Bird calls in music... (1 Viewer)

[Simon A]

Dear all,

Birds create music of a sort (some more than others it has to be said), and there is little more powerful than certain bird calls for evoking a particular time and place (lapwing always does it for me). But, anyone know of music that incorporates bird song either directly (samples, etc) or indirectly (instruments/voice imitating bird calls)? The obvious examples for me are Olivier Messiaen (particularly Catalogue d'oiseaux), Beethoven in the pastoral symphony and Paul Winter's various pieces. British Sea Power and The Guillemots have also mined the avian world in various ways for inspiration, but have they actually used bird calls in some context? I'm sure there must be lots of examples out there that I'm blissfully unaware of. As an opening gambit, here's a soundcloud link to a tune called Foxley Wood (based on Foxley Wood in Norfolk, UK) that contains samples of bird calls from the real Foxley (track 1). http://soundcloud.com/andrew-purdam/sets/mohona-in-beauty


Thanks, Simon

 

[Messiaen-fan]

Rautavaara´s "Cantus Arcticus" is another classic, a concerto for taped bird song and orchestra. There´s also Respighi´s orchestral suite "Gli Uccelli".

One could say that Mendelssohn´s splendid "Hebrides" ouverture contains passages inspired by sea-gulls; the same applies to Nielsen´s great "An Imaginary Trip to the Faroe Islands" for orchestra.

Other pieces inspired by bird-song or bird themes are Bent Lorentzen´s "Paradisvogel" for ensemble, Villa-Lobos "Uirapuyu", Harty´s "Ode to a Nightingale" plus Stravinsky´s "The Firebird" and James MacMillan´s "The Birds of Rhiannon", for instance.

These are on top of my head ...

 

[Simon A]

Hi Messiaen-fan - many thanks for these. I'd heard of Cantus Arcticus before, but then entirely forgotten about it, so thanks for reminding me of its existence...it sounds like a fairly ludicrous and unwieldy musical escapade, so I'll probably love it. So it seems that there's a fair smattering of bird calls throughout the 'classical' world? I'm intrigued to know if composers 200 years ago would have been more likely to reference birds that were abundant then, but less so now? Cheers, Simon

 

[Messiaen-fan]

Hi Messiaen-fan - many thanks for these. I'd heard of Cantus Arcticus before, but then entirely forgotten about it, so thanks for reminding me of its existence...it sounds like a fairly ludicrous and unwieldy musical escapade, so I'll probably love it. So it seems that there's a fair smattering of bird calls throughout the 'classical' world? I'm intrigued to know if composers 200 years ago would have been more likely to reference birds that were abundant then, but less so now? Cheers, Simon

Yes, concering baroque music alone there are probably dozens of recorded examples of bird inspiration; they tend to be of short durance in a larger work though.

Vivaldi´s "Spring" from "The 4 Seasons" is one example, I also remember a poetic aria about a bird in Händel´s lovely "L´Allegro, Il Penseroso...", juxtaposing singing and flute passages. Rameau and perhaps Telemann are other composers who wrote a lot of such works with a partly "programmatic" music. My guess is that most of the music is inspired in a rather non-literal way, like Papageno´s aria in Mozart´s "The Magic Flute" for instance ...

Recently some smaller recording companies have been exploring Baroque music from the Central- and South American colonies under the Spanish/Portuguese rule; there might-might be some exotic bird inspiration to get there ;-).

Also come to think of Dvorak´s "The Wild Dove", a symphonic poem. No doubt there are tons of such works and references.

 

[mountain man]

http://www.nmcrec.co.uk/recording/bird-concerto-pianosong

Bird Concerto with Piano Song by Jonathan Harvey is really extraordinary. Recordings of birds made in California are processed electronically and distorted into hallucinogenic versions. It's totally mesmerising.

Respighi puts in a recording of a Nightingale at the end of the Pines of Janiculum:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVq4fBFfBD4

And don't forget the Swan Hymn (from 1'15 in the link) in Sibelius' 5th Symphony, written after a group of calling Whooper Swans came over his house in Ainola:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAbuOQRdXkQ

And Simon, as an Australian you might want to have a look into some of Peter Sculthorpe's music.

