François-Bernard Mâche makes abundant use of natural models, particularly birds, in his music. The archaic and then mystical approaches initiated by Stravinsky and Messiaen find their full development in Mâche's work, which blends authentic traditional and natural models with the mythical imagination, through the intermediary of magnetic tape. 
In Rituel d'oubli (1969), for 17 winds, 3 percussion instruments and magnetic tape, he applies the pilot sound of the red partridge to the sound material of the tape, which serves as a kind of cantus firmus. The irrational rhythms used in the instrumental parts also seem to derive from an ornithological language: 
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In the previous example, the small cells repeated irregularly give the impression of ornithological polyphony. Each instrument has a precise role and is assigned a certain number of cells. Dotted notes, wide intervals and phrases ending with a leap in the treble are typical of the bird song model. 
François-Bernard Mâche also likes to use raw sounds in his mixed-music works, in which the composer becomes the mediator of the "symphony of the living". Numerous raw natural sound models are used in Rituel d'oubli, but also in Sopiana (1980) for flute, piano and tape. 
In this work, the bird sounds on the tape are meticulously transcribed onto the score so that the instrumentalists can synchronise with them, but the projection of the sound through the loudspeakers gives the impression that the birds are actually taking part in the performance. For it is indeed a performance, the virtuosity demanded of the musicians being on a par with that of the models.