![]() ![]() He said the nightingale’s song had “incredible volume and long, complex phrases”, and that playing any instrument outside was likely to draw a response: “I keep canaries. ![]() For the public, she realised, it “touched a chord in their love of music, nature and loveliness”.īirkhead, an emeritus professor of zoology at the University of Sheffield, is an award-winning scientist whose books include Birds and Us, a 12,000-year history of our relationship with birds. Harrison, dubbed “The Lady of the Nightingales”, recalled that after a long wait “suddenly, at about quarter to 11, the nightingale burst into song as I continued to play”. Initially reluctant, he later accepted that the nightingale “has swept the country … with a wave of something closely akin to emotionalism”. She persuaded Lord Reith, the BBC’s director-general, to broadcast such a performance. I then trilled up and down the instrument, up to the top and down again … The voice of the bird followed me … It seemed a miracle.” Suddenly a glorious note echoed the notes of the cello. ![]() She liked to practise outdoors and recalled her first duet with a nightingale: “I began the Chant Hindu by Rimsky-Korsakov and, after playing for some time, I stopped. Harrison was one of the leading cellists of her generation, inspiring Elgar and Delius. Today, that would be unacceptable but, in 1924, it was probably perfectly acceptable.” The temptation to not say anything must’ve been immense. It will feature Prof Tim Birkhead, one of the world’s leading experts on birds, who told the Guardian: “It would a terrible admission, even later, to say that they’d wheeled in Madame Saberon. The BBC says the “true story” will be explored in a forthcoming Radio 3 programme, Private Passions, to be broadcast on 17 April. As this was live, the back-up plan was an understudy – thought to have been Maude Gould, a whistler or siffleur known as Madame Saberon on variety bills. Nightingales may have been scared off by the crew trampling around the garden with heavy recording equipment. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |