Mozart's starling

• 1. Introduction

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  Mozart's starling entered the composer's life on the 27th of May 1784, recorded in his expense book with a purchase price of 34 Kreuzer. Below the entry, Mozart jotted down a fragment of music and wrote the words "That was beautiful!" The melody he transcribed was very close to the opening bars of the third movement of his Piano Concerto No. 17 in G, K. 453, a work he had completed only weeks before. How did a bird in a pet store come to know one of Mozart's own tunes? What did Mozart do when the bird died three years later? And what does a pet starling reveal about one of the most celebrated composers in history?

• 2. The Bird Who Knew the Tune

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  Piano Concerto No. 17 in G, K. 453 was completed by Mozart on the 12th of April 1784, just weeks before he walked into a shop and heard a bird singing something remarkably familiar. Starlings are known for a very strong capacity for vocal mimicry, which makes it plausible that Mozart had taught the bird the tune himself, either in a pet store or wherever the purchase took place. Mozart's transcription of what the starling sang captures two small deviations from his original score. The bird incorrectly inserted a fermata on the last beat of the first full measure, and sang a G where Mozart's concerto called for a different note. Scholars West and King have noted that many elements of Mozart's A Musical Joke, composed in 1787, also bear what they describe as the vocal autograph of a starling, suggesting the bird's improvisational habits may have left a mark on the composer's work.

• 3. A Proper Funeral

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  On the 4th of June 1787, the starling died after three years as a pet in Mozart's household. Mozart buried it in his hired garden and organized what contemporary biographers described as considerable ceremony. Georg Nikolaus von Nissen, the second husband of Mozart's wife Constanze, took notes for a biography of the composer and recorded that at the death of a bird, Mozart arranged a funeral procession in which everyone who could sing was required to join, heavily veiled, and that he made a sort of requiem along with an epitaph in verse. Franz Niemetschek, who had also interviewed Constanze directly, described how Mozart gave the starling a proper gravestone in the garden and wrote an inscription on it. The scholar Robert Spaethling translated Mozart's funeral poem, and described it as humorous, bittersweet, and self-reflective. Spaethling noted that at the time of the bird's death, Mozart's father had passed away, a close friend had died young, and the composer was deeply involved with Don Giovanni, his darkest comedy. West and King observed that starling pets interact closely with their human keepers, often causing their owners to form strong bonds with them, which helps explain why Mozart's expression of sorrow, though comic in form, was likely quite sincere.

• 4. A House Full of Birds

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  At age 14, Mozart wrote home from Naples on the 19th of May 1770 while traveling with his father Leopold. The letter was addressed to his sister Nannerl in Salzburg, and in it Mozart asked after a canary in the family home, noting that a bird in his current lodgings made the same little sounds as theirs. A later letter, written by Nannerl to her mother during a visit to Munich in 1775 with Wolfgang and Leopold, asked whether the canary, the tomtits, and the robin redbreast were still alive, or whether the birds had been allowed to starve. The question was framed with evident affection and some anxiety. A final chapter in Mozart's relationship with birds comes from 1791, the year of the composer's death. His biographer Hermann Abert recorded that as Mozart lay on his deathbed, he agreed only with great reluctance to have his pet canary removed, first to the adjacent room, and then further away, because he could no longer bear the sound of its singing.