Mozart's Starling

by Lyanda Lynn Haupt

Millions of starlings have spread across the continent since they were introduced from England into New York’s Central Park one hundred and thirty years ago.

Just over a hundred and fifty years before the first starlings appeared in Central Park, the Swedish botanist and zoologist Carl Linnaeus had placed the species within his emerging avian taxonomy and christened it with the Latinized name we still use: Sturnus vulgaris. Sturnus for “star,” referring to the shape of the bird in flight, with its pointed wings, bill, and tail; and vulgaris, not for “vulgar,” as starling detractors like to assume, but for “common.”* When Linnaeus named the bird, it was simply part of the European landscape and had not spread across the waters. There was no controversy surrounding the species; it was just a pretty bird. Starlings are now one of the most pervasive birds in North America, and there are so many that no one can count them; estimates run to about two hundred million. Ecologically, their presence here lies on a scale somewhere between highly unfortunate and utterly disastrous.

“Just over a hundred and fifty years before the first starlings appeared in Central Park, the Swedish botanist and zoologist Carl Linnaeus had placed the species within his emerging avian taxonomy and christened it with the Latinized name we still use: Sturnus vulgaris. Sturnus for “star,” referring to the shape of the bird in flight, with its pointed wings, bill, and tail; and vulgaris, not for “vulgar,” as starling detractors like to assume, but for “common.”* When Linnaeus named the bird, it was simply part of the European landscape and had not spread across the waters. There was no controversy surrounding the species; it was just a pretty bird. Starlings are now one of the most pervasive birds in North America, and there are so many that no one can count them; estimates run to about two hundred million. Ecologically, their presence here lies on a scale somewhere between highly unfortunate and utterly disastrous.”

You can’t think up an idea. Instead, an idea flies into your brain—unbidden, careening, and wild, like a bird out of the ether. And though there is a measure of chance, luck, and grace involved, for the most part ideas don’t rise from actual ether; instead, they spring from the metaphoric opposite—from the rich soil that has been prepared, with and without our knowledge, by the whole of our lives: what we do, what we know, what we see, what we dream, what we fear, what we love.

“You can’t think up an idea. Instead, an idea flies into your brain—unbidden, careening, and wild, like a bird out of the ether. And though there is a measure of chance, luck, and grace involved, for the most part ideas don’t rise from actual ether; instead, they spring from the metaphoric opposite—from the rich soil that has been prepared, with and without our knowledge, by the whole of our lives: what we do, what we know, what we see, what we dream, what we fear, what we love.” Reference Haupt, Lyanda Lynn (2017, Apr. 4). “Mozart's Starling” Kindle Edition. Prelude, A Plague of Inspiration, p. 7 of 264, 2%.

Mozart kept a pet starling. I can’t even remember where I read that in my ornithological studies—it is one of those arcane little details recorded here and there, usually without substantiation. I repeated it myself in my first book, Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds. Later, I was reading Jim Lynch’s lovely novel Border Songs and discovered that one of his characters mentioned it. When I asked Lynch where he’d heard about Mozart’s starling, he told me, “I read it in your book.” Oh, dear! I began to worry that I’d been spreading an apocryphal story, but further research assured me that the tale was true. Mozart discovered the starling in a Vienna pet shop, where the bird had somehow learned to sing the motif from his newest piano concerto. Enchanted, he bought the bird for a few kreuzer and kept it for three years before it died. Just how the starling learned Mozart’s motif is a wonderful musico-ornithological mystery. But there is one thing we know for certain: Mozart loved his starling. Recent examination of his work during and after the period he lived with the bird shows that the starling influenced his music and, I believe, at least one of the opera world’s favorite characters. The starling was in turn his companion, distraction, consolation, and muse. When his father, Leopold, died, Wolfgang did not travel to Salzburg for the services. When his starling died, two months later, Mozart hosted a formal funeral in his garden and composed a whimsical elegy that proclaime...

