Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on Music Theory Print

2006 Idomeneo controversy

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References#

de:Deutsche Oper Berlin#Idomeneo-Kontroverse 2006 it:Idomeneo (opera)#Scandalo 2006

A Musical Joke

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English name#

The translated title A Musical Joke might be a poor rendering of the German original: Spaß does not necessarily connote the jocular, for which the words Scherz or Witz would more likely be used. A more accurate translation would be Some Musical Fun.

Structure and compositional elements#

The piece consists of four movements that take about 20 minutes in total to perform. Compositorial comedic devices include: *secondary dominants replacing necessary subdominant chords; *dissonance in the horns; *parallel fifths *whole-tone scales in the violin’s high register; *clumsy orchestration, backing a thin melodic line with a heavy, monotonous accompaniment in the last movement; *going to the wrong keys for a sonata-form structure (the first movement, for example, never succeeds in modulating to the dominant, and simply jumps there instead after a few failed attempts); *starting the slow movement in the wrong key (G major instead of C major); *a pathetic attempt at a fugato, also in the last movement. The piece is notable for one of the earliest known uses of polytonality (although not the earliest, having been predated by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber’s Battalia), creating the gesture of complete collapse at the end of the finale. This might be intended to produce the impression of grossly out-of-tune string playing, since the horns alone conclude in the tonic key. The lower strings behave as if the tonic has become B, while the violins and violas switch to G major, A major and E major, respectively.

Abendempfindung

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Text#

The title translates as “Evening Sentiment”. The poet is unknown, but scholars speculate the text may be written by Joachim Heinrich Campe. The song is in a melancholy mood, with the singer reviewing his failed romantic relationship and the inevitability of death. Abend ist’s, die Sonne ist verschwunden, Und der Mond strahlt Silberglanz; So entflieh’n des Lebens schönste Stunden, Flieh’n vorüber wie im Tanz! Bald entflieht des Lebens bunte Szene, Und der Vorhang rollt herab. Aus ist unser Spiel! Des Freundes Träne Fließet schon auf unser Grab. Bald vielleicht (mir weht, wie Westwind leise, Eine stille Ahnung zu) Schließ’ ich dieses Lebens Pilgerreise, Fliege in das Land der Ruh’. Werdet ihr dann an meinem Grabe weinen, Trauernd meine Asche seh’n, Dann, o Freunde, will ich euch erscheinen Und will Himmel auf euch weh’n. Schenk’ auch du ein Tränchen mir Und pflücke mir ein Veilchen auf mein Grab; Und mit deinem seelenvollen Blicke Sieh’ dann sanft auf mich herab. Weih mir eine Träne, und ach! Schäme dich nur nicht, sie mir zu weih’n, Oh, sie wird in meinem Diademe Dann die schönste Perle sein. It is evening, the sun has disappeared, and the moon shines silver lustre; Thus flee life’s fairest hours, Flee away as if in a dance. Soon flees life’s colorful scene, And the curtain comes down; Done is our play, the friend’s tear Flow already on our grave. Soon, perhaps (like a gentle west wind, A quiet foreboding blows toward me) I close this life’s pilgrimage, And fly to the land of rest. Will you then weep at my grave, Look in mourning at my ashes, Then, o friends, I will appear And wave you towards heaven. You too gift me a little tear and pluck Me a violet for my grave, And with your soulful gaze Look then gently down on me. Consecrate a tear to me, and alas! Do not be ashamed for such dedication; O, it will be in my diadem Then the most beautiful pearl!

Adagio and Allegro in F minor for a mechanical organ, K. 594

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Background#

The piece was commissioned by Count for use as a funeral mass to be played on a mechanical organ clock in the mausoleum for the recently deceased Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) Ernst Gideon von Laudon, part of the Müllersche Kunstgalerie, the wax art gallery and organ museum of “Joseph Müller” (which was the Count Deym’s assumed name). This displayed a casket covered with glass, through which one could view a wax figure of the Field Marshal. When the clock struck the hour, a lament was heard: a new one each week, one of which was Mozart’s Adagio and Allegro. Although Mozart intended the piece to be played on a mechanical clockwork organ, he wished later that it could be played on a conventional organ. In a letter to his wife Constanze dated 3 October 1790, he wrote, “If it were on a large clock-work with a sound like an organ, I’d be glad to do it; but as it is a thing made up of tiny pipes only, which sound too shrill and childish for me”. As time passed, Mozart seemed to be content with the decision, saying later that the work and its installation in the gallery in “fruitlessness and purity and compatibility to the works of art eclipses anything that anyone has ever succeeded in producing”. The piece takes about twelve minutes to perform.

Adagio and Fugue in C minor (Mozart)

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Form#

The work is in two sections: # Adagio # Fuga (Allegro) The 52-bar Adagio has a very ominous and foreboding tone; musicologist Robert D. Levin said: “Angular outbursts alternate with an unearthly hush; its suggestions of violence and mysticism make the ensuing geometry of the fugue seem a relief”. The adagio section is notated in time, and the fugue is written as an Allegro common time.

Composition#

The reason for the work’s composition remains a mystery, as there is no known commission for it. One theory is that it was composed on a suggestion by F. A. Hoffmeister, who originally published the work. 1788 was also a time of significant contrapuntal composition for Mozart; in that year he composed a five-part fugue in the key of C major, for the finale of his Symphony No. 41 K.551, so possibly fugal ideas were prominent in Mozart’s mind at this time. The autograph of the fugue of K.546 is in the British Library (Add MS 28966). The autograph of the Adagio is missing. In modern times, the work is typically played for string quartet, though, a few recordings can be found using the interpreted orchestral version.

Adagio and Rondo for glass harmonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello

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External links#

*Zweig MS 61 (digitized manuscript from the British Library) *

Adélaïde Concerto

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Background#

First published in 1933 in a version for violin and piano, the concerto was said by Casadesus, the “editor”, to have been arranged from a manuscript by the ten-year-old Mozart, with a title page containing a dedication to Madame Adélaïde, the fourth daughter of King Louis XV. Conveniently enough, this alleged manuscript was never accessible to later researchers such as Alfred Einstein and Friedrich Blume, but Casadesus described it, according to Blume, as “an autograph manuscript in two staves, of which the upper stave carries the solo part and the lower carries the bass.” In what was surely a nose-tweak at those fooled by this imposture, Casadesus also reported that “The upper stave is notated in D, the lower in E”. Since the violin is not a transposing instrument, there would have been no obvious technical reason for the upper staff to be written in a different key from the lower staff, especially for what sounds more like a short score than a completed score. Despite the lack of provenance, Blume was thoroughly taken in by the concerto, although Einstein professed himself skeptical. The latter referred to it as “a piece of mystification a la Kreisler”. (Fritz Kreisler, the famed violinist, had written several pieces in the styles of composers such as Gaetano Pugnani, Giuseppe Tartini, and Antonio Vivaldi which he had originally passed off as compositions by these older masters.) Many others expressed similar doubts, but only in 1977 during a copyright dispute did Casadesus admit his authorship of this alleged “Mozart” work. The “Adélaïde Concerto” is sometimes erroneously credited to Marius’ brother Henri Casadesus, perhaps because of many other spurious musical pieces he and other members of the Casadesus family composed in the names of Johann Christian Bach, George Frideric Handel, and other composers.

Ah, lo previdi

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Description#

Sung by the character Andromeda, this extensive concert aria takes around twelve to fourteen minutes to perform. Paul Corneilson points out that the piece is “virtually a solo cantata but without the strict divisions between recitative and aria; one emotional state follows close behind another”. There are various tempo markings, including Allegro risoluto, Allegro, Andante, Adagio and Andantino, consisting of 323 bars, primarily in the key of C minor. The work calls for two oboes, two horns in E and strings. The final cavatina “Deh, non varcar” features a lyrical accompaniment with the oboe, as Andromeda pleads for Perseus to wait for her in the afterlife.

Allegro in D major (Mozart)

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Background#

Not much is known about the context of the piece, except that it was labeled in auction catalogues from the 1900s as a “sketch for a composition for orchestra or chamber ensemble”. The autograph manuscript was bought in the late 1920s by a Dutch engineer. For 90 years, the owner’s family held the manuscript in their possession before offering it to the International Mozarteum Foundation, who accepted the offer. The manuscript was confirmed to be written by Mozart through examination of the paper, ink and handwriting.

Als Luise die Briefe ihres ungetreuen Liebhabers verbrannte

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History#

Mozart wrote the piece on 26 May 1787, when he had just started to write Don Giovanni, in the Vienna district of Landstraße in the room of his friend and occasional composer Gottfried von Jacquin (1767–1792), who was then 21 years old. It is set to words of the poet Gabriele von Baumberg (1768–1839), an acquaintance of Mozart and Jacquin. In fact, Mozart wrote this piece for Jacquin’s use, who had it copied – with Mozart’s knowledge – into a songbook of six songs under his own attribution; the four other songs were by Jacquin. Mozart’s other contribution for this songbook was “Das Traumbild”, K. 530, which Mozart posted to Jacquin later that year from Prague where he prepared Don Giovanni. Emil Gottfried Edler von Jacquin was a son of Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin and younger brother of Joseph Franz von Jacquin. Nikolaus and Mozart often gave house concerts together where Nikolaus played the flute. Gottfried also had a younger sister, Franziska (9 October 1769 – 12 August 1850) who received piano lesson from Mozart. In a letter to Gottfried from 15 January 1787 he praises her studiousness and diligence. Mozart dedicated a considerable number of his works to the Jacquin family, notably the Kegelstatt Trio. This was first played at the Jacquins’ house in August 1786 with Mozart playing the viola, Anton Stadler the clarinet, and Franziska the piano. Gottfried von Jacquin added different dedications to each of the six songs, and had his booklet published in Vienna by Laurenz Lausch in 1791; he died the following year, 25 years old. His family had it published again as part of his estate in about 1803 by Johann Cappi. Jacquin’s dedication for this work (K. 520) was . Sybille Dahms believes this to be the contralto singer Katharina von Altomonte who sang – alongside Mozart’s sister-in-law and former love interest Maria Aloysia Lange, the “incomparable” (Joseph II) tenor Valentin Adamberger, and the bass Ignaz Saal – in the March 1789 performance of Handel’s Messiah in Mozart’s orchestration. Katharina von Altomonte was presumably related to the painter Bartolomeo Altomonte (1694–1783) who was famous for his painted ceilings in many Austrian churches. On 27 March 1799 Constanze Mozart wrote to the publishers Breitkopf & Härtel: In considering the above songs I must state for your and the public’s benefit that the two: “Erzeugt von heisser Phantasie” K520 and “Wo bist du, bild etc” K530 did pass here, and thus most likely also in other places, for the work of the here deceased Emil Gotfried Edler v. Jacquin, a close friend of my husband. However, the original score shows that it is from my husband himself; on one of them K520 it is even written in his own hand that it was made in Jacquin’s home at the Landstraße (a suburb here)." Subsequently, K. 520 was first published under Mozart’s name in the 1799 Breitkopf & Härtel Œuvres, where it was titled by the publishers "" (“Unhappy Love”). After Constanze sold the autograph as part of a large collection to the Kapellmeister Johann Anton André, it passed on to his son Johann August André. It came then to the Austrian ambassador in Berlin, Count György Esterházy (1809–1856) and was later purchased by Louisa Emily Charlotte, Lady Revelstoke, wife of Edward Baring, 1st Baron Revelstoke; at her death in 1892 it fell to her second daughter, Margaret, wife of Charles Spencer, 6th Earl Spencer. It remained in the Spencer family until it was put up for sale on 16 October 1985 as lot 146 at Christie’s, London, when a Janez Mercun in Geneva acquired it. It came up for auction again at Christie’s on 3 December 2003 where it was sold for £251,650 (then US$435,355).

An Chloe

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Text#

Jacobi’s poem consists of 13 four-line stanzas with an A–B–A–B rhyme scheme. Mozart, who found it in the Göttinger Musenalmanach from 1785, used only the first four. The stanzas not used tell how the lovers’ happiness was cut short by betrayal and death. The “death” in the third stanza refers to the height of passion after which the lovers release their embrace – la petite mort. From the ancient Greek novel Daphnis and Chloe, Chloe is the name of a shepherdess often used in poetic pastoral settings. Wenn die Lieb’ aus deinen blauen, hellen, offnen Augen sieht, und vor Lust hinein zu schauen mir’s im Herzen klopft und glüht; Und ich halte dich und küsse deine Rosenwangen warm, liebes Mädchen, und ich schließe zitternd dich in meinem Arm, Mädchen, Mädchen, und ich drücke dich an meinen Busen fest, der im letzten Augenblicke sterbend nur dich von sich läßt; den berauschten Blick umschattet eine düstre Wolke mir, und ich sitze dann ermattet, aber selig neben dir. When love shines from your blue, bright, open eyes, and the joy of gazing into them makes my heart pound and glows; And I hold you and kiss Your rosy cheeks warm, dear girl, and I clasp you trembling in my arms, Girl, girl, and I press you firmly to my breast, which at the last moment, only dying, lets you go; My intoxicated gaze is shadowed by a gloomy cloud, and then I sit, exhausted, but blissful, next to you.

Apollo et Hyacinthus

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History#

After notable success in other areas of Europe, Mozart was commissioned to compose a piece for the Benedictine University in his hometown of Salzburg where it was first performed on 13 May 1767. Mozart’s father, Leopold, was a notable name at the university, as many of his pupils were enrolled in the university high school, where theatre played a large role in the curriculum. Mozart’s first encounter with the university was at the age of five on September 1 and 3, 1761, when he appeared as an extra in Jakob Anton Wimmer and Johann Ernst Eberlin’s Latin Drama Sigismundes Hungariae Rex. Though Mozart was often involved at the university, he was never enrolled as a student. Apollo et Hyacinthus was part of a much larger work, which has caused debate as to whether this work can be considered Mozart’s first ‘operatic work’. Many historians consider it to be operatic because it is a secular drama composed of five arias, two duets, a chorus and a trio, connected with recitative. However, it was part of the annual end-of-term ‘final comoedia’ and did not even receive a distinguishing name until Mozart’s sister Nannerl entered it into Leopold’s catalogue of his son’s early works with the name after the composer’s death. The custom at the university was to perform short musical dramas or ‘intermedia’ interspersed between acts of the larger play. This particular performance was of the five-act tragedy Clementia Croesi, written by the university’s philosophy professor Rufinus Widl. The main work and Mozart’s intermedia were designed by Widl to share general motifs and themes. Widl’s tragedy dealt with the accidental death of the son of the King of Lydia by a misplaced spear throw. Mozart’s work paralleled this theme by mounting a story first told by Euripides. In the original story, Apollo accidentally kills his lover, a boy named Hyacinth, with one of his stray discus throws. The discus throw was encouraged by Apollo’s rival, Zephyrus, jealous of his affair with Hyacinth. A grief-stricken Apollo then causes a gorgeous flower to bloom from Hyacinth’s grave. Father Rufinus retained the outlined of this plot but removed the controversial themes of a homosexual love triangle by adding in two new characters: Hyacinth’s father Oebalus and his sister Melia, the new source of Apollo’s love and the jealousy of Zephyr. The performance was a great success but was only performed once during the composer’s lifetime.

Ascanio in Alba

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Performance history#

It was first performed at the Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan on 17 October 1771. It was performed in October 2006 on the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth at La Scala, Milan, under the baton of Giovanni Antonini. The ballet which linked the two acts was twice performed by the orchestra of the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston in 2006.

Instrumentation#

The opera is scored for an orchestra consisting of pairs of flutes, oboes, bassoons, trumpets and horns, as well as timpani, a string section and basso continuo (harpsichord, cello).

Ave verum corpus (Mozart)

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History#

Mozart composed the motet in 1791 in the middle of writing his opera Die Zauberflöte. Mozart set the main verse of the 13th-century Latin Eucharist hymn “Ave verum corpus”, omitting the last three lines. He wrote the motet for Anton Stoll (1747–1805), a friend of his. Stoll was the musical director of the parish St. Stephan, Baden. The setting was composed to celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi; the autograph is dated 17 June 1791; Mozart dated it in his personal catalogue on 18 June. (The feast of Corpus Christi falls on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday, and in 1791 was observed on 23 June.) The composition is only forty-six bars long and is scored for SATB choir, string instruments, and organ. Mozart’s manuscript contains minimal directions, with only a single sotto voce marking at the beginning. The motet was composed less than six months before Mozart’s death. While the Requiem is a dramatic composition, this motet is simpler in structure, suited for the church choir in a small town. Franz Liszt made transcriptions of Mozart’s motet for piano solo (Searle 461a) and for organ (Searle 674d), and also quoted Mozart in his fantasie piece Evocation à la Chapelle Sixtine (Searle 461), in versions for piano, organ, orchestra, and piano duet. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky incorporates an orchestration of Liszt’s transcription in his fourth orchestral suite, Mozartiana, Op. 61; a tribute to Mozart’s music.

Bardengesang auf Gibraltar: O Calpe! Dir donnert's am Fuße

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History#

The Great Siege of Gibraltar was an unsuccessful attempt by Spain and France to capture the territory from the British during the American War of Independence. It began in June 1779 and was still ongoing at the time that Mozart wrote the piece; it did not end until February 1783. In September 1782, a large British fleet comprising 31 transport ships and 34 ships of the line brought vital supplies, food and ammunition as well as three regiments to Gibraltar to resupply and strengthen the garrison. It was opposed by a Franco-Spanish fleet but reached Gibraltar unopposed due to a storm which dispersed the French and Spanish ships. The fleet’s commander, Admiral Richard Howe, then fought the inconclusive Battle of Cape Spartel before returning to Britain. The success of the relief operation put an end to the besiegers’ hopes of overcoming the British defenders, and the following January a peace agreement was reached to end the fighting. When news of the British success reached Vienna, Mozart expressed joy in a letter to Leopold, his father. Leopold asked Mozart whether he had heard about it, to which the latter replied in a letter of 19 October 1782: “Yes, indeed, I have heard the news of England’s victories — and with great joy, for you know I am a arch-Englishman .” This was unusual in itself. Mozart’s many letters contain few indications of his political leanings and little sign of any interest in politics in general, so it was most uncommon for him to express himself in such a way. Austria was not involved in the war, nor did he have any personal connections with it or with Gibraltar. The American musicologist Neal Zaslaw suggests that “the Catholic Mozart’s pleasure at the defeat of two Catholic countries at the hands of a Protestant country can only be explained by England’s position as the most Enlightened country in Europe.” Around the same time, the Austrian poet Michael Denis wrote a heroic ode to commemorate the success of the British action. Denis’s poem was written in the so-called “sublime style”, which Hugh Blair had criticised some years earlier as merely an assemblage of “magnificent words, accumulated epithets, and a certain swelling form of expression” that tended to obscure the relative emptiness of the thoughts thus expressed. Denis considered himself a heroic bard, even styling himself “Sined the Bard” (“Sined” being “Denis” backwards) in the mode of Ossian, which he had translated into German. He composed what Elaine R. Sisman describes as “an extended apostrophe to Gibraltar and the British admiral Howe who saved it from blockade; the poem contains in its eleven stanzas fully thirty-five exclamation points.” A Hungarian woman living in Vienna commissioned Mozart to set Denis’s poem to music, apparently intending to pay a surprise tribute to the poet. Mozart explained what he was trying to do in another letter to his father, but complained of the artistically unsatisfactory nature of his source material: Mozart set the first three stanzas but then gave up at the end of the first line of the fourth stanza. The short section of the ode tackled by Mozart is addressed to Gibraltar itself, called by the ancient name of ‘Calpe’. It first sets the scene with the “wings of assistance” of the British fleet approaching the peninsula. A storm approaches and sweeps over the sea and coast, driving enemy (French and Spanish) ships onto the rocks. The rise of the storm in the first stanza is represented by tremolos and turning figures, with oscillating neighbour-notes used to depict the fluttering flags and sails of the British fleet. The second triad utilises a repeating broken D minor triad, followed by rising and falling scales in the third stanza to represent the breaking waves and the ships being swept onto the rocks. Sisman suggests that Mozart realised that the piece was going nowhere after the initial “forced heroics” and comments that the composer had fallen into the trap of invoking the “stilted and overwrought” “sublime style”, rather than truly invoking the awe and terror of the sublime. It was perhaps this realisation that prompted him to abandon the piece as a hopeless effort. Alternatively, Sisman suggests (perhaps a little tongue-in-cheek), “it might have been the prospect of the threefold ‘Hinan!’ ‘Onward!’ at the end of the fourth stanza that finally made Mozart throw up his hands.”

Bassoon Concerto (Mozart)

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Instrumentation#

The concerto is scored for a solo bassoon and an orchestra consisting of 2 oboes, 2 horns in B (sometimes transcribed for F), violin I/II, viola, and cello and double bass doubling the bass line.

Structure#

The piece is divided into three movements: The first movement is written in the common sonata form with an orchestral introduction. The second movement is a slow and lyrical sonata without development that contains a theme which was later featured in the Countess’s aria “Porgi, amor” at the beginning of the second act of Mozart’s opera Le nozze di Figaro. The final movement is in rondo form.

Bastien und Bastienne

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Synopsis#

:Place: A pastoral village :Time: Indeterminate Bastienne, a shepherdess, fears that her “dearest friend”, Bastien, has forsaken her for another pretty face, and decides to go into the pasture to be comforted by her flock of lambs. Before she can leave, however, she runs into Colas, the village soothsayer. Bastienne requests the help of his magical powers to help win back her Bastien. Colas (being a soothsayer) knows all about the problem, and comforts her with the knowledge that Bastien has not abandoned her, rather, he’s merely been distracted lately by ’the lady of the manor’. His advice is to act coldly towards Bastien, which will make him come running back. Bastien is heard approaching, so Bastienne hides herself. Bastien swaggers in, proclaiming how much he loves Bastienne. Colas informs him that Bastienne has a new lover. Bastien is shocked and asks the magician for help. Colas opens his book of spells and recites a nonsense aria filled with random syllables and Latin quotations. Colas declares the spell a success and that Bastienne is in love with Bastien once more. Bastienne, however, decides to keep up the game a bit longer and spurns Bastien with great vehemence. Bastien threatens suicide, which Bastienne merely shrugs off. Finally, the two decide that they have gone far enough and agree to reconcile. Colas joins them as they all sing a final trio in praise of the magician.

Bei der Hitz im Sommer eß ich

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Authenticity#

In 1988, Wolfgang Plath presented evidence that the composer of this piece, as well as “Leck mir den Arsch fein recht schön sauber”, K. 233/382d/Anh.A 39, was in fact Wenzel Trnka (1739–1791). That Mozart might not be the author of the canons K. 229, K. 230, “Leck mich im Arsch”, K. 231, K. 233, K. 234 (this work) was already mentioned in the Bärenreiter Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (NMA) in 1974. Mozart’s widow Constanze Mozart submitted the modified canon to publisher Breitkopf & Härtel.

Beim Auszug in das Feld

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Composition and publication#

Mozart entered the composition into his personal catalog of completed works on 11 August 1788, one day after he had similarly recorded the completion of his celebrated Symphony No. 41 (Jupiter Symphony). The song was a response to the war against Turkey that had been launched by the Austrian emperor (and Mozart’s patron) Joseph II; said war initially gave rise to a highly patriotic public response, though later on it proved a fiasco (negligible territorial gains, severe economic stress, and the loss of political freedom). The song was one of three patriotic works written by Mozart in response to the war. Christoph Wolff writes that Mozart “paid patriotic tribute when he wrote the orchestral contradanse La bataille, K. 535, a piece of martial music on the siege of Belgrade for the entertainment of the Redoubtensaal society” (the Redoubtensäle were the Imperial ballrooms, and Mozart’s job with the Emperor required him to write music to be danced there). Wolff also mentions “the war song ‘Ich möchte wohl der Kaiser sein’ (‘I wish I were the emperor’), K. 539, for bass and a Turkish-style military band”; it was sung by the comedian Friedrich Baumann in a patriotic concert in the Theater in der Leopoldstadt in Vienna, 7 March 1788. “Beim Auszug in das Feld” was published in “a short-lived periodical, to which Mozart subscribed, entitled Wochenblatt für Kinder zur angenehmen und lehrreichen Beschäftigung in ihren Freystunden (‘Weekly for children, providing Pleasant and Instructive Occupation in their Leisure Hours’; iv, 1788)”. The journal publication also provided some annotation and commentary, highly patriotic in tone. According to Alexander Hyatt King, only three copies of the original publication survive today; Mozart’s autograph (hand-written original) is lost.

Bella mia fiamma, addio

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Description#

Sung by the character Titano, the aria is marked andante, then allegro, and consists of 196 bars in the key of C major. The vocal range reaches from D to A with a tessitura of D to G. A typical performance lasts for around ten minutes. The aria contains bravura writing with difficult chromatic passages. The aria part of the work calls for a flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two natural horns in C, and strings. The time signature for the introduction is common time , then for the aria proper Triple metre triple metre.

Betulia liberata

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Mozart’s setting#

The setting of Mozart, K. 118 (74c), is the best known, if only because the composer’s output receives more examination. Composed in March to July 1771 when Mozart was fifteen, it is a 140-minute on a text by Metastasio tracing the story of Judith beheading Holofernes from the biblical Book of Judith. It was commissioned in March 1771 by Giuseppe Ximenes, Prince of Aragon, while Mozart and his father Leopold were on the way home to Salzburg from their first journey to Italy. It is the only oratorio Mozart ever wrote. Its two parts comprise sixteen arias, with solo or choral parts, scored for soloists, choir and orchestra. Not performed in Mozart’s lifetime, Betulia liberata is shaped stylistically to works by Leonardo Leo and Johann Adolph Hasse. Performances of Mozart’s setting include one at the 2006 Salzburg Festival conducted by Christoph Poppen. The performance was recorded and subsequently released as DVD. (See in “Recordings” below.) In 2010 both the Mozart and the Jommelli settings were performed side by side at the Salzburg Whitsun and Ravenna festivals conducted by Riccardo Muti.

Bona nox

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Music#

The canon is written in the time signature of cut common time and in the key signature of A major. The theme is 16 bars long; each of the four voices enters after four bars.

Text#

The original lyrics are probably by Mozart himself; they include the words for “good night” in five different languages (Latin, Italian, French, English, and German). The phrase “”, found in the fourth-to-last and third-to-last lines, closely resembles a similar expression found in a postscript to one of Wolfgang’s letters by his mother, written to his father; also in Mozart’s letter from to his sister. :

Cassation in D major, K. 100

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History#

The cassation was written most probably in the summer of 1769, and although the exact reasons for composition are not known, it has been suggested that it was written for the Archbishop of Salzburg. The three central movements feature prominent use of the oboe and horn, and this may well have been the first time Mozart wrote for Joseph Ignaz Leutgeb, a talented horn player for whom Mozart would later write his four horn concertos for.

Cassation in G major, K. 63

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The first three of the nine large-scale orchestral serenades that Mozart composed for Salzburg between 1769 and 1779 all date from the former year, when he was thirteen, and none of them bears a title in his own hand. He did, however, in a letter he wrote to Nannerl from Bologna on 4 August 1770, refer to all three (giving the incipits of their introductory marches) as Cassationen—a term whose original meaning in a musical context has never been conclusively explained, although various suggestions have been put forward, most plausibly perhaps as outdoor music (from the contemporary Austrian expression , i.e. ’to perform in the streets’). Their exact chronology has not been established, but it is known that Finalmusiken by Mozart were performed on 6 and 8 August 1769, for the finalists in Logic and Physic, respectively, and it seems likely that the two works played were K. 63 and K. 99, both modestly scored and in seven movements, including a march. The grander K. 100 was probably written for another festive occasion, perhaps for the Archbishop, later in the summer.

Ch'io mi scordi di te?

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Earlier in 1786, Mozart had composed a previous score, musically only distantly related on the same text, as an insertion aria for the character Idamante in a revised version of his 1781 opera Idomeneo. It was made for a private performance in Prince Auersperg’s palace in Vienna. For that concert, Mozart reworked the role of Idamante (originally a castrato) for the tenor voice, and the substitution of this scena (recitative and “Non più. Tutto ascoltai… Non temer, amato bene”, K. 490) for that of 1781 was only one of many changes that resulted from this recasting. The K. 505 setting was written for Nancy Storace, probably for her farewell concert from Vienna on 23 February 1787 at the Theater am Kärntnertor. Mozart himself very likely played the obbligato piano part (K. 490 has an extensive violin obbligato). The words to the aria have been thought to be by Lorenzo Da Ponte, but they are in either case (K. 490 and K. 505), with the exception of the short recitative, exactly those of Giambattista Varesco’s original Idomeneo libretto of 1781. Mozart entered the work on 27 December 1786 into his catalogue with the remark: “for Mlle Storace and me”. He performed it again with Josepha Duschek on 12 May 1789 in the Gewandhaus in Leipzig on his Berlin journey.

Church Sonatas (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Clarinet Concerto (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Anton Stadler, a close friend of Mozart, was a virtuoso clarinettist and co-inventor of the basset clarinet, an instrument with an extended range of lower notes. It went down to low (written) C, instead of stopping at (written) E as standard clarinets do. Stadler was also an expert player of the basset horn. Mozart first composed music for that instrument as early as 1783, and for the basset clarinet in 1787. The latter features in the instrumentation of Così fan tutte (1789). In early October 1791 Mozart wrote to his wife from Prague that he had completed “Stadler’s rondo” – the third movement of the Clarinet Concerto. The concerto was the final major work Mozart completed; Wolfgang Hildesheimer has described it as the composer’s “last instrumental work, and his last great completed work of any kind”, There is no surviving autograph for the concerto, and the printed score was published posthumously. The only relic of the work written in Mozart’s hand is an excerpt of an earlier rendition written for basset horn in G (K. 584b/621b). This excerpt, dating from late 1789, is nearly identical to the corresponding section in the published version for A clarinet, although only the melody lines are completely filled out. The clarinettist Alan Hacker commented in 1969 that if the original manuscript had been published, “manufacturers would have made and sold basset clarinets by the thousand”, but the manuscript was lost. Mozart’s widow told a publisher that Stadler had either lost it, pawned it or had it stolen from him. In 1801 three different publishing houses – André, Sieber, and Breitkopf & Härtel – published editions of the work, all with the solo part adapted for the standard clarinet. In 1968, the Swiss clarinettist Hans Rudolf Stalder used an instrument built by F. Arthur Uebel to perform a version of the concerto reconstructed in collaboration with Ernst Hess in Augsburg, Germany. He made the first recording of the concerto using a basset clarinet, with the Cologne Chamber Orchestra, in September 1968, The most frequently performed are the two versions published by Bärenreiter (Kratochvil/Hess) and Schott (Wehle/Meyer)

Clarinet Quintet (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition and premiere#

The composer indicated that the work was finished on 29 September 1789. It received its premiere on 22 December of the same year, in one of the four annual Vienna performances of the Tonkünstler-Societät, an organization that existed to fund pensions for widows and orphans of musicians. The main item on the program was a cantata, Il natale d’Apollo, by Vincenzo Righini; Mozart’s work was performed between the two halves of this work. The solo clarinet part was taken by Stadler, the first violin part by Joseph Zistler (1744–1794).

Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Mozart wrote the concerto in April 1778, during his seven-month sojourn in Paris. It was commissioned by Adrien-Louis de Bonnières, duc de Guînes (1735–1806), a flutist, for his use and for that of his eldest daughter, Marie-Louise-Philippine (1759–1796), a harpist, who was taking composition lessons from the composer, at the duke’s home, the Hôtel de Castries. Mozart stated in a letter to his father that he thought the duke played the flute “extremely well” and that Marie’s playing of the harp was “magnifique”. As a composition student, however, Mozart found Marie thoroughly inept. The duke (until 1776, the comte de Guines), an aristocrat Mozart came to despise, never paid the composer for this work, and Mozart instead was offered only half the expected fee for the lessons, through de Guines’ housekeeper. But he refused it. (For his tutoring, Mozart was owed six Louis d’or.) Little is known of the work’s early performance history, though it seems probable that father and daughter played it first. In the classical period, the harp was still in development and was not considered a standard orchestral instrument. It was regarded more as a plucked piano. Therefore, the combination of harp and flute was considered extremely unusual. Currently, there is much more repertoire for a flute and harp duo, especially without orchestra. Much of this repertoire was written by composers in the nineteenth century. Mozart’s opinion of the harp, however, was perhaps dubious at best, for he never wrote another piece that employed it. Mozart quite likely composed this work with the duke’s and his daughter’s particular musical abilities in mind. He probably composed the majority of this concerto at the home of Joseph Legros, the director of the Concert Spirituel. Monsieur Legros had given Mozart the use of his keyboard in his home so that he could compose. (Mozart perhaps also composed part of the concerto at his second Paris apartment where he stayed with his mother, which was on the rue du Gros Chenet.) The piece is essentially in the form of a Sinfonia Concertante, which was extremely popular in Paris at the time. Alfred Einstein claimed that Mozart’s cadenzas for this work were lost. A few popular cadenzas are often performed, such as those by Carl Reinecke, but many flutists and harpists have chosen to write their own. André Previn has also written cadenzas for this piece.

Concerto for Violin, Piano, and Orchestra (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

“Work details”, Köchel-Verzeichnis, International Mozarteum Foundation
, Vladyslava Luchenko (violin), Frank Braley (piano), Kaspar Zehnder conducting the Biel Solothurn Symphony Orchestra

Concertone for two Violins and Orchestra

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Despite illegible handwriting, an xray of the manuscript revealed a date of 31 May 1774. According to , the piece was composed in Italy, although Salzburg is written on the title page and is accepted as the place of composition, completed soon after Mozart’s return from an extended trip to Italy. The circumstances for the Salzburg performance are unknown, however, the inclusion of trumpets suggest it may have been a celebratory or festive occasion. Mozart himself may have played one of the solo violin parts. Presumably the Concertone was performed by the Salzburg court orchestra. Music with string solos was fashionable at the time, led by Mozart’s employer Archbishop Colloredo, who himself played the violin. It was written before the 1775 violin concertos in Salzburg, and was first published in 1870 in Leipzig by August Cranz Hofmeister. It was also published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1880. The original autograph manuscript is housed at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. During the time of composition, Mozart was going through a particularly productive phase in his teen years. He’d just completed his Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183 a few months earlier, as well as his first original piano concerto, K. 175 and he was soon to begin work on an opera for Munich, projected for the Carnival season of 1775–75, La finta giardiniera. Mozart must have thought highly of the work, as he brought the manuscript with him on his journey through Mannheim, Munich and ultimately Paris in 1778. Wolfgang’s father Leopold urged him to have the work performed in Mannheim, but it was never realised and Mozart performed it in a keyboard reduction.

Conservati fedele

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Mozart composed the aria in October 1765 while staying at The Hague during the family’s British-European tour when he was nine years old. Both of the Mozart children, Wolfgang and his sister Nannerl, were quite ill at the time. It was slightly revised in January 1766, possibly for a performance for Princess Carolina of Orange-Nassau. In his list of Wolfgang’s works which he started in 1768 in Vienna, his father Leopold entered this piece as no. 2 of 15 Italian Arias, composed in London and The Hague (). The Newberry Library (Case MS 6A, 48), Chicago, acquired the manuscript (6 sheets, 11 pages) through a bequest of the opera singer Claire Dux (Mrs Charles H. Swift). It was previously owned by who gave the autograph to Aloys Fuchs as a gift. Both Fuchs and Maximilian Stadler confirmed its authenticity with their signatures on 7 December 1832. The Neue Mozart-Ausgabe also mentions an autograph (4 sheets, 7 pages) at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in its Malherbe collection.