Just as a shameless plug (ha!), I'm giving a talk at this year's Birdfair about birds in music on the Friday in the events marquee, just after Simon King o

http://www.birdfair.org.uk/events/categories/events/

 

[mountain man]

John Zorn also wrote a beautiful album based on extinct birds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOaaolGBpg8

This is the same John Zorn from the extreme noise group Painkiller who wrote Purgatory of Fiery Vulvas (for God's sake turn the volume down if you're at work!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53xYElWWwz0

 

[Zheljko]

Not music, but I found an old book of children's poems in Serbo-Croatian (old book) and one is about birds being concerned about Sun disappearing from the sky (because it was sunset and they saw it landing in the sea :king: )
If I try to whistle the words of their "conversation", it becomes obvious that some of the participants were Golden Oriole, Nightingale, Great Tit and Blackcap.

 

[Simon A]

M-fan, Tom, Zheljko - many, many thanks for this mine of information. Plenty for me to listen to and explore here. Yes, Sculthorpe is rather keen on his soundscapes, and there's another Oz composer (whose name entirely escapes me) who plunders the avian world to no small extent.

Didn't know about the John Zorn material at all, so will check this out with great interest (am listening to his 50th birthday gig recordings whilst typing this). Might use his Painkiller track to clear out party guests!

Tom - your talk sounds really interesting...will it be recorded, put on youtube, etc? M-fan and Tom, I gave a talk at the Birdlife congress in Argentina a few years back on the birds that Messiaen used in Catalogue d'oiseaux - I analysed the population trends of the species and then tried to extrapolate how different it would have sounded if he'd tried to compose it in the current era rather than the 1950s - e.g. much less chance of ortolan and black wheatear, but would've 'compensated' with collared dove. Have a much neglected draft manuscript of the research that I really ought to finish one of these days.

Thanks again all, happy listening and good luck with the talk Tom. Cheers, Simon

 

[mountain man]

I gave a talk at the Birdlife congress in Argentina a few years back on the birds that Messiaen used in Catalogue d'oiseaux - I analysed the population trends of the species and then tried to extrapolate how different it would have sounded if he'd tried to compose it in the current era rather than the 1950s - e.g. much less chance of ortolan and black wheatear, but would've 'compensated' with collared dove. Have a much neglected draft manuscript of the research that I really ought to finish one of these days.

Hi Simon,

Late last year I got the chance to interview Peter Hill (one of Messiaen's closest friends in his final years) for a BBC radio programme I made. I spent all afternoon with him and he let me sift through the 2,000 photocopied pages he had from Messiaen's field sketchbooks (the cahiers). What I discovered was really disappointing!

Messiaen totally suppressed from his public the fact that he actually made his birdsong transcriptions from recordings listened to at home, not out in the field - aarrgghh! Darius Milhaud gave him a set of recordings in the late 1940s (probably the Ludwig Koch recordings) and from then on he became nuts about using birds.

This idea of him writing music directly from field experience was more to do with capturing a true sense of the environment that he was placing the bird in - even going all the way out to New Caledonia to hear the birds he was using in his opera St.Francis of Assisi. He just kept it very quiet that the birds were being written down from very careful repetitive listening to recordings.

From looking at the sketchbooks, I identified a few birds that I believe are incorrectly labelled in the published scores. When Messiaen wrote Oiseaux Exotiques, he visited an aviary in Paris that was full of birds from the Indian Subcontinent. I've never understood how the final bird in the piece could have been a 'Himalayan Laughing-Thrush' -it sounds nothing like one - but after looking through the sketches from the time he wrote Exotiques, I left convinced that he had actually mistakenly transcribed a Coppersmith Barbet. You can hear it from 5'05 in this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMG07mv4Jyw

Tom

 

[Simon A]

Tom - thanks (I think!) for this news...I'd been blissfully labouring under the misaprehension that the Catalogue, at least, was done in the field. Oh that certainly takes the mystique out of it! Just been going between youtube and xeno canto, and if I've got the right part, then I can see what you mean...timbre is very close, but perhaps rather slow for coppersmith? Oddly, I'm in Malaysia at the moment, so may actually get to hear it in real time soon!

So it was Milhaud's fault then!!

Also, has the radio program been aired yet?

Thanks for this revelation, cheers, Simon

 

[mountain man]

Just been going between youtube and xeno canto, and if I've got the right part, then I can see what you mean...timbre is very close, but perhaps rather slow for coppersmith? Oddly, I'm in Malaysia at the moment, so may actually get to hear it in real time soon!