“Mozart kept a pet starling. I can’t even remember where I read that in my ornithological studies—it is one of those arcane little details recorded here and there, usually without substantiation. I repeated it myself in my first book, Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds. Later, I was reading Jim Lynch’s lovely novel Border Songs and discovered that one of his characters mentioned it. When I asked Lynch where he’d heard about Mozart’s starling, he told me, “I read it in your book.” Oh, dear! I began to worry that I’d been spreading an apocryphal story, but further research assured me that the tale was true. Mozart discovered the starling in a Vienna pet shop, where the bird had somehow learned to sing the motif from his newest piano concerto. Enchanted, he bought the bird for a few kreuzer and kept it for three years before it died. Just how the starling learned Mozart’s motif is a wonderful musico-ornithological mystery. But there is one thing we know for certain: Mozart loved his starling. Recent examination of his work during and after the period he lived with the bird shows that the starling influenced his music and, I believe, at least one of the opera world’s favorite characters. The starling was in turn his companion, distraction, consolation, and muse. When his father, Leopold, died, Wolfgang did not travel to Salzburg for the services. When his starling died, two months later, Mozart hosted a formal funeral in his garden and composed a whimsical elegy that proclaimed his affinity with the starling’s friendly mischievousness and his sorrow over the bird’s loss.”

What did Mozart learn from his bird? The juxtaposition of the hated and sublime is fascinating enough. But how did they interact? What was the source of their affinity? And how did the starling come to know Mozart’s tune?

It seemed to me that the lessons to be gleaned in terms of respect for life and compassion for other creatures outweighed any slight ecological impact the release of a few individual starlings might have. So I became a renegade rehabber and made a deal with the folks who brought starlings in: I’d tend the chicks on my own time while they were in the precarious nestling phase, then give them back to their young rescuers for final raising and release.

I thought I was bringing a wild starling into my home as a form of research for this book, but this bird had ideas of her own. Instead of settling dutifully into her role as the subject of my grandiose social-scientific-musical experiment, Carmen turned the tables. She became the teacher, the guide, and I became an unwitting student—or, more accurately, a pilgrim, a wondering journeyer who had no idea what was to come.

Like all songbird nestlings, this chick was mostly beak, with a big, fleshy orange gape designed to serve as a target for adult birds: Drop food here. When a chick is stimulated by movement and sound, the gaping response is induced. Wanting to make sure this bird possessed some tiny semblance of health, I tickled the bill and chirped like a starling; the little bundle threw back its head, and the bill popped open 180 degrees.

It was at this point that I morphed from “Lyanda the Innocent Citizen Removing a Nonnative Bird from a Public Space” to “Lyanda the Starling Outlaw.” As it turns out, you may torture, maim, or murder a starling, but in Washington State, as in many states, you may not lovingly raise a starling as a pet. One of the ostensible reasons given by wildlife officials I spoke with was the prevention of propagation. There are already too many starlings, and people raising them as pets might eventually release the captive birds, making things worse.

“It was at this point that I morphed from “Lyanda the Innocent Citizen Removing a Nonnative Bird from a Public Space” to “Lyanda the Starling Outlaw.” As it turns out, you may torture, maim, or murder a starling, but in Washington State, as in many states, you may not lovingly raise a starling as a pet. One of the ostensible reasons given by wildlife officials I spoke with was the prevention of propagation. There are already too many starlings, and people raising them as pets might eventually release the captive birds, making things worse.” Reference Haupt, Lyanda Lynn (2017, Apr. 4). “Mozart's Starling” Kindle Edition. Chapter One, The Starling of Seattle, p. 20 of 264, 7%.

In my opinion, if starlings remain legally unprotected, then we ought to be permitted to raise orphaned starlings in our living rooms.

he was startled by a whistled tune. It was a bright-sweet melody, a fragment beautiful and familiar. It took Mozart a wondering moment to recover from the shock of hearing the refrain, but when he did, he followed the song. The whistles repeated, leading him down the block and through a bird vendor’s open shop door. There, just inside, Mozart was greeted by a caged starling who jumped to the edge of his perch, cocked his head, and stared intently into the maestro’s eyes, chirping warmly. This bird was flirting!

“May 27, Graben Street. . . . [stopping] on the bustling roadside, . . . [Mozart] was startled by a whistled tune. It was a bright-sweet melody, a fragment beautiful and familiar. It took Mozart a wondering moment to recover from the shock of hearing the refrain, but when he did, he followed the song. The whistles repeated, leading him down the block and through a bird vendor’s open shop door. There, just inside, Mozart was greeted by a caged starling who jumped to the edge of his perch, cocked his head, and stared intently into the maestro’s eyes, chirping warmly. This bird was flirting!”

