The Cats' Symphony: A Musical Artwork and its Secret Society

Cats are not naturally musical creatures. They do not sing like birds or hum with whales. Yet, their sounds and movements have been part of musical stories for centuries. One example is a cruel sixteenth-century instrument called a cat piano. Another is the tale of composer Alessandro Scarlatti's black cat, Pulcinella. The cat ran across his keyboard, inspiring his "Cat Fugue in G minor." "Bless the cat!" he reportedly said. "She has given me the very theme I have been searching for."

Images of cats playing real instruments are common in art and film. They appear in a 1700 painting of an animal orchestra and in a 1950 movie where Fred Astaire dances as a cat on a piano. Today, popular internet videos of cats walking on pianos continue this idea. These musical cats are often better for looking at than for listening to.

In 1868, Austrian painter Moritz von Schwind created a work called Katzensymphonie, or "Cats' Symphony." In this drawing, cats climb, tumble, and sleep on the lines of a musical staff. They form a written sonata for violins. There is a German joke in the title. The word Katzenmusik is used to describe a very unpleasant noise. Schwind's playful score seems to make fun of composer Richard Wagner's serious writings about the "Artwork of the Future."

The painter made his Katzensymphonie as a gift. It celebrated violinist Joseph Joachim's new job as director of the Berlin Music School. Schwind and Joachim were both members of a private club called Die Schwarzen Katzen ("The Black Cats"). The club's name came from an old legend. The story said that black cats in wine cellars would find the most valuable barrels to sleep on.

The club was founded on a sunny afternoon in 1862. The founders were the contralto Amalie Joachim, Bernhard Scholz, and Luise Scholz. They were drinking a bottle of 1857 Rauenthaler wine at the time. As Bernhard Scholz later remembered, the society only allowed friends of friends to join. New members had to prove they were worthy of such fine wine through "cat-like behavior." Later, famous musicians like Johannes Brahms, Julius Otto Grimm, and Clara Schumann were accepted. The club's rules included a specific warning: "Uncat-like speech or actions shall be duly punished, and any member who opposes this shall be expelled."

Schwind was very proud of his musical drawing. On January 19, 1869, he sent a photograph of it to a poet and pastor named Edward Mörike. In a letter, he playfully teased Joachim for being unable to play this Wagnerian "Cats' Symphony." Schwind wrote:

I have become a musician, a musician of the future. Away with the old, stiff, dry staff! Outdated, outdated, outdated stuff — I need a new, lively means of expression for my new thoughts — whether it's sounds, images or the devil knows what, it doesn't matter — I have achieved the unbelievable. The enclosed sonata, dedicated to Mr Joachim, is clear proof. He admits that he is incapable of playing it — this wizard on the violin!

For some time, the story of the Katzensymphonie overshadowed the story of the club that inspired it. Bernhard Scholz had to write twice to an early biographer of Brahms named Max Kalbeck. He asked Kalbeck to fix a mistake. The mistake was the idea that the Black Cats society started because of Schwind's symphony. In truth, the symphony was made for the existing society. Kalbeck even joked that the famous Paris cabaret Le Chat Noir ("The Black Cat") might also owe something to Schwind. That cabaret's famous poster by Théophile Steinlen is still sold in Paris souvenir shops today.

The picture of the Katzensymphonie traveled far beyond its original group. It was redrawn for an 1884 issue of the American children's magazine Wide Awake. It also appeared in an 1895 British magazine during an interview with Joachim. In a strange link, the image even influenced psychology. Hermann Rorschach, who created the famous inkblot test, borrowed from the Katzensymphonie. As historian Damion Searls explains, Rorschach's personal scrapbook contains drawings of "klexy cats frolicking up and down the staff in place of notes."