Coronation Mass (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The mass in C major was completed on March 23, 1779, in Salzburg. Mozart had just returned to the city after 18 months of fruitless job hunting in Paris and Mannheim, and his father Leopold promptly got him a job as court organist and composer at Salzburg Cathedral. The mass was almost certainly premiered there on Easter Sunday, 4 April 1779. The first documented performance was at the coronation of Francis II as Holy Roman Emperor in 1792. after becoming the preferred music for royal and imperial coronations as well as services of thanksgiving. The nickname was included in the first edition of the Köchel catalogue of Mozart’s works in 1862.

Così fan tutte

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Performance history#

The first performance of Mozart’s setting took place at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 26 January 1790. It was given only five times before the run was stopped by the death of the Emperor Joseph II and the resulting period of court mourning. It was performed twice in June 1790 with the composer conducting the second performance, and again in July (twice) and August (once). After that it was not performed in Vienna during Mozart’s lifetime. The first British performance was in May 1811 at the King’s Theatre, London. Così fan tutte was not performed in the United States until 1922, when it was given at the Metropolitan Opera. The subject matter (see synopsis below) did not offend Viennese sensibilities of the time, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries was considered overly risqué and vulgar. Beethoven is said to have been one of those who found the storyline immoral, and his opera Fidelio has been called a response to Così. Goethe wrote about Da Ponte’s libretto, which he found deficient, “To be sure the over-simplicity of its subject, the weak delineation of the characters on the part of the poet, the situations’ lack of truth, the feebleness of the denouement, and above all the pitiful translations have contributed much to this judgment. All the greater then were the difficulties with which the composer had to battle.” (Goethe liked the music considerably more. “First one is struck by how delicately this opera is scored; how Mozart refrained from the sort of overburdening for which he has otherwise been criticized; how appropriately he has used the wind instruments. Add to that the harmony of the whole … the grace in the individual paintings, with what tenderness every emotion is handled; the truth of expression! The plot does not suffer any strong coloration, and yet such refined nuancing of the characters.”) The opera was rarely performed, and when it did appear it was done in one of several bowdlerised versions. After World War II it regained a place in the standard operatic repertoire and is now frequently performed. A comedic adaptation, Covid fan tutte, (also using other music by Mozart) depicting life during the first several months of the COVID-19 pandemic was produced by the Finnish National Opera in 2020.

Così fan tutte (Alain Lombard recording)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

The album omits some of Mozart’s recitative, and also cuts two numbers in their entirety: No. 7, the duettino “Al fato dan legge” for Ferrando and Guglielmo, and No. 24, the aria “Ah lo veggio” for Ferrando.

Recording#

The album was recorded using analogue technology in May 1977 in the Palais de la Musique et des Congrès, Strasbourg.

Cover art#

The cover of the first CD version of the album, designed by Mister Brown, features a detail of J. Pillement’s painting “Les jardins de Benfica” (1785), a work in the collection of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.

Così fan tutte (Herbert von Karajan recording)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Così fan tutte lacked the performing tradition of Mozart’s more famous operas Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro. The subject matter did not offend Viennese sensibilities of the time, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries was considered risqué, vulgar, and even immoral. The opera was rarely performed, and when it did appear it was presented in one of several bowdlerised versions. The opera was not performed in the US until 1922. The first major recording of Cosi fan tutte was released under EMI/Angel records with conductor Fritz Busch and the Glyndebourne Festival Chorus and Orchestra in 1935. Nevertheless, it was only after World War II that the opera regained a place in the standard operatic repertoire. The 1940s and 1950s saw the production of several recordings of the opera under the direction of conductors Fritz Busch with the Glyndebourne Festival and Royal Philharmonic, Karl Böhm with the Vienna Philharmonic and L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and Fritz Stiedry with the Metropolitan Opera.

Da Ponte operas

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Productions as a cycle#

Although the three operas were designed by Mozart and Da Ponte as completely separate, some stage directors endeavoured to produce them as a single story, in order to stress the continuities and echoes between them: * In 2015–2017, French director Ivan Alexandre produced the trilogy at the Drottningholm Palace Theatre and the Royal Opera of Versailles, with subsequent performances on tour. In his version, the lovelorn teenager Cherubino becomes the libertine Don Giovanni, who then ages as the disillusioned but scheming Don Alfonso; at the end of , he designates as his libertine successor Despina, sung by the same singer as Cherubino, hinting at a cyclical nature of the story. Figaro and Leporello, both servants, are performed by the same singer, as they had been by Francesco Benucci in 1786–1787. Musical quotations are added from the other operas, as Mozart himself had done when Don Giovanni’s house orchestra plays the popular tune of Figaro’s aria. * In 2020, Jean-Philippe Clarac and Olivier Delœil produced a cycle commissioned by Peter de Caluwe at the Royal Theatre of La Monnaie, Brussels. The three works are performed in a single set, a three-level open and rotating building inspired by Georges Perec’s Life: A User’s Manual, making it easier to interweave three libretti in a single twenty-four hour story. Twelve singers each played two of the twenty-five roles (for example Almaviva and Don Giovanni, the Countess and Donna Anna, or Cherubino and Dorabella), and some characters from one opera had short interventions in another, for which a few lines were redistributed to them. A colour scheme identified the elements from each opera: the blue of temperance and constancy for the Marriage, the red of blood, violence and sex for Don Giovanni, and the yellow of betrayal for .

Das Traumbild

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Mozart wrote the song on 6 November 1787 in Prague where here prepared the premiere of his opera Don Giovanni. He sent the song by mail on 9 November to his friend and occasional composer Gottfried von Jacquin, who had it copied – with Mozart’s knowledge – into a songbook of six songs under his own attribution. Four of the songs were indeed by Jacquin, Mozart’s other contribution to this collection was “Als Luise die Briefe ihres ungetreuen Liebhabers verbrannte”, K. 520. Emil Gottfried Edler von Jacquin was a son of Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin and younger brother of Joseph Franz von Jacquin. Nikolaus and Mozart often gave house concerts together where Nikolaus played the flute. Gottfried also had a younger sister, Franziska (9 October 1769 – 12 August 1850) who received piano lesson from Mozart. Mozart dedicated a considerable number of his works to the Jacquin family, notably the Kegelstatt Trio. This was first played at the Jacquins’ house in August 1786 with Mozart playing the viola, Anton Stadler the clarinet, and Franziska the piano. Gottfried von Jacquin added different dedications to each of the six songs, and had his booklet published in Vienna by Laurenz Lausch in 1791; he died the following year, 25 years old. His family had it published again as part of his estate in about 1803 by Johann Cappi. Jacquin dedicated this song to Marianne von Natorp, sister of Joseph Franz von Jaquin’s wife, Babette; both the Natorp sisters were also the dedicatees of Mozart’s Sonata in C major for piano four-hands, K. 521, composed earlier in 1787. Mozart indicates in a letter from 4 November 1787 that this song may have improved Marianne Natorp’s affection towards Jacquin. Constanze Mozart offered both songs, K. 520 and K. 530, in 1799 to Breitkopf & Härtel for publication. The work was unknown to Ludwig von Köchel and is not catalogued in the first Köchel catalogue. It was published in English by Broderip & Wilkinson in London in c. 1800 under the title “The Exile”.

Das Veilchen

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

Goethe wrote the poem in 1773 or early 1774. It was first published in March 1775 in his first Singspiel Erwin und Elmire which was first set to music in 1775 by the German composer Johann André (a revival in 1776 used music by Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and by Carl David Stegmann, and another 1785 had music by Ernst Wilhelm Wolf and Karl Christian Agthe). In 1771, Goethe had written the poem “Heidenröslein” which tells of a young man’s plucking of a feisty rose. In “Das Veilchen” it is a careless girl who destroys a violet, a metaphor for a young man’s heart.

Davide penitente

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Authorship of text#

The theme of the work is based on the Psalms and the First Book of Samuel of the Old Testament. The text was previously attributed to Lorenzo Da Ponte, following a report by Vincent Novello. However, it is now known that the text is taken from Italian translations of the Psalms by .

Structure#

Alzai le flebili voci al Signor (Andante moderato: Chorus) # Cantiamo le glorie e le lodi (Allegro vivace: Chorus) # Aria: Lungi le cure ingrate (Allegro aperto: Soprano II) # Sii pur sempre benigno (Adagio: Chorus) # Duet: Sorgi, o Signore, e spargi i tuoi nemici (Allegro moderato: Sopranos I and II) # Aria: A te, fra tanti affanni – Udisti i voti miei (Andante – Allegro: Tenor) # Se vuoi, puniscimi (Largo: Double choir) # Aria: Fra l’oscure ombre funeste – Alme belle (Andante – Allegro: Soprano) # Terzetto: Tutte le mie speranze (Allegro: Sopranos I and II, Tenor) # Chi in Dio sol spera (Adagio: Chorus) – Di tal pericoli non ho timor (Chorus)#

Recordings#

1990 – Krisztina Laki, Nicole Fallien, Hans Peter Blochwitz – Nederlands Kamerkoor, La Petite Bande, Sigiswald Kuijken – CD Deutsche Harmonia Mundi
2006 - Gloriae Dei Cantores, Elizabeth Patterson, Vox Caeli Sinfonia, Richard Pugsley - CD Gloriae Dei Cantores

External links#

Sample of the text in the original Mattei print
Digitised Text zur Passions-Musik “Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld etc.” von C. H. Graun, und zur Cantate Davidde penitente (Der büßende David) von W. A. Mozart. Berlin: Hayn, 1840.

Der Schauspieldirektor

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition history#

The work was written during a very creative period in Mozart’s life, at the same time as his Le nozze di Figaro, which premiered later the same year, along with three piano concertos and “another dozen major works”. is surrounded by much spoken dialogue, typical in its day. One highlight, which Erik Smith describes as very funny, is where “each lady sings about the nobility of her art while trying to defeat her rival with ever higher notes”. and thus the “audition” of Madame Herz includes her aria "" (“There tolls the hour of departure”), while Mme Silberklang sings the elegant rondo, "" (“Dearest Youth”).

Der Stein der Weisen

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

Der Stein der Weisen was composed using a “team approach” in which each composer contributed individual sections of the piece. All five wrote parts of act 2, and all except Mozart wrote parts of act 1. Henneberg composed the work’s overture. Schikaneder wrote the libretto for the entire piece. Der Stein der Weisen may have provided a model for that work, as the two have a similar structure and source.

Die Alte (song)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The work was completed in Vienna on 18 May 1787, at the same time as the demanding string quintets K. 515 and K. 516. The song features a dramatic musical portrait of an old woman reminiscing of the good old days. The Great Comet of 1744 is mentioned in the lyrics. Mozart found the text in the composer Anton Steffan’s Sammlung Deutscher Lieder, nr. 24 in part 2, Vienna 1779; Hagedorn’s second verse was not present in this version.

Die Entführung aus dem Serail

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

The opera loosely refers to the practice of the North African Barbary corsairs, who operated primarily in the western Mediterranean, of hijacking ships belonging to Christian states. Under the pretext of jihad, the ship and cargo were sold or returned only after a ransom was paid. The actual goal, however, was the kidnapping of crew and passengers, to extort ransom money or to sell them into slavery. It was also common to force affected seafaring nations of non-Muslim faith to pay protection money or tribute. The corsairs acted on behalf of or with the acquiescence of the local Muslim rulers in Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. This type of state-backed piracy finally ended after the French conquest of Algiers (1830). The company that first sponsored the opera was the (“national Singspiel”), a pet project (1778–1783) of the Austrian emperor Joseph II. The Emperor had set up the company to perform works in the German language (as opposed to the Italian opera style widely popular in Vienna). This project was ultimately given up as a failure, but along the way it produced a number of successes, mostly a series of translated works. Mozart’s opera emerged as its outstanding original success. The inspector of the was Gottlieb Stephanie. When the 25-year-old Mozart arrived in Vienna in 1781, seeking professional opportunity, one of the first tasks to which he addressed himself was to become acquainted with Stephanie and lobby him for an opera commission. To this end, he brought a copy of his earlier unfinished opera Zaide and showed it to Stephanie, who was duly impressed. Mozart also made a strong impression on the manager of the theater, Count Franz Xaver Orsini-Rosenberg, when in the home of Mozart’s friend and patroness Maria Wilhelmine Thun the Count heard him play excerpts from his opera Idomeneo, premiered with great success the previous year in Munich. With this backing, it was agreed that Stephanie would find appropriate material and prepare a libretto for Mozart. Stephanie complied by preparing an altered version of an earlier work without attributing or seeking permission from its original author Christoph Friedrich Bretzner. Bretzner later complained loudly and publicly about the theft.

Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background and performance history#

Mozart composed the work at age 11 with the help of his two teachers, Michael Haydn and Anton Cajetan Adlgasser. In Salzburg, dividing up a sacred singspiel between other composers was common. The libretto was written by Ignatz Anton von Weiser even though it was said that Johann Adam Wieland suggested the idea first and his name is written on the libretto. Mozart composed only the first part of the opera, and the others composed “part two” and “part three.” However, these other two parts have not survived. The performances were predominantly in Salzburg in St. Peter’s, in Cathedrals, on the Nonnberg, and in Residenz. The opera includes many recitatives for all of the characters, and each character sings one to three arias. The characters of the opera are two tenors: Christgeist and Christ (a Christian), and three sopranos: Barmherzigkeit, Gerechtigkeit, and Weltgeist. The opera does not have a chorus. Part I of the opera was first performed on 12 March 1767 in the Knight’s Hall of the Palace of the Archbishop, Salzburg. Part II was performed on 19 March, and Part III on 26 March. The first modern performance of the opera took place on 23 January 1987 in the Große Saal of the University of Salzburg. Organized by the International Mozarteum Foundation, it was mounted as part of the 1987 Mozart Week and performed in collaboration with the Salzburger Landestheater.

Difficile lectu

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Text#

Although some of the canons in this 1788 set contain religious texts, K. 559 was evidently meant entirely for fun. The work features two bilingual puns and some scatological humor. The lyrics are—ostensibly—in Latin, but they do not make sense in this language: The humor of the work consists of hearing these words instead as vulgar phrases of German and Italian. According to one theory, the German pun is based on the strong Bavarian accent of the tenor-baritone (1761–1800), who can be presumed to have been the lead singer in the first performance (see below). As Jean-Victor Hocquard points out, the pseudo-Latin lyrics , as Peyerl would have sung them, resemble Bavarian German , which in a literal English rendering is " you lick me in the arse". More idiomatically, the phrase could be translated “kiss my arse” (American English “kiss my ass”). The second pun in the canon is based on the single Latin word . Emanuel Winternitz explains that when this word is sung repeatedly and rapidly, as in the canon, its syllables are liable to be heard as the Italian word , or in modern writing , meaning “balls, testicles”. The line thus translates as “It is difficult to lick my arse and balls”. Michael Quinn writes, “Mozart clearly relished the incongruity resulting from ribald verse set as a canon, traditionally regarded as the most learned of all compositional techniques.”

Divertimenti for six winds (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

The five wind sextets K. 213, 240, 252/240a, 253, and 270 have historically been regarded as a series of five Tafelmusik (dinner music) works for the Salzburg court. In relation to this, the periodicity in the datings of January and July/August of the years 1775 to 1777, present on the autographs of four of them, is striking. If it is true that the pieces were written as Tafelmusik for the Archbishop of Salzburg, Hieronymus von Colloredo, then there must have been specific and regularly recurring events every winter and summer accounting for this pattern; so far, though, none have been found. Even though in the Anstellungsdekret für Joseph Fiala the decree of appointment for Joseph Fiala, currently in the Salzburg State Archives , issued by the Archbishop on 1 November 1778, one reads According to which we most graciously receive and welcome the supplicant into our service, subject to his good conduct, as first oboist, in order that the same, both in the Cathedral and at Court or elsewhere as we may require him, should participate diligently in the music and once again bring the wind instruments to that condition which they formerly had, so that they can perform at our command music with wind instruments at table … no documents containing definite groups of musicians or concrete commissions for music have been found. The two summer datings of July and August could perhaps be linked to the semester holidays at the university at which time the students were responsible for the played at the summer residence of the Prince Archbishop, amongst others. For the two January dates, however, possible occasions of this kind have not been identified. The sequences of keys within the group of five is also striking: F major/B major/E major for K. 213, 240 and 252/240a, and F major/B major for K. 253 and 270. This two-fold occurrence of adjacent keys in the circle of fifths suitable for wind instruments may have been conceived with something of a pedagogical intention, most likely by Leopold Mozart. to believe that the Divertimento in E major K. 289/271g was also part of the set, but the latter’s authenticity is now in considerable doubt (see below). Within the five works the sequence of keys throughout the movements is quite regular. The slow movements (in K. 252/240a this would be the Polonaise) are in either the dominant or subdominant key, while all the others are in the principal key. The Trios of the Menuetti are in the subdominant key, except for that of K. 240 which is the related minor key. These five divertimenti clearly comprise the second stage in Mozart’s development as a composer of wind music, the first consisting of the two divertimenti for ten winds (K. 186/159b and 166/159d), and the third of the large-scale serenades, K. 361/370a, 375, and 388/384a, written in Vienna. The slightly gauche effects of K. 186/159b and 166/159d, in which writing in thirds or sixths prevails, have been replaced in these five sextets by a greater mastery of the material which shows itself mainly in the considerably more developed independence of the six voices. Indeed, the first bassoon has been freed from its part as an additional bass instrument and has been transformed into a second solo voice.

Divertimenti for ten winds (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

It is not known whether these were commissioned works nor, if so, who commissioned them: both Wyzewa & St. Foix and Einstein assume an anonymous Milanese patron (possibly an amateur musician) to be involved. They based this conclusion on the notion that no clarinets were available in Salzburg at that time and that Mozart must have brought back the pieces from his third and last Italian journey during the winter of 1772-73. This notion, which was first asserted by Otto Jahn and then rather carelessly propagated by many scholars, has been put in considerable doubt by Kurt Birsak’s research, which revealed that clarinets were mentioned in an Aufsatz und Specification deren Spielleithen nothbetärftigen Instrumenten in französischem Thon Essay and Specifications of the Instruments in the French Pitch required by Military Bandsmen from 1769. However, Colin Lawson asserts that the writing for clarinet in K 166/159d (and to a lesser extent in K 186/159b) is incompatible with what would be expected from clarinettists in a mere military wind band, thereby adding credence to the theory that the works were inspired by an ensemble outside Salzburg. It has also been pointed out that the unusual scoring, most importantly the use of two English horns (Mozart had used them before only in the second version of the Divertimento K 113, also composed in Milan, and in La finta semplice, and after only in Il rè pastore ), strongly suggests a commission conceived for an already existing ensemble outside Salzburg. Unfortunately, the fact that the autograph of K 166/159d explicitly mentions Salzburg does not make unravelling the genesis of these works easier. That the two pieces are companions is clear not only from the instrumentation but also from their structure: after the opening Allegro follow a Menuetto, a central Andante, an Adagio (thereby deviating from the more common sequence of two Menuetti encompassing the Andante) and a final Allegro structured as a Rondo. Although formally for ten winds, both divertimenti display a quite economical use of the ten instruments, considering that there are usually not more than two to three genuinely independent parts: oboes are often paired in thirds and combined with English horns likewise paired but playing an octave lower. Clarinets are often combined with oboes in sixths and the two bassoons always play in unison. The horns are confined to providing pedal notes or completing the chords, but in K 166/159d they do get a couple of opportunities to shine as a pair of soloists in typical horn calls. These two divertimenti clearly comprise the first stage in Mozart’s development as a composer of wind music, the second consisting of the five divertimenti for six winds (K 213, 240, 252/240a, 253 and 270), and the third of the large-scale serenades, K 361/370a, 375, and 388/384a, written in Vienna. K 186/159b and 166/159d display a considerably lighter, more recreational and perhaps even more casual spirit than the later works, true to the interpretation of the term divertimento.

Divertimento for String Trio (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

The work is in six movements: Recorded performances of the Divertimento range from 41 to 50 minutes.

Critical reception#

As Alfred Einstein wrote in Mozart: His Character, His Work (and as excerpted in the notes to a Kennedy Center performance), Mozart’s only completed string trio shares with most divertimenti this six-movement format, but from that no lightness of tone should be understood – rather, “it is a true chamber-music work, and grew to such large proportions only because it was intended to offer … something special in the way of art, invention, and good spirits. … Each instrument is primus inter pares, every note is significant, every note is a contribution to spiritual and sensuous fulfilment in sound.” Einstein called it “one of his noblest works”. Early performances of the work, however, were greeted with less enthusiasm. Tully Potter, in his notes to a recording, reports that when the Philharmonic String Trio of London performed the work in 1936, “that pompous old Wagnerian Ernest Newman reported that ’the work is over-long, and some of it mere music-spinning of the conventional eighteenth-century type’. He did, however, concede that ’the Adagio is an impressive piece of work’ ”. However, Potter also reports that when members of the Busch Quartet performed it in Basel in 1931, the painter Alfred Heinrich Pellegrini was so impressed that he made a painting of the performance. Mozart’s Divertimento in EE-flat major major is “one of a kind”, according to the notes to an Emerson String Quartet performance.

Divertimento No. 1 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The work was not composed, contrary to Mozart’s other divertimenti, in Salzburg, but rather on his second visit to Italy. The most probable dates of composition are from 13 August to 15 December 1771. The main purpose of the trip to Italy was for the production of Ascanio in Alba, a festa teatrale commissioned for the wedding celebrations in Milan for Ferdinand Karl (third son of Empress Maria Theresa) and Maria Beatrice d’Este, which was performed there on 17 October. The autograph score of K. 113 is inscribed in the hand of Leopold Mozart with: “Concerto ò sia Divertimento à 8”, and dated “Milano nel Mese Novemb: 1771”. The work was most likely performed at a subscription concert on 22 or 23 November, and may have been mentioned in a letter that Leopold sent to his wife in Salzburg, stating: “…strong music we heard yesterday at Herr von Mayr’s”, although this has not been confirmed.

Divertimento No. 11 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

There are six movements: The opening movement is in monothematic sonata form where instead of a true second subject in the dominant key of A major, the first subject appears in A minor. The trio of the first minuet is for strings only and the Andantino third movement is in rondo form. The fourth movement is an unusual mix of minuet and variation form. Here, the three variations serve as the “trios” with the minuet-theme returning da capo after each variation. The first variation features the solo oboe, the second features solo violin and in the third variation, the second violin makes runs underneath the theme. The horns are silent in all variations. The sixth movement is a rondo where the structure can be represented as “ABABA”.

Divertimento No. 15 (ballet)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Choreography#

Divertimento No. 15 contains five movements, Allegro, Theme and Variations, Minuet, Andante and Finale. The ballet is danced by five principal women, three men, and a corps de ballet of eight women. Balanchine wrote that Divertimento No. 15 “follows the different movements of the score. There is no story.” Author Nancy Reynolds described the ballet as “Balanchine’s purest dance creations – a string of dancers, solos, ensembles, pas de deux – with muted emotional overtones and little virtuoso display.”

Divertimento No. 15 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

This divertimento is scored for two horns in B and strings. It is structured in six movements:

In ballet theatre#

In 1952 George Balanchine choreographed for his company New York City Ballet a piece titled Caracole to this music. A few years later, he restaged it for a celebration of Mozart’s bicentenary with some changes in score, choreography, costumes and set design as Divertimento No. 15. The ballet was premiered on 31 May 1956 at the American Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford, Connecticut.

Don Giovanni

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition and premiere#

The opera was commissioned after the success of Mozart’s trip to Prague in January and February 1787. The subject may have been chosen because the sub-genre of Don Juan opera originated in that city. Lorenzo Da Ponte’s libretto is based on Giovanni Bertati’s for the opera Don Giovanni Tenorio, which premiered in Venice early in 1787. In two aspects he copied Bertati: by opening with the Commendatore’s murder and by avoiding mention of Seville (for Bertati the setting was Villena, Spain; Da Ponte simply writes “city in Spain”). The opera was supposed to premiere on 14 October 1787 for Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria’s visit, but it was not ready in time and Le nozze di Figaro was substituted. Mozart recorded its completion, finally, on 28 October, the night before the premiere (29 October). The opera was rapturously received, as was often true of Mozart’s work in Prague. The Prager Oberpostamtzeitung reported, “Connoisseurs and musicians say that Prague has never heard the like”, and “the opera … is extremely difficult to perform.” The Provincialnachrichten of Vienna reported, “Herr Mozart conducted in person and was welcomed joyously and jubilantly by the numerous gathering.”

Don Giovanni (Giulini recording)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

CD 1#

1-1 Overture 6:18
1-2 Act 1, Scene 1: Introduction: Notte e giorno faticar 1:40
1-3 Act 1, Scene 1: Non sperar, se non m’uccidi 1:17
1-4 Act 1, Scene 1: Lasciala, indegno! 2:07
1-5 Act 1, Scene 1: Recitative: Leporello, ove sei? 0:28
1-6 Act 1, Scene 1: Recitative: Ah del padre in periglio 2:36
1-7 Act 1, Scene 1: Duet: Fuggi, crudele, fuggi! 4:02
1-8 Act 1, Scene 2: Recitative: Orsù, spicciati presto 1:15
1-9 Act 1, Scene 2: Aria: Ah, chi mi dice mai 3:26
1-10 Act 1, Scene 2: Recitative: Chi è là? 2:27
1-11 Act 1, Scene 2: Aria: Madamina, il catalogo è questo 5:28
1-12 Act 1, Scene 2: Recitativo: In questa forma 0:28
1-13 Act 1, Scene 3: Coro: Giovinette che fate all’amore 1:30
1-14 Act 1, Scene 3: Recitative: Manco male è partita 2:01
1-15 Act 1, Scene 3: Aria: Ho capito, signor, sì! 1:38
1-16 Act 1, Scene 3: Recitative: Alfin siam liberati 1:34
1-17 Act 1, Scene 3: Duet: Là ci darem la mano 3:14
1-18 Act 1, Scene 3: Recitativo: Fermati, scellerato! 0:37
1-19 Act 1, Scene 3: Aria: Ah! Fuggi il traditor! 1:18
1-20 Act 1, Scene 3: Recitative: Mi par ch’oggi il demonio si diverta 0:53
1-21 Act 1, Scene 3: Quartet: Non ti fidar, o misera 3:57
1-22 Act 1, Scene 3: Recitative: Povera sventura! 0:18
1-23 Act 1, Scene 3: Recitative: Don Ottavio, son morta! 2:49
1-24 Act 1, Scene 3: Aria: Or sai chi l’onore 2:50
1-25 Act 1, Scene 3: Recitative: Come mai creder deggio 0:23
1-26 Act 1, Scene 3: Aria: Dalla sua pace 4:21
1-27 Act 1, Scene 3: Recitative: Io deggio ad ogni patto 1:21
1-28 Act 1, Scene 3: Aria: Finch’han dal vino

CD 2#

2-1 Act 1, Scene 4: Recitative: Masetto, senti un po’ 1:01
2-2 Act 1, Scene 4: Aria: Batti, batti, o bel Masetto 3:47
2-3 Act 1, Scene 4: Recitative: Guarda un po’ 0:34
2-4 Act 1, Scene 4: Presto, presto, pria ch’ei venga 1:49
2-5 Act 1, Scene 4: Tra quest’arbori celata 2:30
2-6 Act 1, Scene 4: Bisogna aver coraggio 2:08
2-7 Act 1, Scene 4: Protegga il giusto cielo/Vendichi il giusto cielo 2:19
2-8 Act 1, Scene 5: Riposate, vezzose ragazze 1:20
2-9 Act 1, Scene 5: Venite pur avanti 1:24
2-10 Act 1, Scene 5: ricominciate il suono! 2:49
2-11 Act 1, Scene 5: Ecco il birbo, che t’ha offesa! 1:33
2-12 Act 1, Scene 5: Trema, trema, o scellerato! 2:12
2-13 Act 2, Scene 1: Duet: Eh via, buffone, non mi seccar! 1:08
2-14 Act 2, Scene 1: Recitative: Leporello!….Signore? 1:35
2-15 Act 2, Scene 1: Terzetto: Ah taci, inguisto coro! 4:50
2-16 Act 2, Scene 1: Recitative: Amico, che ti par? 0:25
2-17 Act 2, Scene 1: Recitative: Eccomi a voi 1:22
2-18 Act 2, Scene 1: Canzonetta: Deh vieni all finestra 1:51
2-19 Act 2, Scene 1: Recitative: V’è gente alla finestra 1:06
2-20 Act 2, Scene 1: Aria: Metà di voi qua vadano 3:12
2-21 Act 2, Scene 1: Recitative: Zitto, lascia ch’io senta 1:39
2-22 Act 2, Scene 1: Aria: Vedrai, carino, se sei buonino 3:14
2-23 Act 2, Scene 2: Recitative: Di molte faci il lume 0:21
2-24 Act 2, Scene 2: Sola, sola in buio loco 3:02
2-25 Act 2, Scene 2: Ferma, briccone, dove ten vai? 2:22
2-26 Act 2, Scene 2: Mille torbidi pensieri 2:23
2-27 Act 2, Scene 2: Recitative: Dunque quello sei tu 0:19
2-28 Act 2, Scene 2: Aria: Ah, pietà, signori miei! 1:52
2-29 Act 2, Scene 2: Recitative: Ferma, perfido, ferma! 0:30
2-30 Act 2, Scene 2: Aria: Il mio tesoro 4:38
2-31 Act 2, Scene 2: Recitative: In quali eccessi, o numi 1:48
2-32 Act 2, Scene 2: Aria: Mi tradì, quell’alma ingrata

CD 3#

3-1 Act 2, Scene 3: Recitative: Ah, ah, ah, ah, questa è buona 3:40
3-2 Act 2, Scene 3: Duet: O statua gentilissima 3:37
3-3 Act 2, Scene 4: Recitative: Calmatevi, idol mio! 0:37
3-4 Act 2, Scene 4: Recitative: Crudele? Ah no, mio bene! 1:51
3-5 Act 2, Scene 4: Aria: Non mi dir, bell’idol mio 5:01
3-6 Act 2, Scene 4: Recitative: Ah, si segua il suo passo 0:13
3-7 Act 2, Scene 5: Già la mensa è perparata 4:36
3-8 Act 2, Scene 5: L’ultima prova dell’amor mio 2:15
3-9 Act 2, Scene 5: Che grido è questo mai? 1:15
3-10 Act 2, Scene 5: Don Giovanni, a cenar teco 5:20
3-11 Act 2, Scene 5: Da qual tremore insolito 1:06
3-12 Act 2, Scene 5: Ah, dov’è il perfido? 1:40
3-13 Act 2, Scene 5: Or che tutti, o mio tesoro 2:58
3-14 Act 2, Scene 5: Questo è il fin

Musical#

Soprano vocals Donna Elvira – Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
Soprano Vocals Donna Anna – Joan Sutherland
Soprano vocals Zerlina – Graziella Sciutti
Tenor vocals Don Ottavio – Luigi Alva
Baritone vocals Leporello – Giuseppe Taddei
Bass vocals Don Giovanni – Eberhard Wächter
Bass vocals Le Commandeur – Gottlob Frick
Bass vocals Masetto – Piero Cappuccilli
Chorus – Philharmonia Chorus
Chorus master – Roberto Benaglio
Conductor – Carlo Maria Giulini
Harpsichord – Professor Heinrich Schmidt

Other#

Producer – Walter Legge
Engineer balance engineer – Harold Davidson

Eight Variations on "Ein Weib ist das herrlichste Ding"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Mozart’s Eight Variations were composed between March 8 and April 12, 1791, during the final year of his life. The theme originated from a popular theatrical song featured in a musical play written by Emanuel Schikaneder, the librettist of The Magic Flute and a prominent actor-manager of his time. The music for the play was composed by Benedikt Schack and Franz Xaver Gerl, both members of Schikaneder’s theatrical troupe. Schack would later premiere as Tamino in The Magic Flute, while Gerl created the role of Sarastro. The play in question was part of a series of comic Singspiel centered on the character (the stupid Anton), a figure in the tradition of Viennese farce and the Hanswurst character Der dumme Gärtner (The Stupid Gardener), believed to be the first joint effort by Schack and Gerl for Schikaneder’s company and a sequel to the original Anton play, premiered at the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna on 12 July 1789. This was Mozart’s last published variation set. As variations were very popular amongst performers and publishers, Mozart published more than a dozen of them during his lifetime. The piece was published by Artaria, in Vienna, before June 1791. The publication was announced in the Wiener Zeitung on 4 June of that year and, even though the publication mentioned twelve variations, only eight of them are known to exist. Several manuscript copies have survived by various scribes, some of them reflecting different and unique variants and numbering, possibly reflecting different transmission lines.

Eine kleine Nachtmusik

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

The serenade was completed in Vienna on 10 August 1787, around the time when Mozart was working on the second act of his opera Don Giovanni. It is not known why he composed it, nor is it known whether it was performed in his lifetime. Wolfgang Hildesheimer, noting that most of Mozart’s serenades were written on commission, suggests that this was a commission whose origin and first performance were not recorded. The traditionally used name of the work comes from the entry Mozart made for it in his personal catalogue, which begins . Zaslaw and Cowdery point out that Mozart was probably not giving the piece a special title but only entering in his records that he had completed a little serenade. The work was not published until about 1827, over thirty years after Mozart’s death, by Johann André in Offenbach am Main. Mozart’s widow Constanze sold it to the publisher as part of a large bundle of her husband’s compositions.

Exsultate, jubilate

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

This religious solo motet was composed when Mozart was staying in Milan during the production of his opera Lucio Silla which was being performed there in the Teatro Regio Ducale. It was written for the castrato Venanzio Rauzzini, who had sung the part of the primo uomo Cecilio in Lucio Silla the previous year. While waiting for the end of the run (from 26 December 1772 to 25 January 1773), Mozart composed the motet for his singer, whose technical excellence he admired. Its first performance took place at the Theatine Church on 17 January 1773, while Rauzzini was still singing in Mozart’s opera at night. Mozart made some revisions around 1780. On 30 May 1779, a Trinity Sunday, a revised version was performed by Francesco Ceccarelli at the Holy Trinity Church, Salzburg. Another revised version was intended for Christmas. The manuscripts of the two Salzburg versions were discovered in 1978 in St. Jakob, Wasserburg am Inn. While in modern times the motet is usually sung by a soprano, it was also recorded by a number of countertenors, including Michael Maniaci, Franco Fagioli, and Aris Christofellis (the latter recorded only the Alleluia movement). The autograph manuscript of the motet is preserved in the Jagiellonian Library.

Fantasia in C minor, K. 475

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Recordings#

Recordings of this work on fortepiano include: * Paul Badura-Skoda. Mozart. Sonates pour la forte-piano, Tome 4. Label: Astrée, 1989. Fortepiano by Johann Schantz (c. 1790). * Malcolm Bilson. Mozart. Piano Sonatas: Complete. Label: Hungaroton, 1990. Fortepiano by Paul McNulty (Amsterdam, 1989) after Anton Walter (c. 1795). * Luc Devos. Mozart. Klavierstücke. Label: Ricercar, 1991. Fortepiano by Claude Kelecom (Bruxelles) after Johann Andreas Stein. * Ronald Brautigam. Mozart. The Complete Piano Sonatas. Label: BIS Records, 1996. Fortepiano by McNulty (Amsterdam, 1992) after Walter (c. 1795). * Alexei Lubimov. Mozart. Complete Piano Sonatas. Label: Erato. Fortepiano by Christopher Clarke (1986) after Walter (c. 1795). * Bart van Oort. Mozart. Label: Brilliant Classics, 2000. Fortepiano by Chris Maene (Ruiselede, 1995) after Walter (c. 1795). * Andreas Staier. Mozart. Label: Harmonia Mundi, 2003. Fortepiano by Monika May (Marburg, 1986) after Walter (c. 1785). * Kristian Bezuidenhout. Mozart. Keyboard Music, Vol. 1. Label: Harmonia Mundi, 2009. Fortepiano by Derek Adlam (Welbeck, 1987) after Walter (c. 1795). * Paul Badura-Skoda. Mozart. Paul Badura-Skoda: A Man and His Music. Label: Kleos Classics. Fortepiano by Walter (1781, Mozart’s own). * Siegbert Rampe. Mozart. Complete Clavier Works, Vol. 1. Label: MD&G, 2004. Fortepiano by Nikolaus Damm (Hirchhorn near Heidelberg, 1990) after Stein (1788). * Arthur Schoonderwoerd. Mozart. Complete Clavier Sonatas. Label: Accent Records, 2005. Fortepiano by Paul Poletti and Gerard Tuinman after Walter (c. 1790). * John Khouri. Mozart. Keyboard Works, 1784-1791. Label: San Francisco Fortepiano Society, 2007. Fortepiano by Philip Belt and James Kandik, 1973-1984 after Stein, 1784; pedal board by Kandik, Paul Poletti and Malcolm Rose after instrument from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. * Anneke Veenhoff. Mozart. Phantasia. Label: Ramée, 2009. Fortepiano by Tuinman (Utrecht, 1993) after Walter (c. 1800). * Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard. Mozart. Sonates pour pianoforte avec l’accompagnement d’un violon. Label: Éditions Hortus, 2014. Fortepiano by Clarke (2005) after Walter (c. 1790). * Robert Levin. Mozart. The Piano Sonatas. Label: ECM Records, 2017-2018. Fortepiano by Walter (c. 1782, Mozart’s own).

Fantasia No. 3 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The Fantasia runs to just over 100 measures, in a single multi-tempo movement marked Andante – Adagio – Presto – Tempo primo – Presto – Tempo primo – Allegretto, and a full performance takes approximately five or six minutes. The Austrian composer and academic Gerhard Präsent has published an extensive analysis of the Fantasia that reveals highly interesting structural correlations between the different parts of the composition. He has also made an arrangement for string quartet in four movements, called the Fantasy Quartet in D, in which this piece is the first movement.

Flute Concerto No. 1 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

While travelling to Paris with his mother in 1777–1778, Mozart spent about four months in the German city of Mannheim. During this time, Mozart became acquainted with court flutist Johann Baptist Wendling. It was through Wendling that he came into contact with Ferdinand Dejean, an amateur flutist and local physician and well-known medical scholar who commissioned the works from Mozart. Dejean requested that Mozart provide “three short, simple concerti and a couple of quartets for the flute”. In exchange for the works, Dejean, who worked for the Dutch East India Company, offered 200 gold pieces. Mozart was unable to complete the commission, releasing two flute concertos (this one and K. 314 in D major) and three flute quartets. The second flute concerto, however, is merely a transposition of Mozart’s Oboe Concerto, K. 314.

Flute Quartet No. 1 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

On his journey to Paris, Mozart spent three months in Mannheim with Cannabich where he established a professional relationship with the Mannheim Orchestra and its musical organizations. Mozart composed prolifically for the Mannheim Opera and Mannheim Orchestra which established him as a leading composer in Mannheim. Frederick the Great of Prussia and George III of England raised the flute’s status as a solo and chamber music instrument by studying flute and performing on it as a solo and chamber instrument. Time spent in Mannheim developed Mozart’s “Mannheim Period” compositional style of figures and part writing specifically tailored to the character and qualities of the instrument. Mozart wrote music that featured expansive, downwards sighing figures in its writing that were evocative of the musical style that performers in Mannheim were used to. These compositional mannerisms, along with uncharacteristically long and meticulous development sections in the first movement, proved Mozart’s Flute Quartet No. 1 to be a transitionary piece on his path to composing in Paris.

Ganz kleine Nachtmusik

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

The piece itself is a string trio (for two violins and one cello) written while Mozart was a young teenager, apparently before his first trip to Italy. It consists of “seven miniature movements for a string trio lasting about 12 minutes” according to the Leipzig libraries. It might be identical to the lost “Little night music” K. 41g, or the lost Cassation in C, K. 653.

Rediscovery#

While compiling the Köchel catalogue’s newest editionan authoritative list of all of Mozart’s documented musical worksclassical music researchers rediscovered the manuscript of the previously unknown piece from the Carl Ferdinand Becker collection in Leipzig’s music library. The researchers reported that the manuscript was in “dark brown ink on medium-white handmade paper” with individually bound parts. The manuscript was believed not to be an original manuscript written by Mozart, but a copy produced in 1780. On 19 September 2024, the rediscovered piece was first played for a modern audience at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, by Haruna Shinoyama and Neža Klinar (violins), Philipp Comploi (cello) and Florian Birsak (harpsichord), with a further performance in Germany on 21 September by Vincent and David Geer (violins) and Elisabeth Zimmermann (cello) at the Leipzig Opera. The first commercial recording was released by Deutsche Grammophon featuring the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Herbert Blomstedt on 18 October 2024.

God is our refuge

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Score#

The 23-bar work is scored for four voices: soprano, alto, tenor and bass, and is written in time.

Lyrics#

God is our refuge, our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble, a present help in trouble.

Influence#

As the manuscript for this work is still intact, one can find two separate, distinct handwritings: Wolfgang’s, and his father’s Leopold. It can be seen that Wolfgang most likely wrote the tempo markings, key signatures and clefs, as well as all of the notes. Leopold was suspected to have a hand in the written words after bar seven, as the young Wolfgang seemingly had trouble judging the amount of space necessary to fit in the written text (as can be seen by the wave pattern of the bar lines near measure 7).

Grabmusik

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

It was (and still is) customary for a passion oratorio to be performed on Good Friday in several parts of Southern Germany, with evidence of Leopold II writing such sepolcri with his court musicians in Vienna. Traditionally, these oratorios would be staged dramatically, with spectacular scenic design and even division of the stage into three parts: Heaven, Earth and Hell, along with corresponding division of the orchestra. These performances took place with music by popular Italian composers such as Antonio Draghi and Antonio Caldara (Draghi’s setting with text by Nicolò Minato was staged in Vienna in 1696; the music has subsequently been lost). This story could very well be apocryphal, and is doubted by musicologist Maynard Solomon in his 1995 biography on the composer, although there is a similar story from later on in Wolfgang’s childhood. During his first Italian trip, he spent the summer of 1770 with Count Gian Luca Pallavicini, whose house was situated near Bologna. Before departing, Wolfgang applied for admission to the Accademia Filarmonica, and was required to undergo a series of tests to garner a membership. He was instructed to write a contrapuntal work, in the strict style observed by the Accademia, that is, the Renaissance style of liturgical music. According to Mozart’s father, Leopold, Wolfgang took a “mere half hour” to complete a 22-bar long composition (the antiphon “Quaerite primum regnum Dei”, K. 86/73v). There are annotations by Giovanni Battista Martini, Mozart’s mentor, but the work was still approved by two examiners and Wolfgang was duly given a membership. In the notes of her book on Mozart’s early operas, Carolyn Gianturco states that the work composed during the time Wolfgang was closeted was in fact Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots. This claim has been opposed by musicologist and Mozart scholar Rudolph Angermüller, who concludes that, due to the multifaceted nature of the singspiel, it is difficult to relate the story to the work. The entirety of the score of Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots takes up 106 sheets, and considering all of the recitatives are in Leopold’s hand, there is no conclusive evidence that the work could have been written in examination conditions. Furthermore, Angermüller brings up the unlikeliness that a 10 year old boy would be able to compose a work of such size in the course of a week.

Great Mass in C minor, K. 427

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition and first performance#

The work was composed during 1782–83. In a letter to his father Leopold dated 4 January 1783, Mozart mentioned a vow he had made to write a mass when he would bring his then fiancée Constanze as his wife to Salzburg. However, Ulrich Konrad, after an analysis of that letter – the only source for this theory – fails to support this belief. Konrad concludes that “the supposition that Mozart composed the C minor Mass with Constanze’s recovery in mind or with his eye on the longed-for marriage as the fulfilment of a vow of some kind – conveyed even in recent literature – is certainly not stated unambiguously in the text cited here. And there is no other authentic source available.” The first performance took place in Salzburg on Sunday 26 October 1783 (the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost). The performance consisted of just the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Benedictus, as surviving parts and a score copy from ca. 1800 show. It took place in the church of Saint Peter’s Abbey in the context of a Roman Catholic mass. Mozart’s sister’s diary mentions that the performers were the entire , that is the musicians employed at the court of Salzburg’s ruler, Prince-Archbishop Count Hieronymus von Colloredo and thus Mozart’s former colleagues. There was a rehearsal in the nearby Kapellhaus on 23 October 1783.

Great Mass in C minor, K. 427 (film)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background and production#

In October 1772, aged sixteen, Mozart made his third visit to Italy, accompanied by his father Leopold. The most important work that he composed there was his opera seria Lucio Silla, premiered in Milan’s Teatro Regio Ducale on 26 December as part of the city’s carnival festivities. Mozart was so impressed by Venanzio Rauzzini’s performance as Cecilio that he was inspired to compose a motet specially for the castrato as a showcase for his virtuosity. Rauzzini premiered Exsultate, jubilate in Milan’s Theatine Church on 17 January 1773. The author of the text of the motet has not been identified. The architecture of its music suggests that it was modelled on Neapolitan symphonies and concertos, and its brilliant coloratura vocal writing is reminiscent of contemporary Italian opera. (Among the composers whom critics have cited as influences on the work are Johann Adolph Hasse, Niccolò Jommelli and Antonio Sacchini.) It opens with an allegro movement (“Exsultate, jubilate”), proceeding via a brief recitativo secco (“Fulget amica dies”) to an andante aria addressed to the Blessed Virgin Mary (“Tu virginum corona”) and a climactic molto allegro “Alleluja”. The Great Mass in C minor originated not in a commission from the Church but from an affair of the heart. Living in Vienna in 1782, Mozart was engaged to a singer, Constanze Weber, who had fallen ill. He vowed in July that if she recovered, if their marriage plans were fulfilled and if he was able to introduce her to his father and sister in Salzburg, he would compose a Mass as an expression of gratitude. Constanze did indeed get better, and the couple were married on 4 August: Mozart began work on his Mass shortly afterwards. A letter that he wrote to Leopold on 4 January 1783 reported that the work was half finished and that he had every hope of completing it. In the event, he seems to have set it aside in May, taking the “Credo” only as far as its “Et incarnatus est” and writing no music for the “Agnus Dei”. Mozart and his wife travelled to Salzburg as they had hoped, arriving no later than 29 July. His sister Nannerl recorded in her diary that Constanze was the soprano soloist and Mozart the conductor when the Mass received its first performance in St Peter’s Abbey on 26 October. (It is conjectured that its omissions may have been repaired with borrowings from the other Mass settings that Mozart had composed while in the service of Hieronymus von Colloredo, Salzburg’s Prince-Archbishop). Some musicologists think that the ambition of the Mass’s music was in part the consequence of Mozart’s encountering the baroque masterpieces of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel in private concerts given by Baron Gottfried van Swieten. Much of Mozart’s original autograph of the Mass has been lost. Modern editions rely largely on a copy dating from the 1830s. Leonard Bernstein’s album uses a performing score devised by Franz Beyer in 1989, which fills Mozart’s lacunae with modest pastiches of his string writing but resists the temptation to embellish the music’s texture with organ, brass or percussion parts. In June 1791, the year of his death, Mozart was engrossed in his collaboration with Emanuel Schikaneder on their Singspiel Die Zauberflöte. But he found time to travel from Vienna to join his wife in a holiday in the spa town of Baden bei Wien. Meeting Anton Stoll, an old friend who worked as a teacher and choirmaster, Mozart was prompted to compose a setting of the text Ave verum corpus, a verse excerpted from the anonymous 14th-century sequence In honorem SS. Sacramenti. The work was completed on 17 June, and was probably first performed on the feast of Corpus Christi, which in 1791 occurred six days later. The motet was the last piece of Christian music that Mozart completed. Leonard Bernstein’s film of these three works – including his first ever performance of the Mass – was recorded in concerts and retake sessions on 4 and 5 April 1990 in the Stiftsbasilika in Waldsassen. Attached to a Cistercian abbey and consecrated in 1704, the basilica was chosen as a filming location because of its acoustics, its tranquillity and the beauty of its rococo design, and also for reasons of philosophy. Waldsassen is near the border between the German state of Bavaria and the Czech Republic, and has been claimed to be close to the centre of the European continent. Making his album less than a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Bernstein regarded the town as an ideal place in which to perform music that he hoped would help Europe to make the transition from division and conflict to unity and peace. While working on his film, Bernstein was visibly distressed by pain brought about by his mesothelioma (lung cancer). He died after a cardiac infarction (heart attack) in New York City on 14 October 1990. Arleen Auger died from the effects of glioblastoma (brain cancer) on 10 June 1993.

Haydn Quartets (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The six quartets#

The quartets were published in a set as Mozart’s Opus 10 in Vienna, 1785. Mozart arranged the six quartets in the order of composition, except for reversing the order of K. 428 and K. 458. *String Quartet No. 14 in G major, (“Spring”), K. 387, Op. 10, No. 1 (31 December 1782) *String Quartet No. 15 in D minor, K. 421/417b, Op. 10, No. 2 (17 June 1783) *String Quartet No. 16 in E major, K. 428/421b, Op. 10, No. 4 (June–July 1783) *String Quartet No. 17 in B major (“Hunt”), K. 458, Op. 10, No. 3 (9 November 1784) *String Quartet No. 18 in A major, K. 464, Op. 10, No. 5 (10 January 1785) *String Quartet No. 19 in C major (“Dissonance”), K. 465, Op. 10, No. 6 (14 January 1785)

Horn Concerto No. 1 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Discography#

Given its duration (no more than 10 minutes), the Concerto is typically grouped with Mozart’s other three for the instrument. One famous recording is Dennis Brain’s November 1953 recording of the four horn concertos on EMI with the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan.

External links#

, Dennis Brain, Philharmonia Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan (1953)
, Alan Civil, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Neville Marriner (from The 4 Horn Concerts, 1971/72)

Horn Concerto No. 2 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The work is in three movements:

Discography#

Given its duration (no more than 20 minutes), the concerto is often grouped with Mozart’s other three horn concertos. The foremost example is Dennis Brain’s November 1953 recording of the four horn concertos on EMI with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karajan. *2018: (horn); Munich Radio Orchestra, Hermann Baumann (conductor), ARSIS. A recording with all the Mozart horn concertos including the Rondo for Horn, K. 371, and the Horn Quintet, K. 407.

Horn Concerto No. 3

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

The composition was written as a friendly gesture for the hornist Joseph Leutgeb (his name is mentioned a few times in the score), and Mozart probably did not consider it as particularly important, since he failed to enter it to the autograph catalogue of his works. The autograph score remains well preserved; it is stored in the British Library in London. Michael Haydn’s Romance for horn quintet in A major (MH 806) is very similar to the Romance from Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 3. Karsten Nottelmann has speculated that Leutgeb had other composers revise and make corrections to his own works, and that this explains the two versions of the Romance as well as the two versions of the Rondo of Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 1 (one a draft by Mozart, the other a complete version by Franz Xaver Süssmayr): they would be different composers’ edits to a Leutgeb original.

Horn Concerto No. 4

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The work is in three movements: A typical performance duration of the concerto takes 16–18 minutes. The manuscript, written in red, green, blue, and black ink, has been suggested as a jocular attempt to rattle the intended performer, Mozart’s friend Joseph Leutgeb. However, recently it was suggested that the multicolored score may also be a kind of “color code”. The last movement is a “quite obvious” example of the hunt topic, “in which the intervallic construction, featuring prominent tonic and dominant triads in the main melody, was to some degree dictated by the capability of the horn, and so was more closely allied with the original ‘pure’ characteristics of the ‘chassé’ as an open-air hunting call.” This concerto is one of Mozart’s two horn concerti to have ripieno horns (horns included in the orchestra besides the soloist), though, in contrast to the Horn Concerto No. 2, K. 417, the solo horn in this one duplicates the first ripieno horn’s part in the tutti passages.

Horn Quintet (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The work consists of three movements: A performance takes approximately 17 minutes. The inclusion of two viola parts gives the work a richer, deeper sound, complementing the range of the horn soloist.

History#

This piece was composed in Vienna shortly after Mozart’s marriage, around the same time as Die Entführung aus dem Serail. It is the first work Mozart wrote for his friend Joseph Leutgeb. Leutgeb’s instrument, a natural horn, lacked the valves found in the modern French horn. The finale makes virtuosic demands on the soloist. The later horn solo pieces for an ageing Leutgeb by Mozart show lesser demands on the soloist. The Horn Quintet was first published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1883. Since the original autograph score has been lost, modern performances are based on this first edition. Mozart’s only other known piece of chamber music written for the instrument is a composition for solo horn, written in Salzburg in 1778. This work has been completely lost, and is only known through a letter from Leopold Mozart addressed to Wolfgang and his mother, Anna Maria, on 16 February 1778. Referred to as “a little horn piece”, it is mentioned in the context of its dedicatee: “Martin Grassl, Prince Bruener’s valet, was buried today, Wolfg. will recall writing a little horn piece for him.” The work has subsequently been entered in the Köchel catalogue as K. 33h.

Idomeneo

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

The libretto clearly draws inspiration from Metastasio in its overall layout, the type of character development, and the highly poetic language used in the various numbers and the secco and stromentato recitatives. The style of the choruses, marches, and ballets is very French, and the shipwreck scene towards the end of act 1 is almost identical to the structure and dramatic working-out of a similar scene in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride. The sacrifice and oracle scenes are similar to Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide and Alceste. Kurt Kramer has suggested that Varesco was familiar with Calzabigi and therefore the work of Gluck, especially the latter’s Alceste; much of what we see in Varesco’s most dramatic passages is the latest French style, mediated by Calzabigi. It is thanks to Mozart, though, that this mixture of French styles (apart from a few choruses) moves away from Gluck and France and returns to its more Italian (opera seria) roots; the singers were all trained in the classical Italian style, after all, and the recitatives are all classically Italian.

Idomeneo (film)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

In Greek legend, Idomeneus was the King of Crete, the son of Deucalion and the grandson of Minos and Pasiphaë. A suitor of Helen of Troy, he was a major figure in the war between the Greeks and the Trojans precipitated by Helen’s departure from Greece with the Trojan Prince Paris. The Odyssey relates that after the Greeks’ victory, he led his men through the perils of their journey home without losing a single one of them. Later writings relate that his voyage was afflicted by a violent storm, amidst which he vowed to Poseidon, the god of the sea, that if he was allowed to set foot on Crete again, he would sacrifice the first living thing that he encountered there. Poseidon granted his wish, but when his ship finally reached his island’s shore, the first creature that he met was his son, Idamantes. His slaying of the Prince in accordance with his oath was followed by the outbreak of a plague. Blamed by his people for their misfortune, he was driven into exile in Sallentum in Calabria. Later he moved to Colophon in Anatolia, settling near the temple of the Clarian Apollo. One tradition claims that he was buried there on Mount Cercaphus, while Cretans came to venerate his memory at a grave in Knossos. In 1780, while the 24-year-old Mozart was in the employment of Hieronymus von Colloredo, Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, he received a commission from the court of Karl Theodor, Prince-elector and Duke of Bavaria, to write an opera to be performed in Munich during the carnival season of 1781. Historians think that it was the court rather than Mozart that chose the tale of Idomeneus as a topic. Mozart based his composition upon a treatment of the legend that had been premiered in Paris in the carnival season of 1712: the tragédie lyrique Idoménée, which had a text by Antoine Danchet and music by André Campra. Giambattista Varesco, a chaplain at the Salzburg court, reshaped Danchet’s libretto into a different text that was richer than Idomenée in the dramatic possibilities that Mozart craved, and which culminated in a happier ending. Mozart’s correspondence with his father records the evolution of his composition in detail. He effected several major revisions of his early ideas, some occasioned by the disappointing abilities of Anton Raaff and the castrato Vincenzo dal Prato (“Il nostro molto amato castrato Dal Prato”, Mozart joked), the first Idomeneo and the first Idamante respectively. Such difficulties did not prevent Mozart from enjoying his work on his opera greatly, partly because the orchestra at Karl Theodor’s court, which had accompanied the Prince to Munich after previously serving him in Mannheim, was the most expert in all Germany. Mozart’s widow told a biographer that her husband’s time in Munich had been the happiest of his life, and had left him with an abiding affection for the fruit of his labours there. With Mozart on the podium, Idomeneo was premiered in the court theatre of the Munich Residenz on 29 January 1781, and repeated on 3 February and 3 March. The work received only one further staging in Mozart’s lifetime, a production in Vienna in 1786 for which Mozart revisited his score to accommodate Idamante’s being cast as a tenor. The work was first heard in the United States in 1947 at the Berkshire Music Festival in Tanglewood under the direction of Boris Goldovsky. Modern productions of the opera have presented it in a variety of different versions. The Met’s first staging in 1982 largely adhered to that conducted by Mozart in Munich 201 years earlier, but with four important exceptions. All were in act three. Elettra’s aria “D’Oreste, d’Aiace” and Idomeneo’s aria “Torna la pace”, both cut by Mozart, were reinstated, and Idamante’s aria “No, la morte” and a lengthy concluding ballet were omitted. The televising of the Met’s 1982 production was supported by the Texaco Philanthropic Foundation, with additional funding from the Charles E. Culpeper Foundation and the National Endowment For the Arts. The making of Deutsche Grammophon’s DVD release of the production was supported by the Charles A. Dana Foundation.

Il re pastore

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Synopsis#

The king of Macedonia, Alessandro, has overthrown Stratone, the tyrant of Sidon, but aims to find the rightful king.

Act 1#

In a meadow. The city of Sidon can be seen from a distance. Elisa is with her lover Aminta, the shepherd. She assures him that the war between King Alessandro and Stratone, the tyrant of Sidon, will not affect their love for each other. Having deposed Stratone, Alessandro searches for the rightful heir to Sidon. He thinks that Aminta is the rightful heir. He comes to Aminta in disguise and offers him to take him to Alessandro. Aminta wants to remain a shepherd. Meantime, Agenore encounters his beloved Tamiri, daughter of Stratone. Tamiri is comforted to learn that Agenore still loves her. Elisa gets permission from her father to marry Aminta. Aminta tells Elisa that he is the rightful heir to the throne and that his father was driven out by Stratone when he was a baby. Aminta promises to return to Elisa after claiming his throne. Aminta loves Elisa but Alessandro suggests that when Aminta is hailed king, royal duties take precedence over love. Alessandro suggests that Tamiri marry Aminta in order to ascend her father’s throne. Aminta disagrees.

Il sogno di Scipione

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Performance history#

In January 1979, Il sogno di Scipione was exhumed for Mozart Week in Salzburg, where it was given a complete performance. The participants – Peter Schreier (Scipio), Lucia Popp (Costanza), Edita Gruberová (Fortuna), Claes-Håkan Ahnsjö (Publio), Thomas Moser (Emilio) and Edith Mathis (Licenza), with the Salzburger Kammerchor and Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg under Leopold Hager – then made the work’s first recording, issued originally on a Deutsche Grammophon LP and reissued on CD in 1991 in the Philips Complete Mozart Edition. In 2001, Gotham Chamber Opera presented the U.S. stage premiere of Il sogno di Scipione at the Abrons Arts Center in New York City and presented a revival of the work in April 2012 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater in New York City as part of their tenth anniversary program. Judith Weir’s 1991 chamber opera, Scipio’s Dream, is based on Il sogno di Scipione with an adaptation of the original Metastasio libretto and a re-composition of the score which was cut to around one fifth of its length; it was recorded and broadcast by the BBC in a performance by Vocem and Endymion, conducted by Andrew Parrott, directed by Margaret Williams.

Kegelstatt Trio

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Mozart wrote the piano trio on 10 sheets (19 pages) in Vienna and dated the manuscript on 5 August 1786. According to Mozart’s 17-year-old student Karoline Pichler, the work was dedicated to another student of Mozart’s, Franziska von Jacquin; Mozart and the von Jacquin family – father Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin and his youngest son Gottfried – were quite close friends. They performed house concerts together, where Nikolaus played the flute and Franziska the piano. A week and a half later, Mozart composed and dated the trio E K. 498. He entered this work into his list of compositions simply as: (A trio for piano, clarinet and viola). There is no evidence that Mozart gave any nickname to the K. 498 trio; the moniker first appears ascribed to the K. 498 trio in Ludwig von Köchel’s 1862 thematic catalogue of Mozart’s music. The clarinet was still a relatively new instrument in Mozart’s time, and this trio, along with his Clarinet Quintet and Clarinet Concerto (the latter two for basset clarinets in A), helped increase the instrument’s popularity. The trio was published in 1788 by Artaria, transcribed – probably with Mozart’s consent – for violin, viola and piano, and the original clarinet part was described as an “alternative part”: . Due to this unusual scoring, the piece is sometimes adapted to fit other types of trios; e.g. a clarinet–violin–piano trio, a violin–cello–piano trio, a clarinet–cello–piano trio, or a violin–viola–piano trio, as in that first publication by Artaria.

Kleine Freimaurer-Kantate

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The work was written in Vienna where Mozart had lived since 1781 and is the last he ever completed. He recorded it as finished in his personal catalogue on 15 November 1791, twenty days before his death. The cantata reflects Mozart’s devotion to Freemasonry and was written for the celebration of a new temple for a Masonic lodge in Vienna called “Zur neugekrönten Hoffnung” (“New-crowned hope”). Peter Branscombe writes of the role of music in Freemasonry at the time: Music played an important part in the activities of most Masonic lodges in the eighteenth century. … In Vienna, where many of the leading musicians of the city were Masons, quite elaborated instrumentation was frequently employed. … Choral songs (often in three parts) were sung for the opening and closing of lodge meetings, for special occasions ambitious compositions were sometimes written, and visiting musicians were given the opportunity to display their skills. Mozart’s work fits into this picture, notably in that the chorus calls for three parts (Tenor I, Tenor II, and Bass).

Kleine Gigue in G, K. 574

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

- - *, Jörg Demus, 1962

Köchel catalogue

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In the decades after Mozart’s death in 1791 there were several attempts to catalogue his compositions, for example by Franz Gleißner and Johann Anton André (published in 1833), but it was not until 1862 that Ludwig von Köchel succeeded in producing a comprehensive listing. Köchel’s 551-page catalogue was titled (Chronological-thematic Catalogue of the Complete Musical Works of W. A. Mozart). Köchel attempted to arrange the works in chronological order, but many compositions written before 1784 could only be estimated, although Leopold Mozart had compiled a partial list of his son’s earlier works; Mozart’s catalogue of his own compositions (begun in February 1784 with K. 449) allows relatively precise dating of many of his later works. The catalogue included the opening bars of each piece, known as an incipit. Köchel divided the corpus into a main chronology of 626 works, and five appendices ( in German), abbreviated Anh. I–V which comprise: *I – Lost authentic works *II – Fragments by Mozart *III – Works by Mozart transcribed by others *IV – Doubtful works *V – Misattributed works From the time Köchel published his original catalogue in 1863 (now referred to as K), the dating of Mozart’s compositions has been subject to constant revision. Many more pieces have since been discovered, re-dated, or re-attributed, necessitating multiple revised editions of the catalogue. Subsequent editions – especially the third edition (K) by Alfred Einstein (1937), and the sixth edition (K) by , , and (1964) – have reflected attempts to arrange the growing list of works in a more accurate chronological order, according to updated scholarship. However, a major shortcoming of K was that there was no room to expand the strictly contiguous numbering in the main catalogue to allow for new discoveries or further reassessment of existing works. Simply creating a new sequential numbering according to the new chronology would shift most pieces to new numbers, causing confusion. For the 1937 edition (K) Einstein (following the analyses of Théodore de Wyzewa and Georges de St. Foix) reassigned some works from the original K appendices into the main catalogue by interpolating numbers with a lower-case letter suffix. In K some of these were, per intervening scholarship, returned to re-structured appendices: * K. 626a ** K. 626a I – 64 Cadenzas by Mozart to his own keyboard concertos ** K. 626a II – Cadenzas by Mozart to keyboard concertos by other composers * K. 626b – 42 sketches & other fragments by Mozart (replacing K Anh. II) * Anh. A – Copies by Mozart of other composers’ works * Anh. B – Works by Mozart transcribed by others * Anh. C – Doubtful and misattributed vocal (C 1–10) and instrumental (C 11-30) works In response to the confusing renumbering between versions, and resistance by users to any further changes, the ninth edition (K) by Neal Zaslaw (2024) explicitly abandoned the goal of chronological ordering. Instead, to be more consistent with past usage, almost all works in the main catalogue that had been included in a previous edition of the main catalogue returned to the oldest number they had been given. Works newly included in the ninth edition’s main catalogue were given numbers past 626, up to 721. For example, Divertimento for Wind Octet in E was renumbered multiple times: * It was numbered K. Anh. 226 in K; * Einstein placed it in the K main catalogue as K. 196e, between K. 196 and K. 197; * K reassigned it to the ‘doubtful’ appendix C as K. Anh. C 17.01; * K reverted to Einstein’s number K. 196e (though it is still considered a doubtful work). Some works in Anh. A have been identified since 1965 as by Leopold Mozart. Many works in Anh. C have since been more reliably assigned to other composers, or to Mozart himself.

Kyrie in D minor, K. 341

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The autograph was discovered and published after Mozart’s death, but was subsequently lost, and only copies and the first edition remain. Otto Jahn dated the work to between November 1780 and March 1781, during Mozart’s stay in Munich for a performance of his opera Idomeneo, since it was assumed that Mozart was mostly uninterested in church music during his Vienna years (producing only the unfinished C minor mass as a result of a vow, the unfinished Requiem for a commission, and the very short Ave verum corpus for a friend), and the clarinets in the scoring would not have been available in Salzburg. This assumption has since been refuted with the discovery of sketches for sections of the Mass by Mozart dating from the late 1780s, and it was suggested in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe that K. 341 actually dated from Vienna in 1787–91, when Mozart was hoping to be appointed Kapellmeister of St. Stephen’s Cathedral. The absence of K. 341 from Mozart’s thematic catalogue of his own compositions (the Verzeichnüss aller meiner Werke, that he kept from 1784 to 1791) may be explained if the work was left unfinished, something which is also suggested by some technical flaws in the published score.

Kyrie in F major, K. 33

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

L'enfant prodigue (ballet)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Based on the biblical Parable of the Prodigal Son, the ballet L’enfant prodigue was presented in three acts with choreography by French ballet-master Pierre Gardel. On 28 April 1812, L’enfant prodigue was premiered at the Opéra de Paris in Paris, France. The set design was influenced by the desert and the temple of the deity Apis in Memphis, Egypt. L’enfant prodigue was reworked after its premiere for its performance on 2 May 1812. Criticized elements were removed, enhancing the ballet’s acclaim and aligning it with the grandeur expected at the Opera.

L'oca del Cairo

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Mozart’s correspondence shows he wanted to write a comic opera to a new text for the Italian company in Vienna, after being commissioned to write one by Count Franz Orsini-Rosenberg, the director of the court theatre. He had only just met Lorenzo Da Ponte, who would later pen the libretti for several of Mozart’s most successful operas, but Da Ponte was not available (he was working as a librettist with Antonio Salieri) so Mozart turned to Giambattista Varesco, librettist for Mozart’s earlier opera Idomeneo. Mozart’s urgent need of a poet is attested by his willingness to work with someone, who in his opinion had “not the slightest knowledge or experience of the theatre”. He was also evidently keen to continue his streak of popularity, implemented by his previous opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Eventually Mozart realized the hopelessness of the project and abandoned Varesco’s libretto after six months because of its silly ending, a farcical travesty of the Trojan Horse legend. Prior to the abandonment of the project, Mozart had demanded changes to Varesco’s text, but it was to no avail. He stopped working on the opera completely on 10 February 1784, writing: “I’ve no thought of giving it at present”, later going on to cite the importance of his other projects which would garner him further financial stability.

La clemenza di Tito

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

In 1791, the last year of his life, Mozart was already well advanced in writing by July when he was asked to compose an opera seria. The commission came from the impresario Domenico Guardasoni, who lived in Prague and who had been charged by the Estates of Bohemia with providing a new work to celebrate the coronation of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, as King of Bohemia. The coronation had been planned by the Estates in order to ratify a political agreement between Leopold and the nobility of Bohemia (it had rescinded efforts of Leopold’s brother Joseph II to initiate a program to free the serfs of Bohemia and increase the tax burden of aristocratic landholders). Leopold desired to pacify the Bohemian nobility in order to forestall revolt and strengthen his empire in the face of political challenges engendered by the French Revolution. The ceremony was to take place on 6 September; Guardasoni had been approached about the opera in June. No opera of Mozart was more clearly pressed into the service of a political agenda than La clemenza di Tito, in this case to promote the reactionary political and social policies of an aristocratic elite. No evidence exists to evaluate Mozart’s attitude toward this, or even whether he was aware of the internal political conflicts raging in the kingdom of Bohemia in 1791. In a contract dated 8 July, Guardasoni promised that he would engage a castrato “of leading quality” (this seems to have mattered more than who wrote the opera); that he would “have the libretto caused to be written…and to be set to music by a distinguished maestro”. The time was tight and Guardasoni had a get-out clause: if he failed to secure a new text, he would resort to La clemenza di Tito, a libretto written more than half a century earlier by Pietro Metastasio (1698–1782). Metastasio’s libretto had already been set by nearly 40 composers; the story is based on the life of Roman Emperor Titus, from some brief hints in The Lives of the Caesars by the Roman writer Suetonius, and was elaborated by Metastasio in 1734 for the Italian composer Antonio Caldara. Among later settings were Gluck’s in 1752 and Josef Mysliveček’s version in 1774. Mozart was definitely familiar with the libretto before composition; in 1770, he saw a production with his father of Michelangelo Valentini’s setting in Cremona. There would be three further settings after 1791. Mozart was not Guardasoni’s first choice. Instead, he approached Antonio Salieri, the most distinguished composer of Italian opera in Vienna and head of the music establishment at the imperial court. But Salieri was too busy, and he declined the commission, although he did attend the coronation. The libretto was edited into a more useful state by the court poet Caterino Mazzolà. Unusually, in Mozart’s personal catalogue of compositions, Mazzolà is credited for his revision with the note that the libretto had been “reworked into a true opera”. Mazzolà conflated the original three act libretto into two acts, and none of the original Metastasio arias are from the original middle act. Mazzolà replaced a lot of the dialogue with ensembles and wrote a new act one finale, cobbled from lines in the original libretto, which presents the uprising, whereas Metastasio merely describes it. Guardasoni’s experience of Mozart’s work on Don Giovanni convinced him that the younger composer was more than capable of working on the tightest deadline. Mozart readily accepted the commission given his fee would be twice the price of a similar opera commissioned in Vienna. Mozart’s earliest biographer Niemetschek alleged that the opera was completed in just 18 days, and in such haste that the secco recitatives were supplied by another composer, probably Franz Xaver Süssmayr, believed to have been Mozart’s pupil. Although no other documentation exists to confirm Süssmayr’s participation, none of the secco recitatives are in Mozart’s autograph, and it is known that Süssmayr traveled with Mozart to Prague a week before the premiere to help with rehearsals, proofreading, and copying. It has been suggested by scholars of Mozart that he had been working on the opera much longer, perhaps since 1789; however, all such theories have now been thoroughly refuted in the English-language musicological literature. The opera may not have been written in just 18 days, but it certainly ranks with Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri, Il barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola as one of the operas written in the shortest amount of time that is still frequently performed today. It is not known what Leopold thought of the opera written in his honor. Reports that his wife Maria Luisa of Spain dismissed it as (literally in Italian “German swinishness”, but most idiomatically translated “A German mess”) do not pre-date 1871, in a collection of literary vignettes by Alfred Meissner about the history of Prague purportedly based on recollections of the author’s grandfather, who was present for the coronation ceremonies.

La clemenza di Tito (Colin Davis recording)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

The album was taped a few years after theatrical performances of La clemenza di Tito at Covent Garden in which Baker, Burrows, Lloyd and Minton sang the same roles as they do on the recording, and in which Davis was also the conductor. The staging, first seen in 1973, was produced by Antony Besch and designed by John Stoddart. The album does not present an entirely complete version of the opera, several passages of recitativo secco being omitted. The Covent Garden orchestra plays with modern instruments rather than the kind that were used in Mozart’s own era.

La finta giardiniera

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Synopsis#

:Time: 18th century :Place: Podestà’s estate in Lagonero, near Milan Summary: The story follows Count Belfiore and the Marchioness Violante Onesti, who were lovers before Belfiore stabbed Violante in a fit of rage. The story begins with the revived Violante and her servant Roberto disguised as “Sandrina” and “Nardo,” and quietly working in the mansion of the town Podestà. Violante discovers that Belfiore has become engaged to Arminda, the niece of the Podestà, and when Belfiore confesses his lingering love for Violante, Arminda jealously conspires to abduct the other woman. When Violante is found, she and Belfiore lose their minds and believe themselves to be Greek gods. When they regain their senses Violante forgives the Count and they fly to each other’s arms. Arminda returns to Cavalier Ramiro, her spurned suitor, and Roberto finds love with Serpetta, another servant of the Podestà.

La finta semplice

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition history#

The opera was something of a temporary career setback for Mozart, amid a childhood otherwise characterized by universal success and stardom. The instigation of the work was a suggestion made by Emperor Joseph II to Mozart’s father Leopold during a visit made to the Imperial capital of Vienna by the Mozart family (10 January 1768 to the end of December 1768). Leopold wanted to promote the exceptional talent of young Mozart with the hope of establishing him as an opera composer. The Emperor suggested to Leopold that Wolfgang write an opera for performance in Vienna to show his remarkable skills to the Viennese public as he had already done all over Europe. Leopold needed a good libretto, and he had the choice between seria and buffa. He noted that the seria singers available in Milan were mediocre, while the buffa singers were excellent. “There are no singers here for serious opera. Even Gluck’s tragic opera Alceste was performed entirely by opera buffa singers. He too is now writing an opera buffa " (30 January 1768). Leopold thus chose a buffa libretto, and for so doing, he simply went to the established librettist in Vienna, who happened to be the Florentine Marco Coltellini, an Italian “poet” who was to replace Metastasio as “poeta cesareo” at the Imperial court of the Habsburgs in 1769. Together they selected a libretto by Goldoni, the master of the commedia dell’arte genre. Coltellini modified the libretto somewhat, especially act 3. He abandoned some arias, replaced a few with his own, and in some cases, kept the original Goldoni aria in the scene while adding a new one of his own, with the result that a few scenes ended up with two arias instead of one, as was the norm, usually coming at the end of the scene. In Coltellini’s version, four scenes start with an opening aria and end with another: act 1, scene 3, nos. 4 and 5 arias; act 2, scene 6, nos. 16 and 17 arias; act 3, scene 1, nos. 22 and 23 arias; act 3, scene 2, nos. 24 and 25 arias. Some writers claim that, when the opera was finished, “the performers apparently disliked it” The “failure” of La Finta Semplice in Vienna, which went through rehearsals, but didn’t reach full performance, has been the object of similar hazy and cursory descriptions. Hermann Abert (1871–1927) describes in more precise detail the facts of this “fiasco” in his monumental book “W. A. Mozart” (1919, transl. 2007). This was to be the 5th edition of the famous book of the same title by Otto Jahn (1856–59), the first scholarly biography of Mozart, done with rigorous scientific conscientiousness (Deutsche Gründlichkeit) by a professional archeologist who had become a scholarly expert of ancient Greek vase paintings. Cliff Eisen, who edited the translation of Abert’s book in 2007 for Yale University Press with the best scholarship then available, does not dispute Abert’s historical facts and reasonings, presented in chapter 5, “First operas in Vienna”, p. 82–95, which provided the following quotes. The first act completed, “Mozart sent it off to the singers, who, according to Leopold, expressed their total satisfaction.” Then, Coltellini started making alterations, on the request of Mozart and the singers, and took so long that Easter of 1768, the projected date of the first performance, went by. “Mozart refused to be troubled by this, but continued to work on the opera, eagerly and enthusiastically, writing new arias whenever he was asked to do so”, (Abert, p. 86), soon completing a score in three acts, with 26 numbers, covering 558 manuscript pages. Young Mozart thus ended up composing a substantial major opera, lasting (in Leopold Hager’s 1983 recording) 2 hours and 45 minutes. The controversy arose, above all, from the jealousy of other composers, who started circulating the story that the opera had not been written by a 12-year old, but by his father, Leopold. Christoph Willibald Gluck was in town supervising the production of his new opera Alceste, and Leopold wondered whether he was also part of the intrigue against young Mozart. Leopold resorted to a test of improvisation to prove young Mozart’s authentic composition skills to elite aristocrats. “He would throw open a random volume from Metastasio’s works and invite Wolfgang to provide a musical setting with orchestral accompaniment, of whichever aria he hit upon” (Abert, p. 87). The impresario, Giuseppe Affligio, an independent contractor, alone in charge of the theater and all opera performances, and bearing all the costs and the risks, made the final decisions about all details of retaining the singers, organizing the rehearsals, and staging the final production. He became influenced by the systematic gossip and started worrying about a negative outcome. He began to have doubts, fearing that the appeal of an opera by a 12-year old prodigy would fade under the suspicions of fraudulent authorship. He found successive reasons to delay the performance. Things dragged on, until the artists started worrying in turn about the damage to their own reputations if the opera was a flop. The same singers who had “declared themselves well satisfied with music that they described as grateful, now began to fear for the success of the production when they saw how much effort was being expended on preventing it from going ahead. Leopold complained at the singers’ duplicity,” as the Viennese aristocrats “knew nothing of the inner wickedness of these beasts” (14 September 1768, Abert, p. 87). Abert gave an extensive musical analysis of the opera, and underlined the high quality of many arias written by Mozart, such as: * No. 5 Aria: “Guarda la donna in viso” (Fracasso); * No. 6 Aria: “Colla bocca, e non col core” (Rosina) * No. 9 Aria: “Senti l’eco, ove t’aggiri” (Rosina) * No. 13 Aria: “Con certe persone Vuol essere bastone” (Simone * No. 15 Aria: “Amoretti, che ascosi qui siete” (Rosina) “The highlight of the opera”, with “nobility of utterance” “achieving the expressive intensity of the later Mozart”, Abert p. 94 * No. 16 Aria: Ubriaco non son io” (Cassandro) * No. 17 Aria: “Sposa cara, sposa bella” (Polidoro) * No. 19 Duetto: “Cospetton, cospettonaccio!” (Cassandro, Fracasso) * No. 22 Aria: “Vieni, vieni, oh mia Ninetta” (Simone) * No. 24 Aria: “Che scompiglio, che flagello” (Giacinta) * No. 25 Aria: “Nelle guerre d’amore Non val sempre il valore” (Fracasso) and the 3 ensembles of the finales of each act, where young Mozart displays his remarkable facility in synchronizing the parts of 7 singers: * No. 11 Finale: “Dove avete la creanza?” (Rosina, Fracasso, etc.) * No. 21 Finale: “T’ho, detto, buffone” (Cassandro, Polidoro, etc. * No. 26 Finale: “Se le pupille io giro” (Polidoro, Rosina, etc.). It is not credible that the singers could have shown displeasure at such charming arias. Here Leopold’s account must be trusted against other commenters of the time. In fact, the turmoil put everybody’s reputation at stake, including that of the Salzburg Prince-Archbishop, whose employees the Mozarts were, representing him in Vienna. Leopold wrote that the artists employed and recommended by the archbishop should not be treated as “liars, charlatans, and impostors who venture forth, with his gracious permission, to throw dust in people’s eyes like common conjurors” (30 July 1768, Abert, p. 88). Affligio got so worked up that he even threatened, if the work got to first night, to make sure the opening would be a disaster. “He would ensure that it was a fiasco and that it was booed off the stage.” Leopold could not take the risk for himself and to thus endanger the unblemished reputation of his son, and “was left with no alternative but to abandon the production.” Leopold withdrew from the rehearsals. In fact, “Affligio was an adventurer and gambler who had obtained his officer’s commission by fraud…His complete lack of any understanding of art is clear…He was finally sent to the galleys for forgery.” (Abert, p. 88). The whole affair had “dragged on for 9 months” and in order “to salvage his reputation”, Leopold wrote “an indignant petition to the emperor on 21 September 1768, complaining of a conspiracy on the part of the theatre director Giuseppe Affligio, who apparently claimed that Wolfgang’s music was ghost-written by his father, and proving Mozart’s output by including a list of his compositions to that time.” (See also Eisen/Sadie, Grove Online, also Cliff Eisen, Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia). Leopold was also requesting the payment of the 100 ducats promised on delivery of the score in the initial Affligio contract plus the reimbursement of his expenses. The petition failed. The letter is reprinted in English translation in Deutsch (1965, pp. 80–83). The Emperor ordered an inquiry, but its result was that the opera was not to be produced. The Mozarts left Vienna at the end of December 1768, with La finta semplice still unperformed. It was probably produced in their home town of Salzburg, in 1769, at the request of Leopold’s employer, Prince-Archbishop Schrattenbach.

La villanella rapita

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Performance history#

The opera was first performed at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice in the autumn of 1783. It was then given at the Eszterháza Theater in Süttör, Fertőd, on 29 August 1784. It was also produced at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket in London under on 27 February 1790. A pasticcio with the same title, with some music by Bianchi as well as Paisiello, Guglielmi, Giacomo Gotifredo Ferrari, Sarti and Soler was performed at Théâtre Feydeau in Paris on 5 June 1789.

Lacrimosa

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Musical settings#

Many composers, including Mozart, Berlioz and Verdi, have set the text as a discrete movement of the Requiem.

Mozart’s Requiem#

Mozart died leaving his Lacrimosa incomplete, and there is an ongoing debate as to whether the completion by his pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayr can be improved upon. Süssmayr, Mozart’s only composition pupil, is not generally considered to have been a very good composer, and the counterpoint needed for the requiem seems to have been a challenge for him. However, it is not denied that he did his best for Mozart’s widow in allowing a completed work to be delivered. Ray Robinson, the music scholar and president (from 1969 to 1987) of the Westminster Choir College, suggests that Süssmayr used materials from Credo of one of Mozart’s earlier Masses, Mass in C major, K. 220 “Sparrow” in completing this movement. Süssmayr brought the choir to a reference of the Introit and ends on an Amen cadence. Discovery of a fragmentary Amen fugue in Mozart’s hand has led to speculation that it may have been intended for the Requiem. Many modern completions (such as Levin’s) complete Mozart’s fragment.

Leck mich im Arsch

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

English translation#

The German idiom used as the title of the work is equivalent to the British English “Kiss my arse!” or American English “Kiss my ass!”

Publication and modern discovery#

After Mozart’s death in 1791, his widow, Constanze, sent the manuscripts of the canons to publishers Breitkopf & Härtel in 1799 for publication. The publisher changed the vulgar title and lyrics of this canon to the more decent "" (“Let us be glad!”). Of Mozart’s original text, only the first words were documented in the catalogue of his works produced by Breitkopf & Härtel. A score containing what may possibly be the original text was discovered in 1991. Handwritten texts to this and several other similar canons were found added to a printed score of the work in a historical printed edition acquired by Harvard University’s Music Library. They had evidently been added to the book sometime after publication. However, since in six of the pieces these entries matched texts that had, in the meantime, independently come to light in original manuscripts, it was hypothesised that the remaining three may, too, have been original, including texts for K. 231 (“Leck mich im Arsch” itself), and another Mozart work, “Leck mir den Arsch fein recht schön sauber” (“Lick my arse nice and clean”, K. 233; K. 382d in the revised numbering). Later research revealed that the latter work was likely composed by Wenzel Trnka.

Leck mir den Arsch fein recht schön sauber

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Authenticity#

In 1988, Wolfgang Plath presented evidence that the composer of this piece, as well as “Bei der Hitz im Sommer eß ich”, K. 234/382e/Anh.A 40, was in fact Wenzel Trnka (1739–1791). That Mozart might not be the author of “Sie ist dahin”, K. 229, “Selig, selig”, K. 230, “Leck mich im Arsch”, K. 231, this work, K. 233, and “Bei der Hitz im Sommer eß ich”, was already mentioned in the Bärenreiter Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (NMA) in 1974. The Trnka canon’s original lyrics were “Tu sei gelosa, è vero”, but Mozart set the canon to his own scatological lyrics. Mozart’s widow Constanze Mozart submitted the modified canon to publisher Breitkopf & Härtel.

Les petits riens

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

, includes a list of recordings and sound files
, conducted by Willi Boskovsky

Litanies (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Mozart composed four litanies in his service as a church musician for the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. Litanies are prayers repeating acclamations, sometimes in responsory form. Mozart returned from his first Italian journey, begun in December 1769, to his Salzburg position as a Konzertmeister of the archbishop in March 1771. He composed his first litany, K. 109, dated May 1771, in the spirit of the Italian music he had encountered on his trip. It is a setting of the Marian litany Litaniae Lauretanae (Litany of Loreto, or Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary). The work requires only a small orchestra of violins and continuo, with optionally trombones playing with the voices, which suggests that it may have been intended for the chapel of Schloss Mirabell. Mozart structured it in five movements, similar to a composition of the text by his father Leopold. Mozart completed his second litany, K. 125, in March 1772, between his second journey to Italy and his third. It is a sacramental litany, Litaniae de venerabili altaris sacramento (Litanies of the venerated sacrament of the altar), venerating the Eucharist. The work in nine movements is scored for the same vocal forces, but a rich orchestra with woodwinds. The work was again modelled after a composition by Leopold Mozart of the same text. The autograph shows some changes from his hand. Mozart wrote his third litany, K. 195, another Marian litany, in 1774, between journeys to Vienna and Munich. An extended composition with virtuoso writing for soloists, it is one of the Litaniae solemnes performed at the Salzburg Cathedral. Mozart composed another sacramental litany, K. 243, in March 1776. Structured in six movements, it shows that Mozart studied the style of his predecessors at the cathedral, namely a double-fugue by Michael Haydn. He wrote music for solo instruments. Each section of invocations is concluded by a repeat of the beginning. This litany is regarded as his “most extensive contribution” to the genre. Mozart’s litanies appeared in Bärenreiter’s Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (NMA, New Mozart Edition), a critical edition, in 1969 in series I, part (Abteilung) 2/1: Litanies, edited by Hellmut Federhofer and Renate Federhofer-Königs. Further prints appeared in 1991 and 2005. Carus-Verlag published the litanies beginning in 2001 as part of the Stuttgarter Mozart Ausgaben.

Lo sposo deluso

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Performance history#

Mozart had originally planned to have the opera performed by a seven-member Italian troupe in Vienna. Although it was once thought that Lorenzo Da Ponte might have been the author of the libretto, scholarship by Alessandra Campana has established that the libretto was written by an unknown Italian poet for Domenico Cimarosa’s opera Le donne rivali, which he composed for the Rome carnival season of 1780. According to Neal Zaslaw, Cimarosa’s librettist may have been Giuseppe Petrosellini, the house poet of the Teatro Valle where Le donne rivali premiered. (Petrosellini was also the probable librettist of Mozart’s earlier opera La finta giardiniera). For Lo sposo deluso, Mozart had the characters in Le donne rivali expanded from five to seven, renamed the original five, and established the cast of singers for whom he would be writing. The composition of Lo sposo deluso was considerably inconsistent, with Mozart sketching several numbers from the first act in no particular order, and a final trio being the only number constituently orchestrated. The rest of the numbers were completed in concept, but ultimately left unfinished. It is unclear why he abandoned the work, although Zaslaw has proposed that it was a combination of the difficulties presented by re-writing and adapting the libretto for the Viennese audience and the fact that in 1785, Da Ponte had finally come through with the libretto for Le nozze di Figaro. Musicologist Rudolph Angermüller has also proposed that, due to the fact that the work was not commissioned and that the libretto was chosen by Mozart himself, the composer realised subsequently that there was a slim chance of the opera being performed. The first known performance of material from Lo sposo deluso dates from 15 November 1797, six years after Mozart’s death. Mozart’s widow, Constanze, arranged for the overture and opening quartet to be performed at the Estates Theatre in Prague during a concert highlighting the musical debut of their youngest son, Franz Xaver Mozart. The identity of the arrangers are unknown, but Zaslaw proposes that one of the composer’s pupils or some other “member of his circle” orchestrated the two musical numbers. All of the five numbers have since been completely reconstructed and performed. The full, incompleted draft was published in November 1882 as part of the Alte Mozart-Ausgabe, and was edited and revised by Gerhard Allroggen in 1988 for the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe. In 1991, the 200th anniversary of Mozart’s death, Opera North premièred The Jewel Box, a pasticcio opera devised by Paul Griffiths. This used the existing pieces from Lo sposo deluso and L’oca del Cairo as well as arias written by Mozart for insertion into operas by Anfossi, Piccini and Cimarosa, among others. (The programme was an imagined reconstruction of a 1783 pantomime in which Mozart and Aloysia Weber are said to have taken part.) In 2006, the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, the fragment of Lo sposo deluso received several performances, including: *Bampton Classical Opera’s revival of The Jewel Box. *The Salzburg Festival’s double bill of Lo sposo deluso and L’oca del Cairo, and other arias written by Mozart in a programme titled Rex tremendus, conceived and staged by Joachim Schlöme with the Camerata Salzburg conducted by Michael Hofstetter. (This performance is preserved on DVD, see Recordings)

London Sketchbook (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

K.15a–ss#

#15a – Allegretto in F for Piano #15b – Andantino in C for Piano #15c – Minuet in G for Piano #15d – Rondino in D for Piano #15e – Contredanse in G for Piano #15f – Minuet in C for Piano #15g – Fantasia (Prelude) in G for Organ or Piano #15h – Contredanse in F for Piano #15i – Minuet in A for Piano #15k – Minore in A minor for Piano #15l – Contredanse in A for Piano #15m – Minuet in F for Piano #15n – Andante in C for Piano #15o – Andante in D for Piano #15p – Movement to a Piano Sonata in G minor #15q – Andante in B-flat for Piano #15r – Andante in G minor for Piano #15s – Rondo in C for Piano #15t – Movement to a Piano Sonata in F #15u – Sicilianos in D minor for Piano #15v – Movement to a Piano Sonata in F #15w – Allemande in B-flat for Piano #15x – Movement to a Piano Sonata in F #15y – Minuet in G for Piano #15z – Gigue in C minor for Piano #15aa – Movement to a Piano Sonata in B-flat #15bb – Movement to a Piano Sonata in D #15cc – Minuet in E-flat for Piano #15dd – Andante in A-flat for Piano #15ee – Minuet in E-flat for Piano #15ff – Minuet in A-flat for Piano #15gg – Contredanse in B-flat for Piano #15hh – Rondo in F for Piano #15ii – Andante in B-flat for Piano #15kk – Movement to a Piano Sonata in E-flat #15ll – Presto in B-flat for Piano #15mm – Andante in E-flat for Piano #15nn – Movement to a Piano Sonata in F (fragment) #15oo – German Dance in F for Piano #15pp – Minuet in B-flat for Piano #15qq – Minuet in E-flat for Piano #15rr – Minuet in C for Piano (fragment) #15ss – Fugue in C for Piano (fragment)

Lucio Silla

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Performance history#

Lucio Silla premiered on 26 December 1772 in Milan at the Teatro Regio Ducale. Its UK premiere was produced by Camden Town Hall in London in 1967. Its US premiere followed in 1968 with a performance in Baltimore. Among other performances, Lucio Silla was given by the Santa Fe Opera in 2005 and in Warsaw in 2011 and by The Classical Opera Company in London in 2012. In 2013 the Gran Teatre del Liceu produced the opera in Barcelona and it was performed at both the Mozartwoche Salzburg and Salzburg Festival. Chicago Opera Theater presented the piece in 2015 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance under the direction of then-General Director Andreas Mitisek. Lucio Silla was staged at Madrid’s Teatro Real in 2017 as part of the program for its bicentennial celebration. In November 2017, La Monnaie in Belgium produced and performed the opera in a contemporary setting.

Mass in B-flat major, K. 275

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

References#

Heartz (1995) Daniel. New York. Haydn, Mozart, and the Viennese School: 1740 — 1780 W. W. Norton & Co.
Hugues (1974) Rosemary. London. Haydn. J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd
Schenbeck (1996) Lawrence. Chapel Hill, North Carolina Joseph Haydn and the Classical Choral Tradition Hinshaw Music

Mass in C major, K. 167 "in honorem Sanctissimae Trinitatis"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mass in C major, K. 220 "Sparrow"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

The mass may have been performed on 7 April 1776 during a celebration of Easter at the Salzburg Cathedral. According to a letter by Mozart, a copy was possibly loaned to the Heiligenkreuz Monastery the following year. The mass got the nickname (Sparrow Mass) on account of “the violin figures in the Hosanna” of the Sanctus, repeated after the , which “recall the chirping of birds.” The Sparrow Mass is one of a series of five masses Mozart composed in 1775–1776 (or possibly 1775–1777), all of them with clarini trumpets, and so in the “trumpet key” of C major. Karl Geiringer notes that K. 220 was one of the models Franz Xaver Süssmayr used when completing Mozart’s Requiem.

Mass in C major, K. 257 "Credo"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mass in C major, K. 258 "Piccolomini"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

The mass is often referred to as the Spaur Mass, although this is misleading; Leopold Mozart wrote in 1778 of a mass the family nicknamed the Spaur, as Wolfgang had written it for the consecration of Count Ignaz Joseph von Spaur. However, this could refer to one of many masses, including K. 257, K. 262 and K. 275/272b. The original score of this mass was discovered in the archives of the Cathedral of Brixen in 2007; this provides another link to the Spaur family, some of whom held power in the Bishopric of Brixen. An alternative nickname, Piccolomini Mass, is speculated to refer to the brevity of the mass; it does not appear to have any connection with the Piccolominis, a Sienese noble family. This is one of three masses Mozart composed in November and December 1776, all set in C major, including the Credo Mass (K. 257) and the Organ Solo Mass (K. 259).

Mass in C major, K. 259 "Organ solo"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

*Mozart’s autograph in the Berlin State Library * * *

Mass in C major, K. 262 "Missa longa"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mass in C major, K. 337 "Solemnis"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The setting is divided into six movements: # Kyrie # Gloria # Credo # Sanctus # Benedictus # Agnus Dei The Sanctus recalls features of the Kyrie, and also has a violin figure Mozart used again in Idomeneo. The Benedictus is peculiar for Mozart’s mass settings in that it is an austere fugue in an archaic style.

Fragmentary first Credo setting and its completion#

The autograph of the mass features an alternative setting of the Credo. This setting has a length of 136 measures and abruptly ends after the words “cuius regni non erit finis”. It is not clear why Mozart stopped work on this setting and instead began work on the second – and complete – setting of the Credo on the next page of the autograph, but this may be due to the fact that Mozart had forgotten to set the words “sub Pontio Pilato” to music in the first draft. In the years 1989 and 2003 Dr Murl Sickbert completed the fragment; in 2006 it was performed at Hardin–Simmons University, Texas.

Mass in C major, K. 66 "Dominicus"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Recordings#

1989 – Edith Mathis (soprano), Rosemarie Lang (contralto), Uwe Heilmann (tenor), Jan-Hendrik Rootering (bass) – Rundfunkchor Leipzig, Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Leipzig, Herbert Kegel – CD Philips. This recording was used in volume 19 (Missae/Requiem) of The Complete Mozart Edition. During the 1980s, Kegel recorded Mozart’s complete large-scale religious music (i.e. masses, missae breves, offertoriums etc.) for Philips.

External links#

- - - , Charlotte Margiono, soprano; Elisabeth von Magnus, alto; Uwe Heilmann, tenor; , bass; Arnold Schoenberg Choir; Concentus Musicus Wien, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Mass in C minor, K. 139 "Waisenhaus"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

The mass was commissioned by the Jesuit priest Father Ignaz Parhammer, who asked Mozart for music for the consecration of the new parish church Nativity of Mary on the , Vienna, known as (Orphanage Church). The commission gives the mass its nickname (Orphanage Mass). Mozart also composed a trumpet concerto suitable for performance by a boy as well as an offertory, both thought to be lost. The first performance took place on 7 December 1768 at the church, in the presence of the court. The twelve-year-old Mozart conducted a choir of orphans in a performance that received “universal acclaim and admiration”. and was his first and longest missa longa.

Mass in D major, K. 194

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mass in D minor, K. 65

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

- - - , Cathedral of Córdoba, Argentina, 2015

Mass in G major, K. 140 "Pastoral"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Attribution to Mozart - time of origin#

Ludwig von Köchel, in the first edition of his catalog of Mozart’s music, thought the Mass roughly contemporary with Lucio Silla and “Exsultate, jubilate” (1772-1773). Alfred Einstein thought its original composition to be closer to that of the sixth Serenade (1776) with his revision of Köchel’s catalog in 1937. Otto Jahn, Franz Giegling and others thought it not to be by Mozart at all. The work was accepted as genuine by Walter Senn: he published the Mass as No. 5 in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe in 1968. Senn assumes the Mass was composed in 1773, after Mozart had returned from Italy in March.

Mass in G major, K. 49

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Composed in Vienna in the autumn of 1768, this mass is Mozart’s only missa brevis to feature a viola part. It is not clear what occasion it was composed for, and it has been confused with the Waisenhausmesse, composed in the same year. Religious music at the time was increasingly influenced by opera and Baroque embellishments in instrumentation; Mozart’s early masses, such as K. 49/47d, have been seen as a return to the more austere settings of the pre-Baroque era.

Maurerische Trauermusik

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Mozart’s own entry into his catalogue under the heading “July 1785” may be an error; he most likely forgot to enter a new heading for November. It was performed during a Masonic funeral service held on 17 November 1785 in memory of two of Mozart’s Masonic brethren, Duke Georg August of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Count Franz Esterházy von Galántha, members of the Viennese aristocracy. The work uses the Gregorian chant reciting tone . The work is scored for 2 oboes, 1 clarinet, 3 basset horns, 1 contrabassoon, 2 horns and strings. The basset horn parts were written for fellow Freemasons Anton David and Vincent Springer. was premiered in the by the baroque orchestra La Banda conducted by Sebastian Ruf as an introduction to a performance of the Requiem.

Milanese Quartets (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

No. 2 in D major, K. 155/134a#

Written in the autumn of 1772 in Bolzano, the string quartet is in three movements:

No. 3 in G major, K. 156/134b#

Written at the end of 1772 in Milan, the string quartet is in three movements:

No. 4 in C major, K. 157#

Written at the end of 1772 in Milan and premiered in early 1773, the string quartet is in three movements:

Mitridate, re di Ponto

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Synopsis#

:Place: around the Crimean port of Nymphæum :Time: 63BC during the conflict between Rome and Pontus

Prologue#

Mitridate, having suffered a heavy defeat in battle, is presumed dead. This incorrect news is passed by Arbate, the Governor, to Aspasia (Mitridate’s fiancée) and to Farnace and Sifare (Mitridate’s sons).

Act 1#

Scene 1 Arbate, the governor of Nymphæum, welcomes Sifare. We learn that Sifare resents his brother, Farnace, because of his brother’s strong ties with their enemies, the Romans. Arbate pledges his loyalty to Sifare. Aspasia pleads for Sifare to help her against advances by Farnace. He accepts her plea and reveals his love for her. Scene 2 Farnace makes his advances to Aspasia. She refuses, supported by Sifare, who protects her from his forceful brother. News arrives that Mitridate is alive and is approaching the city. Arbate urges the brothers to conceal their differences and greet their father. The brothers agree to hide their feelings for Aspasia. Farnace conspires with Marzio, Roman legionary officer, against Mitridate. Scene 3 Mitridate arrives on the shores of Nymphæum with Princess Ismene, daughter of his ally the King of Parthia. Mitridate wants Farnace to marry Ismene, his promised bride. Ismene is in love with Farnace but senses problems and is worried about her future. Arbate tells Mitridate that Farnace is pursuing Aspasia, not mentioning Sifare. The jealous Mitridate swears revenge on Farnace.

Modern completions of Mozart's Requiem

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Liturgical completions#

For the first performance of the Requiem in Rio de Janeiro in December 1819, Austrian composer Sigismund von Neukomm constructed a movement based on material in the Süssmayr version. Incorporating music from various movements (including the “Requiem aeternam”, “Dies irae”, “Lacrymosa”, and “Agnus Dei”), the bulk of the piece is set to the “Libera me”, a responsory text traditionally sung after the Requiem Mass, and concludes with a reprise of the “Kyrie” and a final “Requiescat in pace”. A contemporary of Neukomm and a pupil of Mozart’s, Ignaz von Seyfried, composed his own Mozart-inspired “Libera me” for a performance at Ludwig van Beethoven’s funeral in 1827.

Mozart & Rossini Arias

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Recording#

The Mozart and Rossini music common to all three versions of the album was recorded using analogue technology in quadrophonic (4-channel) sound in September 1975 in De Doelen, Rotterdam. The second version’s music from Joseph Haydn’s operas La fedeltà premiata and Il mondo della luna was recorded using analogue technology in June 1975 and September 1977 respectively in the Grande Salle, Épalinges, Switzerland.

Cover art#

The cover of the first version of the album features a photograph of von Stade taken by her first husband, Peter Elkus. (When von Stade and Elkus divorced, he cited his contributions to her album covers in his successful litigation to secure a share of her future earnings. ) The cover of the second version features a photograph of von Stade taken by Mike Evans. The cover of the third version, designed by Netherlands, features a photograph of von Stade taken by Marcia Lieberman.

Mozart and Freemasonry

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mozart’s lodges#

Mozart was admitted as an apprentice to the Viennese Masonic lodge called “Zur Wohltätigkeit” (“Beneficence”) on 14 December 1784. He was promoted to Fellow on 7 January 1785, and became a Master Mason “shortly thereafter”. Mozart’s own lodge “Zur Wohltätigkeit” was consolidated with two others in December 1785, under the Imperial reform of Masonry (the Freimaurerpatent, “Masonic Decree”) of 11 December 1785, and thus Mozart came to belong to the lodge called “Zur neugekrönten Hoffnung” (New Crowned Hope). Based on surviving Masonic documents, Mozart was well regarded by his fellow Masons. Many of his friends were Masons. During his visit to Vienna in 1785, Mozart’s father Leopold also became a Mason.

Mozart Mass K. 139 (Claudio Abbado recording)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Recording#

The album was recorded using analogue technology in October 1975 in the Grosser Saal (main auditorium) of the Musikverein, Vienna.

Packaging#

The cover of the LP release of the album features a photograph of Abbado. The cover of the CD release, designed under the art direction of Hartmut Pfeiffer, features Norbert Attard’s painting “Mihrab XIV”, courtesy of CCA Galleries.

Critical response#

The musicologist Stanley Sadie reviewed the album on LP in Gramophone in March 1977, comparing it with a recent alternative conducted by Herbert Kegel. He began by reminding his readers that if current scholarship was to be believed, Mozart had written his festive, mostly C major, trumpet-and-drum flavoured Waisenhaus-Messe when he was only twelve years old. Yes, there was music in it that betrayed its composer’s immaturity - “naïveties”, “clumsy things”, passages that were echoes of ideas that Mozart could have picked up in Salzburg or Vienna. But there were, too, “movements fully and resourcefully worked out”. In what Abbado had done with this piece of juvenilia, there was more to celebrate than to criticize. Gundula Janowitz was in “lovely, pure, limpid voice”, showing no signs of difficulty except at the taxing beginning of the ‘Resurrexit’. Wiesław Ochman used his “pleasant, slightly reedy voice” satisfactorily. Kurt Moll gave no cause for complaint either, except that his bass was weightier than ideal when duetting with his tenor colleague. The Chorus’s contribution was meticulous, and the Vienna Philharmonic crystalline. The only charges that could be laid at Abbado’s door were some mannered piano moments in the Kyrie and the Credo. With excellent engineering by Deutsche Grammophon’s production team, Abbado’s disc was better than Kegel’s in virtually every respect. Sadie revisited the album on CD in Gramophone in August 1989, comparing it with a new version of the Mass conducted by Marcus Creed. Abbado’s disc, he wrote, had “superlative women soloists - Gundula Janowitz at her sweetest and most graceful, Frederica von Stade warm and musicianly as always”. But his opinion of Abbado’s tenor and bass was slightly harsher than when he had critiqued them on vinyl. Wiesław Ochman was now judged to be lacking in charm and no better than adequate, and Kurt Moll was “rather heavy and clumsy”. The Vienna State Opera Chorus was still “precise and well-focused”, however. Abbado’s conducting had both good points and bad. He elicited a performance that was lively, lucid, polished and nicely phrased, and he was skilled at managing those parts of the score where the 12-year-old Mozart’s ideas were least coherent. On the downside, his tempi were sometimes slower than the music called for, and he treated Mozart’s less solemn passages too gravely. As for Creed’s newer recording, it was true that his line-up of soloists was not as starry as Deutsche Grammophon’s. But Celia Linsley, if not blessed with Janowitz’s tonal beauty, sang with grace and charm; Werner Hollweg summoned up intensity when required; and Walton Grönroos seemed more at home in the Mass’s idiom than Moll did. Although Creed’s performance was not as glossy as Abbado’s, his sprightlier conducting and Capriccio’s inclusion of some worthwhile fill-up items made his disc marginally the more enticing.

Mozart symphonies of spurious or doubtful authenticity

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Reasons for misattribution#

There are numerous reasons why symphonic works have been misattributed to Mozart. For example: *A habit of the youthful Mozart was to copy parts of the music of other composers, for his own study purposes. The later discoveries of music scores, or fragments, in Mozart’s hand, sometimes led to the belief that the work was his. In particular this factor has led to confusion between the early symphonies of Wolfgang and those of his father Leopold, and also those of other composers in the Mozart circle such as Michael Haydn. *Mozart, when a mature composer and performer, would sometimes include the work of another—usually young and struggling—composer in one of his regular symphony concerts. Although he would present the true composer to the audience, the work’s tenuous association with Mozart would sometimes lead to a continuing belief that he was the composer. *Musical publishing and distribution methods were very lax in 18th century Europe, with manuscript versions of music being freely circulated. This could easily lead to confusion about authorship, and frequent misattribution. *Early inaccuracies in identifying Mozart’s works, for example by the Hamburg music dealer Johann Christoph Westphal, were carried forward into the later formal cataloguing by Breitkopf and Härtel and Köchel, and had a tendency to persist. *An unknown number of Mozart’s works are lost. Occasional “finds” of late 18th century music, particularly in places which have association with Mozart through personal visits or concert performances, have sometimes been rather hastily attributed to him, only to be disqualified on the discovery of contrary evidence.

Mozart's Twelfth Mass, K. Anh. 232

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Publication and performance history#

The mass was published in 1819 as No. 12 in Novello’s series of masses by Mozart, which is the origin of its name. Simrock was the first to publish the mass with full orchestral score, in 1821. After its publication by Novello the Mass made a steep rise in popularity, which peaked around 1860, outdoing any major religious composition by, among others, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Mendelssohn. In the English-speaking world, the Twelfth Mass broadly contributed to Mozart’s fame well into the 20th century. For example, it is mentioned explicitly as a work by Mozart in James Joyce’s novel, Ulysses, first published in 1922. By the late 20th century professional performers generally steered away from it. However the Gloria portion of the mass continues to be popular with amateur choral groups.

