bɜ:dz

2008

organ + fixed medium (stereo)

4’00”

bɜ:dz (pronounced “birds”) is a short work written for my friend and eminent Byrd scholar, Richard Turbet, on the occasion of his 60th birthday.

The piece, for organ and digital sound, draws on five “desert-island” Byrd pieces, close to Richard’s heart (Tribulationes civitatum, Tristitia et anxietas, Libera me Domine de morte aeterna, De lamentatione Jeremiah and Praeludium and Fantasia in a), which are used in a variety of ways (“stolen” passages, structural devices, rhythms, etc.). These are joined by other “bɜ:dz” such as Charlie Parker, particularly Ornithology (there’s some remarkable similarities between the way they both use decoration at cadence points), some Bobby McFerrin (Sightless Bird), a bird from Bernard Hermann’s “score” for The Birds and a whole flock of other reference.

Added to this, the digital sound part, projected over eight loudspeakers, behaves like a flock of birds in a field, suddenly disturbed and settling in another part of the field only to be disturbed again…sometimes, they’re birds, sometimes Byrd and other times bɜ:dz.