Mozart’s Starling
Like its two subjects – Mozart and the European Starling – this natural history is virtuosic, lively, affectionate, and entertaining. Haupt offers a deep dive into a tiny anecdote from the composer’s life – his purchase of a pet starling that had been taught to whistle an air from one of his piano concerti – as the inspiration for a wide-ranging consideration of the songbird’s role in the development of Enlightenment natural philosophy. She adopts and hand-raises a pet starling of her own, the better to understand its true nature, and falls in love with her bright, charming Carmen in the process. Tucked into her erudite but accessible discussion of the starling’s dual reputation as an intelligent, prized singer and a despised, overpopulated agricultural pest is a jewel of historical fiction in which she imagines the household life of Mozart and his pet starling’s place in it.
The achievement of this book is that it makes us love Carmen too, teaches us to look at both the natural world and the cultural history of 18th century Europe with new, avian eyes, and to recognize the enchanting trill of the starling woven throughout Mozart’s beloved Piano Concerto in G.
