Sheet Mewsic: Moritz von Schwind's Katzensymphonie (1868)

Cats are not the most innately musical creatures. They cannot sing like the thrush or drone with the whales. But their mews and paws have been long incorporated into other kinds of improvisations. Consider the sadistic sixteenth-century cat piano or stories about Alessandro Scarlatti’s black cat, Pulcinella, who inspired her master’s Cat Fugue in G minor during a bout of zoomies across his piano: “‘Bless the cat!’, he cried. ‘She has given me the very theme I have been groping after.’” Cats playing acoustic instruments has been a persistent theme of visual art and cinema. From the 1700 Lombard School orchestra through Fred Astaire’s performance in Let’s Dance (1950) — where he personifies a cat scampering on the ivories (only to reveal that the piano is actually full of terrified kittens) — to contemporary viral videos of feline glissandi, musical cats are perhaps better suited for the eyes than the ears. In Moritz von Schwind’s Katzensymphonie (1868), they climb, tumble, and nap acros ... Read full article.