Last night, on Burns’ Night, my book group met on Zoom to read Robert Burns’ poem ‘Tam O’Shanter’. Several members of the group had grown up taking part in annual Burns recitations on January 25, with prizes given for the best or most dramatic performances. They recalled the sound effects and props used by winning speakers to conjure up Tam fleeing from the scene of devilish revelry on his horse Meg, whose tail is plucked off by a pursuing spirit as the mare leaps with Tam to safety across the river (spirits won’t cross running water, it seems).

My eye fell on Robert Burns’ dates – 1759-96. Very similar to Mozart’s dates – 1756-91. Two short but brilliant lives! Did they know of one another? I don’t know, but I imagine they would have shared many attitudes to life and art.

Both were capable of being earthy and cheeky. Both had great sympathy for ‘the common man’ and a healthy disregard for rank and titles. Robert Burns’ famous poem, ‘A Man’s a Man for a’ that’, would surely have struck a chord with Mozart. And Mozart’s letters to his family, with puns and jokes about bodily functions, would have made Burns laugh.

Mozart was a good linguist, but even if he knew some English he probably never encountered the Scots vocabulary used by Burns. Burns shot to fame when his volume of ‘Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect’ was published in 1786, when Mozart was flourishing in Vienna. But as far as I know, those poems were not translated into German until the early 19th century, so Mozart may never have read them.

Curiously, they had birthdays close together – Robert Burns on January 25, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on January 27. Two great artists born under the sign of Aquarius, whose qualities are said to include a love of independence and equality.