In 1896 Charles A. Witchell transcribed the song of a skylark, a thrush and a blackbird into sheet music. The sheet music is archived in the Wellcome Collection in his book titled The Evolution of Bird Song where he writes in length about how birds absorb and mirror sounds and movements from the environment into their melody and body. In the book there is a short paragraph describing his observation of a bird mimicking the sound of a church bell with its song and following the movements of the bell back and forth like a pendulum. The bird had absorbed the sound and weighty movement of the bell fully into its body and song.

I gave these original melodies to cellist and composer Gregor Riddell and commissioned him to work them into a new composition that uses birdsong as a form of lament and as a means of absorbing, mirroring and remembering perhaps some weight and loss that resides in the individual and collective body.

The composition is split into two parts and accompanied by live cello and bass guitar and begins with the birdsong melody in it’s original form.

The composition was made as part of the performance Wavering Between the Sun, the Bird and the Lament but also stands as a separate audio piece.