Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart was also the delighted owner of a
pet starling. He recorded the purchase of the starling
in an expense book, noting the date, price and a
musical fragment the bird was whistling. The pleasure
he expressed at hearing the starling's song--"Das
war schon!" (that was beautiful)--is all the more
understandable when one compares the beginning of
the last movement of his Piano Concerto in G major,
K.453, which was written about the same time. Somehow
the bird had learned the theme from Mozart's concerto.
It did however sing G sharp where Mozart had written
G natural, giving its rendition a characteristically
off-key sound.
On
27 May 1784, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart purchased
a starling. Three years later, he buried it with
much ceremony. Heavily veiled mourners marched
in a procession, sang hymns, and listened to a
graveside recitation of a poem
Mozart had composed for the occasion (1).
Mozart's performance has received mixed reviews.
Although some see his gestures as those of a sincere
animal lover, others have found it hard to believe
that the object of Mozart's grief was a dead bird.
Another event in the same week has been put forth
as a more likely cause for Mozart's funereal gestures:
the death of his father Leopold (2).
The
scholars who have reported and interpreted this
historical incident knew much about Mozart but
little, if anything, about starlings. To put the
incident into better perspective, we will provide
here a profile of the vocal capacities of captive
starlings. Mozart's skills as a musician and composer
would have rendered him especially susceptible
to the starling's vocal charms, and thus we will
also propose that the funeral and the poem are
not the end of the story. Mozart may have left
another memorial to his starling, an offbeat requiem
for rebels.
Mozart's
starling was a European starling, Sturnus vulgaris. The species
was later introduced to North America on an artistic note. The birds were
imported from England in the 1890s in an effort to represent the avian
cast of Shakespeare's plays in this country (3). Fewer than 200
birds were released in New York's Central Park. Population estimates in
the 1980s hovered around 200,000,000 birds, a millionfold increase, making
starlings one of the most successful road shows in history.
The vocal
talents of starlings have been known since antiquity (4). The species
possesses a rich repertoire of calls and songs composed of whistles, dicks,
rattles, snarls, and screeches. In addition, starlings copy the sounds
of other birds and animals, weaving these mimicked themes into long soliloquies
that, in captive birds, can contain fragments of human speech. Pliny reported
individual birds, mimicking Greek and Latin, that "practiced diligently
and spoke new phrases every day, in still longer sentences." Shakespeare
knew enough about their abilities to have Hotspur propose teaching a starling
to say the name "Mortimer," an earl distrusted by Henry IV, to disturb
the king's sleep (Henry IV, Part 1, act 1, scene 3). In the song cycle
Die schone Mullerin, Schubert set to music a poem in which a starling
is given a romantic mission: "I'd teach a starling how to speak and sing,
/ Till every word and note with truth should ring, / With all the skill
my lips and tongue impart, / With all the warmth and passion of my heart"
(5).
Despite this
wealth of anecdotal information, few scientists have studied the vocal
behavior of starlings under the conditions necessary to separate fact
from fiction. The problem with starlings is that they vocalize too much,
too often, and in too great numbers, sometimes in choruses numbering in
the thousands (a flock of starlings is labeled a murmuration). Even the
seemingly elementary step of creating an accurate catalogue of the vocal
repertoires of wild starlings is an intimidating task because of the variety
of their sounds. Other well-known avian mimics, such as the mockingbird
(Mimus polyglottos), have proved as challenging, leaving unanswered
key questions about the development and functions of mimetic behavior.
Some of
the problems involved in the study of nonmimetic songbirds arise with
mimics as well. Researchers must be able to find and raise songbirds from
a young age or ideally from the egg under conditions in which their exposure
to social and acoustic stimulation can be controlled. The birds must be
observed for many months or sometimes years to capture fully the processes
of cultural evolution and transmission of vocal motifs from generation
to generation. And for all species, researchers must acquire expertise
in the acoustic analysis of sounds to overcome their inability to hear
much of the fine detail in avian vocalizations.
