Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 08/01/2024 Writing in verse that rattles along with the lively speed of a Mozart piano sonata, Hanson relates a true, if lightly embroidered, account of how the astonished composer heard a captive starling singing a phrase of his own music and so carried it away from a store for exotic pets back to his busy studio: “Outstretching his wings, / And plucking on strings, / Star tuned up his timing and tone, / Then echoed the notes that the maestro composed, / And added a few of his own.” Schu adds floating strings of notes to neatly drawn scenes of spacious Viennese streets, of a large studio strewn with instruments, of the bewigged composer and his small, dark companion sharing musical ideas alone and with ensembles, and, at last, of modern young people playing and listening to strains of that serendipitous collaboration. Notes on the historical encounter, the great composer, the common starling’s powers of mimicry, and related topics close this evocatively elegant, rhythmic commemoration. - Copyright 2024 Booklist.