Mozart's Starling

Does (“A Musical Joke”) bear the vocal autograph of a starling? To our ears, yes—American Scientist.

On May 27, 1784, Mozart held a funeral for a bird. According to Whyfiles.org, guests sang hymns, read poetry, and buried Mozart’s pet starling. Eight days later, the composer crafted his Divertimento for 2 Horns and Strings, K 522, nicknamed, “A Musical Joke.”


Mozart once wrote to his father that he never felt more alive than when he was composing. But in “Mozart’s Letters, Mozart’s Life,” in a rare view of Spaethling’s thoughts on the composer, the author wrote that Mozart could be emotionally detached.

For example, when Mozart finished his String Quartet in D minor, K 421, his wife gave birth (or was giving birth) to their first child. Spaethling attributed this anecdote to Georg Nikolaus Nissen, a Mozart biographer, but added it was: “a remarkable feat of emotional detachment.”

How so? Music was life for this man. What better way to calm the nerves after endless pacing?

In a letter on July 31, 1778 (translated by Spaethling), Mozart poured his heart out regarding the death of his mother in Paris, and begged for understanding from his father, not only for his pain and guilt but for his need to compose: “...you know that I am, as it were, completely immersed in Musique—it is on my mind all day long—I love to plan—study—reflect on it....”

Did he neglect his mother in Paris? It is not likely. She took ill, and his angst is apparent in his letters, as is his uncertainty about the Paris doctors. Not only that, but listeners can hear the pain in his Sinfonia concertante, K 364. It is the same with his String Quartet, K 421, finished on the night of his son’s birth. In this musical composition, listeners can hear Constanze giving birth, ¹ in my opinion.

Midwives called men to help with a child’s birth only as a hedge against liability (when there were serious problems), said Lianne McTavish in the Cambridge Journal of Medical History. How can pouring his worry into music not be empathy? Should he have paced mindlessly, wringing his hands? And who is to say he did not? ultimately turning to music to calm his nerves. It is the same with “A Musical Joke.” It is what he did; what he used for survival: musical meditation.


Footnote
¹ Alexa Vivien Wilks, in his thesis, “A Biography of a String Quartet,” reported that Edward Holmes, in “The Life of Mozart” (London: The Folio Society, 1991), noted that the German biographer Nissen said Mozart wrote the third movement of K. 421 in Costanze’s chamber while she was in the early stages of labour with their first child. Nissen says that Mozart’s “agitated state of mind” can be heard in this composition, given the anxieties of impending first-time parenthood, and the grave dangers of child birth during the eighteenth century.