Mozart's Starling

by Lyanda Lynn Haupt

Mozart’s own catalog of work tells us that the concerto was completed on April 12, 1784.

We know from Mozart’s expense notebook that Star was purchased on May 27 and that he could sing the line from the Piano Concerto in G.

If not for the notebook, it would be easiest to argue that Star learned the motif once he was home with the Mozarts. This is the way of starlings. They involve themselves in the daily sounds of their flock—whether that flock is made up of birds, humans, or violins. Like any other starling worth its feathers, Star would simply have absorbed and mimicked favored sounds from his setting—and what a setting he had! In this scenario, Star simply picked up the tune as it was practiced or whistled by Wolfgang in his study.

Given our observation that whistled tunes are altered and incorporated into mixed themes, we assume that the melody was new to the bird because it was so close a copy of the original. Thus, we entertain the possibility that Mozart, like other animal lovers, had already visited the shop and interacted with the starling before 27 May. Mozart was known to hum and whistle a good deal. Why should he refrain in the presence of a bird that seems to elicit such behavior so easily?

Meredith West argues (1990), “Given our observation that whistled tunes are altered and incorporated into mixed themes, we assume that the melody was new to the bird because it was so close a copy of the original. Thus, we entertain the possibility that Mozart, like other animal lovers, had already visited the shop and interacted with the starling before 27 May. Mozart was known to hum and whistle a good deal. Why should he refrain in the presence of a bird that seems to elicit such behavior so easily?”

The exuberance of the starling’s song he now heard—so different from the canaries he had grown up with—piqued his native curiosity.

She invokes the feeling that overwhelmed Mozart at a performance of The Magic Flute, where he found the “silent approval,” as he wrote to Constanze—his feeling that the audience members were attuned, involved, in love with his music—even more gratifying than their enthusiastic applause. Mozart observed in his audience the same attitude assumed by a starling when something captures its interest. When you talk to a tame starling, it jumps as close to you as it can get, tilts its head, and listens. So gratifying! Mozart was well aware of his own gifts, yet craved attention and approval for his music. When visited by Mozart in the shop, Star gave the composer these very things. As West writes: To be whistled to by Mozart! Surely the bird would have adopted its listening posture, thereby rewarding the potential buyer with “silent applause.”

“[West] invokes the feeling that overwhelmed Mozart at a performance of The Magic Flute, where he found the “silent approval,” as he wrote to Constanze—his feeling that the audience members were attuned, involved, in love with his music—even more gratifying than their enthusiastic applause. Mozart observed in his audience the same attitude assumed by a starling when something captures its interest. When you talk to a tame starling, it jumps as close to you as it can get, tilts its head, and listens. So gratifying! Mozart was well aware of his own gifts, yet craved attention and approval for his music. When visited by Mozart in the shop, Star gave the composer these very things. As West writes: To be whistled to by Mozart! Surely the bird would have adopted its listening posture, thereby rewarding the potential buyer with “silent applause.””

We now suspect that the concerto might have had a somewhat earlier public debut at a prestigious concert with Emperor Joseph II in attendance at the beautiful Kärntnertor Theater (now the footprint of the famous Hotel Sacher) on April 29.

“We lie in the lap of immense intelligence,” wrote Emerson, “which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity.” And to me, this is the beauty of Gentner’s work, and work like his. It reminds us of the creative awareness, at once scientific and poetic, that we stand on a continuum of being, of life. That we are part and parcel, along with every creature that crosses our path, of a fierce and beautiful intelligence.

The affinity was an honest one. Bird and composer had much in common. Both maestro and starling shared an astonishing likeness in talents (mimicry, vocal play, musical gymnastics), personality (busy-ness, silliness, flirtatiousness, tomfoolery), and social priorities (attention-seeking!).

In their shared vocal play, their clever backing-and-forthing of aural possibility, Mozart found the closest thing to an avian kindred spirit that the green earth had to offer. A bird playmate evolved, it seems, just for him.

Papageno leaps about, unsure and aflutter, meaning well but getting into all manner of mischief. He is the Coyote-Trickster, the Shakespearean fool, his buffoonery masking his intelligence and capability.

And in this shared earthly living, when we give our attention to it, we find the basis of our compassion, and of our empathy for other creatures.

Mozart felt this, I know. Like me, he was drawn at first to the shiny thing —in his case it was Star’s singing back to him the song he himself had written. But in his elegy poem we see that a different relationship evolved. The bird’s mimicry is not once mentioned. This is a poem to a kindred creature whose presence brought play, sound, song, joy, and friendliness to the maestro’s life. And in the work that Star inspired, this is what we see too. A shared sense of mischief, music, and delight. The word kinship comes from Old English—of the same kind, and therefore related. Kindly and kindness also grow from this root—the bearing toward others that kinship inspires.

“Mozart felt this, I know. Like me, he was drawn at first to the shiny thing —in his case it was Star’s singing back to him the song he himself had written. But in his elegy poem we see that a different relationship evolved. The bird’s mimicry is not once mentioned. This is a poem to a kindred creature whose presence brought play, sound, song, joy, and friendliness to the maestro’s life. And in the work that Star inspired, this is what we see too. A shared sense of mischief, music, and delight. The word kinship comes from Old English—of the same kind, and therefore related. Kindly and kindness also grow from this root—the bearing toward others that kinship inspires.”