Up Toward the Sky

RACHEL EVANGELINE BARHAM, DELTA NU, WASHINGTON DC ALUMNI

Birdsong in American music

A couple of weeks after last July’s virtual International Convention, I headed to Vermont to visit family I hadn’t seen in two years because of the pandemic. We had some wonderful time together, but when I had a few moments to myself, I headed up the nearest mountain. I had one thing in mind: find a hermit thrush that was singing. A short hike up a trail and there it was, serenading anyone who would listen. I got a private 17-minute concert.

This was not terribly far from where the composer Amy Beach (1867-1944) first encountered this bird’s varied and mesmerizing song, at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Beach transcribed the birdsong as she heard it, and used it in her Opus 92 for piano, two pieces called “A Hermit Thrush at Eve” and “A Hermit Thrush at Morn.” You can hear how she selects a long piano note followed by quick arpeggiations to imitate the bird’s song, each iteration of which starts with a clear whistle before breaking into a pattern of quick notes that use natural harmonics.

Hear birdsongs on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s allaboutbirds.org by searching for the name of the bird and then clicking “sounds.” You can also see range maps to find out whether these birds are found in your area.

Most people rightly think of Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) when they think of birdsong in music. But birds have inspired people probably since the beginnings of music. It isn’t hard to imagine the player of the first bone flutes trying to imitate the songs of birds, nor is it unlikely that birds inspired the rhythms of dances.

My solo American art song album, “Up Toward the Sky,” has a definite bird theme, from “My Crow Pluto” by Virgil Thomson (1896-1989), with an amazingly alliterative and fun text by Marianne Moore, to “My Phoenix” by Mu Phi Epsilon composer Winifred Hyson (1925-2019), a setting of a poem by Jean Starr Untermeyer as part of the set “Songs of Job’s Daughter.” The set was a prize winner in the 1971 Mu Phi Epsilon Composition Contest, and this is the first commercial recording. Hyson was active for years in the Washington DC Alumni chapter, and she coached me on the songs.

The album, which was partially funded by the Brena Hazzard Voice Scholarship, starts with a song I’ve always loved as a recital opener: “Sweet Suffolk Owl” by Richard Hundley (1931-2018). It’s short, it doesn’t have a lot of technical challenges for me, and it has so much character that it puts audiences at ease and calms any nerves I might have at the beginning of a recital. The poem by Thomas Vautor immortalizes the nightly pursuit of owl and mouse, notating the song of the European tawny owl — like his contemporary Shakespeare in the Winter poem from “Love’s Labour’s Lost” — as “to whit, te whoo.”

Vautor and Shakespeare got something wrong, though. Vautor says of the owl: “thou singest alone, sitting by night.” In reality, it’s not a single bird; it’s a duet! The female says “te-whit” and the male answers with “te-whoo.”

What makes the song so much fun for me is that the composer Hundley imitates the actual song of the tawny owl in the vocal line. It’s almost like I get to stand in front of an audience in my recital finery and do bird calls.

Thy note that forth so freely rolls With shrill command, the mouse controls, And singest a dirge for dying souls, To whit, te whoo!

Listen to “Sweet Suffolk Owl,” “Meadowlarks,” “The Crucifixion” and Rachel’s other music at youtube.com — search Rachel Evangeline Barham

In planning this album, I really wanted to include some songs by Beach, since she was a member of Mu Phi Epsilon. I had a problem, though: all of Beach’s songs that I had encountered were settings of poetry that was too romantic, too sentimental for me to perform with conviction. I’ve had the same problem choosing songs by Schubert, and I decided to use the same strategy: start by looking through texts and find the ones about nature. That’s something this tree-hugger can sell to an audience.

