commercials or interruptions, making it a lovely way to sit back and lose yourself in the beauty and colors of hundreds of worlds most of us will only see through someone else’s camera.
Not to get all consumerist or anything, but this is a production where you will be rewarded for having bought the biggest-screen TV you could fit into the room.
The footage itself isn’t groundbreaking, because that’s not the point of Symphony for Our World. These aren’t scenes no one has ever seen before. It’s the mashup of sea and land, Arctic and tropics, sky and plains, that makes it so breathtaking to watch.
The amazing fish of the coral reefs glide through the passageways and past the sea plants, stunning in their shapes and colors. Flocks of African birds block the sun as they rise with a corkscrew twist into the air. Kangaroos bounce across the baked fields of Australia and elephants cool off in an African lake.
Bear cubs no larger than house cats scramble to climb trees and collapse exhausted on the first branch. Dozens of hammerhead sharks circle and circle.
As the shark scene correctly suggests, Symphony for Our World doesn’t only find peace and harmony. Many of those colorful reef creatures are looking to eat their fellow colorful reef creatures. Those tigers and lions see the antelope as dinner, and a prairie dog can be surprisingly persistent when he wants another prairie dog to leave the area.
But if Symphony for Our World acknowledges that nature can be harsh and unforgiving, all we see here is the chase and occasionally the moment of capture, not the kill. Nothing here will make children burst into tears.
When wolves are stalking elk in the Arctic wilderness, the cameras focus on the sinewy beauty of the animals that survive in this frozen land, set off again the awe-inspiring vista of mountains and snow. Symphony for Our Worldis a splendid salute to Earth Day and an equally splendid gift for viewers who would like a Sunday night break from, well, pretty much everything.