Your long read (Attenborough’s way, 22 October) presented David Attenborough’s strengths and limitations fairly. But there was only one glancing reference to an element that has bedevilled the blockbuster natural history series throughout the 40 years since Life on Earth.
Attenborough himself speaks approvingly of the “surging music” in his latest series. But the trouble with music as an accompaniment to the natural world is that it coarsens our feelings into anthropomorphic cliches. So we have snarling brass and thwacking drums for every attack by a lion or crocodile, humorous pizzicato for every waddling penguin, and cartoon music straight out of Bugs Bunny for every skittering crab or insect.
The approach has scarcely changed since the Walt Disney wildlife films I enjoyed more than 60 years ago, with bears hilariously scratching their backs to music. Where are the real sounds and silences of the forest and the desert? If programme-makers want to help us engage seriously with the natural world, they should let us hear it as well as see it, and ditch the all-too-human music.
Robert Philip
Edinburgh
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