A Very Brief History of the Spanish Timbrado Song Canary
There is some evidence that the wild canaries were used as captive cage birds on the Canary Islands long before they were exported to Spain and eventually from there to the rest of Europe, and it was as singing cage birds that the Spanish first encountered them after they took over the islands in the 1470’s. The exported birds may have started as sailor’s curiosities which were brought back to the Spanish mainland as individual singing males, but they soon caught the eye of Spanish aristocrats and wealthy merchants who were anxious to acquire the birds and willing to pay more money than the sailors could earn in any other way. Eventually a brisk trade grew, and canaries were included among the exotic luxuries which were being imported on Spanish treasure ships from a growing Spanish empire.
According to the romantic stories about canaries which are reprinted in many canary books, Spanish conventos and monasteries were the first to crack the problem of breeding the canary in captivity and that the breakthrough was due to the dedication of the members of the religious houses of Spain who already made good incomes for their houses by raising sheep and other livestock.
Those who speak of this story usually emphasize the imagery of the friars’ and monks’ chants being beautifully blended with the songs of their birds in a sort of concert which is both natural and divine. According to the story, the secret of breeding canaries was kept within the walls of these houses at first and then within the borders of Spain. Whether this is true or not, there is some evidence that the Spaniards did try to keep canary hens from being exported by royal edict and saw the birds as a crown monopoly and source of revenue for the government.
According to one line of thought, whether it took place in a private home or behind monastery walls as legend would have it, the first clutch of eggs to be hatched in Spain is a very significant event for timbrado aficionados because this first brood of young canaries must be considered the first timbrados, even though the name would not be invented for hundreds of years!
The popularity of the canary as a songbird among the nobles of Spain, where they are said to have been carried about by liveried servants in golden cages, also spread to places like Italy, Germany, France, the Low Countries, and eventually England.
While in Germany and the Low Countries deeper voiced birds which would eventually become rollers and waterslagers where being developed and in France and England the color, feather texture, posture, and shape of canaries were emphasized, in Spain the breeders quietly went about the business of selecting the best singers of the song that they had originally fallen in love with.
What little that is known about Spanish canariculture during the almost 400 years between the first decades of the 16th century and the last decades of the 19th century is due mainly to surmise. With the exception of a few small and relatively insignificant mutations (cinnamon, dominant white, crests), the canaries of Spain went on, year after year, much as they had been on their native islands.
The breeders’ selection goal seems to have been to preserve the magical sound of the wild bird as nearly as possible.
Today there are many places on the internet where one may hear the song of the wild canary and, although it varies from area to area, the major characteristics may be described as varied, bright, somewhat metallic (although both hollow and watery notes can be present), and remarkably complex. No wonder the desire was to preserve it.
In the 19th century a craze for greater size swept the canary world and not even the Spanish breeders were exempt. Some breeders crossed in frilled canaries in order to lengthen the small Spanish songbirds.
This was a tragedy as far as the voice of the birds was concerned, a tragedy which some misguided breeders attempted to correct by crossbreeding with rollers. Much of the style of the diminutive and bright voiced little birds that had been beloved in Spain was lost. However, in some areas of Spain certain courageous breeders continued to resist the fashions of the day and kept their birds pure.
In the early 20th century a group of breeders began to cross their birds back to wild birds from the Canary Islands in order to recapture the original voice of the Spanish song canary and, although much of their work was lost due to the Spanish Civil War which began in the 1930’s, their example is still followed by many Spanish breeders today.
Due to the events of the late 19th and early 20th centuries described above, today timbrados can be found in three voice styles: the clasicos, which include many rolls in high, medium, and deep pitch in their song; the discontinuos, which are said to go back to those canaries which where never crossed to rollers or frills and which have very few or no rolls in their song; and the intermedios, which fall anywhere between the two.
