Today on our walk through the funny classical music for kids we stop in a whole animal world, that of birds, to listen from chicks to cuckoo, and imagine that we fly to the sound of instruments. Imitating the song of the birds has been a resource widely used in classical music, it will be due to the evocative power of the images that these "songs" give us
We started with a composer known to us, who already appeared in our selection of fun classical music with a walk through a Parisian market in "Los gritos de Paris". This time we are facing "Birds" from Janequin. In this vocal work the singers, following Janequin's style, imitate the voices of different birds. We can hear it from the minute with 40 seconds of the recording that follows:
Chickens, chickens and chicks in classical music
We continue our tour of the poultry par excellence. Its presence in the classical compositions can be illustrated with a work by Jean-Philippe Rameau. This great French Baroque composer, also important as a music theorist, stands out above all for his operas, although his harpsichord works have always been present in the repertoire of this key instrument.
Precisely the fragment we refer to belongs to one of its two Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de Clavecin ("New pieces suites for harpsichord"), in which Rameau describes the unmistakable clucking of the hen and its fast and nervous movements.
Look in the video, very funny for the little ones, how the hen bites the ground taking his food, starts to run away from a fox who wants it from the menu or takes refuge from the rain that begins to fall ...
Using the music of Rameau, the Italian composer of the late 19th century Ottorino Respighi included the chicken in his work entitled "Birds". However, the Italian went into orchestra what the French had written for a single instrument. Using material from baroque composers, but adapting it to their own language, is something that Respighi did in other of his works, given the deep knowledge and admiration for composers such as Monteverdi, Vivaldi or the aforementioned Rameau.
Although it is beyond our theme, I cannot resist recommending the audition of three works that Ottorino Respighi dedicated to the Eternal City: Fontane di Roma (The Fountains of Rome), Pini di Roma (The Pines of Rome) Feste romane (Roman Holidays). Surely you will enjoy them.
To finish this first section, they could not miss the funny little chicks. And the "babies" of the chickens appear splendidly described in one of the times of Pictures of an exhibition. This is a piano play by the Russian composer Mussorgsky modest, although the version for orchestra that Maurice Ravel will perform is better known.
Mussorgsky wanted to make a posthumous tribute to his great friend, artist and architect Viktor Alexandrovich Hartmann. After visiting the exhibition where his friend's paintings were exhibited, the composer decided to musically capture the sensations that the canvases left him. And here you have the "Ballet of the chicks in their shells" (inspired by the picture you see on these lines):
The cuckoo
The cuckoo is another of the birds present in the music of all time, perhaps because its song is one of the easiest to imitate. The examples we can turn to are therefore abundant.
Let's start with a work by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber Austro-Bohemian composer of the great colorful violin Baroque, an instrument to which he dedicated a large part of his abundant work. The Representative Sonata for solo and continuous violin it contains a vertiginous passage that puts into play all the technical skill of the instrumentalist. Among so many quick notes, two stand out that mimic the singing of the cuckoo.
If we listen to the complete work we will appreciate how the cuckoo is not the only animal represented. In the video you can see images of the different animals, such as other birds, a frog or a cat. The meows are very funny.
The cuckoo also appears in the work that we mentioned above of Ottorino Respighi, "Birds". In this composition each movement is dedicated to a bird.
I hope you liked this selection of classical music for children and that you are encouraged to listen to some of the pieces with your children. The linked videos are highly recommended, because while the children hear the music they see their performance staged, and they get used to the instruments they can also draw with the sounds ...