Nannerl Notenbuch

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Description of the#

Originally the was a bound volume of forty-eight pages of blank music paper, with eight staves on each page. Inscribed with the words Pour le clavecin (French: For the harpsichord), it was presented to Nannerl on the occasion of her eighth name day on 26 July 1759 (or possibly her eighth birthday, which fell on the 30th or 31st day of the same month). Over the course of the next four years or so, the notebook was gradually filled with pieces written out by Leopold and two or three anonymous Salzburg copyists. Wolfgang is thought to have written out four pieces. Curiously none of the pieces were inscribed by Nannerl herself. In later years, twelve individual pages were removed from the notebook for one reason or another. Of these, four are now considered lost, but the remaining eight have been identified by Alan Tyson: *two pages in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; *one in the Museum Carolino Augusteum, Salzburg; *two in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York City; *one in the Leipzig University Library, Leipzig; *one survives only as a facsimile and consists of the opening measures of K. 5b; *one, now in a private collection, consists of a single leaf containing the rest of K. 5b. The four lost pages have been tentatively reconstructed using a variety of other sources (Nannerl’s letters and Georg Nissen’s biography of Mozart). It is believed that in its completed state the contained a total of 64 pieces (including exercises and unfinished compositions), of which 52 are in the surviving 36 pages of the book. Wolfgang Plath (1982) has deduced the existence of five scribes, from a study of the handwriting in the . In addition to Leopold and Wolfgang, three anonymous scribes from Salzburg – known as Anonymous I, Anonymous II and Anonymous III – have been identified. Numbers 58 and 61, thought to be in the four missing pages, are known only from Nissen’s material; Plath assumed that these two pieces were copied out by Leopold, who was responsible for more than half the contents of the . The provides evidence of the collaboration between the young Wolfgang and his father. For example, number 48 is an arrangement of the third movement of Leopold’s D major serenade, but the trio also appears as Menuet II in Wolfgang’s Sonata K. 6. The is also useful in providing evidence of Leopold’s approach to teaching music. The tables of intervals show that he taught music theory to his children from the start. It seems that he also taught composition from the outset, by means of a given bass line, a melody to be varied, a melody to be continued, and a structural model. The earliest compositions by Wolfgang are written in Leopold’s hand; the father’s gentle suggestions for amendments came later.

National anthem of Austria

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Nineteen days before his death on 5 December 1791, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his last complete work, the Freimaurerkantate, K. 623. In parts of the printed edition of this cantata there appeared the song K. 623a "" (“Let us with joined hands”). To this melody the Austrian national anthem is sung. Today, claims of Mozart’s authorship are regarded as dubious among scholars and the song is attributed to (either solely or co-authored with Mozart) or Paul Wranitzky. Before the World War II Anschluss, Austria’s state anthem was “”, set to the tune of Haydn’s “”, the state anthem of imperial Austria since 1797. The current German national anthem "" uses the same tune, but with different words (it was also the co-national anthem of Germany during National Socialist rule). To avoid the association, and because singing it was banned for a time after the war, a new state anthem was created. The lyrics were written by Paula von Preradović. On 22 October 1946, the song was officially declared Austria’s national anthem, albeit without words. Lyrics were added in February 1947. On 1 January 2012, parts of the lyrics were changed to make the composition gender-neutral.

Non piu, tutto ascoltai

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Description#

The recitative “Non più. Tutto ascoltai” (No more! I have heard all) begins in allegro tempo in the key of C major. The aria commences at bar 52, marked “Rondo – Andante” in B-flat major, introduced by the solo violin, which accompanies the singer to the finale at bar 172. Both are in common time and written in the treble clef. The orchestra consists of two clarinets, two bassoons, two natural horns, a solo violin and a string section. A typical performance takes around ten minutes. The characters are Ilia, princess of Troy and her beloved Idamante, prince of Crete. (Idamante was a castrato soprano in the original Idomeneo, but here a tenor.) Ilia begs Idamante to forget her and choose Elektra for his bride, but Idamante romantically refuses this request, stating he would die of grief if this occurred. In concert performances, both parts are usually sung by the same recitalist.

O du eselhafter Peierl

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origin#

The work was written sometime between 1785 and 1787. On 2 September 1788, Mozart entered it into his personal catalog of works as part of a set of ten canons. The canon begins: O, du eselhafter Peierl O, du peierlhafter Esel Oh, you asinine Peierl oh you Peierline ass. Later, the lyrics include "" (“Oh lick me real quick in the arse”), a favorite expression in Mozart’s scatological works. For more examples and discussion, see Mozart and scatology. “O du eselhafter Peierl” was originally intended to be sung immediately following “Difficile lectu”, which humiliated Peierl by forcing him to pronounce fake Latin words that also sounded like (lick me in the ass). For the tale of how these two canons originated, see “Difficile lectu”. Zaslaw and Cowdery (1990) express admiration for the work, saying “it makes brilliant use of imitative and hocket-like devices” and “possesses the clockwork-like vocal interplay of a well-wrought opera buffa ensemble.”

O, wie will ich triumphieren

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Context#

Osmin, the bad-tempered house-servant to Pasha Selim, has caught his hated enemies trying to rescue a noblewoman from captivity in the Pasha’s harem. He taunts them, gleefully anticipating the pleasure of seeing them hanged.

External links#

“O, wie will ich triumphieren”, opera-arias.com
, Kurt Moll, Georg Solti, Royal Opera House 1990

Oboe Concerto (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

As with his Flute Concerto No. 1, the piece is orchestrated for a standard string section (violin I/II, viola and cello/double bass doubling the bass line), two oboes, and two horns in D/C. The first and last movements are in the home key of C major, while the second movement is in the subdominant key of F major. The piece is divided into three movements:

Flute Concerto No. 2#

The Flute Concerto No. 2 in D major, K. 314 (285d) is an adaptation of the original oboe concerto. Dutch flautist (1731–1797) commissioned Mozart for four flute quartets and three flute concerti, of which Mozart only completed three quartets and one new flute concerto. Instead of creating a new second concerto, Mozart rearranged the oboe concerto he had written a year earlier as the second flute concerto, although with substantial changes for it to fit with what the composer deemed flute-like. However, Dejean did not pay Mozart for this concerto because it was based on the oboe concerto.

Oboe Quartet (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

This piece is a work of chamber music, but it has elements that harken to other musical genres, and requires a fair amount of virtuosity. Because of its large amount of virtuosic playing on the part of the oboe and the large degree to which the strings simply accompany the oboist, it almost resembles a concerto, but with only four players instead of an entire orchestra. Despite this, there are also a number of places within the work that require ensemble playing, for example, the famous 13-bar passage in the finale in which the oboe plays in cut time against a 6/8 accompaniment. There are three movements: A performance takes around 15 minutes.

Or che il dover – Tali e cotanti sono

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

The aria was written in late 1766 in Salzburg when Mozart was ten years old. The author of the lyrics is unknown. It was the first composition by Mozart since his family’s return to Salzburg from their Grand Tour, and was first performed on 21 December 1766 as part of an entertainment marking the anniversary of the installation as archbishop of Sigismund von Schrattenbach. The work is scored for two oboes, two bassoons, two horns in D, two trumpets in D, timpani, strings and tenor. It is Mozart’s first use of trumpets and drums.

Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Conceived, written and composed to celebrate the newly recovered health of Nancy Storace, the Vienna-based, Anglo-Italian soprano destined to become the first Susanna of Figaro, and to welcome her back to the stage after a temporary loss of her singing voice owing to a nervous breakdown, Madame Storace was known for interpreting works by both Mozart and Salieri, as well as by her brother. Ofelia was a role that she was to sing in an opera by Salieri, La grotta di Trofonio, scheduled to premiere in June 1785, during the period she was unable to sing, and so the performance was postponed. Her recovery took three months. The cantata, composed in early Autumn, refers to Ofelia anticipating her performance. It is believed that Da Ponte and the composers wrote the cantata within a week, as Mme. Storace returned to the stage on September 19 in Giovanni Paisiello’s opera Il Re Teodoro in Venezia – a performance the cantata clearly refers to in stanza 27 – and exactly a week later the cantata was announced in the local newspapers Das Wienerblättchen and Wiener Realzeitung, which advertised copies for sale by Viennese publisher Artaria & Co. The premiere of Salieri’s new opera finally took place on October 12. Mozart had a close professional relationship with the diva. The following year, before her return to her native England, he composed a farewell concert aria for Mme. Storace—“Ch’io mi scordi di te? … Non temer, amato bene” (Will I forget you? … Fear not, beloved), K. 505—and accompanied her as pianist.

Per questa bella mano

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Description#

The work calls for one flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns in D, solo double bass, bass singer, and strings. The piece is in two sections; a slow 6/8 andante, finishing with an allegro in common time. The text is a romantic declaration of love. The aria is in the key of D major. The original singer was Franz Xaver Gerl, who notably sung the roles of Don Giovanni, Figaro and Sarastro. The original double bass player was .

Petite Mort (ballet)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Choreography and analysis#

The French title of Petite Mort refers to “little death”, a euphemism for orgasm. Jennifer Dunning, also a critic at the New York Times, commented, “Petite Mort moved its dancers and the dresses in stylishly ordered ranks and might even have been making a comment about male warriors and the gutsy women beneath those incapacitating gowns.” Vaghi, in analysing recurring allusions to baroque in Kylián’s works, noted that in Petite Mort, such references “are mostly seen in elements that are visible and audible onstage, such as costumes and music, and are less evident in the structure.” These references are evident in the use of fencing foils and lighting designs inspired by baroque painter Caravaggio’s use of chiaroscuro. She noted that the costumes are not literally baroque, as they are too tight for undergarments at that period, and instead “qualify as a contemporary reworking with a touch of nostalgia that appeals to today’s eyes… The costumes link this reworking of the past to sensuality and eroticism.”

Piano Concerto No. 10 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The concerto was originally scored for two fortepianos together with two oboes, two bassoons, two horns in E, and strings. Mozart expanded the score in 1782 with pairs of clarinets, trumpets and timpani. However, the authenticity of the additions is not beyond question; they do not appear in the score. The work is in three movements: The concerto departs from the usual solo piano concerto with the dialogue between the two pianos as they exchange musical ideas. Mozart divides up the more striking passages quite evenly between the two pianos. Also, the orchestra is rather more quiet than in Mozart’s other piano concertos, leaving much of the music to the soloists. The first movement is lyrical and “wonderfully spacious, as if Mozart is thoroughly enjoying himself and letting his ideas flow freely”, as Ledbetter has noted. The middle movement is slow and refined; the orchestra stays in the background behind the pair of playful pianists. The finale is a rondo filled with rhythmic drive and, after passages of lyrical grace, there is an exuberant return to the main rondo theme.

Piano Concerto No. 11 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

References#

Girdlestone, C. M. Mozart’s piano concertos. Cassell, London.
Hutchings, A. A Companion to Mozart’s Piano Concertos, Oxford University Press.
Mozart, W. A. Piano Concertos Nos. 11–16 in full score. Dover Publications, New York.

Piano Concerto No. 12 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Piano Concerto No. 13 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Assessment and reception#

This concerto has long had an ambiguous reputation. The first movement starts with a quiet theme, similar to that of the later C major Concerto No. 21, but introduced fugato. The orchestral introduction builds to an impressive tutti, but many writers, including Hutchings and Girdlestone, have considered that after the entry of the keyboard this early promise is somewhat dissipated. The keyboard part itself consists of passages that do not integrate well with the fugato treatment of the ritornellic material, and, as Hutchings comments, the result is that the “whole is less than the sum of the parts”.

Piano Concerto No. 14 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The Piano Concerto in E-flat is the first work that Mozart entered into his personal catalog, a notebook of his music which he kept for the rest of his life, indicating the main themes and dates of completion of each work. From this primary source, it is known that he finished the concerto on 9 February 1784. Mozart had begun the concerto while writing the three previous ones for his subscription concerts of 1782–3. However, he did not resume work on it until 1784, when he completed it alongside the 15th and 16th concertos (K. 450 and 451). In a letter to his father, having mentioned the technical difficulty of these concertos, Mozart then adds ‘The one in E-flat does not belong at all to the same category. It is a concerto of an entirely special manner’. The concerto was composed for his pupil Barbara Ployer. While critics such as Charles Rosen, Cuthbert Girdlestone and Arthur Hutchings have hailed K. 450 and K. 451 as heralding a new epoch in Mozart’s concerto writing, Neal Zaslaw has pointed out that this most likely meant performance with a string section of four parts, rather than one instrument to each part.

Piano Concerto No. 15 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Mozart composed the concerto for performance at a series of concerts at the Vienna venues of the Trattnerhof and the Burgtheater in the first quarter of 1784, where he was himself the soloist in March 1784. In a letter to his father, Mozart compared this concerto with the 16th concerto in D: “I consider them both to be concertos which make one sweat; but the B flat one beats the one in D for difficulty.” Many pianists consider this to be one of the most difficult of Mozart’s piano concertos. The concerto is primarily difficult from its many quick scale patterns which must be played perfectly and also from its many fast chord patterns moving up and down. Beginning with this concerto, Mozart began to use the term “grand” to describe his concerto such as K. 450 which feature a prominent and required wind section for the ensemble.

Piano Concerto No. 16 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The work is orchestrated for solo piano, flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings. The concerto is in three movements: Simon Keefe has noted contemporary comments from Mozart’s era on how the woodwind writing in this concerto showed a “newly intricate and sophisticated” character compared to Mozart’s prior keyboard concerti. Joel Galand has noted that the finale, in rondo-ritornello form, avoids use of a new re-entry theme.

Piano Concerto No. 17 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

References#

*Hutchings, A. A Companion to Mozart’s Piano Concertos, Oxford University Press. *

External links#

- - “Work details, sound file”, Köchel-Verzeichnis, International Mozarteum Foundation

Piano Concerto No. 18 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

For years, historical speculation was that Mozart had written this concerto for Maria Theresia von Paradis, based on a letter written around that time for his sister by their father. However, Hermann Ullrich has discounted this theory, based on the date of entry in Mozart’s catalogue and the fact that von Paradis had left Paris at the start of October 1784, which indicated that there was not sufficient time to send her the concerto for performance.

Piano Concerto No. 19 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

Like most of Mozart’s concertos it is in three movements: The concerto was written for Mozart to perform himself: Hutchings calls it “athletic”, combining grace with vigour. It is scored for flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, and strings. Cliff Eisen notes that Mozart’s own catalogue of his works lists the concerto as having trumpet and timpani parts, but these do not survive.

I. Allegro#

The first movement is in cut time, and it is the only first movement of a piano concerto by Mozart to be written in cut time. The first bar of the theme (see example below) uses a rhythmic pattern that this concerto shares with the first movement themes of preceding three concertos, K. 451, K. 453 and K. 456. The orchestra opens quietly with a prelude of 71 bars (Hutchings incorrectly states 72), wherein six orchestral themes are exposed (A–F in Hutchings’ notation; see main article on Mozart piano concertos for a discussion of this notation), of which the first, rhythmical and with a military ambiance, becomes increasingly important as the movement progresses; indeed, its insistent rhythm dominates the entire movement. The piano then answers with its own exposition of 116 bars, starting with A and B, then introducing some new material (themes x and y), with free passages of arpeggios and scales: the scheme is ABxAyA Free D Free. The orchestra then returns on its own with its short first ritornello (22 bars) that introduces another theme, G: the scheme is AGAG. In the ensuing middle section (35 bars), yet another orchestral theme is introduced, H: the scheme is HAHAHA. This is followed by a long recapitulation, also of 116 bars, where, as is typical of his concertos, Mozart rapidly departs from a simple repetition of the previous material: the scheme is ABAyADA Free. Finally, the movement is brought to a close with the final ritornello (36 bars): AGA Cadenza (Mozart’s own exists) EF – hence the two closing themes of the prelude are finally heard again at the end.

Piano Concerto No. 20 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

A few days after the first performance, the composer’s father, Leopold, visiting Vienna, wrote to his daughter Nannerl about her brother’s recent success: " I heard an excellent new piano concerto by Wolfgang, on which the copyist was still at work when we got here, and your brother didn’t even have time to play through the rondo because he had to oversee the copying operation." The concerto is written in the key of D minor. Other works by Mozart in that key include the Fantasia K. 397 for piano, the Requiem, a Kyrie, a mass, the aria “Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen” from the opera The Magic Flute, and parts of the opera Don Giovanni. It is the first of two Mozart piano concertos in a minor key (No. 24 in C minor is the other). The young Ludwig van Beethoven admired this concerto and kept it in his repertoire. Composers who wrote cadenzas for it include Beethoven (WoO 58), Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, Charles-Valentin Alkan, Johannes Brahms (WoO 14), Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Ferruccio Busoni, and Clara Schumann. Beethoven’s is the most commonly performed. One of Mozart’s favorite pianos that he played while living in Vienna had a pedal-board operated with the feet, like that of an organ. This piano is on display at the Mozart House in Salzburg, but no longer has a pedal-board. That Mozart had a piano with a pedal-board is reported in a letter by his father, who visited his son in Vienna. Among Mozart’s piano works, none are explicitly written with a part for a pedal-board, but according to Leopold’s report, at the first performance of the Piano Concerto No. 20, Mozart, who was the soloist and conductor, used his own piano equipped with a pedal-board. Presumably the pedal-board was used to reinforce the left-hand part or add lower notes than the standard keyboard could play. Because Mozart was also an expert on the organ, operating a pedal-board with his feet was no harder than using only his hands.

Piano Concerto No. 21 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The concerto is scored for solo piano, flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns in C, two trumpets in C, timpani and strings. The concerto has three movements:

I. Allegro maestoso#

The tempo marking is in Mozart’s catalog of his own works, but not in the autograph manuscript. The opening movement begins quietly with a march figure but quickly moves to a more lyrical melody interspersed with a fanfare in the winds. The music grows abruptly in volume, with the violins taking up the principal melody over the march theme, which is now played by the brass. This uplifting theme transitions to a brief, quieter interlude distinguished by a sighing motif in the brass. The march returns, eventually transitioning to the entrance of the soloist. The soloist plays a brief (a type of abbreviated cadenza) before resolving to a trill on the dominant G while the strings play the march in C major. The piano then introduces new material in C major and begins transitioning to the dominant key of G major. Immediately after an orchestral cadence finally announces the arrival of the dominant, the music abruptly shifts to G minor in a passage that foreshadows the main theme of the Symphony No. 40 in that key. A series of rising and falling chromatic scales then transition the music to the true second theme of the piece, an ebullient G major theme, which can also be heard in Mozart’s Third Horn Concerto. The usual development and recapitulation follow. There is a cadenza at the end of the movement, although Mozart’s original has been lost.

Piano Concerto No. 22 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure and analysis#

The concerto is in the following three movements: At about 35 minutes, it is one of Mozart’s longest concertos.

I. Allegro#

In his book on the piano concertos, Cuthbert Girdlestone pointed out the similarity between the opening of this movement and that of Mozart’s Symphony No. 1, K. 16, written when he was eight years old. This juvenile work was composed for an orchestra of oboes, horns and strings. A comparison illustrates how far Mozart had developed in the intervening 20 years: Both works start with “a vigorous and rhythmical attack and a light answer, quiet and tuneful”. In the earlier work, the whole ensemble plays question and answer phrases and repeats them in their entirety: The orchestration of the piano concerto is subtler and more differentiated. In the early symphony, the answering phrase consisted of block harmonies, but in the concerto it opens out into flowing lines of counterpoint, initially featuring just two horns and a bassoon: On repeating this, a different group of instruments plays the answering phrase, with “the unusual sound of the violins providing the bass for the solo clarinets”: Roger Kamien and Naphtali Wagner have analysed in detail Mozart’s use of bridge themes in the exposition of the concerto’s first movement. Simon Keefe has analysed the character of the dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra in the concerto’s first movement.

Piano Concerto No. 23 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The piano concerto is scored for piano solo and an orchestra consisting of one flute, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns and strings. It consists of three movements and typically lasts for about 26 minutes:

I. Allegro#

The first movement is in A major and is in sonata form. The piece begins with a double exposition, the first played by the orchestra, and the second when the piano joins in. The first exposition is static from a tonal point of view and is quite concise, the third theme is not yet revealed. The second exposition includes the soloist and is modulatory. It also includes the previously unheard third theme. The second exposition is ornamented as opposed to the first exposition which is not. The second theme has harmonic tension. This is expressed by dissonances that are played on the beat, and then solved by an interval of a descending second. This is also expressed in the use of chromatics in the melody and bass lines which is a source of harmonic tension, as the listeners anticipate the arrival of the tonic.

Piano Concerto No. 24 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Mozart composed the concerto in the winter of 1785–86, during his fourth season in Vienna. It was the third in a set of three concertos composed in quick succession, the others being No. 22 in E major and No. 23 in A major. Mozart finished composing the No. 24 shortly before the premiere of his comic opera The Marriage of Figaro; the two works are assigned adjacent numbers of 491 and 492 in the Köchel catalogue. Although composed at the same time, the two works contrast greatly: the opera is almost entirely in major keys while the concerto is one of Mozart’s few minor-key works. The premiere of the concerto was on either 3 or 7 April 1786 at the Burgtheater in Vienna; Mozart featured as the soloist and conducted the orchestra from the keyboard. In 1800, Mozart’s widow, Constanze, sold the original score of the work to the publisher Johann Anton André of Offenbach am Main. It passed through several private hands during the nineteenth century before Sir George Donaldson, a Scottish philanthropist, donated it to the Royal College of Music in 1894. The College still houses the manuscript today. The original score contains no tempo markings; the tempo for each movement is known only from the entries Mozart made into his catalogue. The orchestral parts in the original score are written in a clear manner. The solo part, on the other hand, is often incomplete: on many occasions in the score Mozart notated only the outer parts of passages of scales or broken chords. This suggests that Mozart improvised much of the solo part when performing the work. The score also contains late additions, including that of the second subject of the first movement’s orchestral exposition. There is the occasional notation error in the score, which musicologist Friedrich Blume attributed to Mozart having “obviously written in great haste and under internal strain”.

Piano Concerto No. 25 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The concerto is scored for solo piano, flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns in C, two trumpets in C, timpani and strings. It is one of Mozart’s longest concertos, with average performance durations of 29–33 minutes. The concerto has the following three movements: The C major concerto is frequently compared to Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony; Eric Blom writes that the concerto “reveals a concentration of workmanship and a grandeur which make it the counterpart to the Jupiter Symphony among the concertos”. Girdlestone considers its closest parallel to be the String Quintet in C, K. 515. The expansive first movement (in sonata form) is one of Mozart’s most symphonic concerto movements. This movement subtly slips in and out of the minor several times. One of the movement’s secondary themes is a march that often reminds people of “La Marseillaise” and may have been an inspiration for the soon to be written “La Marseillaise”. This theme dominates the development section. Beethoven references this concerto in his own Fourth Piano Concerto. In addition, the famous motif in the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony resembles one found in this concerto. Also, Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 and Beethoven’s 5th concerti have a strong march-like theme in the first movement that is first played in minor and then reappears in major. The tranquil second movement is in sonata form but lacks a development section. It extensively uses the winds. The third movement is a sonata-rondo that opens with a gavotte theme from Mozart’s opera Idomeneo. Girdlestone considers this movement very serious-minded. Like the first movement, it touches upon the minor, but it ends assuredly and joyfully.

Piano Concerto No. 26 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origin of the nickname “Coronation”#

The traditional name associated with this work is not Mozart’s own, nor was the work written on the occasion for which posterity has named it. Mozart remarked in a letter to his wife in April 1789 that he had just performed this concerto at court. (While this performance on 14 April has often been assumed to have been the work’s premiere, H. C. Robbins Landon considers this “exceedingly unlikely”.) But the nickname “Coronation” was derived from his playing of the work at the time of the coronation of Leopold II as Holy Roman Emperor in October 1790 in Frankfurt. At the same concert, Mozart also played the Piano Concerto No. 19, K. 459. Alan Tyson in his introduction to Dover Publications’ facsimile of the autograph score (which today is in the Morgan Library & Museum in New York) comments that “Although K. 459 has at times been called a ‘Coronation’ concerto, this title has nearly always been applied to K. 537”.

Piano Concerto No. 27 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The manuscript is dated 5 January 1791, but Alan Tyson’s analysis of the paper on which Mozart wrote the work indicates that Mozart used the paper between December 1788 and February 1789, which implies composition well before 1791. Simon Keefe has written that the work dates to 1788. But according to Wolfgang Rehm, Mozart composed the concerto in late 1790 and early 1791. Cliff Eisen discussed the controversy over the composition date in his review of the published facsimile of the score.

Piano Concerto No. 5 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

The work is scored for 2 oboes, 2 horns in D, 2 trumpets in D, timpani, and strings and was the only concerto with trumpets and timpani until No. 10, K. 365. The second movement omits the trumpets and timpani.

Movements#

The three movements of the concerto are listed as follows: This concerto was a favorite of Mozart’s and is mentioned in many of his letters. The autograph manuscript, which was last reported to be in the possession of F. A. Grassnick in 1862, is now lost. Before 1860, it was in the possession of Johann August André and was bound together with K. 238. According to the Köchel catalogue, it bore the heading , and comprised 54 folios with 107 sides used.

Piano Concerto No. 6 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The work is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two French horns, solo piano, and strings. It is a lightly textured work from early in Mozart’s career. The work is structured in three movements:

I. Allegro aperto#

The first movement, in sonata form, is marked Allegro aperto. “Aperto” literally means “open”, an attribute often used in Mozart’s early concertos, and while the exact meaning Mozart intended is unknown, it conveys “radiance and gaiety”, as the pianist Angela Hewitt notes. Mozart provided a short cadenza.

Piano Concerto No. 7 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

Article, source for dates above. Quotes Alfred Einstein’s Mozart: His Character, His Work. Einstein discusses the work briefly – two lines in two pages – dismissing it as the least of Mozart’s concertos with piano.
Performance (audio) by Robert Casadesus, Gaby Casadesus, Jean Casadesus and Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1963 – via Internet Archive

Piano Concerto No. 8 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

Countess Antonia Lützow, who was 25 or 26 years old at the time, was the second wife of Johann Nepomuk Gottfried Graf Lützow, the Commander of the Hohensalzburg Fortress. Suitable as a work for beginners, the solo work is not highly demanding, but it requires agility. Mozart played the concerto on his journey to Paris in Munich on 4 October 1777 and later in Mannheim, and used it for teaching. Three cadenzas by Mozart have survived. Kitano concludes that the first two cadenzas, A and B in the Urtext edition, may have been written for the Countess Lützow herself to accommodate her limited technical ability, while cadenza C more resembles what Mozart might have played when he performed the work in Augsburg in 1777. It is also suggested Mozart wrote a violin concerto for Countess Lützow’s brother Johann Rudolph Czernin (and almost the same age as Mozart). Johann Rudolf, his sister and their father were in connection with Mozart at that time, while Mozart was in service of their uncle, Count Hieronymus von Colloredo.

Piano Concerto No. 9 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

Mozart completed the concerto in January 1777, nine months after his Piano Concerto No. 8 in C major and with few significant compositions in the intervening period. He composed the work for Victoire Jenamy (1749–1812) , the daughter of Jean-Georges Noverre and a proficient pianist. Mozart performed the concerto at a private concert on 4 October 1777. Jenamy may have premiered the work earlier.

Structure#

The work is scored for solo piano, 2 oboes, 2 natural horns (in E), and strings. It consists of three movements:

Piano concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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List of concertos#

Concerto No. 7 is for three (or two) pianos and orchestra, and No. 10 is for two pianos and orchestra, leaving 21 original concertos for one piano and orchestra. *No. 5 in D major, K. 175 (December 1773) *No. 6 in B major, K. 238 (January 1776) *No. 7 in F major, K. 242 (“Lodron”) for three pianos (February 1776) *No. 8 in C major, K. 246 (“Lützow”) (April 1776) *No. 9 in E major, K. 271 (“Jeunehomme” / “Jenamy”, January 1777) *No. 10 in E major, K. 365/316a for two pianos (1779) *No. 11 in F major, K. 413/387a (1782–1783) *No. 12 in A major, K. 414/385p (1782) *No. 13 in C major, K. 415/387b (1782–1783) *No. 14 in E major, K. 449 (9 February 1784) *No. 15 in B major, K. 450 (15 March 1784) *No. 16 in D major, K. 451 (22 March 1784) *No. 17 in G major, K. 453 (12 April 1784) *No. 18 in B major, K. 456 (30 September 1784) *No. 19 in F major, K. 459 (11 December 1784) *No. 20 in D minor, K. 466 (10 February 1785) *No. 21 in C major, K. 467 (9 March 1785) *No. 22 in E major, K. 482 (16 December 1785) *No. 23 in A major, K. 488 (2 March 1786) *No. 24 in C minor, K. 491 (24 March 1786) *No. 25 in C major, K. 503 (4 December 1786) *No. 26 in D major, K. 537 (“Coronation”, 24 February 1788) *No. 27 in B major, K. 595 (5 January 1791)

Piano Concertos K. 107 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Recordings#

1954 - Artur Balsam (piano), Winterthur Symphony Orchestra, Otto Ackermann (Musical Masterpiece Society)
1965 - Robert Veyron-Lacroix (piano), Saar Radio Chamber Orchestra, Karl Ristenpart (conductor) (Music Guild Records)
1984 - Murray Perahia, English Chamber Orchestra (Sony Classical)
1990 - Ton Koopman, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra (Philips)
1992 - Yasuko Mitsui (harpsichord), Orchestre Philharmonique de Craiova, Modest Cichirdan (Gallo)
1993 - Malcolm Bilson, Orchestra of the Old Fairfield Academy, Thomas Crawford (MusicMasters)
1997 - Boris Mersson (piano), Craiova Philharmonic Orchestra (Doron Music)
1998 - Pierre Hantaï, Le Concert Français (Opus 111)
2001 - Pieter-Jan Belder, Musica Amphion (Brilliant Classics)
1990 - Lars Ulrik Mortensen, London Baroque (Harmonia Mundi)
2009 - Viktor Lukas (harpsichord), Lukas-Consort (Concerto Bayreuth)
2010 - Maria Graf, Bayerisches Kammerorchester Bad Brückenau, Gernot Schulz (Profil; arranged for harp)
2011 - Viviana Sofronitsky, Musica Antiqua Collegium Varsoviense, Tadeusz Karolak (Eťcetera)
2011 - Iván Martín, Galdós Ensemble (Warner Classics)
2014 - Luca Guglielmi, Concerto Madrigalesco (Accent)
2016 - Ronald Brautigam, Die Kölner Akademie, Michael Alexander Willens (BIS)
2017 - Erich Traxler, Ensemble Castor (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi)
2020 - Cyprien Katsaris, Salzburger Kammerphilharmonie, Yoon Kuk Lee (Piano 21)

Piano Concertos Nos. 1–4 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

No. 1 (K. 37) in F major#

The concerto is scored for two oboes (silent in the second movement), two horns in F, piano (or harpsichord) and strings. The three movements are: The first movement is based on the initial allegro of the sonata for keyboard with violin accompaniment (Op. 1, No. 5) by Hermann Friedrich Raupach, from a set of six published in Paris in 1756. The provenance of the second movement is unknown, although Eric Blom, the editor of the 5th edition of Grove’s Dictionary (1954), suggested that it was in fact by Mozart. The final movement is based on the first movement of the sonata, Op. 2, No. 3, by the Strasbourg-based .

Piano Quartet No. 1 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition and reception#

Mozart received a commission for three quartets in 1785 from the publisher Franz Anton Hoffmeister. Hoffmeister thought this quartet was too difficult and that the public would not buy it, so he released Mozart from the obligation of completing the set. (Nine months later, Mozart composed a second quartet anyway, in E-flat major, K. 493). Hoffmeister’s fear that the work was too difficult for amateurs was borne out by an article in the Journal des Luxus und der Moden published in Weimar in June 1788. The article highly praised Mozart and his work, but expressed dismay over attempts by amateurs to perform it: as performed by amateurs it not please: everybody yawned with boredom over the incomprehensible tintamarre of 4 instruments which did not keep together for four bars on end, and whose senseless concentus never allowed any unity of feeling; but it please, it to be praised! … what a difference when this much-advertised work of art is performed with the highest degree of accuracy by four skilled musicians who have studied it carefully. The assessment accords with a view widely held of Mozart in his own lifetime, that of a greatly talented composer who wrote very difficult music. This view has been challenged by Ridgewell. He points out, first, that there is almost no hard evidence of the public reception of the quartet at the time. The review above, in fact, complained about its widespread popularity among amateur musicians who performed it badly. And it is also not certain whether it referred to this piano quartet or the second, which had by then been published by Artaria. Maynard Solomon points out that Hoffmeister “contrary to legend, was so little discouraged by the reception of this his first Mozart publication that he issued eleven others of his works over the next three or four years”, casting further doubt on the reasons for the cancellation of the commission. At the time the piece was written, the harpsichord was still widely used. Although the piece was originally published with the title “Quatuor pour le Clavecin ou Forte Piano, Violon, Tallie sic et Basse”, stylistic evidence suggests Mozart intended the piano part for “the ‘Viennese’ fortepiano of the period” and that, according to Basil Smallman, our modern piano is “a perfectly acceptable alternative”.

Piano Quartet No. 2 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition and reception#

Mozart received a commission for three quartets in 1785 from the publisher Franz Anton Hoffmeister. Hoffmeister thought the G minor Quartet (K. 478) was too difficult and that the public would not buy it, so he released Mozart from the obligation of completing the set. Nine months later, Mozart composed this quartet anyway, completing it on 3 June 1786.

Movements#

The work is in three movements:

Editions and versions#

The C. F. Peters Edition set of parts has rehearsal letters throughout the whole work; the Eulenburg Edition study score has measure numbers but no rehearsal letters, the same goes for Bärenreiter.

Piano Sonata in B-flat major, K. 498a

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Form#

A typical performance lasts for about 19 minutes. The movements are: The musicologist Alfred Einstein suggested that the Menuetto from this work might be a piano arrangement of the “missing movement” of Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525 (1787). The Andante is an arrangement of the variations movement of the concerto K. 450 in B-flat major, and the Rondo incorporates arrangements of passages from the finales of the B-flat concerti K. 450, K. 456, and K. 595.

Piano Sonata No. 1 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

The sonata is in 3 movements:

I. Allegro#

The first movement, marked Allegro, is structured in sonata form; the exposition opens with a turning figure for the left hand, which forms the basis for much of this movement. After a repeat of the opening 2 bars, an Alberti bass is introduced for the left hand, whilst the right hand plays the melody based on the opening turning figure. The opening section uses chromatic appoggiaturas for colour. An imperfect cadence leads towards the dominant (G major) in preparation for the 2nd subject, as expected. The second subject focuses on rapid scales and leads to a perfect cadence in G major, ready for the development section. The exposition is repeated, which is standard for sonata form. The development begins in G minor uses the opening theme to follow a series of ascending arpeggios in several keys before moving towards G major and then back to the tonic, C major, for the recapitulation. The recapitulation follows a similar structure to the exposition, although the imperfect cadence that led to the dominant previously now leads to the final 10 bars of the exposition, this time in the tonic key. The first movement ends with a perfect cadence and a three bar elaboration on the tonic with an inverted c major chord.

Piano Sonata No. 10 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The sonata has three movements:

I. Allegro moderato#

The first movement typically takes about five to nine minutes to perform. The length of the movement depends largely on whether both repeats (the repeat of the exposition and the repeat of the development and recapitulation) are observed. The movement shows two clear major themes, which have been decorated by the use of ornamentation, as was typical of the time. The movement is in typical sonata form (composed of exposition, development, and recapitulation). The first subject is in tonic key of C major and modulates to the dominant, G major, for the exposition of the second subject. The development is more intense and contains wider modulations. In the recapitulation, the first subject is heard, again in C major. The music then modulates to G major, and then returns to C major for the recapitulation of the second subject in the tonic key.

Piano Sonata No. 11 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The sonata consists of three movements: All of the movements are in the key of A major or A minor; therefore, the work is homotonal. A typical performance of this entire sonata takes about 20 minutes.

