This one goes out to all the red-winged blackbirds, grackles, starlings, and cowbirds that have been swarming my feeders for the past week.
Jennifer Higdon’s “On a Wire,” named for the familiar sight of birds, well, hanging out on a wire, was composed for the contemporary music sextet eighth blackbird (which markets itself all in the lower-case). Interestingly the piano part includes passages that have adjacent musicians bow the strings inside the instrument. The technique is called (wait for it) “bowed piano.” You can identify the members of eighth blackbird by their instruments: flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, and cello.
eighth blackbird is named for Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” a poem that’s been set by many composers. Lukas Foss’ response is one of the more frequently encountered.
Starlings aren’t always an annoyance. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was so charmed by one during a visit to a Viennese pet shop that he brought him home to his family. From the evidence of one of the composer’s diary entries, we know that a theme used in his Piano Concerto No. 17 was inspired by a song that his fine feathered friend had sung to him. Admittedly, Mozart tidied it up a bit first. (Originally, there had been an out-of-place G-sharp.)
I understand that everyone needs to eat, and I don’t begrudge a handful of any of these birds, but when it becomes a winged mob in leather jackets with chains, then I’m compelled to throw up the sash and trumpet through an old wrapping-paper tube.
Gentle birds, be reasonable! Eat well, but then, please – go in peace!
More about Mozart’s starling here
https://interlude.hk/mozart-inspired-pet-starling/
BONUS: From “Where’s Charley?” “My darling, my darling, I’ve fluttered and fled like a starling…”
