9. Mozart kept a starling as a pet, and composed an epitaph for it when it died
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s stature as a musical virtuoso and composer is unchallenged. His method of composing was to put on paper the music he heard in his head, often entire and complete. His manuscripts contained few corrections and even fewer copies. For three years Mozart kept a starling as a pet. Starlings are mimicking birds, able to reproduce sounds which they hear, and able to recognize individual birds by their calls. Their ability to reproduce sounds was commented on by Mozart in letters to friends and in notes in his journals. It is possible that both Mozart and his pet copied from each other, and some passages in Mozart’s work may be of more avian composition,
The starling died on June 4, 1787, and Mozart arranged a funeral for the bird, which was conducted in his Vienna garden, attended by friends who joined him in singing a requiem. Mozart also read a poem which he wrote as an epitaph, which ran for 22 lines and which was both humorous and an expression of loss following the death of his bird. There is no record of his buying another to replace his companion, though one account of his death includes a passage describing the dying composer requesting his canary be removed to another room as he,” could no longer bear the sound of its singing”. In his notes, Mozart annotated some of the starling’s songs, and musical scholars continue to compare the notes to the composer’s work.