I. Andante grazioso#

Since the opening movement of this sonata is a theme and variation, Mozart defied the convention of beginning a sonata with an allegro movement in sonata form. The theme is a siciliana, consisting of an 8-measure section and a 10-measure section, each repeated, a structure shared by each variation.

Piano Sonata No. 12 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

The sonata consists of three movements and takes approximately 18 minutes to perform (25 minutes with repeats).

I. Allegro#

\header tagline = ##f upper= \relative c’ \clef treble \key f \major \time 3/4 \tempo 4 = 140 \set Staff.midiInstrument = #“piano” f2\p^\markup Allegro (a4) c2 (a4) bes2 (g'4) f8 (e) e4 r4 f4 (a, d) g, (c4. a8) > % attention les liaisons de tenues sont avec ~, celle de phrasé avec () > % même problème liaison = ~ ; phrasé = () g4\f (bes) r4 lower=\relative c \set Staff.midiMaximumVolume = #0.7 \clef bass \key f \major \numericTimeSignature \time 3/4 f8 (a c a c a) f8 (c’ ees c ees c) f,8 (bes d bes d bes) f8 (g bes g bes g) 4 r4 r4 R2. f4 (a, d) g, c4. (a8) f4 (d’ bes) a4 r4 d bes r4 c f, r4 \score \new PianoStaff > \layout indent = 0 \midi The first movement is in a classical sonata form, with repeats for the exposition, the development and recapitulation. The first theme of the exposition begins with a right hand melody over a left hand Alberti bass figure. Next, there is a short melody with the left hand echoing it, while the right hand plays a two-part phrase that includes a Mordent. Immediately following thereafter is parallel motion in both hands in very similar rhythm. A sudden change follows, with the F major key changing into the relative minor key, D minor at measure 23. The second theme (m. 41) begins in the dominant key of C major, is in galant style, and is immediately restated in varied form (m. 49). The remainder of the exposition includes many forte piano dynamics, hemiolas, parallel thirds in the right hand, trills in the right hand, and left hand octaves and broken chords. The exposition ends at measure 93 in C major. The development section begins at measure 94 with a new melody, focusing on the transitional passage between the second and closing themes in the exposition. As in the exposition, the development includes strikingly similar musical characteristics such as the contrasting forte piano dynamics, hemiolas, left hand octaves, and parallel thirds in the right hand. The first movement concludes with the recapitulation starting at measure 133, where the first thematic area returns unchanged, the transition modulates to distant harmonies yet closes on the tonic, and the remainder of the exposition returns, transposed into the tonic.

Piano Sonata No. 13 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Dating#

There is no doubt the sonata was first published on 21 April 1784 in Vienna by Christoph Torricella (along with K. 284 and K. 454, as op. 7). The actual date of composition, however, has proven more difficult to determine. Because the manuscript is not written on the type of music paper Mozart is known to have used in Vienna, scholars believed the piece was composed before Mozart moved there. Thus Köchel, in the first edition of his Mozart catalog (1862), gave the hypothetical date 1779, later clarified by Georges de Saint-Foix (1936) to “Salzburg, beginning of January–March 1779.” However, Alfred Einstein, in the third edition of the Köchel catalog (1937), said it was composed in “late summer 1778 in Paris.” This date was maintained even until the sixth edition of the Köchel catalog (1964). More recently, this date has been invalidated by the findings of Wolfgang Plath and Alan Tyson. On the basis of Mozart’s script, Plath assigns the piece to the time around 1783/84, “likely not long before the appearance of the first print.” Furthermore, Tyson convincingly demonstrates through paper tests that the work was composed at the end of 1783, likely in November, around the same time as the “Linz Symphony”, K. 425, when the Mozart couple made a stopover in Linz on their way back to Vienna from Salzburg. This new dating also fits stylistic criteria.

Piano Sonata No. 14 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

The work has three movements:

I. Molto allegro#

The subject is stated boldly in octaves, occurring twice in the first 8 bars. The subject remains strong until the transition, where the opening motif is taken one octave higher, and a scale-type passage modulates the key to the relative major, E major. The second subject has some very graceful melodies supported by Alberti bass, which continue until the second half of the piece. This section uses material from the first and second subjects to form the development. The most unstable section harmonically, this goes through the keys of C major, F minor, G minor, and returning to the original part in C minor. The recapitulation occurs from bar 100 to 168, this time the second subject is in C minor instead of the E major of the exposition, and the coda ends the piece from bar 168 to 185.

Piano Sonata No. 15 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Other arrangements#

Edvard Grieg arranged this sonata for 2 pianos, by adding further accompaniment on the secondo part, whilst the primo part plays the original. This attempt to “impart to several of Mozart’s sonatas a tonal effect appealing to our modern ears” serves to document the taste of Grieg’s late nineteenth-century Norwegian audience. A notable recording is that of Elisabeth Leonskaja and Sviatoslav Richter.

External links#

- - Performance of Piano Sonata No. 15 by Jonathan Biss from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format

Piano Sonata No. 16 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The music#

The work has three movements:

I. Allegro#

: \new PianoStaff > The first movement is written in sonata form and is in the key of C major. The familiar opening theme is accompanied by an Alberti bass, played in the left hand. A bridge passage composed of scales follows, arriving at a cadence in G major, the key in which the second theme is then played. A codetta follows to conclude the exposition, then the exposition is repeated. The development starts in G minor and modulates through several keys. The recapitulation begins, unusually, in the subdominant key of F major. The Alberti bass that began as a C major triad at this point becomes an F major triad, followed by a left hand F major scale pattern which emulates the rhythm of the previous right hand A minor scale. According to Charles Rosen, the practice of beginning a recapitulation in the subdominant was “rare at the time the sonata was written”, though the practice was later taken up by Franz Schubert.

Piano Sonata No. 17 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

(Alte Mozart-Ausgabe version)
Recording by Paavali Jumppanen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format

Piano Sonata No. 18 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Date of the sonata#

In a letter to a fellow Freemason Michael von Puchberg, dated 12 July 1789, Mozart wrote “meanwhile I am working on six easy piano sonatas for Princess Friederike and six quartets for the King”. Hermann Abert believed K. 576 to be one of these sonatas; however, Wolfgang Plath and Wolfgang Rehm stated in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe that they doubted this, as K. 576 is demanding to play, often considered one of Mozart’s hardest sonatas, due to its technically difficult counterpoint passages. Charles Rosen offered a moderate viewpoint, considering that Mozart may have mistakenly believed that these passages were easy (as they are in two parts, one in each hand), even if they are not actually so in practice. The work was published posthumously in 1805.

Piano Sonata No. 2 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I. Allegro assai#

The first movement of the sonata is in sonata form, and consists of an exposition of three themes of new material, a development varying and combining the themes from the exposition, and a recapitulation, in which the exposition is repeated and varied. The sonata begins with the first theme of the exposition, which itself begins with a forte arpeggiated chord, followed by three thirds. The theme next contains a series of falling quarter notes over block chords and Alberti bass, rapid sixteenth notes, and falling fifths. The second theme consists of legato triplets in the right hand over octaves in the left. The theme is somewhat chromatic, with frequent accidentals. The third theme is mostly quarter and eighth notes with an irregular accompaniment. The exposition ends with a C major chord. The development and recapitulation follow, varying and combining these themes before restating them, as is normal in sonata form.

Piano Sonata No. 6 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I. Allegro#

A first version of the beginning of the first movement, written on one and a half pages, was abandoned by Mozart. On the same page, he started anew to write the final version underneath. The thematic material of this opening movement (and to a lesser degree also that of the following movements) is laid out on a more ample, nearly orchestral scale, a departure from the intimacy of the early sonatas. The tremolo effect in measures 13-16 and the unison announcements of the first subject read very much like a piano reduction of an orchestral tutti. The second subject, a supple melodic line, unaccompanied in its opening bar, incorporates a descending chain of first inversions, a favourite harmonic formula of the baroque and classical periods. (There are analogous passages in the subsidiary themes in Gluck’s overture Iphigénie en Tauride and the first movements of J. S. Bach’s Italian Concerto). This functions as a solo passage in contrast to the ensuing tutti entries in m.30. The development moves through a circle of minor keys before the recapitulation begins in measure 72.

Piano Sonata No. 7 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

(Alte Mozart-Ausgabe version)
Performance of Piano Sonata No. 7 by Paavali Jumppanen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format

Piano Sonata No. 8 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Little is known about the precise circumstances surrounding the composition of the sonata; unlike the earlier Sonata in C major, K. 309/284b, it was little mentioned in his correspondence. The surviving manuscript was written using the same type of paper used for the Symphony No. 31 in D major, K. 297/300a, which Mozart purchased while in Paris. The sonata is a rare minor key composition in Mozart’s catalogue. Composed alongside the Violin Sonata No. 21 in E minor, K. 304/300c, it has been suggested that the sudden death of Mozart’s mother may have led to the more sombre mood found in these pieces.

Piano Sonata No. 9 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

- (Alte Mozart-Ausgabe version)

Piano Trio No. 1 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

The work is in three movements: The violin part provides significant melodic and textural material independent of the piano part, but the cello, as was usual in piano trios of the period, largely follows the piano’s left-hand part.

External links#

*“Work details, audio”, Köchel-Verzeichnis, International Mozarteum Foundation * *

Piano Trio No. 4 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

This piano trio is in three movements: Beckles Willson comments that “the mellifluous nature of the first movement’s opening piano theme and the unusually detailed and intricate shades of dynamics marked in the score, including the marking of ‘dolce’ to the second theme, both provide chamber-like intimacy. The first presentation of the second movement’s stately theme is in the piano alone; in the second presentation the cello and the violin surround the piano. The cello’s provision of the bass-line in bar 13 in particular is a potent registral and harmonic features of the altered theme.”

Popoli di Tessaglia!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Mozart completed this recitative and aria in Munich on 8 January 1779, as an insertion aria in act, scene 2, for the opera Alceste by Christoph Willibald Gluck. It was written specifically to showcase the superlative vocal skills of Mozart’s future sister-in-law, Aloysia Weber, who was only 18 at the time. However, sopranos who are able to cope with the aria’s demands have been few and far between, and hence the aria is usually omitted from performances of Alceste. It has been therefore redesignated a concert aria, to be presented in concerts by such rare singers as are able to deliver its fiendishly difficult coloratura.

Prussian Quartets (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Quartets#

String Quartet No. 21 in D major, K. 575, Op. 18, No. 1 (1789)
String Quartet No. 22 in B major, K. 589, Op. 18, No. 2 (1790)
String Quartet No. 23 in F major, K. 590, Op. 18, No. 3 (1790) Due to the prominence of the cello part these quartets came to be known as ‘Concertante Quartets’.

Historical background#

While Mozart was composing these quartets he was also working on a set of sonatas for the King’s daughter, Princess Friederike (K. 576 was the only one completed). He was paid 100 Friedrichs d’or for his work. But thereafter Mozart received no more of his promised fees. In effect Mozart withheld the dedication and engraved the piece at his own expense as he wrote in a letter to his friend and fellow freemason Michael von Puchberg: “… I am meanwhile composing…six quartets for the King, all of which Kozeluch is going to engrave at my expense.” Mozart never dedicated the pieces to the Prussian King, so the title of these quartets has originated from his private thematic catalogue of his own work (which he was keeping at the time). He entered K. 575 as “A quartet for 2 violins, viola, and cello, for his Majesty the King of Prussia”. He did not mention the King of Prussia in his entries for K. 589 and K. 590.

Quintet for Piano and Winds (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

There are three movements: The first movement is in sonata form. It opens with a slow introduction, marked Largo. After the slow section cadences on a B dominant chord with a fermata (where the pianist will often improvise an Eingang), the movement’s main theme appears featuring solo piano and is taken up by the winds a few bars later. The theme appears in the development with the piano in A major, B minor, C minor, and then in C major by the oboe. The movement ends with two E major chords. The second movement is often marked Larghetto, but the indication is missing from the autograph. The opening theme is played by the winds at the beginning of the movement but by the piano in the recapitulation. The development, after spending one bar on a German augmented sixth chord with a root of C, abruptly goes into the distant key of E minor for one bar, and four bars later, ends up back in the home B major. The third movement, marked Allegretto, is a five-part rondo (in A–B–A–C–A form), with the primary theme played first by piano solo and then by the winds shortly thereafter. After the B section, which is primarily in B major, the A theme returns for a second time. Towards the end of the C section, the piano and winds play a E major I chord with a fermata, prompting a cadenza. Unlike the concertos Mozart wrote in this time period, this cadenza is played by all five instruments. It is not until some time of cadenza-like material has passed that the third appearance of A is heard. After many bars of piano, the movement ends on two tutti E major chords. The ending of the piece was rewritten by a person other than Mozart, but since the autograph is accessible, the attempted forgery was discovered and corrected. This piece was allegedly the inspiration for the Quintet in E for Piano and Winds, Op. 16 by Ludwig van Beethoven, who composed his tribute in 1796. The compositions share their key and scoring. Eduard de Lannoy too composed a quintet in E♭ for the same ensemble. In 1995, French composer Jean Françaix arranged the quintet to a nonet (oboe, clarinet in B, horn in E, bassoon, 2 violins, viola, cello and double bass), reworking the piano part for the strings.

Regina coeli (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and music#

When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was working at Salzburg Cathedral, he set the Latin Marian antiphon for Eastertide three times. The earliest is K. 108, a setting for soprano, choir and orchestra, written in May 1771 after Mozart’s return from Italy. A year later, he wrote K. 127 for the same vocal forces, as a work in three movements. The solo part was composed for Maria Magdalena Haydn, the wife of Michael Haydn, sister in law of Joseph Haydn and court singer, probably in 1779, after his return from Paris. Mozart composed a setting for four soloists, four-part choir and orchestra, K. 276.

Requiem (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

The Requiem is scored for two basset horns in F, two bassoons, two trumpets in D, three trombones (alto, tenor, and bass), timpani (two drums), violins, viola, and basso continuo (cello, double bass, and organ). The basset horn parts are sometimes played on conventional B♭ or A clarinets and sometimes the related alto clarinet, even though this changes the sonority. The vocal forces consist of soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass soloists and an SATB mixed choir.

Ridente la calma

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins and stylistic profile#

No autograph manuscript for Mozart’s “Ridente la calma” survives. The earliest mention of it in the Mozart documentation is a letter of Constanze Mozart written to the Leipzig publisher Breitkopf & Härtel on 25 February 1799. In this letter, Constanze offered Breitkopf & Härtel 21 miscellaneous compositions by her late husband for sale, among them “Ridente la calma”. Breitkopf & Härtel published the piece the same year in a volume of Lieder for voice and piano. Since the manuscript used as the basis for the edition was somehow lost, there is no record of what Mozart considered its genre to be. The designation canzonetta, now the customary means of identifying the genre of the work, was introduced in the early 20th century. In the original thematic catalogue of Mozart’s compositions published by Ludwig Köchel, it was numbered 152 with a suggested date of 1772 (as it turns out, much too early). The basis for this date was likely the simplicity of the musical materials and its archaic dal segno aria form, a type common in Italian opera of the mid-1760s to mid-1770s that was a variant of the older da capo aria form, or A–B–A form, in which the customary repetition of the opening A section is substantially abbreviated. The dating may also have been influenced by the opinion of Otto Jahn that it “would fit quite well in one of Mozart’s older Italian operas” (i.e., his Italian operas of the first half of the 1770s). In the early 20th century, there was a feeling among certain Mozart scholars that the piece might have been from a slightly later period, perhaps 1772 to 1776, and in the third edition of the Köchel catalog edited by Alfred Einstein, the number assigned to it was 210a, a higher number to reflect a later chronological framework. Sensibly, “Ridente la calma” was removed from the main body of the Köchel catalogue in its latest edition and placed in Anhang A (Appendix A) among arrangements of works by other composers. For over a century, “Ridente la calma” was accepted as a genuine composition of Mozart in all respects with little dispute, but in 1929, Georges de Saint-Foix published an article that demonstrated the vocal piece to be an arrangement of the aria “Il caro mio bene” by Mysliveček, which he discovered in a portfolio of Mysliveček arias in the music collection of the Conservatoire de Paris. The manuscript included no dating of the aria nor any indication of an opera in which it might have been used. Collations of Mysliveček’s vocal music prepared in the 1980s and 1990s by Stanislav Bohadlo and Daniel E. Freeman revealed that “Il caro mio bene” is associated with the opera Armida without any evidence that it was composed earlier than the première of the work for carnival operatic season of 1780 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan (i.e., with a première just after Christmas of 1779). The unusual stylistic profile of “Il caro mio bene” is attributable to Mysliveček’s close personal connections with the renowned castrato soprano Luigi Marchesi (who appeared in Mysliveček’s opera Ezio and oratorio Isacco, figura del redentore in Munich in 1777, then brought him to Naples for the 1778/79 operatic season to appear in Mysliveček’s La Calliroe and L’Olimpiade in roles that established him permanently as a great operatic figure in Italy and led to singing engagements all over Europe. Before arriving in Milan at the end of 1779 to sing the role of Rinaldo in Armida, Marchesi had appeared both in Mysliveček’s opera La Circe in Venice in May of the same year and Francesco Bianchi’s opera Castore e Polluce in Florence in the autumn. It is known that Marchesi brought the aria “Se piangi, se peni” from Castore e Polluce with him to Milan, because it was mentioned in a press report from the 1784 as being used to replace one of the unsuccessful arias in Mysliveček’s Armida after the opera had failed and Mysliveček himself had left Milan to supervise a production of his next opera, Medonte, in Rome during the same carnival operatic season of 1780. Without doubt, it would have been used to replace Mysliveček’s aria “Il caro mio bene” at the beginning of act 3. Marchesi achieved notable success in Milan with Bianchi’s “Se piangi, se peni”, whose text is a parody of Metastasio’s aria text “Se cerca, se dice”, an outstanding vehicle for Marchesi’s abilities during his appearance in Mysliveček’s L’Olimpiade in Naples in 1778. Bianchi’s “Se piangi, se peni” was the first of a series of small-scale arias intended to appear in the last act of operas that he carried around with him for years. It was clearly favoured greatly by Marchesi, who had already had it inserted in November 1779 into Giuseppe Sarti’s Achille in Sciro, the second opera of the autumn season in Florence that year. As can be seen by comparing the arias “Se piangi, se peni” by Bianchi and “Il caro mio bene” by Mysliveček, the latter was clearly based closely on the former. Each is in the same key and cast in the same old-fashioned dal-segno format and share similar length, similar tempo, similar triple meter, identical instrumentation with flutes, and very similar melodic profiles. This hints at the desire of Marchesi to force the insertion of “Se piangi, se peni” into the production of Armida, which would have been a problem for Mysliveček, who was adverse to permitting arias by other composers to be used in the first performances of his operas (not a single case of which has ever been identified in any of the scores prepared for his operatic premières). Instead of incorporating a Bianchi aria into his score, Mysliveček supplied Marchesi with a new aria in a similar style that conformed to the general orientation of Castore e Polluce by Bianchi, a “Franco-Italian” fusion that incorporated traits of “reform” opera as cultivated by Christoph Willibald Gluck. This explains the Frenchified mythological subject matter of Bianchi’s opera and the dominance of arias of modest length with simple, “natural” melodic lines devoid of elaborate coloratura (generally a specialty of Mysliveček’s arias). Although the audiences in Milan in 1780 did not care for the result that Mysliveček produced, his aria enjoyed long-term success. It circulated as an independent vocal piece attributed to Mysliveček, and Marchesi must have carried it with him as a favoured aria for years, the likely means by which the music eventually came into Mozart’s hands. A fresh summary and expansion of theories concerning the dissemination of Mysliveček’s music for the aria “Il caro mio bene” and the replacement of its text with “Ridente la calma” has recently been compiled by the Italian musicologist Lucio Tufano. Marchesi made a habit of commissioning arias of modest proportions in moderate triple meter for use in the third acts of the operas in which he appeared. As far as Mozart’s arrangement “Ridente la calma” is concerned, the next important aria to be singled out is Francesco Bianchi’s “Ridente la calma” as it appears in his opera Il trionfo della pace for Turin in 1782. This aria, in similar musical style to both Bianchi’s earlier aria “Se piangi, se peni” and Mysliveček’s “Il caro mio bene”, was set to the same text as Mozart’s “Ridente la calma” and now (after a very long period of mystery) can be attributed to the librettist of the opera Il trionfo della pace, Cesare Oliveri: It is an open question whether Mozart ever knew the dramatic context of the text he used in his setting, which expresses a mood of clemency and reconciliation from the character Ciro, a prince of Persia who has imprisoned defeated enemies in battle but is inclined to free them after an exhortation from the allegorical character La Pace (Peace), a deus ex machina who appears at the very end to resolve all the outstanding dramatic conflicts. In the second half of the text, Ciro turns to his beloved Ariene, daughter of one of the prisoners to be released, to confirm that they may now be together. Ridente la calma, Nell’alma si desti, Nè resti si più segno Di sdegno, e timor. Tu vieni frattanto A stringer, mio bene, Le dolci catene Sì grate al mio cor. As I smile, a sense of calmness wakes in my soul; let there be no more hint of resentment and fear. In the meantime, you come to grasp, my beloved, the sweet chains so dear to my heart. Mozart’s setting of this same text differs little musically from the model of Mysliveček’s “Il caro mio bene”, but the middle of Bianchi’s version seems to have been the source of some minor musical variants in the middle section of Mozart’s “Ridente la calma”. The precise dating of Mozart’s version of “Ridente la calma” cannot be established with certainty, but it would naturally make sense to believe that it originated from a time and place in which both Marchesi and Mozart were present at the same time. There is only one possibility for such a meeting: a short period in 1785 (perhaps in the autumn) when both men were present in Vienna during the preparations and performance of Giuseppe Sarti’s opera Giulio Sabino, in which Marchesi appeared. There is no record, however, of Marchesi’s activities in Vienna at this time other than his performance in the opera, and there is no documentary confirmation that Mozart ever met Marchesi in his entire life. The latest edition of the Köchel catalogue specifies the date of composition of Mozart’s arrangement “Il caro mio bene” as “presumably around 1785” in Vienna. It is strange that several different texts of the final-act arias carried around by Marchesi in the 1780s could be underlaid to varying musical settings, but they all had similar poetic structures. The texts of Bianchi’s “Se piangi, se peni” and “Ridente la calma” and Mysliveček’s “Il caro mio bene” could all be underlaid interchangeably to the music for any of these three arias. This created an unusual choice for Mozart to be ale create an arrangement by selecting either the text or the music among multiple arias supplied to him by Marchesi. It was clearly a sign of Mozart’s continued regard for the talents of his old friend Mysliveček that he chose to match his music with the text “Ridente la calma” from a Bianchi aria with hardly with any of Bianchi’s musical ideas being used at all. It is possible to explain the choice of Bianchi’s text as a reference of regret over Mozart’s estrangement with Mysliveček in the year 1778. After cultivating a close relationship, Mysliveček betrayed Mozart and his father by promising to arrange an operatic commission for Mozart in Naples in return for his father’s assistance in obtaining commissions for musical compositions from the archbishop of Salzburg. Mozart’s father came through with his part of the deal, but Mysliveček did not, which ended contacts with the Mozart family permanently. The reference in the text “Ridente la calma” to the cessation of feelings of “resentment” (or “indignation”) could provide an explanation for Mozart’s choice of the text as a way of expressing regret over his estrangement with Mysliveček, even though Mozart was entirely blameless in the matter. This can only be a matter of speculation for the present time.

Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Description#

The aria is marked allegro, of 195 bars in common time, in the key of D major. The vocal range reaches from G to F. In this catalogue aria, the singer Guglielmo declares how his fiancée Fiordiligi is unlikely to betray him due to his many admirable qualities and his faithfulness for her. He lists how he and his fellow “Albanian” Ferrando possess qualities such as dancing, singing and impressive physical characteristics, and how they are both without equal from Canada to Vienna. An elaborate solo for the oboe commences at bar 94. A typical performance lasts for around five and a half minutes. The work calls for two oboes, two bassoons, two trumpets, timpani and strings.

Rondo for Piano and Orchestra in A major (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

Mozart wrote the Rondo in A major at around the same time as his three first Vienna piano concertos, nos. 11, 12 and 13. When the autograph manuscript was sold, Mozart’s widow and her helpers apparently were unable to locate the concluding pages, although some notations on it and contemporary correspondence show that they attempted to find the ending. Constanze Mozart sold the manuscript on November 8, 1799 to J. A. André, Most recent recordings of the rondo, such as those of Murray Perahia and Malcolm Bilson, include the rediscovered original ending.

Rondo for Piano and Orchestra in D major (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

The piece was composed in early 1782 by Mozart as an alternative final movement to his Piano Concerto No. 5, a piece he composed in December 1773 when he was 17. He composed the Rondo for a number of reasons. He considered the use of a Sonata-form movement too complex for the movement’s context, where he needed to gain a reputation and a subsequent secure income. He did this through composition, teaching and piano performances in concerts. As he did not have too many original piano concertos to his name this was an area where Mozart could draw work from. His 5th piano concerto had been a great success in Mannheim, which he had visited on his 1777 journey to Paris. Thus, he revised the work to make it more suitable for his Viennese audience at the upcoming important Lenten concert on 3 March 1782. This led to the composition of the Rondo in D in the months before the concert, where it was performed for the first time. The Rondo was a more tuneful alternative to its predecessor and thus it was very popular with the audience; indeed, in the concert it was encored.

Rondo in A minor (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition, premiere, and publication#

Mozart recorded the completion of the Rondo in his personal thematic catalog on 11 March 1787; he was age 31 at the time and had only recently returned from a triumphant journey to Prague, where he witnessed great success for a new production of his 1786 opera The Marriage of Figaro, for his Symphony No. 38, and for his own solo piano performances. Abert notes some other major works of this stage in Mozart’s life: the Rondo shortly preceded the beginning of work on Don Giovanni; and instrumental pieces from 1787 include the Third and Fourth String Quintets as well as the string serenade Eine kleine Nachtmusik. No musical sketches for the Rondo survive. This is not surprising, since as Ulrich Konrad has noted, none of the many surviving Mozart sketches are for solo keyboard works; apparently Mozart felt no need to sketch in his native performing medium. Simon Keefe even suggests that the Rondo was not created through ordinary musical composition but rather was improvised on the spot, perhaps before an audience in Prague during his trip there (January–February 1787), or at a Vienna concert on 11 February 1787. No record survives of Mozart having premiered the completed Rondo in public. Aside from Keefe’s suggestion above, a different guess is entertained by : “Since subscription i.e., benefit concerts of two of Mozart’s musician friends took place shortly after he completed the work (that of the oboist Friedrich Ramm on 14 March and of the bass singer Ludwig Karl Fischer on 21 March), and works by Mozart were ascertainably performed there … it seems plausible to assume that the Rondo in A minor was also given its first performance at one of these concerts.” The Rondo was published (1787) by Franz Anton Hoffmeister in Vienna, and reissued by a variety of publishers in the years after Mozart’s death in 1791. The Hoffmeister publication consisted of a volume of works for piano by Mozart and other composers; it was issued as part of a monthly subscription series The title is in French. For “prénumération” see Praenumeration. “Pour le Forte Piano ou Clavecin” means “for the piano or harpsichord”. The specific term fortepiano is widely used in modern times to designate the early version of the piano for which Mozart composed; in Mozart’s day it was simply one of several words used to denote the piano. Concerning “or harpsichord”, an effective performance of the Rondo on this instrument seems hard to imagine, but well into Beethoven’s time music publishers used the phrase “or harpsichord” to encourage sales of music composed for piano, including even the “Moonlight” Sonata. An alternative to buying printed music in Mozart’s day was the purchase of handwritten copies. Later in 1787 (17 October), an advertisement in the Wiener Zeitung announced that manuscript copies of the Rondo (price 1 florin) were available from the copyist Johann Traeg, who had previously issued three of Mozart’s piano concertos. Traeg frequently produced unauthorized copies of composers’ works; there is no evidence whether or not his version the Rondo was created with Mozart’s cooperation. Several editions of the Rondo are available today. The modern editor will generally rely on surviving copies of the Hoffmeister edition and on facsimile editions of the original autograph (hand-written) manuscript. The two sources differ in dozens of places, though mostly just in details of phrasing or articulation. The edition by Scheideler relies primarily on the autograph, but includes a list of all the divergences.

Sancta Maria, mater Dei

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In the summer of 1777, the 21-year-old Mozart was desperate to leave Salzburg, and so asked Archbishop Colloredo to allow him and his father, Leopold, to find their income elsewhere. The archbishop’s response was to dismiss both of them from his service, however he later felt remorse, and allowed Leopold to resume his job of deputy Kapellmeister. Mozart composed this act of consecration for the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (8 September), before setting out on 23 September 1777 with his mother on their journey to Augsburg, Mannheim, and Paris, where she died.

Schlafe, mein Prinzchen, schlaf ein

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The words are by Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter. For many years, the common view was that the melody was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and it was entered into the Köchel catalogue as K. 350. Attribution for the melody has since shifted to either Bernhard Flies or Friedrich Fleischmann, and it has been removed from the main body of the Köchel catalogue and put into the appendix for spurious or doubtful works as K. Anh. C 8.48.

Serenade No. 10 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition date#

Some prominent authorities (Köchel, Tyson, and Dexter Edge) show that the paper and watermarks of this work prove a composition date of 1781. That the work was specially composed for a public concert given by Anton Stadler on 23 March 1784 is less likely, because this performance has no proven connection with the date of composition and only marks an ante quem date. The autograph of this work contains 24 leaves of paper-type 57. Four other compositions that used this paper can be securely dated to 1781. It was shown by Alan Tyson that this fact is sufficiently compelling to presume that K. 361 was composed in 1781. There is no evidence whatsoever that the 24 leaves of this paper-type that appear in the autograph of K. 361 were ever intended for anything other than K. 361, and it is clear from the pattern of paper-usage that K. 361 was the principal project for which Mozart acquired that paper-type. The documentary history also shows that there is an unequivocal reference to wind-band music in Vienna in 1781. The performance of only four movements in 1784 generated the belief that the work was composed in two stages. Bastiaan Blomhert has made an argument that the octet version of movements 1, 2, 3 and 7 of the Gran Partita are the original version, one that Mozart enlarged in 1784 for the (concert) of Anton Stadler in the Vienna Burgtheater. –>

Serenade No. 11 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

- *Michael Lorenz: “The Origin of Mozart’s Serenade K. 375 " (Vienna 2023)

Serenade No. 12 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

The serenade is scored for 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 French horns, and 2 bassoons.

Structure#

There are four movements: The minuet is a canon. The oboes carry the melody with the bassoons answering one bar later. The trio is also canonic with the response to the melody played upside down. The finale is a set of variations containing a central episode in E major and a coda that turns to C major near the end.

Serenade No. 4 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The serenade is scored for two oboes (doubling flutes), bassoon, two horns, two trumpets and strings. There are eight movements: The March in D, K. 237/189c, was used as an introduction or exit for this work. Music from this composition, and from “Il mio tesoro”, is used in Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949).

External links#

“Work details, sound files”, Köchel-Verzeichnis, International Mozarteum Foundation
, Collegium Aureum, conducted by

Serenade No. 9 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

- *, , Colin Davis, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra

Sinfonia Concertante for Four Winds

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lost manuscript#

In April 1778, Mozart wrote to his father from Paris about the sinfonia concertante he was writing for performance at the Concert Spirituel naming the four virtuoso soloists who were to play. They were Johan Wendling (flute), Friedrich Ramm (oboe), Giovanni Punto (horn) and Georg Wenzl Ritter (bassoon). Mozart knew the three woodwind players from a previous visit to Mannheim. He wrote that the four soloists were “in love with” the work and that Joseph Legros, the Concert Spirituel director, had kept the score to have it copied. However at the last minute Mozart’s piece was displaced from the concert program by a piece for similar forces by Giuseppe Cambini and the Mozart work was never played. From this point the original Mozart work became lost.

Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

The piece is scored in three movements for solo violin, solo viola, two oboes, two natural horns, and strings, the last including a divided viola section, which accounts for the work’s rich harmony. The solo viola part is written in D major instead of E major, and the instrument is tuned a semitone sharper (scordatura technique), to give a more brilliant tone due to added tension on the instrument. This technique is less common when performed on the modern viola with steel strings. It is used mostly in historically-informed performance on original instruments, the gut strings becoming brighter in tone with slightly increased tension.

Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola, Cello and Orchestra (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Mozart is believed to have started work on this concerto around the same time as the Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat major K. 364. For unknown reasons Mozart abandoned the work after writing 134 bars of the opening movement. British composer Philip Wilby, who completed the movement in 1989, notes similarities between K. Anh. 104 and its counterpart, K. 364. He mentions scoring similarities (in fact, they both share the exact same orchestration), the tuning of the viola, similar passages and rhythmic patterns. Wilby’s reconstruction of the work is substantially based on the opening movement of K. 364. He also notes the experimental writing of the cello part, and that this work holds a historical importance within Mozart’s output; the fact that it is his only writing for solo cello and orchestra known as of present, with a lost Cello Concerto in F major, K. 206a still being documented in the composer’s catalogue, and a possibility of it being discovered in the future. The cello part also employs Jean-Louis Duport’s newly introduced technique of using the thumb in order to reach higher registers (as the work contains a very demanding rising figure to a G-sharp from the bass within the course of a single bar). This technique was discussed in Duport’s Essai sur le doigté du violoncelle et sur la conduite de l’archet (“Essay on the fingering of the violoncello and on the conduct of the bow”).

Sonata for piano four-hands, K. 497

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Mozart composed the sonata for piano four-hands in F major in Vienna in August 1786, between composing his operas Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni. He may have written it to play it with a student, Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin’ daughter Franziska von Jacquin.

Movements#

The sonata is structured in three movements: It is Mozart’s only sonata for piano four-hand with a slow introduction to the first movement. <!–

Sonata for Two Pianos (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Description#

The sonata is written in three movements: The first movement sets the tonal center with a strong introduction. The two pianos divide the main melody for the exposition, and when the theme is presented, both play it simultaneously. Little time is spent in the development section; a new theme is introduced (unlike most sonata forms) before the recapitulation, repeating the first theme. The second movement is written in A–B–A form. The third movement begins with a galloping theme. The cadences used in this movement are similar to those in Mozart’s Rondo alla Turca.

Sonata in C major for keyboard four-hands, K. 19d

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Form#

The sonata consists of three movements:

Allegro moderato#

The first movement, 107 bars long and in common time, begins with a strong triple-playing of a C major chord. In typical sonata form, the work presents its main theme, and develops upon it. Toward the middle section (bar 40), the work drops down in tone to a darker, more ominous version of the main theme, before picking back up to the light C major chord.

Sonata in C major for piano four-hands, K. 521

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Dedication and context#

In Mozart’s thematic catalog, the piece was dated May 29, 1787. On that same day, he also received word of his father’s death. Mozart then shared the sad news with his close friend Gottfried von Jacquin, a Viennese court official and amateur musician, and subsequently dedicated the piece to Gottfried’s sister, Franziska von Jacquin. In Mozart’s letter to Gottfried, he noted that the piece is “rather difficult” and therefore instructed Franziska to “tackle it at once”.

String Duo No. 1 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Description#

The work is in three movements: Whilst the duos by both Mozart and Haydn give the viola many double stops, Mozart’s duos differ in that the viola also gets many passages in semiquavers (sixteenth notes), almost in equal proportion to the violin. The American musicologist H. C. Robbins Landon noted of the duo that Mozart used the knowledge he gained in writing his String Quartet in G major, K. 387, the finale of which was in turn influenced by Haydn’s Symphony No. 23. John Irving praises these duos, writing ‘The scoring is breathtaking in its inventiveness, exploiting register and colour contrasts to full effect. There is not an idea in either work that does not seem to spring naturally from the instruments themselves.’ In the first duo, he singles out ’the extensive development section of K423’s Allegro’, and ’the sublimely peaceful Adagio of the same work, in which the transitions between foreground decoration and background harmonic support are effortlessly managed.’

