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On July 27-30, Tanglewood Takes Flight, the music
festival’s first-ever collaboration with Massachusetts Audubon, may attract
birders who fancy classical music more than the other way around. Three of the
collaboration’s five concerts, after all, take flight at 7 a.m.; a fourth is on
Sunday morning at 8. No big deal for a bona
fide birder, but more than a stretch for this classical music consumer and, I’d
wager, other like-minded children of the night.
The impetus behind the early-morning
convocation, in fact, was to sandwich recitals between high-yield bird walks,
directed and curated by Audubon. For the 7 a.m. recitals, that means hitting
the trails at 5:30 a.m.—an avian-animated hour that no doubt would have appealed
to the great composer-ornithologist, Olivier Messiaen.
Messiaen’s musical tributes to
birds, in fact, will take center stage throughout the three-day fest. Much of the
aerodynamic lift will come on Thursday* from the pianistic wizardry of
Pierre-Laurent Aimard. Arguably today’s foremost piano exponent of French
impressionism and neoimpressionism, Aimard will traverse much of Messiaen’s
monumental Catalogue of the Birds. That
means getting musically up-close-and-personal with the likes of the woodlark,
the tawny owl, and eleven other avian friends.
No Apologies for the Starling
That won’t include the much-loathed
(by songbird fanciers) starling. Little wonder. With mercurial aplomb, they drive
songbirds out of earshot, out of sight. But hear this witness for the bird’s
defense. Mozart’s
Starling, a 2016 book by naturalist Lyanda Lynn Haupt, recounted the composer’s
deeply appreciative, three-year bonding with his starling, purchased in a Viennese
pet shop. With minor alterations, the bird, reveals Haupt, faithfully reproduced
the first movement’s theme in Mozart’s G major Piano Concerto, No. 17. Common
European starlings share accomplished mimicry honors with nightingales, which
can imitate some sixty different songs after hearing each only a few times,
notes Jennifer Ackerman, in The Genius of
Birds (2016).
And Mozart, whose own personal
soundscape surely transcended the tidy
domain of consonance, valued his
companion for similar eclectic tastes. Starlings, notes Haupt, are kin to
mynahs, both which exhibit a dazzling repertoire of vocalizations. My own year
of close contact with a friend’s mynah, in fact, revealed a rich sonic bouillabaisse.
Hellos, goodbyes, one liners (sacred and
profane), and simulations of squealing car brakes, a toilet flushing, and the
next-door neighbor’s asthmatic cough—their edginess and unpredictability captivated
Sinbad’s many admirers.
Saved by Dusk
And so, I plan to forgo the 7
a.m. hoe downs in favor of Aimard’s 8 p.m. recital on Thursday evening at
Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall. Tanglewood publicists describe it as “a fascinating
centuries-spanning program that will explore the many recreations of birdsong
in music by composers from the Baroque to the present day.” They will include
Daquin, Schumann, Ravel, Bartók, and Julian Anderson. “The centerpiece of the
concert,” the schedule notes continue, “will be a selection of movements from
Messiaen's Catalogue of the Birds, to be
interspersed with electronic works by French composer Bernard Fort,
incorporating the same bird calls. The program will be preceded by a
"Birds at Dusk" session on the Tanglewood Grounds with Mass Audubon
ornithologist Wayne Petersen.” Just as birds frolic at dawn and dusk, I’m thrilled that Tanglewood gives a morsel of crepuscular cred to
challenged listeners like me.
*It’s uncertain from Tanglewood’s
schedule notes whether he will also play in scheduled Catalogue recitals on Friday and Saturday morning. On Sunday
morning a “Tanglewood Music Center Chamber Music Concert will include Messiaen’s
Oiseaux exotiques. Here is the full Tanglewood
Takes Flight schedule.