The starling’s mimicry is not surprising in the least—as birds in the mynah family, starlings are among the most capable animal mimics on earth, rivaling parrots in their ability to expertly imitate birds, musical instruments, and any other sounds and noises, including the human voice.

Beneath the words Vogel Stahrl, Mozart wrote his own version of the tune, then the starling’s version. Mozart’s motif. The starling’s song. His comment on the starling’s interpretation? Das war schön! “That was wonderful!”

“Beneath the words Vogel Stahrl, Mozart wrote his own version of the tune, then the starling’s version. . . . His comment on the starling’s interpretation? Das war schön! “That was wonderful!”

It would not have been at all odd for Mozart to keep a bird. Pet birds were popular in eighteenth-century Europe, part of the natural-history trend that characterized Enlightenment attitudes in polite society.

There is a heartbreaking oil portrait of the Mozarts that was commissioned after Anna Maria’s death. The two grown children sit at the fortepiano; their father, Leopold, stands in shadows with his violin; and their beloved mother appears behind them in an oval-framed painting, her hair piled high and wide and wound with a blue ribbon. This portrait of the family is a powerful and ghostly presence at the Mozart Geburtshaus now, hung in the back of the dark, windowless, wood-rich room where Wolfgang was born. It is a bit discomfiting to explore the rest of the exhibit with the family watching—rustling and whispering and mourning there in the corner.

“There is a heartbreaking oil portrait of the Mozarts that was commissioned after Anna Maria’s death. The two grown children sit at the fortepiano; their father, Leopold, stands in shadows with his violin; and their beloved mother appears behind them in an oval-framed painting, her hair piled high and wide and wound with a blue ribbon. This portrait of the family is a powerful and ghostly presence at the Mozart Geburtshaus now, hung in the back of the dark, windowless, wood-rich room where Wolfgang was born. It is a bit discomfiting to explore the rest of the exhibit with the family watching—rustling and whispering and mourning there in the corner.”

Star joined the family in the middle of the marriage, during the most musically productive, prosperous, and engaging years of Mozart’s life. He might have been the smallest member of the household and is barely mentioned in most biographies, if he makes it in at all, but the starling is never far from the center of Mozart’s unfolding story. Any Mozart historian would give an arm for this bird’s-eye view of these years. Star’s vocal acrobatics accompanied the composition of at least eight piano concertos, three symphonies, and The Marriage of Figaro.

“Star joined the family in the middle of the marriage, during the most musically productive, prosperous, and engaging years of Mozart’s life. He might have been the smallest member of the household and is barely mentioned in most biographies, if he makes it in at all, but the starling is never far from the center of Mozart’s unfolding story. Any Mozart historian would give an arm for this bird’s-eye view of these years. Star’s vocal acrobatics accompanied the composition of at least eight piano concertos, three symphonies, and The Marriage of Figaro.”

Star has been considered a footnote to the Mozart biography, but after living with a starling, I have become convinced that the bird brought a constant current of liveliness, hope, and good cheer into these complex years, one that sustained Mozart’s heart and music.

Mozart’s starling died just two months later, and in honor of the bird, Mozart organized a formal funeral, donned his most elegant finery, recruited friends as velvet-caped mourners, and penned an affectionate elegy. My favorite translation is Marcia Davenport’s, from her 1932 biography of Mozart, now out of print; it captures the simultaneous jocularity and formality of the little verse. After a few lines that announce the starling’s death, Wolfgang laments: Thinking of this, my heart Is riven apart. Oh reader! Shed a tear, You also, here. He was not naughty, quite, But gay and bright, And under all his brag A foolish wag. The poem shows that Mozart had become thoroughly acquainted with the typical starling personality—bright, personable, charming, mischievous. Some historians have claimed that the funeral verses are simply a farce, but no one who has lived with a starling would dream of making such a suggestion.

