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Organ Music with Birds


Phoneuma

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Greetings, does anyone have any suggestions for any organ music which contains references to birds or bird song. Before you all rush to the Messiaen cupboard I'd need stuff that would be approachable for the audience and I don't have time to faff about unravelling his music anymore. It's for a talk / recital I'm doing for the local twinning association and our twin town is in Bavaria. The title is Clocks, Chorales and Cuckoos. I've got the clocks and chorales covered, too much in some ways, and I have one piece which is based on a German folk song called 'Alle Voegel sind schoen da' , full of twitterings and trills.

All suggestions gratefully welcomed.

 

 

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That's a very helpful start - I meant to also mention that cuckoos could also include something masquerading as something else, in fact I've just thought of that Joseph Cooper album with hidden melodies, that sort of thing would go down well,I'd like the audience to do some work as well!

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'Morning Mood' from Peer Gynt? There are several different transcriptions for organ, some of which are on YouTube. Depending on how strongly you want to emphasise the 'bird' aspects, you could maybe go to town on the trills ...

 

Nice and easy as well, and people know it which always helps.

 

CEP

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That's a very helpful start - I meant to also mention that cuckoos could also include something masquerading as something else, in fact I've just thought of that Joseph Cooper album with hidden melodies, that sort of thing would go down well,I'd like the audience to do some work as well!

 

 

I'd forgotten about Joseph Cooper, a very fine musician - I used to play his variations on "Yes, we have no bananas" - in the style of Schumann!

 

Sorry - doesn't help!

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Hello,


Greetings, does anyone have any suggestions for any organ music which contains references to birds or bird song. Before you all rush to the Messiaen cupboard I'd need stuff that would be approachable for the audience and I don't have time to faff about unravelling his music anymore. It's for a talk / recital I'm doing for the local twinning association and our twin town is in Bavaria. The title is Clocks, Chorales and Cuckoos. I've got the clocks and chorales covered, too much in some ways, and I have one piece which is based on a German folk song called 'Alle Voegel sind schoen da' , full of twitterings and trills.

All suggestions gratefully welcomed.

 

 

 

take a look at:

Edwin Lemare: Summer sketches op. 73 which has a movement called "Cuckoo"

Louis Claude Daquin: Rondeau "Le Coucou"

Johann Xaver Nauss: Parthie auf das Clavier "Gugu" (contained in "Augsburger Orgel- und Klaviermusik des 16.-19. Jahrhunderts")

Andreas Willscher: Vogelarium Eight Pieces containing pigeon, nightingale, grey partridge, raven, pelican, sparrow and eagle.

 

Cheers

tiratutti

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Tiratutti - that's brilliant, some great ideas there, especially with the Lemare music, Daquin sprang to mind later last night and the Nauss piece is perfect.

SL - it does help as I could include the chorale prelude on Whilst shepherd's watched', nice one and 'Bananas' s is a corker in that volume. It got me all nostalgic and there is just one existing episode of Face The Music on youtube, the good old days when you were required to do some of the guessing. After all these years I even managed a few opus numbers.

Some chap - that's from that DVD set, which I have somewhere, i'll dig that out.

That's probably plenty to be going on with but many thanks one and all for filling that gaping hole in so imaginatively.

It should be quite a trill for the audience now.....

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There is an album of music written in memory of Douglas Fox. (It contained the St Louis comes to Clifton by Howells.) Anyway, there is a piece in there written in the style of Messiaen by (I think) Richard Popplewell. I am away fro home so can't turn it up now, but it's good fun - it also involves a cow and a few other animals but birds definitely feature. Very manageable.

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Searching on iPad in hotel bedroom... Yes, deffo Popplewell - 'Chants d'oiseaux, des poules, des moutons et des vaches' or something very akin to this. You may find Roger Molyneaux has a copy - I think the album was called a Garland for DGAF now I come to think about it.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Should have recalled this earlier.

Franz Liszt, "St François d'Assise, La Prédication aux Oiseaux", transcription for organ by Camille Saint-Saens, in IMSLP at http://petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/f/fd/IMSLP67641-PMLP11042-Liszt_-_S175_No1_La_predication_aux_oiseaux__arr_org_Saint-Saens___typeset_.pdf

Might be rather long for your purposes, but I've heard it played simply but effectively, and beautifully, on the organ in our local church, with no swell box, no voix céleste, manuals to F etc.

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