La fauvette des jardins [SEP] instrumentation
La Fauvette des jardins
La Fauvette des jardins is a work for piano by the French composer Olivier Messiaen, written in 1970. The piece is based principally on the song of the garden warbler, the French name of which is the title of the composition, but features eighteen other birds. The imagined setting of the piece is the Dauphiny mountains of Isère during a mid-summer night and the following day.
Olivier Messiaen often used birdsong as an inspiration for his music, and the yellowhammer features in "Chronochromie", "Catalogue d'oiseaux", "La fauvette des jardins" and "Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité", appearing in four movements of the last piece.
An old legend links the yellowhammer to the devil. Its tongue was supposed to bear a drop of his blood, and the intricate pattern on the eggs was said to carry a concealed, possibly evil, message; these satanic associations sometimes