Birdsong - sounds in music

Nature’s sounds and motions irresistible to some composers*

One of the more interesting byways of composed music is the use of animal sounds, especially bird songs.

Handel composed an organ concerto to The Cuckoo and the Nightingale, which exhibits, with his characteristic exuberance, a sonic facsimile of what these birds would sound like if they sang in major keys and used Baroque melodic sequences and cadences. Nothing at all like the real thing, in other words. But very fine music nonetheless.

Vivaldi used bird…

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