An Organ Concert of Birdsong

Birdsong has long symbolised freedom, both literal and philosophical. In this programme of musica instrumentalis, birds' songs (and human songs of birds) echo a perpetual calling: a liberation of the mind, from the world as bondage, from illusion as reality. This concert, given by Dr August Guan, offers an hour-long pleasure of supramundane harmony, exploring this theme across centuries and styles.

On the eve of the Enlightenment, when music's principle was to imitate nature's passions and forms, Étienne Moulinié left a crafty caution in his air Concert de différents oyseaux (“Concert of different birds”): « Gardez de vous abuser tous, / Ce seroyent choses estranges, / Si les Corbeaux, & les Hibous / Chantoyent comme des Anges » ("Beware, all of you, not to be misled — it would indeed be strange if crows and owls sang like angels"). This stanza, ironically set to angelic music, disrupts our perspective. Who then is truly singing? Humans, or birds? And if birds, who is listening — perhaps the Dieux déguisez ("gods in disguise") of the next verse?

From Kerll's form-defying cuckooing to Philips' adaptation of Lasso's madrigal, from Couperin's riddling nightingales to Rameau's hypnotic repetitions, the symbolism of birdsong resounds. Though many works were originally written for harpsichord, composers like Corrette and Balbastre offer insight into adapting idioms for organ. Dr Guan's arrangement of Lampe's Cuckoo Concerto, meanwhile, reverses the process, borrowing from Avison's concertos Op.9 as practising models.