Radio Times: Review by:; David Gillard

It’s spot-the-bird-call time for musical ornithologists as musician and birder Tom McKinney assesses an intriguing flock of compositions that are avian-inspired. Olivier Messiaen (1908—92) was a lifelong birdsong enthusiast who roamed the world to notate the sound of birds.

And Tom’s fascination with bird music began when he first heard the French composer’s Chronochromie, a complex and initially controversial orchestral work “coloured” by the sound of birds from France, Mexico and Japan. Its Paris premiere in 1962 provoked a storm of audience and critical disapproval, though the work is now widely considered a 20th-century classic. Messiaen’s radical ideas have finally taken wing.

About this programme

Musician Tom McKinney explores how birds have influenced music throughout history, and reflects on works by composers from Vivaldi, Beethoven and Wager to Olivier Messiaen, whose enormous orchestral work Chronochromie, which quotes extensively from European, Far-Eastern and Central American birds, inspired Tom as a teenager. The programme features extracts from recordings of birds made by Mark Constantine and Magnus Robb, and reveals how the sounds of nature affect people in different ways.