“Mozart’s starling died just two months later, and in honor of the bird, Mozart organized a formal funeral, donned his most elegant finery, recruited friends as velvet-caped mourners, and penned an affectionate elegy. My favorite translation is Marcia Davenport’s, from her 1932 biography of Mozart, now out of print; it captures the simultaneous jocularity and formality of the little verse. After a few lines that announce the starling’s death, Wolfgang laments: Thinking of this, my heart Is riven apart. Oh reader! Shed a tear, You also, here. He was not naughty, quite, But gay and bright, And under all his brag A foolish wag. The poem shows that Mozart had become thoroughly acquainted with the typical starling personality—bright, personable, charming, mischievous. Some historians have claimed that the funeral verses are simply a farce, but no one who has lived with a starling would dream of making such a suggestion.” Reference Haupt, Lyanda Lynn (2017, Apr. 4). “Mozart's Starling” Kindle Edition. Chapter Two, Mozart and the Musical Thief, p. 44 of 264, 15%.

To birds, most of which can see on the ultraviolet spectrum invisible to humans, iridescent starling bodies literally glow. Even if you don’t have UV vision, a starling in sunlight is absolutely stunning.

Regarding the presence of starlings in North America, some blame Shakespeare. In the 1800s, “acclimatization societies” began to form across the country, following successful models in France.

Eugene Schieffelin was a pharmacist who lived in the Bronx. He was an eccentric, an Anglophile, and a Shakespeare aficionado. Some say he was also an ecological criminal and a lunatic, but I would argue for a gentler description; perhaps “flawed.” As deputy of the American Acclimatization Society of New York, Schieffelin, it is believed, latched onto the personal goal of bringing every bird mentioned in the works of Shakespeare to Central Park. Armed with his treasured copy of the exquisite Ornithology of Shakespeare, an 1871 volume in which James Edmund Harting assembled every allusion to birdlife in the whole of the Shakespeare canon, Schieffelin zeroed in on the Bard’s single reference to a starling, in Henry IV. It is a decisive scene: King Henry commands that the willful soldier Hotspur free his prisoners, but Hotspur replies that he will do nothing of the kind until the king agrees to pay the ransom that will free Hotspur’s brother-in-law Mortimer from the enemy. The king flies into a fury and forbids him to mention Mortimer’s name. After the king’s exit, Hotspur imagines a fanciful retribution, and here enters our star: He said he would not ransom Mortimer; Forbad my tongue to speak of Mortimer; But I will find him when he lies asleep, And in his ear I’ll holloa, “Mortimer!” Nay. I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak Nothing but “Mortimer,” and give it him To keep his anger still in motion.

“Eugene Schieffelin was a pharmacist who lived in the Bronx. He was an eccentric, an Anglophile, and a Shakespeare aficionado. Some say he was also an ecological criminal and a lunatic, but I would argue for a gentler description; perhaps “flawed.” As deputy of the American Acclimatization Society of New York, Schieffelin, it is believed, latched onto the personal goal of bringing every bird mentioned in the works of Shakespeare to Central Park. Armed with his treasured copy of the exquisite Ornithology of Shakespeare, an 1871 volume in which James Edmund Harting assembled every allusion to birdlife in the whole of the Shakespeare canon, Schieffelin zeroed in on the Bard’s single reference to a starling, in Henry IV. It is a decisive scene: King Henry commands that the willful soldier Hotspur free his prisoners, but Hotspur replies that he will do nothing of the kind until the king agrees to pay the ransom that will free Hotspur’s brother-in-law Mortimer from the enemy. The king flies into a fury and forbids him to mention Mortimer’s name. After the king’s exit, Hotspur imagines a fanciful retribution, and here enters our star: “ He said he would not ransom Mortimer; Forbad my tongue to speak of Mortimer; But I will find him when he lies asleep, And in his ear I’ll holloa, “Mortimer!” Nay. I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak Nothing but “Mortimer,” and give it him To keep his anger still in motion.

Shakespeare was attentive to birdlife; larks, nightingales, and chaffinches wing and sing their way through the plays and sonnets, and in his unique Ornithology,

(It’s interesting to note that our starlings have quantifiably less genetic variation than starlings in their native European range. This is in line with what evolutionary biologists call the “founder effect,” in which the number of animals introduced—in this case, Schieffelin’s eighty-odd birds—is not large enough to contain all the genetic variation of the original population.)

