An Ornithological Opuscule...musical works with BIRDS in their titles...?

[hafwen]

Our feathered friends have inspired a huge amount of music over the centuries...how many can you list, and which are your favourites?

Being a Baroque freak, I'm madly in love with Handel's organ concerto, "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale" - jam-packed with bird calls!
And Vivaldi wrote a wonderfully ornate flute concerto called "Il Gardellino" ("The Goldfinch.")

I'm looking forward to your responses!

Hafwen x

 

[theseizemusic]

I don't suppose Green Finch and Linnet Bird from Sweeney Todd counts?

 

[snide76258]

Vaughan Williams - The Lark Ascending

Frederick Delius - On Hearing The Cuckoo For The First Time In Spring

 

[doc]

Classical?

FREEBIRD!


Can't you just see me standing up at one of y'all's hoity-toity concerts and shouting PLAY FREEBIRD!!!

 

[kucletus]

Here are a few off the top of my head:

N. Rimsky-Korsakov - The Golden Cockerel ("Le Coq d'or")
Igor Stravinsky - The Firebird
Olivier Messiaen - Exotic Birds (NB - Messiaen has LOADS of music about birds / birdsong)
Franz Schubert - Bird as Prophet (from "Wood Scenes" op. 82)
Maurice Ravel - Oiseaux tristes, from "Miroirs"
Charles Griffes - The White Peacock

The favorites from my list have to be the Stravinsky and Griffes, but Messiaen's interpretations and dictations of birdsong are definitely interesting.