MUSIC AND BIRDS

Taranaki Daily News, 21 January 1935, Page 11

MUSIC AND BIRDS

ASSOCIATION IN LEGEND “THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF MUSIC.” LECTURE BY MR. ERNEST JENNER. "Music and musical legends associated, with birds” was the subject of a lecture to the teachers’ summer school, New Plymouth, on Saturday by Mr. Ernest Jenner, A.R.S.M. The session opened with the pianoforte solo “The Cuckoo Bird” played by Mr. Jenner. Although the piece was rarely heard he had no hesitation in selecting it for the opening number because of its beauty, he said. The interval of a fifth for the cuckoo imitations in the' song were possibly cuckoo notes, although few cuckoo songs employed such a wide interval. The use of the minor or major third was more common. The intervals widened as the year advanced. When the cuckoo was first heard the interval between the second notes of, his call were in a minor third but later in the year it widened to the major third, or the fourth and occasionally to the fifth as in the song just sung by the audience. Many musicians used the cuckoo effects iri their compositions, said Mr. Jenner. The two most beautiful he could recall were Brahms’ Third Ballade for-the piano and Delius’ orchestral poem “On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring.” They were entirely different compositions. The Brahms’ Ballade was an early work and seemed to be entirely an expression of joyous love in a beautiful wooded spring setting. The cuckoo notes occurred in the middle portion of the Ballade in the peace of the woods. The first and last parts of the composition expressed the ecstasy of youthful lore. The orchestral composition by Delius was an intensely beautiful tone-poem, deeply expressive of that hushed, ecstatic, breathless, joyous lift felt by superstitious souls like Delius, said Mr. Jenner. The piece was only imitative of the cuckoo to any extent about threequarters of the way through, the rest being built upon two main tunes. After a marvellous opening chord and about three bars of slow introduction the first of the tunes was commenced. Its rocking rhythm seemed to be, founded on the two short and long notes of “cuckoo.” The part was chiefly given to strings but was coloured slightly by the clarinet and oboe. Imperceptibly this passed into a Norwegian folk melody of the same lilt. There were songs of the lark, songs of the thrush, songs of the Hebridean “seagull of the land-under-waves,” which brought tidings of spirits of the drowned waiting/to board the white ship, that ship “of the golden rudder and the silver, masts and the silken sails,” that would carry them back to Tir-nan-beo, the land of the living.

LEGEND OF LOHENGRIN.

There was the medieval legend of Lohengrin, the Swan-Knight, son!" of Sir Percival of the Holy Grail, a legend made popular by the beautiful opera setting composed by Wagner. There was Hans Anderson’s story of the nightingale and quite an amount of nightingale music, Mr. Jenner said. To mention but two there was “Rossignol Amoureux” from the opera “Hippolyte et Aricie” by the A early French composer Rameau and the better known “Nightingale Chorus” from Handel’s “Solomon.” In presenting a re-/ cording of the latter work Mr. ■ Jenner said he did so because it gave listeners an opportunity to study choral work. The slight imitative effects of the nightingale were provided by the violin and flute. There was a very early legend about birds and music that he had been able to trace, said Mr. Jenner. It concerned the divine origin of music and dated back to about 2700 years B.C. After the defeat of a rival ruler the Emperor Hivang-Tee set about restoring the arts of peace; Particularly did he wish to systematise musical sounds so - that it would be possible to found upon them an ordered art of music. He entrusted this work to his Minister, Ling-Lum. Journeying to the banks of the HoangHo, Ling-Lum dwelt among the bamboo forests and considered how best to achieve its object. He first cut bambocf pipes of different lengths and experimented with the sounds they made. While 1 was occupied with this work the miraculous bird Fung-Hoang appeared before him. He welcomed it eagerly and paid attention to what it sang to him, for it was known that this bird only appeared before man in order to bestow some beneficial gift upon humanity.

So beautiful were the notes of the bird’s voice that Ling-Lum cut his pipes to the same pitches to perpetuate the sounds, and when this work was completed the bird flew away. . Ling-Lum arranged the five notes, F, G, A. C. D. in order of their pitch and, named them respectively after the Emperor, the Prime Minister, the People, tire State and the world at large. The pentatonic scale thus formed was inscribed in letters of gold in the Book of the State for permanent preservation aiid henceforth served as the fundamental principle for all. music of State or worship. The audience sang the pentatonic Scottish melody “The Song of the Mavis,” which, said Mr. Jenner, was an admirable example of the pentatonic scale and showed what beautiful music could be produced from five notes. Many of l the Scottish melodies were based on the pentatonic scale.

The remainder of the session was devoted to the study of the plot and selections from Stravinsky’s “Fire Bird Ballet.” The appearance of a fabulous bird was the basis of an old Russian legend upon which Stravinsky, perhaps modernising it somewhat, formulated his Ballet, In the final recording, depicting a coronation scene, Stravinsky had utilised a well-known seven-beat Russian folk song. For real glitter and daring orchestration of harmonies it had no equal, said Mr. Jenner.