Starlings exhibit every characteristic of a successful animal invader: they are robust, aggressive, omnivorous, and unfussy about nest spots, and they reach sexual maturity at just nine months. They reproduce prolifically, with two clutches per season, sometimes more, and raise large broods of four to six chicks. (One clutch is the norm for most migrant songbirds, though nonmigratory resident birds in temperate climates—like robins and chickadees—will often raise two broods.) Starlings are inquisitive and intelligent, which makes them adaptable and ready to explore and colonize new places.

“Starlings exhibit every characteristic of a successful animal invader: they are robust, aggressive, omnivorous, and unfussy about nest spots, and they reach sexual maturity at just nine months. They reproduce prolifically, with two clutches per season, sometimes more, and raise large broods of four to six chicks. (One clutch is the norm for most migrant songbirds, though nonmigratory resident birds in temperate climates—like robins and chickadees—will often raise two broods.) Starlings are inquisitive and intelligent, which makes them adaptable and ready to explore and colonize new places.”

There is a website administered from New York City called Starling Talk, where people who have starlings as pets gather to discuss matters such as the raising of baby starlings, starling health and diet, and the general wild craziness of life with a starling in the house.

In Tinkering with Eden, Kim Todd suggests that he ought to have read his revered Shakespeare more closely. In Henry IV, “the starling was not a gift to inspire romance or lyric poetry. It was a bird to prod anger, to pick at a scab, to serve as a reminder of trouble. It was a curse.” Perhaps even Schieffelin would realize that no matter how pretty the starlings were, how mesmerizing their vast autumn cloud-flocks, here was an experiment that had gone terribly wrong.

HIieeeiEEeee. Carmen’s first word was wobbly and uncertain. But it was a word. She’d said “Hi.” Right? Hadn’t she?

Shakespeare clearly expected his sixteenth-century audiences, a hundred and seventy years before Mozart, to understand the reference in Henry IV that inspired Eugene Schieffelin’s Central Park starling introductions: “I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak.” Most of Shakespeare’s audience were not aristocratic, or particularly literary, or even educated, yet if they had not known that starlings could talk, the plot point would have made no sense.

Meredith West is an ethologist emeritus at Indiana University and the lead author of an iconic 1990 Scientific American paper that explored the subject of Mozart’s starling and the relational capacities of starling pets.

In 1983, Meredith West and her colleagues carried out a pioneering study on starling mimicry.

It turns out that among starlings that live with humans, Carmen is not alone in her eagerness to join the household’s conversation. In West’s study, all seven of the birds mimicked natural sounds, mechanical sounds in their environment, and other birds. But only the birds that interacted closely with humans mimicked human words and voices, and only these birds mimicked environmental sounds in the context of what their human caretakers were doing.

Many people who live with starlings report becoming self-conscious about tics they never knew they had until their starlings mimicked them back: sighing, coughing, sniffing, tongue-clicking, odd little laughs. In Meredith West’s academic household, a resident starling would perch on the professor’s shoulder and mutter, Basic research, it’s true, I guess that’s right, and when someone else walked into the room, the bird would announce, I have a question! The implication is that mimicry has a rich and complex social aspect—that it’s valuable and useful for starlings to connect aurally with those they are most closely bonded to, whether that is another starling or a human.

“Many people who live with starlings report becoming self-conscious about tics they never knew they had until their starlings mimicked them back: sighing, coughing, sniffing, tongue-clicking, odd little laughs. In Meredith West’s academic household, a resident starling would perch on the professor’s shoulder and mutter, Basic research, it’s true, I guess that’s right, and when someone else walked into the room, the bird would announce, I have a question! The implication is that mimicry has a rich and complex social aspect—that it’s valuable and useful for starlings to connect aurally with those they are most closely bonded to, whether that is another starling or a human.”

West and her team also found that the family-raised birds imitated the cadence of human speech whether they were forming recognizable words or not, just like a human baby starts to sound like it is making words before it actually is—the bird version of baby talk.

“West and her team also found that the family-raised birds imitated the cadence of human speech whether they were forming recognizable words or not, just like a human baby starts to sound like it is making words before it actually is—the bird version of baby talk.”

(And let me offer a piece of advice: never teach a starling to say “Merry Christmas” unless you want to hear it all year long.)

