ON June 4, 1787, a solemn funeral procession took place in the Mozart household. Mourners sang hymns and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart himself recited a poem he’d written for the occasion. The service was for the composer’s feathery friend: his pet starling.
Three years earlier, on May 27, 1784, Mozart had been greeted by a starling in a Vienna pet shop whistling a tune, as yet unperformed, that the composer had written only a few weeks before. The bird’s mimicry is unsurprising—starlings are capable mimics. But how the bird had learned the motif from Mozart’s latest Piano Concerto in G major K453 is an ornithological musical mystery.
Messiaen calls the dawn chorus “the harmonious silence of Heaven”
Had Mozart previously visited the shop and whistled the notes he was working on? We will never know. However, we do have his judgement on the starling’s interpretation. Mozart wrote in his notebook: ‘Das war Schön!’ (That was wonderful!) In its mischievousness, its cleverness, its love of mimicry, Mozart had perhaps found an avian kindred spirit.
Taking inspiration from birds was nothing new. Vivaldi’s ‘Spring’ is alive with birdsong and, over the centuries, composers such as Respighi, Beethoven and Delius have delighted audiences by imitating the rich sound-world of birds in their music —and it all kicked off with a cuckoo.