Well being an absolute geek here, the metronome marking in the score is much faster than Boulez conducts it. This is a strange lapse of accuracy from Boulez, who's normally a bit of a machine with tempo. He's been conducting the final section at that speed ever since the first recording with Messiaen's wife Yvonne Loriod in the late 1950s. Presumably he likes the dramatic effect.

This is the actual speed which Messiaen marks in the score (from 3'50):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-5WwtfMpgM

 

[mountain man]

certainly takes the mystique out of it

Exactly what I thought. But it makes perfect sense when you look at the lack of sophistication in his use of birdsong in the pieces from the 40s (Vingt Regards, Quartet for the End of Time and the Turangalila Symphony), compared to his really accurate use of birds after Milhaud gives him the recordings (Reveil des Oiseaux, Oiseaux Exotiques, Catalogue des Oiseaux etc ...).

The programme was broadcast earlier this year, but send me a private message and I can email you a copy.

Tom

 

[Simon A]

Oh that's more like it...maybe Boulez slowed it down 'cos Aimard doesn't have the chops!! Only jesting, he can play anything! That's a great explanation Tom, thanks lots. Might have to rethink my manuscript.....hmmm popular article here I come.

 

[Simon A]

Tom in response to your second mail, yes, that explains the quantum leap that was made in a relatively short time span - I just envisaged him transcribing in the field 12 hours a day and then driving Yvonne Loriod to practice ever wider intervals at ever faster tempos! The truth is, sadly, more prosaic. Very kind offer re the radio show, so yes, will PM you. Oh, and a musical recommendation, if you're keen on Messiaen give the new collaboration by Opeth and Porcupine Tree ('Storm Corrosion' - youtube has a very nice animated version of one track http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=manW5v-AR7U) - sort of Messiaen meets recentish Radiohead. Oh dear we seem to have turned this into a music forum. Cheers, Simon

 

[Xenospiza]

This link should be of interest: http://www.sibetrans.com/trans/a94/...rt-hall-a-history-of-animals-in-western-music

I found it while looking for compositions of Magnus Robb (yes, of the Sound Approach): here you can listen to Sprosser (I have to do that in Explorer, because Firefox crashes every time I open this link). I met him while he was searching for the bird he eventually based his composition on (from 44:58:00 — if you understand Dutch you can start a bit earlier).

 

[Johann Sebastian Bach]

I've come to this thread rather late but there's a number of Renaissance motets, such as Chants des Oiseaux by Jannequin, which (from memory) contains farmyard geese, mallard and cuckoo sounds; Il est bel et bon by Passereau (chickens); and Lassus's (who loved countryside sounds) Audite nova. English Renaissance composers used birdsong "word painting" in many madrigals, including one by (who else) William Byrd.
Later, Banchieri wrote some counterpoint for animal sounds (contrappunto bestiale) which I think has a turtle dove and cuckoo.
Elgar's Lark Ascending is an astonishing piece of virtuosity.

Peter

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

This link should be of interest: http://www.sibetrans.com/trans/a94/...rt-hall-a-history-of-animals-in-western-music

I once organised a concert with the author of that article that featured a world premiere of a piece she wrote based on the song of a Hermit Thrush. True story!

A friend of mine called Hanna Tuulikki is doing some pretty amazing stuff at the moment based on various Gaelic songs that include lots of onomatopoeic sounds of birds. I've seen her do this live a couple of times but I don't know of any videos or recordings that are available yet. It's kind of hard to describe but is really incredible.

 

[Edward]

Elgar's Lark Ascending is an astonishing piece of virtuosity.

Peter

Elgar's Lark Ascending? Personally I prefer Mozart's The Well-tempered Clavier

 

[Simon A]

Dear all,

Apologis for tardy thanks...but thanks. There's so much astonishing music out there - just listening to Hanna's soundcloud stuff - quite exquisite and unhinged in equal amounts. Thanks again to all respondents. Cheers, Simon

 

[Johann Sebastian Bach]

Elgar's Lark Ascending? Personally I prefer Mozart's The Well-tempered Clavier

Sorry - a moment of over-indulgence may have taken over. Of course, it's by Will Vaughan, the famous cricketer.

Peter