Interestingly, Copland composed the music without first knowing the title of the ballet, which was also chosen by Graham and taken from the poem “The Dance” by Hart Crane. The references to “Spring” actually regard a water spring, bringing to mind ancient thoughts of the spiritual and healing properties of water.

Vox Balaenae falls in three parts: an opening vocalise, which Crumb describes as “a kind of cadenza for the flutist”; followed by five variations on the “sea theme”; and a concluding “Sea Nocturne.” The end of the cadenza is marked, ironically, by a quotation from Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra—a rather portentous fanfare perhaps most familiar from its use in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001. The ensuing variations are each named for a geological era, from the Archeozoic (maybe 3.8 billion years ago) through the Cenozoic Era, to the present. Gull cries echo at the opening, and Zarathustra returns at the end to announce the appearance of man. Crumb describes the final variation as being “dramatic, with a feeling of destiny.”

The “Sea-Nocturne” is a final elaboration of the sea theme, a kind of cumulative variation that features antique cymbals. Crumb hoped to suggest “a larger rhythm of nature” and a certain transcendence of chronological time; the eternal present is captured in music by a repeated 10- note figure that gradually escapes our hearing, yet still continues on, bringing our examination of music, nature, vibration, and creation to a dramatic finish.