• Avian metamorphoses for birds and ensemble (piccolo flute, clarinet, tenor sax doubling on soprano, trombone doubling on euphonium, 4 high voices [2 soprano and 2 mezzo soprano/ alternatively 2 countertenors and 2 tenors], 2 percussionists [vibraphone with pedal and motor, flexatone, suspended cymbal, whip, high wood block], keyboard, 1 electric or acoustic violin, 1 electric guitar, 1 electric or acoustic cello, 1 electric or acoustic string bass, pre-recorded avian sounds and bird calls.

   

   

   

   

• Duration: 9' 30"
• In 1 movement
• Composed in 2009
• Commissioned by Garden City Fund in celebration of the Singapore Botanic Gardens' 150th Anniversary
• Dedicated to Birds, the True Masters
• First performance: 05.12.09 The Casteels Players Shaw Foundation Symphony Stage, Palm Valley, Botanic Gardens (Singapore)
• ISMN 979-0-9016508-1-7
• Parts: To rent the parts, please email <rc@robertcasteels.com>
• Downloadable scores for inspection:
  Bird_Song_Full_Score_V2.pdf

On the 5th of December 2009, Singapore’s Minister for National Development, Mr Mah Bow Tan, graced as Guest-of-Honour a concert for the grand finale of Singapore Botanic Gardens’ 150th Anniversary, which included the premiere of Bird Songs by Robert Casteels. In 2003 for the official launch of the Garden City Fund at the Istana, Casteels had recorded nature sounds from Singapore parks and woven them into a composition for percussion and piano. For his Birds Songs, he opted for 4 wind instruments, 4 electric string instruments, 4 voices, keyboard and vibraphone. Overwhelmed by the beauty of the bird calls, Casteels decided against transcribing them for instruments or transforming them through audio manipulation. He also abandoned the idea of bringing caged birds on stage and using the recordings he made in the mountains of Northern Thailand and Laos. With the gracious permission of Nature Society (Singapore) and Mr Sutari Supari, Casteels selected ten bird calls on the basis of their esthetic beauty and contrasting variety. He then had the chosen tracks filtered from background noises and wind, and submitted them for sonogram analyses. A sonograph plots the sound frequency in kilohertz against time in seconds. This scientific information helped him in the composition of the interaction between the instrumental sounds and bird sounds. Casteels’ Bird Songs is a dense composition, a journey from artificial imitation to forceful imprisonment to endangered freedom. The first three minutes of the composition may sound like a senseless chaos, as all instruments are competing whilst singers sing the binomial names and improvise in the manner of jazz scat on avian onomatopoeic syllables. The pre-recorded tape plays in succession, mechanical bird sounds that are MIDI cloned sounds, an ear shattering crowd of mata puteh recorded in the void deck of Block 440 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10, where aviculturists and bird-fanciers show off their singing birds and elaborate cages every Sunday morning, and a dawn chorus recorded in HDB estates. In reality, this first part of the composition is far from chaotic. Just as in a crowded bird colony, parents are able to locate each other, recognize a neighbor from a complete stranger and identify their own young among thousands of others all packed together, every single pitch and rhythm in the beginning of this composition is explainable. After these initial three minutes, all instruments converge towards a single note that signals the beginning of the second part of the piece. From this point, instrumentalists will dialogue with the following ten birds which are resident in the Republic of Singapore: the Yellow-vented Bulbul, the Spotted Wood-owl, the Common Iora, the Rufus-tailed Tailorbird, the Hill Myna, the Drongo Cuckoo, the Asian Fairy Bluebird, the Straw-headed Bulbul, the Striped Tit-babbler and the Malaysian-eared Nightjar. Finally, the sound of the human instruments gently wafts away in a gracious bow to a chorus of the Paradisaea apoda, also known as the Greater Bird of Paradise. This species was named by 18th c. Swedish botanist, Carl Linnaeus. Paradise referred then to New Guinea. Paradisea refers to the belief that this bird never alighted. Apoda was a neologism from Ancient Greek that means without legs, because Europeans only ever saw the magnificent long tail feathers. Thousands of massacred birds had their feet chopped off before being shipped to satisfy a high demand in European millinery. Like any other citizen, contemporary artists also inherited the magnificent environment that is our planet earth. Progress has enabled many of us to appreciate the beauty of nature, yet the same progress is destroying much of that beauty. In composing Bird Songs, Casteels humbly endeavoured to share his wonder for nature’s magnificence and his sense of responsibility on how to pass the legacy to future generations.

Review

"Bird Songs by Robert Casteels blended recorded birdsongs, electronically synthesized sounds and an ensemble dominated by woodwinds and percussion into a coherent collage. Florence Notté 's projected photography of caged birds, water reflections and bamboo forests provided further evocative stimuli"
Chang Tou Liang, Singapore

Quote

Passionnants les effets de filiation entre oiseaux, instruments et voix humaines. Il fallait descendre des dinosaures, pas des singes.

Didier Ballenghien, Paris