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Chapter Four Olivier Messiaen and the Albert's Lyrebird

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Chapter Four Olivier Messiaen and the Albert's Lyrebird CHAPTER FOUR OLIVIER MESSIAEN AND THE ALBERT ’S LYREBIRD : F RO M TA M BORINE MOUNTAIN TO ÉCLAIRS SUR L’AU-DELÀ SYDNEY CURTIS AND HOLLIS TAYLOR An Australian ornithologist remembers Olivier Messiaen Olivier Messiaen heard and notated the songs of the two species of lyrebirds, the Albert’s and the Superb, and both appear in his final major work, Illuminations of the Beyond (Éclairs sur l’Au- delà). I will present the background to his hearing an Albert’s Lyrebird and demonstrate something of that species’ musical virtuosity. My colleague, Hollis Taylor, will discuss Messiaen’s transcription and treatment of its song. Messiaen made extensive use of birdsong in his music. I had recorded Superb Lyrebird song where the reverse applied: birds in the wild using human flute music as territorial songs. I thought that would interest Messiaen, so in November 1981 I wrote to him via his publisher, sending him a cassette of lyrebird song, including the “flute” songs, and briefly explaining their history.1 The “flute-mimicking” lyrebirds In the 1920s, a juvenile Superb Lyrebird in captivity, unable to hear adult lyrebirds, modeled his singing on what he could hear: the practice routine of a flute student. He learnt a scale and two simple melodies, “Keel Row” and “The Mosquito Dance.” Lyrebirds are superb mimics, and so in addition to matching the melodies in pitch and tempo, he sang with the tonal quality of a flute. CHAPTER FOUR 53 When released back into the wild, he would have continued his flute songs while also picking up songs and mimicry used by the wild population. They, in turn, could not afford to let him be outstanding in competing for females and would have copied his flute songs. And note this happy coincidence: Superb Lyrebird territorial songs in many localities include sequences of repeated notes—the same note repeated many times. Our hero’s scale consisted of repeated notes, but with the added interest of rising pitch. His flute songs were then culturally transmitted down the years, spreading through the lyrebird population and replacing the original territorial song. I drew this to the attention of the late Norman Robinson, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) lyrebird expert, who then visited the area, recorded the birds, and later gave an interview on ABC radio about them. Robinson sent me a recording of the interview, and I included this, as well as my own recording of the birds, in the cassette I prepared for Messiaen. CD Track 01. In the original radio interview, the announcer compares the sound of an actual flute with a recording of the flute-like lyrebird vocalisations. In this track, ABC radio’s flute-lyrebird comparison is followed by my own recording of the birds. Messiaen visits the lyrebirds Messiaen was enthusiastic about the lyrebird recordings, writing: In any case, what you have sent me is absolutely astounding in its novel rhythms and timbres. You have given me immense pleasure, and I thank you with all my heart (HT trans.). En tout cas, ce que vous m’envoyez est d’une nouveauté rythmique et timbrique absolument stupefiante. Vous m’avez fait un immense plaisir et je vous en remercie de tout mon Coeur (Olivier Messiaen, letter to Sydney Curtis, November 22, 1981). 54 OLIVIER MESSIAEN AND THE ALBERT ’S LYREBIRD Seven years on, discussion in the news of Messiaen’s impending visit to Australia to supervise performances of his works made no mention of any proposals to let him hear our birds. I then wrote to him, pointing out that he would be here during the lyrebird season (which is winter, not spring) and offered to take him to hear them. Messiaen replied that he had been very sad to think that he would be doing an extended tour of concerts in Australia but that no birds would be singing because it was winter. I had given him hope (Olivier Messiaen, letter to Sydney Curtis, February 23, 1988).2 He gave me details of his concert tour, asked a number of questions, and stated that he would be especially interested to hear the two lyrebirds, the Golden Whistler, the Grey Shrike-thrush, and the Australian Magpie. “The most important is clearly the Superb Lyrebird,” he wrote, “and I would be very pleased if I am able to notate its songs.” After receiving my reply, he instructed the ABC to make a minor change to his itinerary so that I could take him to hear an Albert’s Lyrebird, and he visited Tidbinbilla, near Canberra and Sherbrooke Forest in Victoria for Superb Lyrebirds. Messiaen’s Tamborine Mountain visit With fine songbirds on offer, a very early start was no problem for Messiaen. He had written that he was willing to leave his motel at 4:00 a.m. if necessary, in