Nightingales. Visiting Shiraz in 1932, Rabinderath Tagore wanted to hear the legendary Bulbul of Shiraz, but his trip fell at the wrong time of year. Anxious to please the famous poet, Mirza Ibrahim commissioned a mechanical bird to be made, containing a recording of the nightingale in full song. When you turned a handle, it would sing. Nightingale – symbol for poetry, lyric voice. That ancient voice was heard at once by emperor and clown. A voice to console the homesick. To soothe the heart of Ruth, standing in the alien corn. That Shiraz nightingale spoke to the Bengali poet in a language that was universal, at a time when the internationalist movement was in full swing. Tagore’s great admirer Yeats described a mechanical nightingale in ‘Sailing to Byzantium’, Of hammered gold and gold enamelling / To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; / Or set upon a golden bough to sing / To lords and ladies of Byzantium / Of what is past, or passing, or to come. Underneath an apple tree in Highgate, John Keats, inspired by a nightingale’s song. In a wood on the edge of Helpston, a village on the brink of the Lincolnshire fens, John Clare, who shared a publisher with Keats, transcribed the nightingale’s song in words. 1889, just over a decade after Clare’s death, the first birdsong was recorded mechanically. Ludwig Koch, a precocious 8-year-old, made a recording on his father’s phonograph. He was to arrive in England an exile from Nazi Germany in 1936. His recordings were acquired by the BBC and established the first natural history sound archive. Birdsong and exile. When you turn the handle, a nightingale still sings. A summer song, from long ago. A song of all that’s passing.

64