String Quartet No. 14 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

Average performances of the whole string quartet vary in length from 26 to 33 minutes. As with all later Mozart quartets, this quartet has four movements: The first movement, in G major, contrasts fairly diatonic passages with chromatic runs. According to (Williams, 1997) “it must come as something of a surprise to anyone examining this quartet just how much chromaticism there is in it.” In contrast to the standard quartet form, which places the minuet as the third movement, this quartet has the minuet as its second movement (another example of this ordering is the String Quartet No. 17). It is a long minuet, written in the tonic key of G major, with its chromatic fourths set apart by note-to-note dynamics changes. Its trio is in G minor and has a suitably darker and more unsettled mood. The minuet is followed by a slow movement in the subdominant C major, whose theme explores remote key areas. The fugal theme of four whole notes in the finale points ahead to the finale of Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony of 1788, a movement which also begins with four whole notes that are used in a fugal fashion in the coda, and it also points back to Michael Haydn’s Symphony No. 23 in which the finale is also a fugato based on a theme of four whole notes, of which Mozart copied out the first few bars and which was mistakenly entered into Köchel’s original catalogue as K. 291. Mozart uses an identical 5-note motif in the opening bar of his second duo for violin and viola, K. 424, also associated with Michael Haydn.

String Quartet No. 15 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

Performances of the whole string quartet vary in length from 23 to 33 minutes. It is in four movements: The first movement is characterized by a sharp contrast between the aperiodicity of the first subject group, characterized by Arnold Schoenberg as “prose-like”, and the “wholly periodic” second subject group. In the Andante and the Menuetto, “normal expectations of phraseology are confounded.” The main part of the Menuetto is in minuet and trio sonata form, while “the contrasting major-mode Trio … is … almost embarrassingly lightweight on its own … but makes a wonderful foil to the darker character of the Minuet.” The last movement is a set of variations. The movement ends in a Picardy third.

String Quartet No. 16 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

*Recording by the Borromeo String Quartet from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format *

String Quartet No. 18 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

- *Performance of String Quartet No. 18 by the Borromeo String Quartet from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format

String Quartet No. 19 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

It is the last in the set of six quartets composed between 1782 and 1785 that he dedicated to Joseph Haydn. According to the catalogue of works Mozart began early the preceding year, it was completed on 14 January 1785. On 12 February, Mozart and his father performed the string quartet along with two others (K. 458, 464) for Haydn. Anton and Bartholomäus Tinti most likely played the other parts in the ensemble. In these quartets he deviated from his usual practice of short scoring (main voices) and filling in the rest later. Striving to combine Haydn’s quartet language and Bach’s counterpoint, he composed all four voices at once. Artaria & Company announced the publication of all six quartets on 17 September 1785 in the Wiener Zeitung. The piece was commonly referred to as the “Dissonance” quartet by the time Heinrich Schenker discussed it in 1906. It is unclear when and where the nickname originated.

String Quartet No. 20 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

There are four movements: This work, sandwiched between the six Haydn Quartets (1782–85) and the following three Prussian Quartets (1789–90), is often polyphonic in a way uncharacteristic of the earlier part of the classical music era. The menuetto and its trio give good examples of this in brief, with the brief irregular near-canon between first violin and viola in the second half of the main portion of the minuet, and the double imitations in the trio between the violins, and between the viola and cello.

String Quartet No. 21 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Nickname#

The quartet is occasionally referred to with nickname The Violet, used for example in Hans Keller’s chapter of The Mozart Companion. The nickname is based on the resemblance of the opening theme of the second movement to Mozart’s lied “Das Veilchen” “The Violet”, K. 476, written in 1785.

External links#

“Work details, audio”, Köchel-Verzeichnis, International Mozarteum Foundation
, Alban Berg Quartett

String Quartet No. 22 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

During the inception of the quartet, Mozart was in debt to Artaria because he had a failed subscription deal with that publisher. He was also in debt with his landlord and had conflicts over his debts with a pawnbroker. It was under these circumstances that he had his audience with King Friedrich Wilhelm II. The choice of Mozart to compose a prominent role for the cello was seemingly a strategic choice as the King himself was an amateur cellist. In 1991, the German-British musicologist Erik Smith discovered a short movement for string quartet in B major, which was long thought to be lost. It was given the catalogue number K. 589a and received its premiere recording in 1991 for the then work-in-progress Complete Mozart Edition, performed by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields’ Chamber Ensemble. Smith stated that the work was most likely an original third movement to the quartet, K. 589.

String Quintet No. 1 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

The work is in standard four movement form:

External links#

“Work details, sound file, 2 versions (1773 and 1775)”, Köchel-Verzeichnis, International Mozarteum Foundation
Performance of String Quintet No. 1 by the Orion String Quartet with Ida Kavafian (viola) from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format

String Quintet No. 2 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

The work is in standard four movement form typical of contemporary symphonies and string quartets: *I. Allegro (cut time) in C minor Mozart contrasts the stark opening theme with a lyrical second subject in the relative major – E flat. In the recapitulation, however, the second subject returns in C minor, rather than C major, allowing the whole movement to conclude uncompromisingly in C minor. *II. Andante in E-flat major The structure of the lyrical slow movement is unremarkable. As far as the process of arrangement is concerned, Mozart made small adjustments throughout to the musical material of the original wind serenade when rewriting the music for strings, one of which can be heard in the second subject of this movement. In the string quintet version, he inserts a chromatic note into the descending scale motif and adjusts the rhythm to accommodate it. *III. Menuetto in canone in C minor, with Trio in canone al rovescio in C major The Menuetto is a canon in which the violin enters first, with the cello following at an interval of one bar. The trio, in the major, is a double Mirror canon, in which the second viola is silent. In it, each answering voice plays the previous musical material upside-down. *IV. Allegro in C minor (ending in C major) The last movement is a set of variations which, Wigmore points out, often treats the theme quite freely. The fifth variation, begun softly by violas (horns in the original wind version) is on a larger scale and is in the relative major key of C minor, E flat major. The seventh variation explores the theme with chromatic harmonies. It is only with the final variation that the work finally turns to C major.

String Quintet No. 3 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

The work is in standard four movement form, though published with the middle movements in reverse order, the Minuet movement preceding the ‘slow’ movement: Mozart’s final intentions on movement order are not entirely known, and both orders are common amongst chamber musicians. The first movement is massive in scope. Indeed, it is the largest “sonata-allegro” movement before Beethoven, usually taking about a quarter of an hour to perform.

Influence#

This quintet inspired Schubert to write his own string quintet in the same key (his scoring involves two cellos rather than two violas as in Mozart’s quintet). The opening theme of Schubert’s work retained many of the characteristics of Mozart’s opening theme, such as decorative turns, irregular phrase lengths, and rising staccato arpeggios (the latter appear only in Schubert’s recapitulation). The influence can also be found in Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s Bassoon Concerto in F. In the third movement, one can easily find the similarity in the same rondo theme.

String Quintet No. 4 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

The work is in four movements: The first movement is in sonata form with both the first and second themes beginning in G minor. The movement does not resolve to the major key in the recapitulation, and it has a minor-key ending. The minuet, placed second, is a minuet in name only, as the turbulent G minor theme and heavy third-beat chords make this movement unlike a dance. The heavy third-beat chords are diminished seventh chords. Two are heard in the first section, but three are heard in the second section, with all twelve notes of the chromatic scale present in the chords just before the trio. The central trio, by contrast, is in a bright G major; unusually it is written in a 3-bar rhythm, which it picks up from the final bars of the minuet. As is typical of Classical-era minuets, the main section is repeated following the trio, ending the movement in G minor. The third movement, in E major, is slow, melancholic and wistful, furthering the despair brought forth by the previous movements. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky said of this movement: “No one has ever known as well how to interpret so exquisitely in music the sense of resigned and inconsolable sorrow.” The start of the fourth movement is not the typical quick-tempo finale, but a slow aria back in the home key of G minor. It is a dirge or lament that is even slower than the previous movement. The music remains in this dark area for a few minutes before reaching an ominous pause. At this point, Mozart launches into the ebullient G major Allegro, which creates a stark contrast between it and the movements that preceded it. Critics have often questioned how such an insouciant and carefree finale could follow after three-plus movements of intense pathos,

String Quintet No. 6 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

The work is in standard four movement form:

Reception#

This quintet, along with the contemporary string quintet K. 593, are sometimes dismissed as second-rate works reflecting the composer’s straightened circumstances towards the end of his life. However, Eisen makes the point that rather than reflecting the “Classical” ideal, they are a new path for Mozart, one which eschews surface variety for the exploration of a single motivating idea that determines both the surface and structure of the work. While the slow movement is apparently a theme and variations, Eisen points out that it also takes on the characteristics of a rondo and of a sonata. Simon Keefe points out that, in contrast to the string quintets that preceded it, “The first movement of K. 614 takes us back to the world of Mozart’s concertos, reinforcing the impression … of stylistic cross fertilization from the final piano concertos to the late string chamber music.” Leonard Ratner comments on the originality of the writing in the first movement coda: “three levels of action—paired violas in a middle register, high violins paired, and the low cello—create the texture. … the briliance and drive of this passage have a physical impact that would better be described as counteraction rather than counterpoint.”

Symphony No. 1 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

The symphony was written on the Mozart family’s Grand Tour of Europe in London when they had to move to Chelsea during the summer of 1764, when Leopold caught a cold on the way home one night, with a severe throat infection. The symphony was first performed on 21 February 1765 at the Little Theatre, Haymarket, directed by Mozart himself, in a concert given by him and Nannerl.

Music#

The symphony is scored for two oboes, two horns in E, strings. The work is in three movements:

Symphony No. 10 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The symphony is scored for two oboes, two horns, strings, and basso continuo. The duration is approximately nine minutes. The symphony is in the form of an Italian overture and consists of the following movements: :(No tempo assignments are given in the autograph score.) The andante section is not written as a separate movement, but as the second part of the opening movement, following immediately after a double barline at measure 118. : \relative c \tempo “Allegro” \key g \major 4\f r g,8 r a r b8 r c r 4 » r4 d8 r c r b8 r a r 4 » r4

Symphony No. 11 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The work is scored for two oboes, two horns in D, and strings. The symphony is in three movements, lacking a minuet and trio. The first movement is also employed as the first movement of the Musik zu einer Pantomime: Pantalon und Colombine (Music to a Pantomime) in D major, K. 446/416d (1783, incomplete) in the completion and orchestration by Franz Beyer (recorded by Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields for The Complete Mozart Edition). : \relative c \tempo “Allegro” \key d \major 4\f r8 d 4 r8 fis a4 r b8 r g r e r cis r g8-. b-. a,-. cis-. d4 r

Symphony No. 12 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The instrumentation is two flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns in G, strings, and continuo. I. Allegro, : \relative c’ \set Staff.midiInstrument = “string ensemble 1” \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \key g \major \time 3/4 \tempo 4 = 130 g4\f b’ c d4. e8 d4 g,,4 c’ d e4. f8 e4 g,,4 b’ c d8( g) g( b) b( d) d2 II. Andante, in C major : \relative c \set Staff.midiInstrument = “string ensemble 1” \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \key c \major \time 2/2 \tempo 4 = 60 c2\p e8 (d) c (b) c4. (d16 e) d4 r8 a'8 a\f (g) e-!\p c-! g’\f (f) d-!\p b-! c4. (d16 e) d4 r8 III. Menuetto and Trio, , Trio in E minor : \header tagline = ##f \paper #(set-paper-size “a4”) \layout indent = 0 \context \Score \remove “Bar_number_engraver” global = \key g \major \time 3/4 violin = \relative c \global \set Score.midiInstrument = “string ensemble 1” \repeat volta 2 d4-!\f d-! d-! c (b) c-! d2 c16 (b a g) fis4 r r a’ a fis8 (d) fis (g) d2 a'4 a fis8 (d) fis (g) d2 a'4 a fis8 (d) d'4 d b8 (g) \grace fis16 (e4) d8 c b a g2 r4 cello = \relative c’ \global \clef bass \repeat volta 2 R2. g4-!\f g g g (fis) g-! a2 g16 (fis e d) c4 r r d’ d b8 (g) fis (a) c,2 d'4 d b8 (g) fis (a) c,2 b b'4 c d d, g g, r \score > \layout \score \unfoldRepeats > \midi \tempo 4=120 The minuet features a canon between high and low strings where the voices follow each other after a single bar. Joseph Haydn had used a similar device in the minuet of his 1764 Symphony No. 23, also in G major. : \relative c \set Staff.midiInstrument = “string ensemble 1” \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \key g \major \tempo “Trio” \time 3/4 \tempo 4 = 120 b4\p (c ais) b-! dis, (e) a ( b gis) a-! c, (b) g’-! d! (c) c’-! e, (d) b'8 (d) g,4 fis g2 r4 \bar “: .” IV. Allegro, : \relative c \set Staff.midiInstrument = “string ensemble 1” \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \key g \major \time 2/4 \tempo 4 = 150 g,8\f (b d) g-! b g d’ b g'4 g 2 c'8 (e) a,-! c-! b (d) g,-! b-! a (c) e,-! a-! \grace g16 (fis4) e8 d g,8\f (b d) g-! b g d’ b g'4 g 2

Symphony No. 13 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The symphony is orchestrated for 2 oboes, 2 horns, bassoon, strings, and continuo. The symphony is in four movements, the second of which is scored for strings alone. The third movement minuet may have been written earlier, and then incorporated into the symphony—the autograph manuscript shows the minuet copied in Leopold’s hand. : \relative c \tempo “Allegro” \key f \major \time 3/4 4\f c a f4 r8 f\p f f es4 r8 es es es d4 r8 d'16\f( e! f8) d-. c8-. f-. a-. c-. bes( g) 4

Symphony No. 14 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The symphony is scored for two flutes, two oboes (2nd movement only), two horns in A, strings (with divided violas in the first and second movements), and continuo. It has four movements: : \relative c \tempo “Allegro moderato” \key a \major \time 2/2 a4\p e2 cis'8( a) b4 e,2 d'8( b) cis2 \appoggiatura e8 d4 \appoggiatura cis8 b4 a2( gis4) r a4 e’ \appoggiatura d8 cis4 b8( a)

External links#

- *, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Sir Neville Marriner conducting

Symphony No. 16 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The symphony has the basic scoring of two oboes, two horns in C, and strings. The form is that of a standard three-movement Italian overture: The first movement, which a C major essay in sonata form, sounds at first to be in due to the presence of triplets. However, as it enters the second half of the exposition section it becomes clear that the movement’s meter is actually . The development section is short, but filled with dense modulations. Some of this developmental spirit carries over into recapitulation, which turns out not to be perfectly literal. : \relative c \tempo “Allegro maestoso” \time 3/4 4\f g r \times 2/3 c8-.\p d-. c-. \times 2/3 d-. e-. d-. \times 2/3 e-. f-. e-. \times 2/3 f8-. g-. f-. \times 2/3 a-. g-. f-. \times 2/3 e-. f-. g-. \times 2/3 a8-. g-. f-. \times 2/3 e-. d-. c-. \times 2/3 b-. c-. d-. The oboes and horns drop out of the second movement, which is another essay in sonata form, written for the strings alone. They return, however, for the third movement, in C major, which is a cheerful dance cast in an altered rondo form, with a coda.

Symphony No. 18 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The symphony is scored for two flutes, four horns, and strings. The horns are tuned differently: two pairs each are in F and B for the second movement, while they are in C and F for the remainder of the symphony. There are no oboes in this symphony; Mozart used flutes instead for the first time. He also used a second pair of horns throughout this work, which is a rarity in his oeuvre. There are four movements: : \new Staff >

Symphony No. 19 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

Like the other symphonies that Mozart composed between December 1771 to August 1772, the symphony features relatively large wind section. It is scored for two oboes, four horns (two in E high, two in E low), and strings. These forces are surprising because the official list of instrumentalists in the court orchestra included only two/three horns and no flutes. This meant that Mozart would have had to rely on the relatively common practice of certain instrumentalists switching to a secondary instrument (oboists playing the flute, for example). There are four movements: The first movement opens with a motif that Mozart would later use at the beginning of his twenty-second piano concerto in the same key. The exposition is brief and there is no repeat. The development focuses on new material. There is also an alternative slow movement, marked Andantino grazioso. The tempo marks in the first, second and fourth movements were written in the hand of Leopold Mozart. The finale is a French rondo in seven-part form (ABACADA). Each part of the rondo is repeated except for the final A. : \relative c’ \set Staff.midiInstrument = #“string ensemble 1” \tempo “Allegro” \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 4 = 150 \key es \major es4.\f\trill d16 es g4 es bes2 r4 as'8.(\p g16) g8-. r es'8.( d16) d8-. r c8.( bes16) bes4.( c8) bes4-. as-. g2

Symphony No. 2 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The symphony is scored for two oboes, two horns in B, strings, and basso continuo. The symphony is in four movements in the usual quick–slow–minuet–quick pattern: : \relative c \key bes \major \tempo “Allegro” \partial 4 f8.\f f16 bes4 d,8. d16 f4 f,8. f16 bes4 d8. f16 \times 2/3 f,8-. f (g \times 2/3 as g f) g4

Publication#

The publication of this symphony in the Alte Mozart-Ausgabe, the first collected edition of Mozart’s music, shows several points at which smaller, editorially-supplied notes are given, suggesting an unfinished composition. For instance, in “Menuetto I”, only the first violin and cello/double bass parts are completed; the second violin and viola parts in their entirety in this movement are editorial additions. Since K. 17 is no longer believed to be by W. A. Mozart, the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe does not include this symphony as part of its edition.

Symphony No. 20 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The symphony is scored for one flute, two oboes, two horns, two trumpets and strings. There are four movements: The first movement, in D major and time, is written in sonata allegro form, with the notable deviation of the recapitulation being the mirror image of the exposition. That is, the recapitulation starts with the second theme, and Mozart waits until the very end to unveil the return of the first theme. He does so by first bringing the theme in softly with the strings, then repeating with the strings now doubled by the trumpets. The second movement, in A major and , features strings with a solo flute, which typically doubles the first violin one octave higher. The violins play with mutes throughout the movement, and the bass part is played pizzicato. These features, in combination, give the movement a delicate texture. The minuet in D major starts boldly. A more subdued trio in G major written primarily for strings (with a bit of oboe). The fourth movement, also in D major, is a long dance in time cast in sonata-allegro form. Though Mozart himself did not label the tempo of the fourth movement, the character of the piece and the standard symphonic form of the time indicates that Mozart probably intended the piece to go at an “allegro” tempo. : \relative c’ \tempo “Allegro” \key d \major 4\f r q r q4 r d\p d d4.\startTrillSpan( cis16\stopTrillSpan d) e4 fis e4 r e e e4.\startTrillSpan( d16\stopTrillSpan e) fis4 g fis4

Symphony No. 23 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

The genre of the symphony was key in the Classical period, becoming the most important genre of instrumental music. Multiple musical local traditions existed in Europe at the time, which Mozart absorbed during his travels through most of Western Europe. In the Mozart family grand tour from between 1763 and 1766, Wolfgang wrote around 15 symphonies, many of which have not been preserved. More symphonies were written during Mozart’s stays in Vienna (1767–68) and Italy (1769–71).

Symphony No. 25 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

The symphony is laid out in standard classical form: This symphony is scored for two oboes, two bassoons, four horns and strings.

I. Allegro con brio#

: \relative c \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 4 = 240 \key g \minor g8\f g4 g g g8 d8 d4 d d d8 es8 es4 es es es8 fis,8 fis4 fis fis fis8 g8 bes d g bes16( a g fis g4)-. :

Symphony No. 29 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

Typical of early-period Mozart symphonies, the work is scored for 2 oboes; 2 horns in A, and in D for the second movement; and strings, as was typical of early-period Mozart symphonies. There are four movements: The first movement is in sonata form, with a graceful principal theme characterized by an octave drop and ambitious horn passages. The second movement is scored for muted strings with limited use of the winds, and is also in sonata form. The third movement, a minuet, is characterized by nervous dotted rhythms and staccato phrases; the trio provides a more graceful contrast. The energetic last movement, another sonata-form movement in time, connects back to the first movement with its octave drop in the main theme. : \layout \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t >

Symphony No. 3 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

Mozart arranged the symphony for two clarinets, bassoon, two horns in E, and strings. It is in three movements: : \relative c’ \set Staff.midiInstrument = #“string ensemble 1” \key es \major \tempo “Molto allegro” \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 4 = 144 2\f bes'4-. g-. es4.\startTrillSpan( d16\stopTrillSpan es) g4-. bes,-. c2. as8\p r f r d r as r f r 2\f

Symphony No. 30 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Symphony No. 31 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition and premiere#

The work was composed in 1778 during Mozart’s unsuccessful job-hunting sojourn in Paris when he was 22 years old. The work was composed for Joseph Legros, an opera singer and impresario, who was director of the Concert Spirituel. The premiere took place on 12 June 1778 in a private performance in the home of Count Karl Heinrich Joseph von Sickingen, the ambassador of the Electorate of the Palatinate. The public premiere took place six days later in a performance at the Concert Spirituel. The work received a positive review in the June 26 issue of the Courrier de l’Europe, published in London: The on Corpus Christi Day began with a symphony by M. Mozart. This artist, who from the tenderest age made a name for himself among harpsichord players, may today be ranked among the most able composers. The work was performed again at the on 15 August, this time with a new second movement, an Andante replacing the original Andantino in 6/8 (the latter, according to Deutsch, “had failed to please”.) The work evidently was popular. Deutsch lists several further performances at the during 1779, on 18 and 23 March, 23 May, and 3 June; and on 14 May 1780 The work was published in Paris by Sieber and announced for sale 20 February 1779. During the years 1782 to 1788, Sieber’s catalog described it as “in the repertoire of the “. The symphony was later performed in the Burgtheater in Vienna on 11 March 1783 during a benefit concert for Mozart’s sister-in-law, the singer Aloysia Weber.

Symphony No. 32 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure and analysis#

The symphony, scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, strings, and timpani, and is in the form of an Italian overture, consisting of three brief movements that follow one another without break: The form is not a true Italian overture or a da capo overture. The first movement unfolds as if in sonata form, with no expositional repeat. The two theme groups are stated amidst transitional material. Still in the first movement, a development begins that leads to the first theme of the exposition being worked in a number of keys. At the point where the music is in the dominant and seemingly ready to move the tonic for a recapitulation, the music segues to the slow movement. The slow movement is in rondo form (A–B–A–C–A–B). Again, right when the listener is expecting the rondo refrain to return, the music segues to the third movement, which continues the development of the first theme from the first movement before a “reverse recapitulation” is performed where the two themes of the first movement are recapitulated in opposite order. : \relative c \set Staff.midiInstrument = #“string ensemble 1” \override Score.NonMusicalPaperColumn #’line-break-permission = ##f \tempo “Allegro spiritoso” \key g \major \tempo 4 = 144 4.\f g8 g4 r8. \times 2/3 g32( a b c4) c,-. r r8. \times 2/3 a'32( b cis d4) d,-. r r8. \times 2/3 b32(\p c! d) e4( d c b) a4.( b16 c) b4-. The work was earlier considered as an overture to Mozart’s operas Thamos, King of Egypt or Zaide, but this is unlikely because the dates of those works do not coincide with the autograph manuscript and also because the overture was generally the last piece to be composed for a stage work. In 1785 Mozart used the symphony as an overture for a Vienna performance of Francesco Bianchi’s opera La villanella rapita. The autograph score is today located in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Symphony No. 34 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The work is scored for 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings. Although most symphonies have four movements, this symphony has only three, which was still common in the early classical period: The symphony features the fanfares and flourishes typical of the “festive symphony” or “trumpet symphony”, which is characteristic of Austrian symphonic writing in C major. This is the first of Mozart’s C major symphonies to exhibit this character, but the style would be revisited in his subsequent two works in this key, the 36th and 41st symphonies.

Symphony No. 35 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

The Haffner Symphony did not start its life as a symphony, but rather as a serenade to be used as background music for the ennoblement of Sigmund Haffner. The Mozarts knew the Haffners through Sigmund Haffner’s father, , who had been mayor of Salzburg and who had helped them out on their early tours of Europe. The elder Haffner died in 1772, but the families remained in contact. In 1776, the younger Haffner commissioned a serenade for the wedding of Marie Elizabeth Haffner to Franz Xavier Spath. This work became the famous Haffner Serenade, which was so successful that, when the younger Sigmund Haffner was to be ennobled, it was only natural that Mozart was called upon to write the music for the occasion. The request to write music actually came via Mozart’s father, Leopold, on 20 July 1782 when Mozart had no spare time. Mozart was “up to his eyeballs with work”. Not only was he teaching, but he also had to rearrange the score of his opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail before 28 July. In addition to these demands, his proposed marriage to Constanze Weber was threatened by a number of complications, including moving to a house near the Hohe Brücke, Vienna. Nevertheless, Mozart worked on the music, and sent it through section by section to his father. What Mozart wrote at this time was a new serenade – a completely different work from the serenade presented four years earlier – with an introductory march and two minuets. According to historical evidence, it is quite possible that Mozart did not actually meet his father’s deadline to have the music completed by Sigmund Haffner’s ennoblement. Mozart later reworked this music into what we now know as the Haffner Symphony. At the end of December 1782, Mozart decided to present music from the new Haffner serenade at a concert. After asking his father to send the score of the serenade back again, Leopold was amazed at its quality, given the fact that it was composed in so short a time. He set to work to make a number of alterations to the score in order to convert the new Haffner serenade into the Haffner symphony. These alterations included dropping the introductory march (K. 385a) and one of the two minuets (now lost). In addition, the repeat signs were removed from the end of the first movement’s exposition. Mozart also gave the Haffner Symphony a fuller sound by adding two flutes and two clarinets to the woodwind section of the first and last movements. These added woodwind parts are not new melodic material, but simply a doubling of octaves within the woodwinds. The Haffner Symphony, as we know it today, received its first performance on 23 March 1783 at the Vienna Burgtheater. At the concert, Mozart opened matters with the first three movements of this symphony, the aria “Se il padre perdei” from Idomeneo (described in his letter to his father of March 29 that year as his Munich opera), piano concerto no. 13 K. 415, a scena K. 369 (a genre related to the concert aria), the concertante movements from his last Finalmusik K. 320, his piano concerto K. 175 (with a new finale), and another scena, “Parto, m’affretto” (from the opera Lucio Silla, which he had composed for Milan); at this point he improvised a fugue “because the Emperor was present” and then two sets of variations (K. 398 on an aria by Paisiello and K. 455 on an aria by Gluck). After this, Madame (Aloysia) Lange sang his new rondo (K. 416?) and then to finish the concert, the last movement of the Haffner Symphony was played. The performance of the Haffner Symphony at this concert proved very successful. classifies the Haffner, Linz (No. 36) and Prague (No. 38) symphonies as “three symphonies that transcend all his former symphonic works.” The autograph manuscript currently resides in the archives of the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. Anton Reicha used the theme which opens the symphony for a fugue in his set of 36 Fugues.

Symphony No. 36 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The symphony is scored for 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings. There are four movements: Every movement except the minuet is in sonata form. The first movement briefly quotes the famous Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah in the exposition. The slow movement has a siciliano character and meter which was rare in Mozart’s earlier symphonies (only used in one of the slow movements of No. 31) but would appear frequently in later works such as No. 38 and No. 40. \relative c’ \tempo “Adagio” \time 3/4 c8\f r16. c32 e8 r16. e32 a8 r16. a32 b,8 r16. d32 d4^\markup \italic ten. r8 r16. b,,32 bes8 r16. 32 q4^\markup \italic ten. r

Symphony No. 37 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The complete symphony was for a long time believed to be a work by Mozart, but is now known to have actually been mostly written by Michael Haydn, being his Symphony No. 25 in G major, Perger 16, Sherman 25, MH 334. The true authorship was discovered by Lothar Perger in 1907. Modern commentators find it “difficult to comprehend how the editors of the Breitkopf edition of Mozart could have considered the three movements of the G major symphony as the immediate successor of the ‘Linz’ Symphony; the infinitely simpler and more archaic art of the Salzburg master offers such a contrast that one might well suppose this symphony to date much earlier than 1783” if Mozart had been the one to write it. The introduction was probably composed in late 1783 to be performed in the same concert in Linz in which Mozart’s Symphony No. 36 received its premiere. Mozart’s Adagio maestoso introduction in triple time ends with a fermata on a V 7 chord, which leads into a tonic chord beginning Haydn’s work. Georges de Saint-Foix considers the introduction “an expressive prelude, which, moreover, is by no means entirely in key with the movement it is intended to prepare.” The numbers for Mozart’s Symphonies Nos. 38 through 41 have not been adjusted because of this symphony. The score calls for 2 oboes, 2 horns in G and C, and strings; performances tend to include bassoons (always in unison with the cellos except for significant passages in the Adagio), which were part of Michael Haydn’s original score but left out by Mozart, and a harpsichord playing figured bass, based on the cello line. The flute is only used for the first section of the slow movement.

Symphony No. 38 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Prague#

Although Mozart’s popularity among the Viennese waxed and waned, he was consistently popular among the Bohemians and had a devoted following in Prague. In spite of the fact that the Symphony No. 38 was first performed in Prague, it is not certain that it was actually written for Prague. Much of the confusion surrounds the chronology of its inception. It is clear that Mozart was invited to Prague on the strength of the reception of his opera Le nozze di Figaro during the 1786–87 winter season of the National Theatre (now called the Estates Theatre) in Prague. It is not known, however, when the run started, possibly in November 1786, possibly in December. No mention of the overwhelming success of Le nozze di Figaro is recorded in the Prague press until December 11, 1786, five days after the symphony was completed. It is certain that the opera’s run began before that week, but there is no documentation to confirm when. It is known from a letter of Leopold Mozart written in January 1787 that Mozart was invited to Prague by a group of musicians and patrons. It is possible that this invitation came through long before Le nozze di Figaro was actually performed in Prague, perhaps during the time of rehearsals, when the brilliance of the music would have been recognized already by the musicians playing it. It is also possible that the Prague Symphony was intended to be performed for the Advent instrumental concerts given in Vienna in December 1786 along with the Piano Concerto No. 25, but all that can be established for certain is that it was not performed in Vienna before it was performed in Prague. The lavish use of wind instruments might offer a clue that the Prague Symphony was fashioned specifically with the Prague public in mind. The wind players of Bohemia were famed throughout Europe, and the Prague press specifically attributed the great success of the operas Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Le nozze di Figaro partially to their skillful deployment of wind instruments. It is also possible that the extensive use of winds in the Prague Symphony was simply the result of experiments with orchestration that Mozart had been cultivating in the orchestral accompaniments for his piano concertos for the previous two years and the new experience he had of writing for winds would have shown up in his symphonies regardless. No matter, the use of wind instruments in the Prague Symphony represents a major advance in Mozart’s symphonic technique that was continued and developed in his last symphonies, and also adopted by the London symphonies of Haydn (who himself was a major influence on Mozart), Beethoven, and Schubert. Indeed, it would be difficult to identify any earlier symphony by any composer not of a special type that contains so many passages in which no stringed instruments play at all, only various types of wind ensembles.

Symphony No. 39 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

This symphony is the first of a set of three (his last symphonies) that Mozart composed in rapid succession during the summer of 1788. No. 40 was completed on 25 July and No. 41 on 10 August. Around the time that he composed the three symphonies, Mozart was writing his piano trios in E major and C major (K. 542 and K. 548), his sonata facile (K. 545), and a violin sonatina (K. 547). Mozart biographer Alfred Einstein has suggested that Mozart modeled his symphony on Michael Haydn’s Symphony No. 26, of which he had acquired a copy in 1784. However, Neal Zaslaw points out that if it was indeed an influence, Mozart “so far surpassed his ‘model’ as to make comparisons virtually meaningless”. The autograph score, contained in a volume containing nine Mozart symphonies in autograph, was sold by a private buyer to an unknown collector during an auction at Sotheby’s in London in 1987 for £2.5m ($4.7m) – a record price for a non-medieval manuscript at the time.

Symphony No. 4 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Even though the original of Mozart’s manuscript has not survived, the set of parts written in the hand of his father, Leopold Mozart, is preserved in the Bavarian State Library in Munich.

Structure#

The work is scored for two oboes, two horns in D, strings, and basso continuo. There are three movements, as was standard in the early classical music era in which the child Mozart wrote, in the typical fast–slow–fast configuration. They are as follows: : \relative c’ \set Staff.midiInstrument = #“string ensemble 1” \key d \major \tempo “Allegro” \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 4 = 144 d4~\f d8. a16 d4( fis8.) a,16 d4~ d8. a16 d4( fis8.) a,16 d8 r b\p r a r g r fis8 r g r fis r e r 4\f

Symphony No. 40 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

Mozart had already written a G minor symphony as a precocious seventeen-year-old, following the then-current trend of Sturm und Drang in music. This was his 25th symphony; it is sometimes called the “Little G minor symphony” to distinguish it from the mature work discussed here, which can also be called the “Great G minor symphony.” The two are the only extant minor key among Mozart’s symphonies. The date of completion of the 40th Symphony is known exactly, since Mozart in his mature years kept a full catalog of his completed works; he entered the 40th Symphony into it on 25 July 1788. Work on the symphony occupied an exceptionally productive period of just a few weeks during which time he also completed the 39th and 41st symphonies (26 June and 10 August, respectively). Nikolaus Harnoncourt conjectured that Mozart composed the three symphonies as a unified work, pointing, among other things, to the fact that the Symphony No. 40, as the middle work, has no introduction (unlike No. 39) and does not have a finale of the scale of No. 41’s. The 40th symphony exists in two versions, differing primarily in that one includes parts for a pair of clarinets (with suitable adjustments made in the other wind parts). Most likely, the clarinet parts were added in a revised version. The autograph scores of both versions were acquired in the 1860s by Johannes Brahms, who later donated the manuscripts to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, where they reside today.

Symphony No. 41 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

Woodwinds: flute, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons
Brass: 2 horns in C (and in F in the Andante), 2 trumpets in C
Percussion: timpani
Strings: first and second violins, violas, cellos, double basses

History#

The work is the final of a set of three symphonies Mozart composed in rapid succession during the summer of 1788: no. 39 was completed on 26 June and no. 40 on 25 July. Around the same time as he composed the three symphonies, Mozart was writing his piano trios in E major (K. 542) and C major (K. 548), his piano sonata No. 16 in C (K. 545)—the so-called Sonata facile, and a violin sonatina (K. 547). It is not known for certain whether the symphony was ever performed in the composer’s lifetime. According to Otto Erich Deutsch, Mozart was preparing to hold a series of “Concerts in the Casino” around this time in a new casino in the Spiegelgasse owned by Philipp Otto. Mozart even sent a pair of tickets for this series to his friend Michael Puchberg. Historians have not determined whether the concert series was held or was cancelled for lack of interest.