Mimics do sing a song unique to their species (in the case of the starling, this includes a long series of teakettle whistles, clattering, and shrieks that many are reluctant to term a song). But true mimics like starlings do something else too: they imitate sounds from their environment—novel and improbable sounds that lie far outside of the usual explanation for birdsong. They appear to select these sounds at will; we can attempt to teach starlings sounds and tunes, and they will turn their nose up at some and latch onto others.

“Mimics do sing a song unique to their species (in the case of the starling, this includes a long series of teakettle whistles, clattering, and shrieks that many are reluctant to term a song). But true mimics like starlings do something else too: they imitate sounds from their environment—novel and improbable sounds that lie far outside of the usual explanation for birdsong. They appear to select these sounds at will; we can attempt to teach starlings sounds and tunes, and they will turn their nose up at some and latch onto others.”

Mimicry indicates a sophistication in relationship to sound and involves a plasticity of behavior and consciousness that goes far beyond the instinctive.

Pliny the Elder kept magpies alongside his starlings. He noticed how eager the birds were to learn new words and how, once fixed on a word, they would work and fuss over it until it was perfected.

Pliny declared that a magpie who has trouble learning a word will suffer such angst over his failure that he will die of it! He mused wonderfully: “They get fond of uttering particular words, and not only learn them but love them and secretly ponder them with careful reflection, not concealing their engrossment.… It is an established fact that if the difficulty of a word beats them this causes their death.”

The classic theory with starlings is that males use mimicry in the main to impress females. As a female starling, Carmen is not supposed to be a gifted mimic or songster. But living with a female starling, I can heartily attest that they create many of the same song elements that males do, and obviously they can be capable mimics.

Both male and female starlings invite researchers to expand on the classic explanation for mimicry. Sure, there is a role in pair-bonding, and males do seem to take the lead in using mimicry to attract a mate. But once the pair bond is secure, mimicry on both sides appears to be a way of maintaining intimacy between mates. Through the seasons of the year, mimicry continues in both sexes, even though males and females often split into separate flocks; it’s a form of connection and belonging among flock-mates, of environmental awareness and participation. I am certain that there is more going on with both male and female starling communication and consciousness than we realize, but so much of this understanding cannot be learned in the lab, or even in the field, where we experience the habits of starlings in fits and starts. It can be learned only by the rare privilege of living in constant contact with a wild bird.

“Both male and female starlings invite researchers to expand on the classic explanation for mimicry. Sure, there is a role in pair-bonding, and males do seem to take the lead in using mimicry to attract a mate. But once the pair bond is secure, mimicry on both sides appears to be a way of maintaining intimacy between mates. Through the seasons of the year, mimicry continues in both sexes, even though males and females often split into separate flocks; it’s a form of connection and belonging among flock-mates, of environmental awareness and participation. I am certain that there is more going on with both male and female starling communication and consciousness than we realize, but so much of this understanding cannot be learned in the lab, or even in the field, where we experience the habits of starlings in fits and starts. It can be learned only by the rare privilege of living in constant contact with a wild bird.”

As it turned out, Carmen had no intention of learning the motif. But by the time she was two months old, she did take a keen interest in learning the violin. She is the only creature on earth who has ever seemed to take pleasure in my playing.

Her favorite place to study violin was from her perch at the tip of my bow.

Now, as an adult, Carmen prefers to perch on the scroll of the violin and gape between the strings; she places her bill between two strings, opens her mandibles wide, and then pulls her bill out, so both strings ring. This seems to delight her. But she will not learn the Mozart motif. Starlings are among the few songbirds who continue to learn new vocalizations year after year, so I am not without hope that she will surprise me one day.

“Now, as an adult, Carmen prefers to perch on the scroll of the violin and gape between the strings; she places her bill between two strings, opens her mandibles wide, and then pulls her bill out, so both strings ring. This seems to delight her. But she will not learn the Mozart motif. Starlings are among the few songbirds who continue to learn new vocalizations year after year, so I am not without hope that she will surprise me one day.”

As this concerto begins, we in the audience scarcely have time to adjust to our surroundings before Mozart tosses us headlong with his music into the full current of human emotional possibility, yet he manages the swift transitions with such beauty that we do not think to resist.

