Who else loves hearing the birds singing, calling, and tweeting? Listening to birds is a pastime for me. It's fun to be able to identify birds that I hear outside. Enjoy today's fun and easy 15-Minute Music Lesson Freebie for you, that is all about Birds in Classical Music. Specifically, you'll study “The Aviary” by Camille Saint-Saens.
15-Minute Music Lesson on Birds in Classical Music
Here's an overview of the lesson:
A music lesson plan about birds in classical music, focusing on the piece “The Aviary” by Camille Saint-Saens
Links to listen to the music and learn about musical concepts and the composer
4 Notebooking Pages for your kids to do while learning about the music
Resources you can get at the library, etc. to further your studies
A list of 25 more classical pieces that feature “birds” so you can extend the lesson on birds in classical music if you wish.
The Aviary by Camille Saint-Saens
Over the past 400 years, countless composers have drawn inspiration from birdsong. Some set out to mimic the calls of specific birds—like the distinctive “cuckoo”—while others sought to capture the joyful chorus of spring and summer, when many birds sing together in a lively tapestry of sound. One delightful example is The Aviary by Camille Saint-Saëns. Take a listen and see if you can hear the flutter and chatter of the birds he imagined.
Look up the word “aviary.” Have you been to one before, either at a zoo or someplace that was just an aviary?
Does this music remind you of how it sounded there with all the birds flying around?
Fill out a notebooking sheet by writing or drawing what you hear as you listen a second time. (There are two sheets to choose from, depending on the student’s age.)
Instruments used to imitate bird sounds
Talk about the instruments used to imitate the bird songs and fill out the notebooking sheet on the flute and piano. The flute is a woodwind instrument, and the piano is a keyboard instrument (and sometimes categorized as a percussion instrument).
Camille Saint-Saens
Camille Saint-Saëns was a famous French composer who lived a long time ago—he was born in Paris in 1835 and lived all the way until 1921! People often called him a “child prodigy” because he was amazingly talented at music from a very young age. When he was only two years old, he could already pick out songs on the piano, and by the time he was ten, he gave his first big concert and wowed the audience.
As he grew up, Saint-Saëns became known for writing music that was full of color, imagination, and fun. He composed operas, symphonies, and concertos, but one of his most famous works is The Carnival of the Animals. This playful piece paints pictures of animals with sound—like hopping kangaroos, slow-moving tortoises, a roaring lion, and cheerful birds in The Aviary.
Even though he was very serious about being a great composer, Saint-Saëns had a wonderful sense of humor, and you can hear it in much of his music. He traveled the world sharing his music, and people everywhere loved his creativity. Today, children and adults still enjoy his music because it’s both beautiful and fun to listen to.
Three more Carnival of the Animals pieces about birds
There are 3 others about birds: “Hens and Cockerels,” “The Cuckoo in the Woods,” and “The Swan.”
Go beyond this 15-Minute Music Lesson with these other resources
When you listen to a piece of music that’s meant to sound like a certain bird, check the Online Bird Field Guide to hear real bird songs and calls—then decide if you think the composer matched the bird’s sound well!
Listen to more classical music that sounds like birds: Bartók- Piano Concerto No. 3, second movement, adagio religioso; Beethoven- Symphony No. 6; 25th Piano Sonata (Op. 79); Biber- Cock, Hen, and Quail; Dvorak- Wood Dove; Handel- Cuckoo and the Nightingale; Haydn- Lark Quartet, op. 64, no. 5; Symphony No. 57 (finale); The Bird; Janequin- Le Chant Des Oiseaux; Messiaen- Réveil des Oiseaux; Oiseaux Exotiques; La Grive des Bois; Mozart- Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major, K. 453; Musical Joke, K. 522; “Pappageno/Pappagena Duet” and “Pappageno’s ‘Vogelfänger’ (The Bird Catcher Aria) from The Magic Flute; Prokofiev- Peter and the Wolf; Rameau- Le Rappel des Oiseaux; Respighi- Gli uccelli (The Birds); The Pines of Rome; Schubert- Die VogelStravinsky- Song of the Nightingale; Vivaldi- The Goldfinch; Spring (from The Four Seasons); Summer (from the Four Seasons); Wagner- Siegfried; Zeller- Der Vogelhändler (The Bird Seller).
I’ve never heard of this music or the composer. But it sure sounds like the right time of year for it! We’ve really been enjoying listening to all the bird chatter.
I’ve never heard of this music or the composer. But it sure sounds like the right time of year for it! We’ve really been enjoying listening to all the bird chatter.