The Musical Audubon: Ornithology and Nationalism in the Symphonies of Anthony Philip Heinrich

Abstract

Anthony Philip Heinrich's two symphonies on avian themes— The Ornithological Combat of Kings, or The Condor of the Andes and the Eagle of the Cordilleras (original version ca. 1835; final form 1857) and The Columbiad, or Migration of American Wild Passenger Pigeons (ca. 1857)—have not been generally considered among his nationalistic works. Placing these works into historical context, however, makes the nationalism of their programmatic content clear. These symphonies reveal surprising connections in the U.S. consciousness between birds and national identity in the nineteenth-century United States. Through the examination of this music in the contexts of naturalist writers such as Alexander von Humboldt, Alexander Wilson, and John James Audubon, the last of whom was a close friend of Heinrich's, this article demonstrates the extent to which Heinrich's music tapped into the popularity of ornithology in the United States.