Mozart's starling

For about three years the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart kept a pet starling. The first record of the starling is the entry Mozart made in his expense book when he bought it on 27 May 1784:

starling bird. 34 kreutzer.

That was fine!^[1]

The music Mozart jotted down in the book is fairly close to the opening theme of the third movement of his Piano Concerto No. 17 in G, K. 453, which Mozart presumably had attempted to teach the bird in the pet store, or wherever it was that he bought it. Mozart had completed this concerto a few weeks earlier (12 April) and it was to be premiered by his student Barbara Ployer on June 13. According to Mozart's transcription, the starling incorrectly inserted a fermata on the last beat of the first full measure, and sang G sharp instead of G in the following measure.

Mozart probably was not joking when he made the transcription, because starlings are known to have a very strong capacity for vocal mimicry^[2].

The bird Mozart brought home lived as a pet in his household for three years and died on 4 June, 1787. Mozart buried the creature in the back yard and wrote a commemorative poem for the occasion. Deutsch 1965 calls the poem "serio-comic". However, West and King note, based on their extensive experience, that starling pets interact closely with their human keepers, often causing their owners to bond with them. Thus, Mozart's expression of sorrow may have been quite sincere.

European Starling, Sturnus vulgaris

Notes

1. ^ Original German: "Vogel Stahrl 34 Kr. ... Das war schön!". "Schön" is most often translated as "beautiful"; the rendition quoted here is from Deutsch 1965. Another translator gives "That was wonderful!".
2. ^ See West and King (1990) and (in this encyclopedia) the article starling

References

• Deutsch, Otto Erich (1965) Mozart: A Documentary Biography. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
• West, Meredith J. and Andrew King (1990) "Mozart's Starling". American Scientist, March-April issue. Discussion in depth from an ornithological point of view, as well as the text of Mozart's obituary poem. Posted on the Internet: [1].

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