Mozart's starling

Purchase

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 Kr. : \relative a' { \set Staff.midiInstrument = #"recorder" \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 4 = 145 \key g \major \time 2/2 \partial 4 b8 c d4 d d \tempo 4 = 45 g\fermata \tempo 4 = 145 fis fis gis gis a a a8 b c a b2 } :That was beautiful!

The music Mozart jotted down in the book is fairly close to the opening bars of the third movement of his Piano Concerto No. 17 in G, K. 453, which Mozart had completed a few weeks earlier (12 April). Presumably, Mozart taught the bird to sing this tune in the pet store, or wherever it was that he bought it.

According to Mozart's transcription, the starling incorrectly inserted a fermata on the last beat of the first full measure, and sang G instead of G in the following measure. Correcting for those, the tune would have been: : \relative a' { \set Staff.midiInstrument = #"recorder" \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 4 = 145 \key g \major \time 2/2 \partial 4 b8 c d4 d d g fis fis g g a a a8 b c a b2 }

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

To the ears of West and King, many elements of Mozart's A Musical Joke (1787) also "bear the vocal autograph of a starling".

Demise

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 garden with (as contemporary biographers observed) considerable ceremony. The notes taken by Georg Nikolaus von Nissen (the second husband of Mozart's wife Constanze) for purposes of writing his biography of the composer described the ceremonies thus:

The same event is described by Franz Niemetschek, who had also interviewed Constanze:

Mozart's funeral poem is translated by Robert Spaethling into vernacular English as follows. :{{Verse translation|lang=de |Hier ruht ein lieber Narr, Ein Vogel Staar. Noch in den besten Jahren Mußt er erfahren Des Todes bittern Schmerz. Mir blut't das Herz, Wenn ich daran gedenke. O Leser! schenke Auch du ein Thränchen ihm. Er war nicht schlimm; Nur war er etwas munter, Doch auch mitunter Ein lieber loser Schalk, Und drum kein Dalk. Ich wett', er ist schon oben, Um mich zu loben Für diesen Freundschaftsdienst Ohne Gewinnst. Denn wie er unvermuthet Sich hat verblutet, Dacht er nicht an den Mann, Der so schön reimen kann. |Here rests a bird called Starling, A foolish little Darling. He was still in his prime When he ran out of time, And my sweet little friend Came to a bitter end, Creating a terrible smart Deep in my heart. Gentle Reader! Shed a tear, For he was dear, Sometimes a bit too jolly And, at times, quite folly, But nevermore A bore. I bet he is now up on high Praising my friendship to the sky, Which I render Without tender; For when he took his sudden leave, Which brought to me such grief, He was not thinking of the man Who writes and rhymes as no one can.

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, though comic, is likely to have been quite sincere. Spaethling offers further background:

Other birds

There is evidence that the starling Mozart acquired in 1784 was hardly the only pet bird whose company he enjoyed.

At age 14, Mozart wrote home from Naples to his sister Nannerl in Salzburg (19 May 1770) when he was on a journey with his father Leopold:

A later letter, written by Nannerl to her mother at home in Salzburg as she visited Munich in 1775 with Wolfgang and Leopold, indicates other birds in Mozart's childhood home:

A sad tale from 1791 is told by Mozart's biographer Hermann Abert, concerning another canary that might been a successor to the starling, being in Mozart's family when the composer lay on his deathbed.

Notes

References

References

1. The expense book was part of a new campaign of personal organization that Mozart undertook in February 1784; at the same time he began a [[Mozart's personal catalog of works. catalog]] of every musical work he completed. The expense book was maintained only for a year, but the musical catalog was kept to his death in 1791 and usefully serves musical scholarship to this day. Source and further details: Abert (2016:727–728).
2. Original German: "Vogel Stahrl 34 Kr. ... Das war schön!" {{harvp. Deutsch. 1965
3. For other theories of why the bird sang from Mozart's concerto, see {{harvp. Haupt. 2017
4. See {{harvp. West. King. 1990 and (in this encyclopedia) the article [[starling]].
5. {{harvp. West. King. 1990
6. Translation from {{harvp. Deutsch. 1965
7. [[Franz Xaver Niemetschek. Niemetschek, Franz]] (1956; original written 1798) ''Life of Mozart'', translated by Helen Mautner. London: Leonard Hyman, p. 67.
8. "[[:de:wikt:dalken. Dalk]]": Austrian for "ignorant, stupid, childish"
9. Quoted from Friedrich Kerst and [[Henry Krehbiel]] (2016) ''Mozart: The Man and the Artist Revealed in His Own Words''. Reprint by Dover Publications.
10. Translation from Emily Anderson (2016) ''The Letters of Mozart and his Family'', new edition updated by Stanley Sadie and Fiona Smart. Springer, p. 263.