The picture presents a lively gathering of feathered creatures filling the air with their cries and singing under the guidance of the owl sitting on a twig in front of some open sheet music. The Hermitage's Concert of Birds in which the artist managed to achieve a rare compositional unity is the finest work on the theme in Snyders oeuvre. "Each bird lives and moves freely, boldly, in keeping with its ‘character', and not one of them gives the impression of having been painted from a stuffed example or even a caged one… The animal kingdom found in him a tremendous singer." That is what Alexander Benois wrote in his 1911 guide to the Hermitage.
The painting came from the famous Walpole collection at Houghton Hall in England that Catherine II purchased in 1779.