4. Autumn Cricket Song

The Essay celebrates the musicality of Earth’s insect singers. 4. Autumn Cricket Song.

Perhaps the most beautiful of all insect song. A stridulation that begins in summer and edges into the melancholy of autumn. Their music has largely been lost in the UK. But elsewhere they sing from trees and amid the long grass with a song borne on the heat and penetrating the dusk like sweet magic. There are 5525 species of Grylloidea (True Crickets And Allies) and 331 of those still exist in China. Mr Fung aka Lars Fredriksson fell in love with their beautiful music as a student there. For centuries, they have been caged and kept both for fighting prowess and soothing song. Ancient manuals of instruction detail the care and feeding of crickets - even how to change their pitch with a tiny drop of resin. He has hunted for them in the Yellow Mountains and created cricket orchestras and understands their deep appeal. "There is the melancholy of the lone male who is singing to court a female that is not around or wants to attract a female. This is also at the end of your life, at autumn, is actually a euphemism for enjoying crickets."

Cricket Recordings courtesy of Lars Fredrikksen https://bolingo.org/cricket/index_eng.htm
Additional cricket recordings courtesy of Vyn Lee & Xeno Canto https://xeno-canto.org/
https://soundscapeofshanghai.myportfolio.com/work
Bug Music by David Rothenberg. Autumn Yearning By the Dresser (feat. Guo Gan) Songs From the Imperial Palace 2014

Series Producer Mark Burman

A Storyscape Production for Radio 3