Describing Mozart’s Concerto in G, performed by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Imogen Cooper, who also played piano, Lyanda Lynn Haupt wrote, “As this concerto begins, we in the audience scarcely have time to adjust to our surroundings before Mozart tosses us headlong with his music into the full current of human emotional possibility, yet he manages the swift transitions with such beauty that we do not think to resist.”

There is no rest. The allegretto leaps immediately into the relief of G major and the first notes of the starling’s motif. The shadows disperse. Instead of the expected rondo, Mozart dispatches five variations on the theme and then, in the finale, runs away with it in a prodigal fantasia in which Star’s motif surfaces over and over against the riverine flow of the piano cadenzas.

They say that birds prefer Mozart above other composers, and perhaps this is true. But not Carmen. She prefers Bach and bluegrass. Based on the exuberance of her reactions, she even has a favorite band—Greensky Bluegrass. When this beautiful concerto of Mozart’s is playing, she will sit impassively on my shoulder, almost yawning. But when the final movement begins, she is excited. She jumps down to my hand where she can look me in the eye. Hi, Carmen! Hi, honey! she calls before breaking into her own shrill starling aria.

“They say that birds prefer Mozart above other composers, and perhaps this is true. But not Carmen. She prefers Bach and bluegrass. Based on the exuberance of her reactions, she even has a favorite band—Greensky Bluegrass. When this beautiful concerto of Mozart’s is playing, she will sit impassively on my shoulder, almost yawning. But when the final movement begins, she is excited. She jumps down to my hand where she can look me in the eye. Hi, Carmen! Hi, honey! she calls before breaking into her own shrill starling aria.”

Like most of Mozart’s music, this concerto is written on two levels—one for the simple enjoyment of the musically uneducated ear, and one for the musical adept. Mozart could not have maintained his public popularity and sustained his own genius-level interest in any other way.

The whimsical suggestion that Star taught the motif to Mozart—that he sang a song of his own adapted by Mozart for the concerto—appears in print with some frequency. Such claims are proffered by folk who are speculating with just a tidbit of information. Though Mozart will, as we’ll see, incorporate starling-esque cadences and personality traits inspired by Star into later work, this concerto was completed more than a month before Mozart brought his bird home, and so for this composition such a proposal remains nearly impossible.

The role of starling as muse is authentic, but the idea that the bird taught this tune to Mozart is far-fetched.

I care with the brightened curiosity of one who loves a subject for no rational reason, but who loves it nonetheless, and prodigally. This is the ardor of the academic Austenologist who believes that if she looks beneath the floorboards of the right dusty attic, she will find the diary entry explaining why Jane Austen rejected her one marriage proposal the day after she’d accepted it; of the birder in Costa Rica tiptoeing through trails of biting ants and fer-de-lance serpents in hopes of glimpsing a rare hummingbird that no one has seen for fifteen years. I could list such loves forever, the sort that visit our imaginations on the cusp of the impossible but that we cannot erase from our minds. We follow the trail with whatever bread crumbs we can gather, with hope, with love, with an almost magical combination of urgency and patience. There were just enough crumbs in the Mozart story that I felt confident that, with enough sleuthing, the details of just how the Mozart-and-Star story unfolded would fill my grail chalice. Naturally, that is not at all what happened.

Pondering her fascination with “how and when . . . Star [learned] Mozart’s motif,” the author imagined, “I care with the brightened curiosity of one who loves a subject for no rational reason, but who loves it nonetheless, and prodigally. This is the ardor of the academic Austenologist who believes that if she looks beneath the floorboards of the right dusty attic, she will find the diary entry explaining why Jane Austen rejected her one marriage proposal the day after she’d accepted it; of the birder in Costa Rica tiptoeing through trails of biting ants and fer-de-lance serpents in hopes of glimpsing a rare hummingbird that no one has seen for fifteen years. I could list such loves forever, the sort that visit our imaginations on the cusp of the impossible but that we cannot erase from our minds. We follow the trail with whatever bread crumbs we can gather, with hope, with love, with an almost magical combination of urgency and patience. There were just enough crumbs in the Mozart story that I felt confident that, with enough sleuthing, the details of just how the Mozart-and-Star story unfolded would fill my grail chalice. Naturally, that is not at all what happened.”