Birds as Great Masters

Definition: The aesthetic and pedagogical principle that bird vocalizations represent exemplary music worthy of serious study and emulation, positioning birds as teachers and models for human composers.

Messiaen's Treatment: Messiaen opens with Dukas's directive: "Listen to the birds. They are great masters." He confesses not having awaited this advice to admire, analyze, and notate some songs of birds. Through their songs' mixture, birds make "extremely refined jumbles of rhythmic pedals"—their melodic contours, especially those of merles (blackbirds), surpass human imagination in fantasy.

This establishes several key ideas:

1. Birds as teachers: Not merely objects of imitation but sources of compositional wisdom
2. Rhythmic sophistication: Birds naturally create complex polyrhythmic textures ("jumbles of rhythmic pedals")
3. Melodic fantasy: Bird contours exceed human invention in unpredictability and variety
4. Serious study required: Admiration, analysis, and notation—systematic engagement, not casual listening

Modern Context: Messiaen's position on bird song is distinctive in music history:

Historical precedents:

• Renaissance and Baroque: Programmatic bird imitations (cuckoo calls, nightingale songs) as decorative effects (Janequin's Le Chant des oiseaux, Couperin's Le Rossignol)
• Romantic era: Bird songs as pastoral symbols (Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, Wagner's Siegfried)
• Impressionism: Atmospheric evocation of natural sounds (Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune)

Messiaen's approach differs:

• Systematic transcription: Detailed notation of actual bird vocalizations rather than stylized imitations
• Primary material: Bird songs as compositional substance, not programmatic decoration
• Aesthetic elevation: Birds as "masters" worthy of emulation, not merely subjects for imitation

Later developments:

• Electroacoustic music: Recording and processing natural sounds (Ferrari, Westerkamp)
• Spectralism: Analysis of natural timbres and sound spectra (Grisey, Murail)
• Ecological music: Engagement with environmental sounds and acoustic ecology (Oliveros, Schafer)

Contemporary ornithology and bioacoustics recognize bird song as learned, culturally transmitted behavior exhibiting regional dialects, individual variation, and complex structural organization. Messiaen's intuition that bird songs merit serious musical study anticipates scientific understanding of avian vocal complexity.

The concept of "rhythmic pedals" connects bird song to the technique developed in Chapter VI—repeating patterns operating independently of surrounding activity. Messiaen hears natural birdsong polyphony as analogous to his compositional polyrhythm.

Examples: The principle is stated conceptually; specific bird songs appear in subsequent examples.