Analysis: Can birdsong be used in music in new ways to draw our attention to the ecological and climate crisis happening around us?
Birdsong has been a source of inspiration for musicians and composers throughout history. Ancient philosophers such as Athenaeus and Lucretius believed that humans learned to make music from birds. Their calls and cries are embedded in vocal and instrumental music across the ages.
But the ever-increasing risks of climate change and declining bird populations have changed the way in which some composers in Ireland and abroad have approached birdsong in their work. How can contemporary music draw our attention to the ecological crisis and inspire us towards change?
Two of the oldest-known songs in the English language, Mirie it is while sumer ilast and Sumer is icumen in reference singing birds, with the singers imitating the call of the cuckoo in the latter. Folksongs often reference phenological events (events in a biological life-cycle), such as the singing of birds heralding seasons. Composers of all eras drew inspiration from birdsongs, most famously in Beethoven’s 'pastoral' Symphony No. 6, where a nightingale, a quail and a cuckoo are played by the wind section in the second movement.
Beethoven's 6th Symphony with birdsong sequence played by the wind section
The French 20th-century composer Olivier Messiaen was an avid ornithologist, taking recordings of birds in nature and faithfully representing them in his music. Birdsong can even be found in popular music; Blackbird by The Beatles features the singing of the eponymous bird alongside Paul McCartney in the final verse. Almost every genre and era of music is populated with the singing of birds.
In recent years, the climate crisis, collapse of ecosystems and declining bird populations have forced composers to confront the realities faced by the birds whose music they are writing into their music. Many of them have found new ways of challenging audiences to consider our relationship with our environment.
Recently, New Dublin Voices and conductor Bernie Sherlock gave the world premiere performance of O Curlew by Jonathan Nangle, based on the WB Yeats' poem He Reproves the Curlew. The poem is a lament for lost love, comparing the grief of the author to the distinctive crying call of the curlew. Nangle transforms the text in his 21st-century setting from a lament for the narrator to a lament for the curlew.
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From RTÉ Lyric FM, Calling the Curlew Home
While curlews would have been abundant during Yeats' time, their populations have drastically diminished over the past century with only 103 breeding pairs remaining amidst calls for greater conservationist work. O Curlew ends with a few singers in the choir mimicking the curlew’s call as the music fades to nothing, drawing attention to this vanishing Irish soundscape.
Nangle’s work speaks to the concept of posthumanism in art, the notion that humanity is not dominant over nature and that our natural world should be treated with equal importance to us. Posthumanism decenters the human and centers the non-human to balance the scales of power in the world. Even the change of title by Nangle speaks to his posthumanist approach. While the title of Yeats’ poem centers the human narrator - ‘He Reproves the Curlew’ - Nangle's work is addressed to the bird that is the subject of the work - ‘O Curlew.’
US composer Edie Hill created a cycle of choral pieces entitled Spectral Spirits based on Passings by writer Holly J. Hughes, a collection of elegies for extinct species of birds. The work opens with the foreword: "Take note. These birds are still singing to us. We must listen." For each bird featured we hear an eyewitness account, the bird’s various Latin names and nicknames, and the associated poem from Hughes’ collection.
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One particularly tragic story is that of the Carolina Parakeet. The only parrot native to the continental United States, the colourful and noisy Carolina Parakeet used to gather in large, cacophonous flocks. The species was ruthlessly hunted by farmers protecting crops and by hunters who admired their plumage. They were a fashionable object for taxidermy, and their feathers were used as ornaments for hats. The vast and unsustainable clearing of land for agriculture decimated their habitat, and the last Carolina Parakeet died in captivity in 1918.
The most heartbreaking aspect of the parakeet’s demise was their tendency to stay with their wounded mate after they were shot by hunters rather than fleeing and leaving them behind. This made them easy prey for hunters to pick off. Hill’s work is both a lament for these birds and an indictment of humanity’s cruelty towards nature.
Composers and performers are developing new ways of incorporating birdsong into their work that re-centres the birds that inspired the music
Academics within the emerging field of ecomusicology are drawing attention to the relationship between music and humanity’s impact on nature. Scholars of traditional and indigenous music have studied how folksongs preserve the relationship between birds and our natural environment.
Composers and performers are developing new ways of incorporating birdsong into their work that re-centres the birds that inspired the music, rather than the humans performing or listening to it. This addresses the needs and circumstances of the birds in the context of climate change and habitat loss. While this eco-centric method of composing and understanding music is relatively new, it is likely to become a common theme in contemporary music in the years to come.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
