The influence of the rhythmic and harmonic ideas derived from Anthony Gilbert's study of birdsong made itself apparent in his works of the mid and late 1970s, firstly in the radio opera The Chakravaka-Bird, many sections of which are based on overlapping short figurations (Gilbert calls them ‘mantras’) that, like the calls of a large body of different birds singing together, are repeated at measured intervals to produce larger rythmic cycles; and then in Towards Asâvari, which was written in Australia in the spring (that is to say the Australian spring – between August and December) of 1978.