Because
of these difficulties, many "definitive" pieces of work have been based
on small sample sizes, often fewer than ten individuals, sometimes fewer
than five. Larger samples are possible only with avicultural favorites,
such as canaries (Serinus canaria) or zebra finches (Poephila
guttata). Even with these subjects, re search schedules must be accommodated
to seasonal cycles. The kinds of vocalizations produced by a species can
differ considerably throughout the year, with the most "interesting" sounds
in the form of territorial or mating signals occurring for only a few
months each year. In sum, songbirds are a handful.
Mimetic
species add another layer of difficulty by including sounds made by other
birds, other animals, and even machines. Thus, in addition to exploring
how members of a mimetic species develop species-typical calls and songs---that
is, vocalizations with many shared acoustic properties within a population---investigators
routinely encounter individual idiosyncracies. Why does one starling mimic
a goat and another a cat? Given the abundance of sounds in the world,
what processes account for the selection of models?
Baylis (6)
advocated studying just part of the mimic's repertoire as a first step,
suggesting the example of mockingbirds frequently mimicking cardinals
(Cardinalis cardinalis). Although mockingbirds mimic many species,
cardinals are a favorite. Why? What consequences accrue for mimic or model?
By focusing on one model-mimic system, scientists might answer a number
of questions surrounding the nature and function of mimicry. Further control
of the model-mimic system can be gained by exposing birds to human speech,
a vocal code with a more favorable "signal-to-noise" ratio. This heightens
the probability that investigators can detect mimicry and makes it easier
to identify the origin of mimicked sounds and the environmental conditions
facilitating or inhibiting interspecific mimicry (7). Here, the
use of human language is not comparable to efforts with apes or dolphins
aimed at uncovering possible analogues to human language. Rather, the
use of speech sounds is more properly compared to the use of a radioactive
isotope to trace physiological pathways. Thus, when a captive starling
utters, "Does Hammacher Schlemmer have a toll-free number?" it is easier
to trace the phrase's origin and how often it has been said than to trace
the history of the bird's production of "breep, beezus, breep, beeten,
beesix."
Over the past decade, we have studied nine starlings,
each hand-reared from a few days of age (8).
We have also collected information on the behavior
of five other starlings, raised under similar
conditions by individuals unaware of our work
and unaware of starlings' mimicking abilities
when their relationship with the birds began (see
Kuro) (9). Although
many questions remain about the species's vocal
capacities, the findings shed light on Mozart's
response to his starling's death.
The 14 starlings
experienced different social relationships with humans. Eight birds lived
individually in what is called interactive contact with the humans who
hand-reared them. Their cages were placed in busy parts of the home, and
the birds had considerable freedom to associate with their caregivers
in diverse ways: feeding from hands; perching on fingers, shoulders, or
heads; exploring caregivers' possessions; and inserting themselves into
activities such as meal preparation, piano lessons, baths, showers, and
telephone conversations. The humans spontaneously talked to the birds,
whistled to them, and gestured by kissing, snapping fingers, and waving
good-bye.
Explicit
procedures to teach human words using methods prescribed for other mimicking
species were not used. Six of the eight caregivers did not know that such
training would have an effect until the birds themselves demonstrated
their mimicking ability, and two refrained because they were instructed
by us to do so. The birds could obtain food and water (and avian companionship
in five of eight cases) without interacting with humans.
Three other
starlings lived under conditions of limited contact with humans. After
30 days of hand rearing by us, they were individually placed in new homes,
along with a cowbird (Molothrus ater). They lived in cages, rarely
flew free, and were passively exposed to humans. They heard speech but
were not "spoken to" because they did not engage in the kinds of social
interactions described for the first group. The final three starlings
lived together in auditory contact with humans. They were housed in an
aviary on a screened porch of the caregivers raising one of the freely
interacting birds. As a result, their auditory environment was loosely
yoked to that of the other bird.
The information
gathered on the starling's mimicry differed by setting and caregiver.
Extensive audio taping was carried out for the nine subjects studied under
our supervision. For three of the remaining birds involved in interactive
contact, we used repertoires available in published works, supplemented
by personal inquiries. For the last two we obtained verbal reports from
caregivers.
Go
to: Mozart's
Starling Page Two
The
music you are hearing is from Mozart's "A
Musical Joke" K.522 Second Movement: Menuetto
It is believed to be based on the song of his
beloved pet starling.
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