Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-03-30
ANNALS VOCAL MUSIC.
Composers Try to Initiate the Notes of
Birds and Beasts.
From the london Mail

From the london Mall.
Not a few animals and birds can sing In
some way or another. Country people who
have occupied rooms near a frog pond and
have heard the vocalization of these
Dutch nightingales'' know and probably
appreciate that fact. But all animal songs
cannot be set to music, and only few
composers have triumphed over the diff
culties that beset any attempts of the
kind. Animal sounds, however, have been
scientifically studied, and a German nat
uralist goes so far to maintain that
even the dOnkey'S bray moves in true mus
iCal progression.
This is however. rather a far-fetched
proposition and, true or otherwise, 1t would
require good deal of devotion to scientific
research to enable man TO remain 1of
long in the vicinity of a donkey that had
been seized with a fit of braying
Birds. of course, produce musical sounds
which can be written out in musical nota-
tion. one of the best-knOwn passages in
Beethoven is the introduction of bird notes
"a nightingale. quail and cuckoo-in the
slow movement of his Pastoral SYM
phony. Insects also give out musical
sounds, and the Greeks kept 1ocusts in
cages as we do birds. There was pretty
tradition among the Greeks that when Ter
pIander was playing the Tyre at one of the
Olympic games so beautifully that he was
sure of the prize one of the strings of the
instrument broke. But just at that mo-
ment locust perChed on his Tyre chirped
the right not and Terpander won the
prize.
Whoever has been in a manageric about
an hour after the animals have been fed
knows what a curious concert suddenly be-
gins al that time. There is the deep, rum
bling bass of the lion, the tenor of the
tiger. the alto of the hyena and the shrill
treble of the wild cat, with a trumpet obli-
cato by the elephant. Some of these tamil
lar sounds have been successfully initiated
tn, nv " n Il
tient study of them first. haydn, IN MS
OIatoriO, THE Creation" has given his
idea of several animal sounds in music.
He has the roar of the lion, the neigh of
the horse and the dragging rustic of the
serpent; and he also tries to realize music
ally the buoyant bound of the tiger and the
leap of the deer. A famous place of salon
music in De kontSkiS day was that plan
lists effective "Reveil du Lion C'The
Awakening of the LiOn'D. 1t ends with a
tremendous tour de force, which is sup
posed to realize the fully awakened roar OF
the king of the beasts. composition
which is quite popular among German vo-
cal societies is quartet for cat, a hen,
dog and a pig, accompanied by monkey
at the piano. OF course it is not done by
real animals The performers wear papier
maChe heads and dress up in costumes
which are kept in music stores for the pur-
pose. If well done the piece is irresistibly
funny.
There are animal sounds which will prob
ably never be fully expressed in music.
OF such is the call of the COW moose,
Weirdly echoing over the moonlit water Of
a lake deep in the Maine or Canadian viii
derneSS. Such. too are the hOWlS OF pack
of wolves as they signal to one another to
Join in the chase of some unfortunate deer
fioundering in the deep snow; a coyote
sending his message over the plains an IN
vitation to his comrades to feast on the
CarriOn it has discovered; a fox Weakening
the stiffness of the forest, summOning it's
cunning comrades to q raid-these are some
of the rare noises of the wilderness which
may be initiated, but cannot be confined
within the rigid limits of musical notation.