Mozart's Piano Concerto #17 G Major, K.453 / Alfred Brendel, Sir Charles Mackerras / Scottish Chamber Orchestra. I'm a big fan of Alfred Brendel and of this work, so have assorted recordings of it. This one's on an album that also has the K.414 in A.
The 17th piano concerto has an amusing association to an entry in the Mozart's expense diary for 27 May 1784, when he had acquired a pet starling. The composer had only completed that concerto six weeks prior, and the work had yet to have a first official performance. The starling had either somehow heard bits of the work or Mozart whistled some of it to the bird while in the shop where he bought it.
Either way, the bird in its own singing then so well imitated the opening bars of the third movement of the K.453 concerto that Mozart transcribed the performance into his notes for that day, along with the comment "that was beautiful!" and the fact that he shelled out 34 kreutzers to buy the starling. Per the transcription Mozart put into his diary, the bird only made two mistakes, one in adherence to beat at close of a measure, and one of intonation in the following bar where it sang a couple of G# instead of G.
Starlings are in fact good vocal mimics of whatever they hear, and much like catbirds readily imitate any ambient sounds in their accustomed habitat and embed the results in their own songs. Like humans, starlings can recognize each other as individuals by how they vocalize. Today some countries prohibit their captivity as pets whether or not they are also officially regarded as pests. Despite their usefulness in studies of human speech development and in reduction of crop-harming insect grubs, starlings themselves damage crops, and in flocks can endanger jet aircraft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart's_starling
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/researchers-have-much-learn-about-human-language-studying-animals
Either way, the bird in its own singing then so well imitated the opening bars of the third movement of the K.453 concerto that Mozart transcribed the performance into his notes for that day, along with the comment "that was beautiful!" and the fact that he shelled out 34 kreutzers to buy the starling. Per the transcription Mozart put into his diary, the bird only made two mistakes, one in adherence to beat at close of a measure, and one of intonation in the following bar where it sang a couple of G# instead of G.
Starlings are in fact good vocal mimics of whatever they hear, and much like catbirds readily imitate any ambient sounds in their accustomed habitat and embed the results in their own songs. Like humans, starlings can recognize each other as individuals by how they vocalize. Today some countries prohibit their captivity as pets whether or not they are also officially regarded as pests. Despite their usefulness in studies of human speech development and in reduction of crop-harming insect grubs, starlings themselves damage crops, and in flocks can endanger jet aircraft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart's_starling
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/researchers-have-much-learn-about-human-language-studying-animals
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