Sing, Cetacea, Sing!

Whales are extraordinary animals. Besides being the largest creatures on this planet, they apparently possess a sense of humor, a reasonably well-developed conversational skill, and an inordinate amount of musical ability. According to an accumulation of scientific findings, they lumber through the oceans bellowing raga-like compositions of extraordinary length and complexity. On the other hand, whale intelligence may leave something to be desired, for they seem about to embark on a career in the music business. Humpback whales have just made a record. And last week whales were performing with the New York Philharmonic in a new work, And God Created Great Whales, by Composer Alan Hovhaness.

The eerie whale songs *seemed a natural complement to the otherworldly, mystical music of Hovhaness. He is one of the few composers today who has a distinctive, instantly identifiable style. His compositions stick to conservative harmonies, relying heavily on ostinato, and reveling in lush, big-scale orchestration. They are immensely colorful and oddly moving. And God Created Great Whales began with muttering string noises and a submarine roar on the drums, followed by leviathan trombones diving in and out of rushing violins. Finally the great cetaceans themselves appeared, via tape recording. They sang with an astounding range of tone and expressiveness--from a stratospheric wail that might have come from the throat of a 40-ton canary to the rumble of a stupendous Model T with a cracked muffler. As background the tapes carried the sound of ocean waves, which Hovhaness skillfully blended with cymbals and gongs. The whales were accompanied by whooping brass glissandi, glockenspiels, tam-tam and bass drum. When it was all over, the audience applauded enthusiastically, though it remained unclear whether their applause had been for Composer Hovhaness or the whales themselves. Backstage, the whale voices had already been nicknamed "Beverly," "Birgit" and "Cesare."

For Hovhaness and for Conductor Andre Kostelanetz, who had conceived the collaboration, the performance had ecological as well as musical overtones. Though whales furnish no products that cannot be found elsewhere or duplicated synthetically, the animals are still being slaughtered at the rate of more than 50,000 each year, mostly by Japan and the Soviet Union. Kostelanetz first got the idea for the composition by listening to Songs of the Humpback Whale, a recent recording made by Rockefeller University Biologist Dr. Roger Payne and Acoustics Engineer Frank Watlington of Columbia University, and issued by Communications Research Machines Inc. of Del Mar, Calif. The record is part of a growing program initiated by the New York Zoological Society and designed to stir public interest in saving whales from extinction. Says Hovhaness: "We've got to preserve everything we can on this planet. It's God's own little spaceship. Everything counts."

*The word song is accepted by scientists and musicians because whales, like birds, utter sounds in sequences that are repeated.

The song of the whale, however, is far more complex than that of most birds, lasting anywhere from six to 30 minutes.

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