Could I pick your classical brains please?

[Tapiola]

In addition to the above, Henze's 4th Symphony, which is in effect the last 20 minutes or so of his opera "Konig Hirsch" (King Stag) and set in the forest.

[Trillion77]

What a fantastic response, thank you all!

I will take some time over the weekend to properly digest all of your wonderful suggestions.

K

[Nick Armstrong]

Assuming your protegés are too young to have been polluted aurally by associations with Castrol GTX from the TV ad, I would advocate the 2nd movement of Mahler 7... Haunting horn call and echo, followed by lots of trilling and scurrying and rattling and warbling by the woodwind and percussion, plus a nocturnal sense (it's called "Nightmusic") and a mysterious slightly scary feel. Always puts me in a foresty mood anyway

Here's a good performance by Abbado and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m78fjLdbpPU&feature=fvsr

Good luck!

[Roslynmuse]

Elgar's String Quartet was a piece he described as evoking 'Wood Magic'. Said to have been inspired in part by some gnarled old trees with some sort of spooky, supernatural story behind their begnarling.

[greenilex]

I know "Among the Leaves So Green-O" has been mentioned earlier, but call-and-response ballads are particularly useful if you are prepared to be caller...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Hansel and Gretel.
Salymap mentioned Teddy Bear's Picnic, which is useful as a clearcut example of ternary form.

[MrGongGong]

Salymap mentioned Teddy Bear's Picnic, which is useful as a clearcut example of ternary form.

but has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual SOUNDS of Woods , it just has the word WOOD in the lyrics ??? by the same token you could have anything by the Rolling Stones ??

Unlike the Mahler or Wagner examples

I know its not "Classical" music but this

http://www.sfu.ca/~westerka/program_notes/forestfloor.html

might be an interesting addition !

[Pabmusic]

On 11 July 1900, Elgar wrote to Jaeger of Novellos: 'This is what I hear all day - the trees are singing my music - or have I sung theirs? I suppose I have. It's too lovely here.' He was scoring Gerontius at the time, but the passage he included in the letter was from the Woodland Interlude from Caractacus.

[aeolium]

The aria "Durch die Wälder, durch die Auen" from Weber's opera Der Freischütz, or (if not too politically incorrect) the Huntsmen's Song from Act 3 of that opera.

[Tapiola]

"Der Wald" - a concerto for timpani and orchestra by Siegfried Matthus.

[hmvman]

Wood Nymphs by Eric Coates. I suppose this isn't especially about the sounds of woods either but it does have 'wood' in the title and does sound pretty nymph-like!

[Nick Armstrong]

"Der Wald" - a concerto for timpani and orchestra by Siegfried Matthus.

Are you extracting the Mikhail?

[Tapiola]

I woodn't dream of it, Caliban

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

?

[Nick Armstrong]

Now you're talking, Calum