We’re celebrating the Classical California Ultimate Playlist with a series of fun and informative blogs about the music you love.
Composers have been featuring birds in their works for centuries, usually by imitating their calls. Vivaldi was a champion in this regard. Among the species in The Four Seasons are the goldfinch, the turtle dove, and the ever-popular cuckoo. In the twentieth century Olivier Messiaen transcribed countless examples of birdsong and reproduced them in his music.
But two Finnish composers connected to the world of birds in different ways.
Jean Sibelius
In the finale of Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony (1919) there’s a magnificent melody the composer called his “swan hymn.” In his diary, he identified his inspiration for the theme, the sight of sixteen swans flying in formation overhead: “One of my greatest experiences! Lord God, that beauty! They circled over me for a long time. Disappeared into the solar haze like a gleaming, silver ribbon…”
Einojuhani Rautavaara was Sibelius’s successor as foremost Finnish composer. His best-known work, Cantus Arcticus (1972), is subtitled Concerto for Birds and Orchestra. Rautavaara took tape recordings of birdsong recorded near the Arctic Circle and on the bogs of northern Finland and created an orchestral accompaniment.
Einojuhani Rautavaara
The work opens with a movement titled “The Bog.” The second movement features a slowed-down recording of the song of the shore lark. And the final movement, “Swans Migrating,” brings us the sounds of whooper swans.
Alan Chapman
Alan Chapman, in addition to his weekday morning program, is also the host and producer of two weekend programs: Modern Times and A Musical Offering.
After receiving his undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he earned a Ph.D. in music theory from Yale University. He is currently a member of the music theory faculty of the Colburn Conservatory. He was a longtime member of the music faculty at Occidental College and has also been a visiting professor at UCLA and UC Santa Barbara. His analytical work has appeared in the Journal of Music Theory and in The New Orpheus: Essays on Kurt Weill, winner of the Deems Taylor Award for excellence in writing on music.
Well known as a pre-concert lecturer, Alan has been a regular speaker on the L.A. Philharmonic's "Upbeat Live" series since its inception in 1984. He also works closely with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Pacific Symphony. His lectures have been presented by virtually every major performing organization in southern California. He has been heard globally as programmer and host of the inflight classical channel on Delta Airlines.
Alan is also active as a composer/lyricist. His songs have been performed and recorded by many artists around the world and have been honored by ASCAP, the Johnny Mercer Foundation, and the Manhattan Association of Cabarets. His children's opera Les Moose: The Operatic Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle was commissioned by LA Opera for its 1997-98 season. Alan frequently appears in cabaret evenings with his wife, soprano Karen Benjamin. They made their Carnegie Hall debut in 2000 and performed at Lincoln Center in 2006. Their recent CD, Que Será, Será: The Songs of Livingston and Evans, features the late Ray Evans telling the stories behind such beloved songs as "Mona Lisa" and "Silver Bells."
