Beak Performances: A Brief History of Birdsong in Classical Music
Red-eyed Vireo. Chicago Women’s Park, September 1, 2021. Photo by Carl Giometti
words by Ben Auwaerter
July 18 is World Listening Day, and on such an occasion, COS members might take to their go-to spots in Cook County, listening to the chorus of their favorite summer birds—the cheerily, cheer ups of the American Robin or the sweet trill of the Yellow Warbler. Birdsong has a myriad of effects on the brain, aiding in recovery from stress and improving one’s concentration. Beyond health benefits, many have also found musical muses in birdsong. Since at least medieval times, humans have incorporated the calls of birds into recorded music. On World Listening Day, it’s worth taking a deeper dive into the intermingled history of birdsong and music.
The earliest known instance of a birdsong in musical notation is a 13th century medieval English round called Sumer is icumen in. The round is a celebration of summer, and frequently references the call of the cuckoo to emphasize the joy of the season. In the 16th century, Clément Janequin penned Le Chant des Oiseau, again using birdsong to rejoice in the changing of seasons. Le Chant proclaims at its onset, “On this first day of May / The birds will make you marvel / To lift yourself from dismay.” Subsequently, Le Chant embodies various types of birds, including the thrush and nightingale. To capture the sounds of these species, Janequin wrote out the letters that he believed emulated their calls. The thrush was conjured via the singing of “Ty, ty, pyty;” the nightingale via “Frian, frian, frian.”
Ludwig van Beethoven, one of history’s most renowned composers, also found inspiration from birdsong in his Symphony No. 6. Debuting on the same night in 1808 as his remarkably intense Symphony No. 5, Beethoven’s “Pastoral” symphony stands in stark contrast—it is an ode to nature’s beauty. The end of the symphony’s second movement explores that theme by evoking various birds. He chose the flute to channel the nightingale, the oboe for the quail, and clarinets for the cuckoo. A little over a century later, Sergey Prokofiev would famously employ a similar tactic for the animals in Peter and the Wolf. The flute was played to represent the bird, who chirps happily from a treetop as the story opens. The comparatively lower-toned oboe depicts the presence of a waddling duck. Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel’s Schwanenlied uses the combination of two sounds, a graceful piano and elegant vocals, to characterize a swan “gliding to and fro” on a lake.
European Goldfinch. Vernon Hills, February 15, 2024. Photo by Ian Sarmiento.
Because Europe served as the breeding grounds for western classical music’s birth, it comes as no surprise that the majority of pre-eighteenth century homages to birdsong focus on species that are not native to North America. Antonio Vivaldi’s goldfinch (Flute Concerto Op. 10 No. 3) was certainly a European rather than American Goldfinch. The first movement of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 uses the song of a Great Tit as a theme. This species is not native to North America and has never been recorded in Cook County (though Great Tits have been seen in parts of Wisconsin for the last twenty years).
Nevertheless, not all composers concentrated on the birds of Europe. Antonin Dvořák visited Spillville, Iowa in 1893. While there, he completed his String Quartet No. 12, known as the “American.” According to his secretary, Dvořák drew inspiration from a bird he overheard, including a transcription of that bird’s song in the quartet. A biographer of Dvořák proposed in 1954 that the bird was a Scarlet Tanager, basing the identification predominantly off Dvořák’s physical description (“It was all red, with black wings”). Scholars have long questioned this identification, as the transcribed birdsong in the quartet did not resemble the Scarlet Tanager’s call. Commonly accepted analysis has since attributed the birdsong to a Red-eyed Vireo. The source of the mix-up is not precisely known, but Dvořák wouldn’t be the first birder to improperly pair a bird and its song.
Scarlet Tanager. Eggers Grove, May 13, 2023. Photo by Dustin Weidner.
In 1924, the cellist Beatrice Harrison expanded the role of birds in western classical music. As opposed to others who incorporated modified birdsongs in their compositions, Harrison performed a duet alongside a living (and non-captive) nightingale. The concept for the performance originated when Harrison discovered that her outdoor cello practice resulted in local nightingales joining her music making. The 1924 live performance was broadcast via BBC to more than a million listeners. Given the improbability of the musical partnership, suspicions have grown in recent years as to whether the recording was faked. The most prominent theory revolves around the hiring of a notable bird impressionist to replicate the nightingale’s sound. Findings from Kate Kennedy, published in the Guardian last month, attempt to debunk this theory. Kennedy emphasized how, based on multiple records, six nightingales had actually joined Harrison that evening. A singular impressionist could not have imitated six nightingales, and it’s unlikely that there was enough local talent available to provide the necessary extra voices.
Olivier Messiaen is perhaps the composer best known for his devotion to birdsong. In the late 1950s, the Frenchman published his Catalogue d'oiseaux, a collection of piano pieces entirely based on birdsong. He also composed a piece for orchestra, Réveil des oiseaux (translating to “Awakening of the Birds”) largely constructed via the calls of birds and dedicated to a French ornithologist. When reflecting on his works, particularly his Catalogue d'oiseaux, Messiaen noted the difficulty in transcribing certain birdsongs. Compared to the instruments at his disposal, birds emitted music that was immensely variable and difficult to recreate. He found the piano to be the instrument best suited for “speaking at the great speed and in the very high registers called for by some of the more virtuosic birds.”
Hermit Thrush. Montrose Point, October 8, 2023. Photo by Dustin Weidner.
Modern composers continue to draw upon the music of birds in their works. Emily Doolittle’s Woodwings is based on the songs of four birds that are common throughout Canada—the Bobolink, Hermit Thrush, Snow Goose, and Winter Wren—as well as a smattering of owls. In her 2017 album titled Absolute Bird, Hollis Taylor composed 41 tracks that are each inspired (in various ways) by the Pied Butcherbird of Australia. In Cook County itself, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has taken to performing pieces centered around birdsong. This past February, Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Cantus Arcticus was performed, which features recorded bird calls from arctic Finland.
It is not difficult to fathom why countless classical composers have developed music with birdsong in mind. In many ways, birds are the vocal manifestation of nature, a treasure trove for music aimed at capturing the essence of the outdoors. It is comforting to know that, despite the radical changes that civilization has undergone in the last millennium, the desire to share the joys of birdsong through composition has not eroded.
If interested, the linked Spotify playlist has compiled most of the pieces referenced in this blog post. Additionally, note that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is playing Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony October 4–6 this year; tickets can be purchased on its website.