It wasn’t long before I came across “The Thrush” and “The Blackbird,” neither of which was available in a commercial recording. I sang through them and found that “The Blackbird” — a delightful piece about a couple sharing their first kiss while serenaded by a joyous but less-than-tuneful blackbird — fit my voice perfectly. The range of “The Thrush” was a little low, and I had it professionally transposed: Beach’s tender setting of a poem about the loss of a mate has been a favorite of audiences. (And since you’re wondering, this is probably a wood thrush rather than a hermit thrush, but the poem doesn’t specify!)

Strix aluco (Tawny owl) illustrated by the von Wright brothers from the 1929 folio of Svenska Fåglar Efter Naturen Och Pa Sten Ritade.

In both “The Thrush” and “The Blackbird,” Beach creates a musical tribute to the song of a bird rather than trying to render the song exactly, a convention practiced much more widely than using exact transcriptions of birdsongs. The repetitive rhythmicmelodic gestures she writes for the piano could well represent flowing water or tumbling autumn leaves, but due to the poetic content, it is clear that the motives are meant to suggest birdsong. Another example is found in Samuel Barber’s “The Crucifixion,” in which we hear a birdlike piano motive to the text “At the cry of the first bird.”

But in the song “Meadow-larks” — like in the hermit thrush pieces for piano — Beach has made an exact transcription, as she heard it, of the song of the Western meadowlark. This is quite a feat! While the flutelike quality of the hermit thrush’s song lends itself easily to translation into Western musical notation, the Western meadowlark’s song is a fast, gurgly up-and-down arpeggiation. It almost doesn’t even sound like a bird — maybe a “Star Wars” character.

The Western meadowlark is the state bird of six states: Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon and Wyoming.

Beach renders the Western meadowlark’s song into a complex two-part rhythmic gesture for the piano. The gesture opens the piece and then returns in various guises throughout. The birdsong gesture is nothing like the vocal line and is used more as an echo of the singer’s thoughts. However, as she does in the other bird pieces previously mentioned, Beach uses the melody of the birdsong to create the harmonic world of the piece. She then morphs the melodic gesture to support novel harmonizations, weaving together an accompaniment that not only supports but enhances the different character of each verse in the strophic poem.

I would be a poor advocate if I weren’t to mention that North American birds are in trouble. Even though both the hermit thrush and the Western meadowlark are listed with a conservation status of “low concern,” it is estimated that 48% of Western meadowlarks have vanished since 1966. And its counterpart the Eastern meadowlark, with its song often rendered as “spring of the YEAR,” is in steep decline, having lost an estimated 89% of its population since 1966.

The poet Ina Coolbrith (1842-1928) who wrote “Meadow-larks” was the first poet laureate of California and indeed the first person named as a poet laureate in the United States. She had a very interesting life worth reading about.

Habitat destruction, pesticides, outdoor cats, window strikes and climate change are just a few factors threatening North America’s birds. But groups like the American Bird Conservancy, for whom I’ve done several recital fundraisers, are helping with education, advocacy and conservation efforts. There are easy ways that all of us can help birds. I do my part because I want every mountain to have a hermit thrush, forever.

Visit www.ABCbirds.org to learn about the American Bird Conservancy and sign up for a bird of the week email.

I have enjoyed getting to know these pieces and presenting them to audiences. Starting with familiar birdsongs has given me new insight into Beach’s compositional process in particular, for which I am grateful. Now that performing venues are reopening and recitals are possible again, I’m in search of my next birdsong sets. Who knows what might fly into view?

Search online for recordings of a hermit thrush song at 1/2 speed and 1/4 speed. You will be amazed at what you hear!

Illustration by Louis Agassiz Fuertes (1874-1927) of an Eastern Meadowlark (Sturnella magna), from "The Burgess Bird Book for Children"

Rachel Evangeline Barham is a classically trained singer, teacher, writer and editor. Her album “Up Toward the Sky” is available for purchase as a CD at www.guildmusic.com and is available on most streaming platforms. The album highlights the musical and poetic voices of women and LGBT Americans and features several premiere commercial recordings. www.RachelBarham.com www.UpTowardTheSky.com.