The musical spider's web

Concert with students from various Departments as instrumentalists, including on harp and harpsichord, and composers on the theme of "insects" and "spiders"

Paul Patterson (*1947)
Spiders (1983)
l. The dancing white Lady
ll. The red-backed spider
lll. The black widow
lV. Tarantula
Theresa Bogisch, harp

Ned Rorem (1923-2022)
Spiders (1968)
Jeanette Chao, harpsichord

Antal Doráti (1906-1988)
The cricket and the ant
based on the fable by La Fontaine
Charlotte Mac-Carty, oboe

Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
"from the diary of a fly"
Xinyuan Zhang, harpsichord

Katia Mestrovic (*1989)
Araneae (2021)
Deborah Haag, harp

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Two Insect Pieces (1935)
the grasshopper, the wasp
Charlotte Mac-Carty, oboe
Fengyi Shi, piano

François Couperin (1668-1733)
Les Abeilles
Les Papillons
Xinyuan Zhang, harpsichord

Veronika Reutz-Drobnić  (*1999)
“a day in a diary of a fly” (2022)
1. A group of flies fly together, listening to woodpeckers and other birds, until they
get trapped in a spider web.
2. The fly finds itself alone in the rain.
3. Exhausted, the fly lands on a meadow and listens to the surrounding creatures
as she is relaxing from the past events.
4. The fly reminisces over the past day.
Sarah Kuppinger, soprano l
Milena Böhm, soprano ll
Anna Pfundmair, mezzo-soprano
Mischa Kurth, tenor
Sebastian Schäfer, baritone
Jonas Boos, bass
Anastasiia Melnikova, conductor

Moderation: 
Kirstin Härtel
Jakob Roth
Moritz Schläfer

Concept: Prof. Maria Stange and Kristian Nyquist

Dancing white lady
Anybody who ever visited Namibia, will know the ‘White Lady’ (Weisse Dame), a ca. 2,000 year old rock painting in the Brandberg Mountains depicting a light coloured figure, possibly a shaman. However, the style of the painting has given rise to theories that Namibia has been visited by Mediterranean cultures much earlier than initially assumed, although these theories have apparently now been debunked.
Much less known that the Namibian spider world also has a White Lady, the Dancing White Lady, Carparachne aureoflava. This is a fascinating spider inhabiting the sand dunes of the famous Namib Desert. It doesn’t build webs but hides from the hot sun in self-excavated burrows. It’s main predator is a spider wasp in the family Pompilidae who is laying its eggs into the body of the paralysed spider. It’s difficult for a walking spider to escape a viscious, highly mobile flying predator. However, the spider has evolved an ingenious behaviour, by rolling down the sand dunes on its side, pulling the eight legs into its body. This way it can speed down the hill with over 300 rounds per minute! A second, similarly looking and related spider, Leucorchestes Arenicola, also referred to as ‘Dancing White Lady’, inhabits the same habit and communicates with other spiders by tapping with their legs on the sand creating the appearance of a dance. Whichever you think is the really Dancing White Lady, both are spectacular spiders living in a spectacular environment!  
Here is the White Dancing Lady, or Golden Wheel Spider →

Red-back Spider
Australia is well known for its fair share of venomous creatures! But, whilst often feared, spiders don’t really feature amongst them. Of an estimated 20,000 species on the continent only two have been known to inflict fatal bites to the elderly and infants, the Red-back Spider (Rotruecken Spinne), Latrodectus hasseltii, and the Sydney Funnel-web Spider, Atrax robustus. But nobody has died of a bite since antivenene for both species was developed in the 1950s. In redbacks, only the females can harm, with males being too small to scratch a human’s skin, and often falling victim to the female after mating. Curiously, in the Funnel-web Spider, only the males is venomous to humans. New Zealand has its own variety of Redback Spider, the Katipo, Latrodectus katipo, and that species is now Threatened in its country due to the accidental introduction of the Australian variety.

Black Widow
Black Widows belong to the same genus as the Redback and the Katipo, Latrodectus. In fact, they make venom of the same kind and efficiency named after the genus, the latrotoxins, effecting the neurotransmitters of the nerves, and apparently very painful. There are a number of American Black Widows, e.g. L. hesperus, L. mactans and these are different species to that of the Mediterranean, L. tredecimguttatus. In total, there are more than 30 described species of Latrodectus world-wide. The name Black Widow, you guessed it, refers to the female regularly consuming the male after mating. What the evolutionary advantage of that for the female is, is disputed. Apparently him being a very small meal doesn’t improve her survival and therefore reproductive success. And he surely tries to escape to spread more of his sperm, making him a more successful spreader of his gene.

Tarantula
The common name ‘Tarantula’ for the big bird-eating spiders (Vogelspinnen) in the family Theraphosidae, that are generally restricted to tropical and subtropical regions, is probably the most confusing spider name there is. Its origin is generally thought to derived from the Italian/Apulian city Taranto. However, there are no Vogelspinnen in that region! There is, however, the Mediterranean wolf spider Lycosa tarentula, also named after the region, very different to a ‘Tarantula’, although also fairly big and hairy.
In ancient times, residents of Taranto presumably bitten by the wolf spider would promptly do a long vigorous dance like a jig, in order to sweat the venom out of their pores — even though a wolf spider's venom is not fatal to humans. The frenetic dance became known as the Tarantella. Some argue that it wasn’t actually the wolf spider responsible for the Tarantella, but, you guessed it, the Mediterranean Black Widow!

Araneae
Araneae is the scientific name for the order of the spiders. All have eight legs, a body made up of two parts and spinnerets at the end of their second segment. Silk is probably what spiders are most famous for and all use it. And there is an astonishing variety of silks they produce. For example, Rednetzspinnen are known to produce 9 different types of silk, some used for their webs, but others to wrap up their prey or weave the cocoon for their eggs. All spiders are predators, but not all have venom! Most have eight eyes, but many have six and there are blind subterranean spiders. Without spiders, it is said, the earth would be overrun by insects. And there is a claim that you are never more then 1 meter away from a spider.

So spare a thought for the poor fly of the next song…..
 
Source of text: Volker Framenau Murdoch University Australien