order to get to the lyrebirds by dawn. In fact, a 5:00 a.m. departure from his hotel sufficed, and with my friends Hélène and Robert Vial acting as interpreters, we arrived at Witches Falls National Park on Tamborine Mountain just before daylight, on June 13, 1988. We stepped out of our car to a blast of loud pop music from another car. Messiaen’s comments were less than polite. A walk of half a kilometre or so took us to where I knew a lyrebird roosted. To my considerable relief, he was present and sang variations of his territorial song. If Messiaen was pleased with the lyrebird’s performance, I was positively amazed at Messiaen’s performance. Here in the subtropics, our birds are not entirely silent in winter, and a number of species joined in the dawn chorus. Messiaen wrote rapidly on CHAPTER FOUR 55 manuscript paper while Madame Loriod kept him supplied with sharp pencils and recorded the sound on tape. After about twenty minutes he was satisfied he had notated what the morning offered. He then went through his notes and sang or whistled the songs so perfectly that I had no difficulty in identifying the species for him. Birdsong generally does not conform to human scales or rhythms, and these surely were songs he had never heard before. Fantastic! We returned to our car and drove to another more congenial national park picnic ground (Knoll) where Hélène Vial provided a picnic breakfast. While there, Madame Loriod recorded the Australian Magpie, and there was also a Pied Butcherbird, among others. It appears that Messiaen notated an Albert’s Lyrebird and other birds from this picnic breakfast site as well. My research has concentrated on the Albert’s Lyrebird. The photograph in Figure 1 is of a male in full display. The bird is facing the camera with his tail inverted over his head and body. Fig. 1–4. Male Albert’s Lyrebird in display. Photograph courtesy of Kimbal Curtis. 56 OLIVIER MESSIAEN AND THE ALBERT ’S LYREBIRD My colleague Hollis Taylor will discuss Messiaen’s notations and his use of the lyrebird songs he heard, but first I would like to give you some examples of Albert’s Lyrebird song with musical connotations. Variations on a theme Lyrebirds do not form pair bonds. Male lyrebirds sing to attract females for mating, and the female takes responsibility for all domestic duties, building the nest, incubating the egg, and raising the chick. A male lyrebird maintains a territory of several hectares from which he excludes all other males, firstly by warning them to keep out by means of territorial songs so loud as to be audible a kilometre away, but if necessary, by physical confrontation. During the day, lyrebirds forage on the ground for food, but they roost high in the forest canopy. At dawn when it is still too dark for safety on the ground, a male will call from his roost. This early in the morning, he rarely uses mimicry, which is aimed at attracting females; he simply delivers intermittent territorial songs to demonstrate his continued occupation. However, on a few occasions I have recorded a male Albert’s Lyrebird that, instead of his normal territorial song, improvises delightful variations of it. This still advertises his presence, but the normal song would accomplish that more effectively and with less mental and physical effort. He appears to improvise the variations merely for his own musical satisfaction, indicating a faculty for aesthetic appreciation. The variations I sent to Messiaen lasted more than five minutes. Here are some briefer samples. CD Track 02. The territorial song of the Tamborine Mountain population of Albert’s Lyrebirds is very simple. In this track, an example of this normal song is followed by variations improvised by the same individual. The lyrebird spaced them out. Here, the first three variations are as recorded and the rest condensed. CHAPTER FOUR 57 CD Track 03. This track offers some variations from a bird in the park where later Messiaen notated his Albert’s Lyrebird song. This male’s territory adjoined the one Messiaen visited. Albert’s Lyrebirds can live for more than thirty years, and so, although my recording was made in 1977, the bird in the background may well be the very one Messiaen heard in 1988. Albert’s Lyrebird display song on the ground, aimed at attracting females, consists almost entirely of mimicry, and a remarkable feature of it is that all the sounds are given in fixed order to form a song 40 to 50 seconds long, which is cycled over and over without a break. All the males in any particular locality use the same stereotyped suite of mimicked sounds. Rhythm sticks I also included in Messiaen’s cassette an Albert’s Lyrebird “gronking song,” a mnemonic so-called because of a loud “gronk” sound, delivered singly or repeated, and often followed by a much softer rhythmic phrase with a measured beat.
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