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Mahler's Cuckoo
The quintessential use of the cuckoo's unique song...
© Peter Price
No bird has been so often evoked and emulated in song and symphony as the cuckoo. Among the best known examples are Handel's The Cuckoo and the Nightingale and the lovely "Andante" by Beethoven. But perhaps the quintessential use of the cuckoo's unique song figures in the First Symphony of Gustav Mahler. In the opening movement, a two-note motif is unmistakably the call of a cuckoo.
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Mahler’s Cuckoo
Written by Frank Corrado
This is BirdNote!
[Song of the cuckoo]
Bird song is heard frequently in the music of the masters. And no bird has been so often evoked and emulated in song and symphony as the cuckoo. [Song of the cuckoo]
Among the best known examples are found in Handel’s organ concerto, The Cuckoo and the Nightingale. [Brief interlude from The Cuckoo and the Nightingale]
…and the lovely “Andante” from Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony… [Interlude]
But perhaps the quintessential use of the bird’s unique song figures in the First Symphony of Gustav Mahler. Mahler drew both inspiration and solace in long walks through forest and field. Birdlike twitters and calls are heard throughout much of his music. But in the opening movement of his First Symphony, a two-note motif [Interlude] is unmistakably the call of a cuckoo. And Mahler’s use of that call is not just ornamental—its repetition gradually turns into the movement’s primary melody. [The melody in full]
The great Mahler conductor, Benjamin Zander, points out, however, that Mahler’s cuckoo sings in the interval of a perfect fourth [Interlude], rather than in the actual bird’s not-so-perfect third. [Cuckoo singing and fade back into Mahler theme]
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Call of the Eurasian Cuckoo provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Recorded by B. Verprintsev.
Symphony #1 by Gustav Mahler, Philharmonia Orchestra, Benjamin Zander conductor, Telarc
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2013 Tune In to Nature.org June 2013 Narrator: Frank Corrado
ID#062006cuckooKPLU cuckoo-01-2009-06-30-