Symphony No. 5 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The symphony is scored for two oboes, two horns in B, strings, and basso continuo. The form is that of a three-movement Italian overture: All three movements are coloured especially prominently by horns. A rousing first movement in the key of B major opens the symphony, followed by a more solemn, mournful movement in the relative key of G minor. A short, boisterous finale closes the work. The opening theme to the finale is borrowed from the finale to keyboard concerto by Johann Christian Bach whom Mozart had met the previous year in London. The same theme would also appear in a much later, more mature work of Mozart’s: the act 2 finale of his 1786 opera buffa, Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492. : \relative c \set Staff.midiInstrument = #“string ensemble 1” \override Score.NonMusicalPaperColumn #’line-break-permission = ##f \key bes \major \tempo “Allegro” \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 4 = 144 2. d8.\trill( c32 d) es8 r d r es r d r f2\fp( d8) r d8.\trill( c32 d) es8 r d r es r c r bes2

Symphony No. 6 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The instrumentation for the first performance was two flutes, two oboes, bassoon, two horns, strings, and continuo. For the first time in a symphony, Mozart uses two obligatory viola parts. This is Mozart’s first four-movement symphony, in which he introduces the minuet and trio for the first time, a feature common in many of his symphonies thereafter. The movements are: The Andante movement uses a theme from Mozart’s early Latin opera Apollo et Hyacinthus, K. 38, in which “muted violins sing over pizzicato seconds and divided violas, a ravishing effect”. : \relative c’ \set Staff.midiInstrument = #“french horn” \key f \major \tempo “Allegro” \tempo 4 = 144 f4\f a8. f16 c'4 c c4( a8.) f16 c4 r8 c f8-. r g-. r a-. r bes-. r c4.( a8 bes4) g8( e) f8-. r

Symphony No. 7 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

For the original (K. 45) version the instrumentation was: two oboes, bassoon, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, strings, and continuo. For the symphonic overture (K. 46a) version the trumpets were replaced with flutes, an extra bassoon was added, and the timpani were excised. The symphony is in four movements. : \relative c’ \set Staff.midiInstrument = #“string ensemble 1” \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \key d \major \tempo “Molto allegro” 4 = 144 4\f q q r8 a\p d8 a fis’ d e a, g’ e fis8 d a’ fis b( g) fis-. e-. d8 a fis’ d e a, g’ e

Symphony No. 8 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The symphony is scored for two oboes, two horns in D, two trumpets in D, timpani and strings. The inclusion of trumpets and timpani is unusual for Mozart’s early symphonies. It has been described as a “ceremonial work”. There are four movements: The first movement begins with downward leaps on the violins and follows with scale figures. These sets of figures alternate between strings and winds. : \relative c \key d \major \time 3/4 \tempo “Allegro” d2.\f a\p d, c,\f b4~ b16 c a c b c a b g8 g'4 g'8~ g16 e a g The second movement is for strings alone and begins with a narrow melodic range which expands toward the end. The third movement is a minuet full of rapid string passages, and includes the trumpets and timpani, but not during the Trio. The final movement is a gigue, whose main theme unusually does not end the movement.

Symphony No. 9 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements and instrumentation#

The symphony is score for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, bassoon, 2 horns in C, 2 trumpets in C, timpani, strings and continuo. There are four movements: : \relative c \tempo “Allegro” \partial 8 g8\f c4:16 c16 c g g e'4:16 e16 e g, g c16 c g g e e g g c,4 g~\p g4 f2 e4~ e4 d2 c4~ c4 b

Symphony, K. 135+61h (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and attribution#

The symphony was discovered by Ernst Hintermaier in 1991. The parts he discovered were copied by Matthias Kracher, who was in close connection to Michael Haydn, but probably did not have a direct contact with the Mozart family. Hintermaier thought that Kracher did not expand the three-movement overture to Lucio Silla with a minuet, but instead copied all four movements from a set of parts or a full score of the complete four-movement symphony. The three overture movements in Kracher’s copy are almost exactly identical with Mozart’s autograph, but the minuet differs greatly from the copy of K. 61h by Johann Nepomuk Rainsprechter and an unknown copyist in Salzburg. Hintermaier also argued that the four-movement symphony is by Mozart, written some time after his return from Milan in March 1773, that this four-movement symphony was not cut down to three movements for the Lucio Silla overture, and that the four-movement symphony should be printed in a future NMA volume. The six minuets of K. 61h are doubtful. They were discovered by Friedrich Frischenschlager in some copies of Mozart’s orchestral dances in the music archives of St. Peter in Salzburg in the early 20th century, and they were published in the 1923 Mozart Jahrbuch. This copy attributes the minuets to Wolfgang, and Frischenschlager accepted this attribution even though the dynamics were not in Mozart’s style. He dated them between 1768 and 1772. Alfred Einstein dated the minuets to 1769 in Salzburg in his edition of the Köchel catalogue. Rudolf Elvers dated them instead to 1771-1772 in the NMA in 1961. The sixth edition of the Köchel catalogue repeated Einstein’s dating of 1769. Wolfgang Plath placed doubts on K. 61h in the 1971/72 Mozart Jahrbuch, as some other minuets originally attributed to Mozart during this time were actually composed by Michael Haydn. He thought that K. 61h could be part of the 18 Minuets by Michael Haydn that Wolfgang told his sister he would make piano arrangements of. In the 1995 Mozart Jahrbuch, Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl stated that the authenticity for K. 61h was doubtful, but used Hintermaier’s findings on the “Lucio Silla” symphony to say that Mozart’s authorship was “at least probable”, dating the set to ca. 1772. Rainsprechter was connected to Michael Haydn, and might have inserted a Michael Haydn minuet into the overture to make a symphony; since Mozart made copies of Michael Haydn’s minuets, he could have believed it to be original Mozart. On the other hand, Rainsprechter had studied under Leopold Mozart, and may have obtained this symphony from him; if this is the case, this symphony is very likely to be authentic.

Symphony, K. 19a (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

“K019a (K.Anh 223) Symphony in F Composed in Wolfgang’s 9th Year – But Where and When?”, by Dennis Pajot, MozartForum
, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Neville Marriner

Symphony, K. 19b (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

*MozartForum: K019b (Anh 222) Lost Symphony in C: Mozart’s “first symphony with all the instruments”? Article by Dennis Pajot

Symphony, K. 208+102 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The symphony is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two horns, two trumpets and strings. The flutes are silent for the third movement. The symphony consists of the following movements: The first movement is the overture of the opera Il re pastore, while the second movement is the first aria from it, Aminta’s “Intendo, amico rio”, with the castrato voice replaced by a solo oboe. Eight additional bars were composed to replace the final bar of the aria, so as to allow the movement to lead directly into the third movement. The second movement is not written out completely, and Mozart may have indicated to a copyist to replace the voice with a solo oboe. It was once considered that the March in C, K. 214, might be connected to the final movement, but this hypothesis has been disproven. \relative c \set Staff.midiInstrument = #“string ensemble 1” \key c \major \tempo “Molto allegro” \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 4=144 \f r r r8 c,,-.\p b (c) b (c) f (e) r e-. d (e) d (e) a (g) r g-. fis (g) fis (g) bes (a) r a-. c (b) r b-.

Symphony, K. 45a (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and attribution#

The Mozart family began their journey between Salzburg and Vienna in January 1769, stopping over at the Lambach Abbey in Upper Austria, among other places. As was customary for Bavarian and Austrian monasteries, the Lambach Abbey offered rooms and meals for travellers and maintained a small chapel for both the liturgy and entertainment. This stopover is not mentioned in the correspondence of the Mozart family and is only known through the two manuscripts in the monastery. These two manuscripts were found at the beginning of the 20th century as copies (not autographs) in the archives of the Lambach Abbey and were probably gifts from the Mozart family as thanks for the hospitality given to them. One (the “Old Lambach”) had the title “Del Sigre: Wolfgango Mozart. Dono Authoris 4.ta Jan. 1 769” make it more likely to be written by Leopold, while the more continuous, spun and varied melodic ideas of the “New Lambach” symphony make it more likely to be written by Wolfgang. After this, the “New Lambach” symphony was subsequently published as a work of Mozart and was recorded as part of some complete recordings of Mozart’s symphonies (most notably in The Complete Mozart Edition). However, Zaslaw argues that the original assignment was correct, for the following reasons: *The more continuous melodic ideas of the “New Lambach” symphony is a common feature of the late Baroque, whereas the two-bar phrases of the “Old Lambach” pointed more to the more modern (at the time) galant style. *The two manuscripts were copied by the Salzburg copyists Estlinger, implying that they must have been composed in Salzburg before the Mozarts left for Vienna in September 1767. However, the earlier the symphonies are dated, the more understandable Wolfgang’s “archaic style” becomes. *On the Mozart family’s travels, Wolfgang learnt a lot of musical styles, and later Wolfgang (rightly) claimed that he could compose in any style. *Ascribing the “Old Lambach” symphony to Leopold due to it being “less good” and “less gifted” underestimates Leopold’s ability as a composer. *As the contemporary Mozart symphonies No. 6, No. 7 and No. 8 were all not composed in Vienna, it seems doubtful that this symphony was composed in Vienna. *It is unlikely that the pedantic Leopold would have accepted the Salzburg copyists’ accidental interchanging of the title pages, used the symphony for concerts and finally donated the manuscripts to the Lambach Abbey (where a monk could have subsequently written the date “1769”) without correcting the error at some point. *In 1767, Leopold copied six early symphonies of Wolfgang and sent them to Prince Wenzel in Donaueschingen. K. 45a was probably among these six. In February 1982, the original orchestral parts of K. 45a (in the handwriting of Leopold, Wolfgang’s sister Nannerl and an unknown copyist) were discovered in the Bavarian State Library in Munich. Leopold wrote “à la Haye 1766” on the front page next to Wolfgang’s name. This implies that K. 45a was composed by Wolfgang during their stay in The Hague, possibly for the inauguration of William V, Prince of Orange on 11 March 1766. The Mozarts then took the symphony along with them on their journeys; Wolfgang revised the symphony along the way by making a few changes, especially in the inner voices.

Symphony, K. 45b (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

References#

Volker Scherliess: Die Sinfonien. In: Silke Leopold (editor): Mozart-Handbuch. Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel 2005, .

Symphony, K. 74g (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and attribution#

This symphony (among others) was known to Ludwig Ritter von Köchel only by an incipit in the catalogue of Breitkopf & Härtel, and so he placed it in the Anhang of the Köchel catalogue as Anh. 216. A set of parts (now lost) was discovered in the Berlin State Library in the early 20th century and was published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1910 and edited by Max Seiffert. This set of parts may have been taken out of the library by Seiffert before they were catalogued (since the set of parts were never catalogued) and then never returned (this presumably went unnoticed as they had not been catalogued). Zaslaw speculates that the parts may have become part of the Berlinka art collection and joined other Mozart manuscripts in the Jagellonian Library in Kraków. Due to the loss of the parts, the only source for this symphony was the Breitkopf & Härtel edition (from the Alte Mozart-Ausgabe). Max Seiffert wrote that in an old handwritten catalogue from Breitkopf & Härtel twelve symphonies that were once held in the publishing house are listed, but all had been lost and Köchel could only catalogue them in the appendix as Anh. 214–223 (overlooking two of them), but later two were found in the Berlin State Library, K. Anh. 214 and 216. They were dated 1770–1771, from Italy. Alfred Einstein wrote in his edition of the Köchel catalogue that he believed that the symphony was composed between the two Italian journeys in early summer 1771 in Salzburg, gave the symphony the number “74g” and expressed no doubts as to Mozart’s authorship. The sixth edition of the Köchel catalogue gave the symphony the number “Anh.C 11.03”, putting it into the spurious and doubtful works category for stylistic reasons. The ninth edition restored it to Einstein’s number “74g”, although it is still considered doubtful. For the twelve symphonies (K. Anh. 214–223, K. Anh.C 11.07, and K. Anh.C 11.08) that were originally only known by an incipit in the Breitkopf & Härtel catalogue, the current statuses of their authenticity are: (Symphonies which may have been written by Mozart have their Köchel numbers bolded.) Some symphonies are still missing (K. 19b, 66c, 66d, 66e, Anh.C 11.07, and Anh.C 11.08), and some not in the catalogue of Breitkopf & Härtel were included into the main catalogue (K. 75, K. 76, K. 81, K. 95, K. 96, K. 97 and K. 98 ) despite the manuscripts being unauthorized. However, since these symphonies with unauthorised manuscripts (and K. 45b, which was discovered later) were considered to be by Mozart for stylistic reasons, it would be logical that these symphonies and K. 74g should either all be considered doubtful or all be considered authentic. The Neue Mozart-Ausgabe puts K. 74g in the supplement of “Works of Doubtful Authenticity” and includes a detailed discussion of the sources and authenticity so that, as with the other symphonies of uncertain authorship, a possible authorship of Mozart may be conceded with all due caution. The symphony has been recorded by the Academy of Ancient Music and The English Concert.

Symphony, K. 75 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

- *, , conductor: Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli (2017)

Symphony, K. 76 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins and authorship#

Otto Jahn, in his Mozart biography, refers to the discovery of 20 symphonies attributed to Mozart in the archives of Breitkopf & Härtel. Köchel agreed with this view and considered K. 76 authentic Mozart. Jahn’s write-up was based on the “Mozartiana Collection” of Johann André, in which ten of the aforementioned 20 symphonies are included (indicating that they were considered authentic), because they were sent directly from Constanze Mozart, Mozart’s widow. Two of these works are symphonic versions of the overtures to Lucio Silla, K. 135 and Il sogno di Scipione, K. 126, increasing the likelihood that the other eight works are also authentic. Jahn dated K. 76 as “177?”, while Köchel dated it as “perhaps 1769”.
Wyzewa and Saint-Foix (1912) dated the symphony between 1 December 1766 and 1 March 1767. They compared the first movement of the symphony with the overture to Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots, K. 35, and Mozart’s earlier symphonies and concluded that K. 76 was written before the overture, perhaps in December 1766. They considered it to be “written with great care for his teacher and compatriots to prove what he had learned on the grand tour (to London, Paris, Holland, etc.)” However, Zaslaw stated that the minuet is relatively of much greater maturity than the primitive other three movements and was probably composed later. Viennese symphonies would almost always have four movements and Mozart would often adjust three-movement symphonies he composed for other places by later adding a minuet and trio, so Einstein concluded that minuet and trio was composed for a trip to Vienna.
Gerhard Allroggen and Cliff Eisen suspect the true author of the symphony to be Leopold Mozart due to stylistic features. Zaslaw however speaks generally of “weakness”, the pizzicato passages in the second movement as “cumbersome” and the harmony in the minuet “clumsy”.

Symphony, K. 81 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Symphony, K. 95 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The symphony is scored for two oboes, two trumpets in D, and strings. In contemporary orchestras, it was also usual to include bassoons and harpsichord if they were available in the orchestra to reinforce the bass line and act as the continuo. The trumpets are silent in the second movement, in which the oboes are replaced by flutes. The duration is approximately 12 minutes. The symphony consists of the following movements: ; I. : \relative c \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo “Allegro” 4=140 \key d \major \time 2/2 2\f d8\p r fis r d8 r r4 d8 r fis r d8 r r4 fis8 r g r a8 r b r a r g r fis4\f ; II. : \relative c \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo “Andante” 4=70 \key g \major \time 3/4 b2 c8.\trill ( b32 c) d4.( e16 d c8) b-. a2 \appoggiatura c8 b8.\trill ( a32 b) c4.( d16 c b8) a-. g2 ; III. : \relative c \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo “Menuetto” 4=130 \key d \major \time 3/4 2. 4 d d d( cis) r b b b( a8.) g16 fis4 e d cis d r r ; IV. : \relative c \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo “Allegro” 4=130 \key d \major \time 2/4 4 fis a a,8-. a-. a ( b) g-. g-. g( a) fis4-. fis a fis8-. fis-. fis ( g) e-. e-. e( fis) d4-.

Symphony, K. 96 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Symphony, K. 97 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The symphony is scored for two oboes, two French horns, two trumpets and strings. In contemporary orchestras, it was also usual to include bassoons and harpsichord if they were available in the orchestra to reinforce the bass line and act as the continuo. The trumpets are silent in the second movement, in which the oboes are replaced by flutes. The duration is approximately 11 minutes. The symphony consists of the following movements: ; I. Allegro, \relative c \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo “Allegro” 4=140 \key d \major \time 4/4 4\f r fis8 r g r a4 r 8 r r 4 r fis8 r g r a4 r 8 r r 4 ; II. Andante, \relative c \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo “Andante” 4=65 \key g \major \time 2/4 b8 b32( a b c) d8 r b b32( a b c) d8 r g32( b16. ) fis32( g16.) dis32( e16. ) a,32( c16.) e32( d!16. ) a32( c16.) b8 r ; III. Menuetto, \relative c’ \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo “MENUETTO” 4=130 \key d \major \time 3/4 d4 fis a d d8 fis a d 4 d,8 fis a d 4 a, a a4. b16 cis d e fis g a4 d,8 e16 fis g a b cis d4 r r ; IV. Presto, \relative c \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo “Presto” 4=175 \key d \major \time 3/8 4 r8 4 r8 4 r8 4 r8 4 r8 fis,8-. g-. a-. b-. cis-. d-. cis-. b-. a-. a( fis g) g-. a-. b-. a-. fis-. a-. g-. fis-. e-.

Symphony, K. Anh. C 11.04

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The symphony is scored for two oboes, two horns and strings. In contemporary orchestras, it was also usual to include bassoons and harpsichord if they were available in the orchestra to reinforce the bass line and act as the continuo. The symphony consists of the following movements: : \relative c \key f \major \tempo “Allegro” c4.\p d16 (c) c4 bes8 a g (f) f4 r2 d'4. e8 g (f) e-. d-. d (c) c4 r f8 f, a (g) g4 r a c8 (bes) bes4 d2\f c4.\p (d8) f,4 g

Symphony, K. Anh. C 11.18

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The symphony is scored for two oboes, two bassoons, two horns in A, and strings. In contemporary orchestras, it was usual to not write in the parts for the bassoons and harpsichord, and they would simply double the cellos and double basses if they were available in the orchestra to reinforce the bass line and act as the continuo; however, the bassoons in this symphony do not simply double the cellos and double basses. The symphony consists of the following movements: The duration is approximately 13 minutes. : \relative c \key a \minor \tempo “Allegro moderato” a8.\sfz e32 (c) \repeat unfold 4 a8 r8 a-.\p a (b) r b-. b (c) r c-. c\cresc (d) d (c) c (b) b (a) a'8.\fz

Thamos, King of Egypt

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Early performances#

It is not known for certain whether the music that Mozart composed was performed with the play during his lifetime. The play’s première took place at the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna, probably on 4 April 1774, by which time two choruses had been written. Performances in Salzburg in 1776 and 1779-80 may have incorporated the orchestral interludes and the three choruses in their final form, respectively. The music was re-used in 1783 in a different play (set in India, not Egypt), Lanassa, by Karl Martin Plümicke.

The Complete Mozart Edition

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

1979 Mozart Edition#

Philips had previously released a Mozart Edition, a series of 16 vinyl box sets issued in 1979. They purposely did not use the title of Complete Mozart Edition as it obviously was not a complete catalogue of his works. The series consisted of his main works only, although all of his operas, orchestral and chamber works were included. Due to the fact that it was released earlier than the Complete Edition, Philips did not have that many recordings at their disposal, and quite a few of the recordings in the Complete Edition were recorded specifically for it.

The Jewel Box

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Griffiths, realising that arias composed by Mozart for insertion in other composers’ operas are seldom performed nowadays, worked up what he called “a jeu d’esprit” which also contained music from the composer’s unfinished operas Lo sposo deluso and L’oca del Cairo and some of the arias which he had written for concert performances. This came to the attention of Nicholas Payne, General Director of Opera North, who scheduled its première for 1991, the year of the bicentenary of Mozart’s death.

The Magic Flute

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

The opera was the culmination of Mozart’s increasing involvement with Emanuel Schikaneder’s theatrical troupe, which since 1789 had been the resident company at the Theater auf der Wieden. Mozart was a close friend of one of the singer-composers of the troupe, tenor Benedikt Schack (the first Tamino), and had contributed to the compositions of the troupe, which were often collaboratively written. Mozart’s participation increased with his contributions to the 1790 collaborative opera Der Stein der Weisen (The Philosopher’s Stone), including the duet (“Nun liebes Weibchen”, K. 625/592a) among other passages. Like The Magic Flute, Der Stein der Weisen was a fairy-tale opera and can be considered a kind of precursor; it employed much the same cast in similar roles. Schikaneder’s libretto for The Magic Flute is thought by scholars to be based on many sources. Some works of literature that may have served as sources include the medieval romance Yvain by Chrétien de Troyes, the novel Life of Sethos by Jean Terrasson, and the essay “On the mysteries of the Egyptians” by Ignaz von Born. The libretto is also a natural continuation of a series of fairy tale operas produced at the time by Schikaneder’s troupe, including an adaptation of Sophie Seyler’s Singspiel Oberon as well as Der Stein der Weisen. Especially for the role of Papageno, the libretto draws on the Hanswurst tradition of the Viennese popular theatre. Many scholars also acknowledge an influence of Freemasonry. The Magic Flute appears to have two references to the music of Antonio Salieri. The first is that the Papageno–Papagena duet is similar to the Cucuzze cavatina in Salieri’s Prima la musica e poi le parole. Both are centered around musical-textual playfulness with humorous bird-like utterances of pseudo-Italian words. The Magic Flute also echoes Salieri’s music in that Papageno’s whistle is based on a motif borrowed from Salieri’s Concerto for Clavicembalo in B-flat major.

The Marriage of Figaro

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition history#

Beaumarchais’s earlier play The Barber of Seville had already made a successful transition to opera in a version by Paisiello. Beaumarchais’s Mariage de Figaro, with its frank treatment of class conflict, was at first banned in Vienna: Emperor Joseph II stated that “since the piece contains much that is objectionable, I therefore expect that the Censor shall either reject it altogether, or at any rate have such alterations made in it that he shall be responsible for the performance of this play and for the impression it may make”, after which the Austrian Censor duly forbade performing the German version of the play. Mozart’s librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte managed to get official approval from the emperor for an operatic version, which eventually achieved great success. The opera was the first of three collaborations between Mozart and Da Ponte, followed by Don Giovanni and . It was Mozart who originally selected Beaumarchais’s play and brought it to Da Ponte, who turned it into a libretto in six weeks, rewriting it in poetic Italian and removing all of the original’s political references. In particular, Da Ponte replaced Figaro’s climactic speech against inherited nobility with an equally angry aria against unfaithful wives. The libretto was approved by the Emperor before any music was written by Mozart. The Imperial Italian opera company paid Mozart 450 florins for the work; this was three times his meagre yearly salary when he had worked as a court musician in Salzburg. Da Ponte was paid 200 florins.

The Mozart Piano Sonatas, Vol. 4

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Conception#

The album was compiled from recording sessions made on seven occasions between 1965 and 1973 at New York City’s Columbia 30th Street Studio and Toronto’s Eaton Auditorium. Gould was known for using a great deal of interpretative freedom in playing. He frequently deviated from the scores on tempo and dynamics. This tendency was stronger with compositions he disliked; thus, his recordings of Mozart, whom he joked “died too late”, feature his most notable departures from the score. In particular, his performance of the first movement of Sonata 11, K. 331, is considered by the music historian Kevin Bazzana to be one of his most “extreme” interpretations. The first movement consists of a theme and variations, beginning andante grazioso, yet Gould plays the theme “so maddenly slow that he had to get everyone’s hackles aroused”, as he told interviewer Humphrey Burton. He believed that each variation should increase in speed, contrary to Mozart’s indications; thus the fifth variation, an adagio, is played allegro. Gould justified these decisions based on the sonata’s unusual form. In an interview with Bruno Monsaingeon he said “since the first movement is a nocturne-cum-minuet rather than a slow movement, and since the package is rounded off by that curious bit of seraglio-like exotica he meant the famous concluding Rondo alla turca , one is dealing with an unusual structure, and virtually all of the sonata-allegro conventions can be set aside.” Bazzana notes that Rachmaninoff also played the fifth variation non-adagio in his 1919 recording. Gould went on:

Three German Dances

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and the other German Dances#

Most of Mozart’s German Dances were written whilst he held the position of Kammermusicus (Imperial Chamber Composer) in Vienna. Mozart had been appointed to this position on 1 December 1787 by Emperor Joseph II. The position was offered following the death of the former Kammermusicus, Christoph Willibald Gluck on 15 November 1787. In the position Mozart earned 800 florins a year. One of the main obligations of his position was to write music for the court dances and balls that were held in the Redoutensaal (Public Ballrooms) of the Imperial Palace in Vienna. Mozart was an enthusiastic dancer and produced many dance works, including ten sets of German dances. The first set was written in February 1787, before Mozart’s appointment to Kammermusicus. The other sets, excluding K. 611, were written between December 1787 and 1791, during which Mozart also wrote well-known pieces such as Symphonies 40 and 41, and his opera Così fan tutte. These were mostly written in sets of six, with one set of four and one of twelve. Mozart composed this set of three Teutsche (German Dances) in the early months of 1791. The three dances of K. 605 are usually listed with the six dances of K. 600 and the four of K. 602 as (Thirteen German Dances). The pieces first appear on 12 February 1791 on Mozart’s List of all my Works, and are the penultimate set of German Dances that Mozart composed before his death on 5 December 1791.

Timeline of Mozart's Requiem

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Before 1791#

2 January 1772: Mozart participates in the premiere of Michael Haydn’s Requiem in C minor.
21 September 1784: Birth of Mozart’s older son, Karl Thomas Mozart.
20 April 1789: Mozart visits Leipzig where he studied works by Bach.
December 1790: Mozart completes his string quintet in D (K. 593) and the Adagio and Allegro in F minor for a mechanical organ (K. 594). These are his first works in a new burst of creativity after a very low production of works in 1790.

1791#

5 January: Mozart completes his last piano concerto, in B (K. 595).
14 January: Mozart completes three German songs (K. 596–8).
January–March: Mozart composes mostly dance music (K. 599–611).
14 February: Anna, Count von Walsegg’s wife, dies at the age of 20.
3 March: Mozart completes the Fantasia in F minor for a mechanical organ (K. 608).
8 March: Mozart completes the bass aria Per questa bella mano (K. 612).
March: Mozart completes the Variations in F on “Ein Weib ist das herrlichste Ding” (K. 613).
12 April: Mozart completes his last string quintet, in E (K. 614).
4 May: Mozart completes the Andante in F for a small mechanical organ (K. 616).
23 May: Mozart completes the Adagio and Rondo for glass harmonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello, his last chamber work (K. 617).
17 June: Mozart completes the motet Ave verum corpus (K. 618).
July: Mozart completes the cantata Die ihr des unermeßlichen Weltalls (K. 619).
mid-July: A messenger (probably Franz Anton Leitgeb, the count’s steward) arrives with note asking Mozart to write a Requiem mass.
mid-July: Commission from Domenico Guardasoni, impresario of the Prague National Theatre to compose the opera, La clemenza di Tito (K. 621), for the festivities surrounding the coronation on September 6 of Leopold II as King of Bohemia.
26 July: Birth of Mozart’s younger son, Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart.
August: Mozart works mainly on La clemenza di Tito; completed by 5 September.
25 August: Mozart leaves for Prague.
6 September: Mozart conducts premiere of La clemenza di Tito.
mid-September – 28 September: Revision and completion of The Magic Flute (K. 620).
30 September: Premiere of The Magic Flute.
7 October: Mozart completes his Clarinet Concerto in A major (K. 622).
8 October – 20 November: Mozart works on the Requiem and a cantata (K. 623).
15 November: Mozart completes the cantata.
20 November: Mozart is confined to bed due to his illness.
5 December: Mozart dies shortly after midnight.
7 December: Burial in St. Marx Cemetery.
5 December – 10 December: Kyrie from Requiem completed by unknown musician (once identified as Mozart’s pupil Franz Jakob Freystädtler, although this attribution is not generally accepted now)
10 December: Requiem (probably only Introitus and Kyrie) is performed in St. Michael’s Church, Vienna, for a memorial for Mozart by the staff of the Theater auf der Wieden.
21 December: Joseph Leopold Eybler receives score of Requiem from Mozart’s widow, Constanze, promising to complete it by mid-Lent (mid-March) of next year. He later gives up and returns the score to Constanze, who turns it to Süssmayr to complete.

After 1791#

Early March 1792: Probably the time Süssmayr finished the Requiem.
2 January 1793: Performance of Requiem for Constanze’s benefit arranged by Gottfried van Swieten.
Early December 1793: Requiem is delivered to the Count.
14 December 1793: Requiem is performed in memory of the count’s wife in the Cistercian Neukloster Abbey at Wiener-Neustadt.
14 February 1794: Requiem is performed again in Patronat Church Maria Schutz in Semmering.
1799: Breitkopf & Härtel publishes the Requiem.
1800 or later: Walsegg receives leaves 1 through 10 of the autograph (Introitus and Kyrie).
Autumn 1800: Abbé Maximilian Stadler compares all known manuscript copies (including Walsegg’s) and editions of the score, notes copying errors, and determines precisely which parts of the Requiem were written by Mozart.
After 1802: Abbé Stadler receives leaves 11 through 32 (Dies irae to Confutatis) of Mozart’s Requiem autograph from Constanze. Later Eybler would receive leaves 33 to 46, the Lacrymosa through Hostias.
17 September 1803: Süssmayr dies of tuberculosis and is buried in an unmarked grave in the St. Marx Cemetery.
1825: Gottfried Weber writes an article in the music journal Cäcilia calling Mozart’s Requiem a spurious work.
5 December 1826: On the 35th anniversary of his father’s death, Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart conducts Mozart’s Requiem at St. George’s Ukrainian Greek Catholic Cathedral in Lemberg (today Lviv, Ukraine).
11 November 1827: Count Walsegg dies. Karl Haag, a musician formerly in Walsegg’s service, receives his score (Mozart’s autograph of the Introitus and Kyrie; the rest a copy by Süssmayr) and when he dies, he wills it to Katharina Adelpoller.
1831: Abbé Stadler gives the leaves of the Requiem autograph in his possession to the Imperial Court Library.
1833: Eybler suffers a stroke while conducting a performance of Mozart’s Requiem. The leaves of the Requiem autograph in his possession are turned over to the Imperial Court Library.
8 November 1833: Abbé Stadler dies.
1838: Count Moritz von Dietrichstein asks Nowack, formerly an employee of Walsegg, to search among Haag’s possessions for six Mozart string quartets that may have been given to Walsegg. Nowack does not find them but discovers Walsegg’s score of Mozart’s Requiem. The Imperial Court Library pays Adelpoller 50 ducats for the score.
21 September 1839: Gottfried Weber dies.
15 December 1840: François Habeneck conducts the Paris Opera in a performance of the Requiem at the reburial of Napoleon I.
6 March 1842: Constanze Mozart dies.
29 July 1844: Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart dies.
24 July 1846: Eybler dies.

Use in other funerals and memorial services#

19th-century musicians whose funerals or memorial services used Mozart’s Requiem included Carl Fasch (1800); Giovanni Punto (1803); Joseph Haydn (1809); Jan Ladislav Dussek (1812); Giovanni Paisiello (1816); Andreas Romberg (1821); Johann Gottfried Schicht (1823); Carl Maria von Weber (1826); Ludwig van Beethoven (1827); Franz Schubert (1828); Alexandre-Étienne Choron (1834); Mme Blasis (1838); Ludwig Berger (1839); Frédéric Chopin (1849); Luigi Lablache (1858); Gioachino Rossini (1868); Hector Berlioz (1869); and Charles Hallé (1895). 19th-century artists whose funerals or memorial services used Mozart’s Requiem included Friedrich Schiller (1805); Heinrich Joseph von Collin (1811); (1812); Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1832); and Peter von Cornelius (1867).

Twelve Variations on "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

This work consists of the theme in an A–B–A form, each element in eight bars, and twelve variations, all in the time signature of , except the last in , and in the key of C major, except number 8 which is in C minor. Only the final two variations have tempo indications, Adagio and Allegro respectively.

Composition date#

For a time, it was thought that these variations were composed in 1778, while Mozart stayed in Paris from April to September in that year, the assumption being that the melody of a French song could only have been picked up by Mozart while residing in France. For this presumed composition date, the composition was renumbered from K. 265 to K. 300e in the chronological catalogue of Mozart’s compositions. Later analysis of Mozart’s manuscript of the composition by Wolfgang Plath rather indicated 1781/1782 as the probable composition date. The variations were first published by in Vienna in 1785 as part of a collection of piano pieces by Mozart, including Twelve Variations on “La belle Françoise”.

Twelve Variations on "La belle Françoise"

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Background#

These variations were presumably composed by Mozart sometime between April and September 1778, during his stay in Paris. While little concrete evidence exists regarding the origin of the piece, it was later published in 1781 in Vienna, alongside other sets of variations and compositions based on French melodies—most notably the Twelve Variations on “Ah vous dirai-je, Maman”. Because of this, the exact date of composition remains a subject of debate. Sets of variations such as the Twelve Variations were generally well-received and marketable to both publishers and the public, which explains why Mozart dedicated part of his time in the 1780s to writing works in this form. As of 2025, only fragments of the original autograph manuscript have survived, and the piece has been preserved primarily through subsequent publications and reprints.

Vesperae solennes de confessore

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

Steiner, R., Falconer, K., Kirsch, W., & Bullivant, R. (2001, January 1). Magnificat. Grove Music Online. Ed. Retrieved 13 Sep. 2018, from
Aria . Arranged for cello and 5 double-basses, sung by Megan Marie Hart.

Vesperae solennes de Dominica

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The setting is divided into six movements, including five psalms and a setting of the Magnificat. A setting of the Minor Doxology (Gloria Patri) concludes all movements, each recapitulating the opening theme. The first three psalms are scored in a vigorous, exuberant manner, contrasting with the strict counterpoint of the a cappella Laudate pueri. The Laudate Dominum is set as an extended aria for the soprano soloist with obbligato organ, while the Magnificat opens with a majestic, moderate tempo, only to return to the bolder tempo of the first three psalms. # Dixit Allegro vivace, C major, # Confitebor Allegro, E minor, # Beatus vir Allegro, B major, # Laudate pueri F major, # Laudate Dominum Allegro, A major, # Magnificat Adagio maestoso, C major, #: “Et exultavit” Allegro, C major,

Viennese Quartets (Mozart)

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No. 8 in F major, K. 168#

The work is in four movements: The first movement is in sonata form. The slow movement in F minor is a triple-meter canon on the familiar theme also used in the finale of Haydn’s Op. 20 No. 5 quartet in the same key, and that Mozart would much later use in the “Kyrie” from his Requiem. The third movement is in ternary form, with a minuet and trio. The finale is a fugue which is also similar to one of the finales of Op. 20, this time the A major quartet (No. 6).

Violin Concerto No. 1 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

- *, Natalia Todorova, Academic State Orchestra, Milen Apostolov conducting

Violin Concerto No. 2 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The movements of the work have the tempo indications : : \relative c’ \key d \major \time 4/4 \tempo “Allegro moderato” \tempo 4 = 70 4\f a'8. a16 fis8 d r8 \tuplet 3/2 d16 (e d) g8-! r8 r8 \tuplet 3/2 d16 (e d) b'8-! r8 r8 \tuplet 3/2 d16 (cis b) \tuplet 3/2 a16 d (cis \tuplet 3/2 d) e-! fis-! g8-! g-! g-! \trill fis r8 \tuplet 3/2 d,16\p (e d) g8-! r8 r8 \tuplet 3/2 d16 (e d) b'8-! r8 : \relative c’ \key g \major \time 3/4 \tempo “Andante” \tempo 4 = 60 d'2\f e8. (c16) d8. (b16) g'4 g b8\p (fis g dis e g) cis,8 (d e c ais b) a8.\f (a'16) a4. (g8) g8. (fis16) fis4. (e8) d (cis\p c a) b (e) g,2 (fis8) r8 : \relative c’ \key d \major \time 3/4 \tempo “Rondeau : Allegro” \tempo 4 = 150 fis'4. (g8 gis a) b (a) g-. fis-. e-. d-. e4-! e4-! fis4-! fis8. (g16) e4-! r4 d8 (e fis d cis a) d8 (e fis d cis a) d8 (fis a fis) b (g) fis2 (e4) The concerto lasts around 20 minutes. It is scored for 2 oboes, 2 horns in D and strings. Like the Violin Concerto No. 4 and the Violin Concerto No. 5, the solo exposition and the recapitulation are completed by tutti exposition’s codetta.

Violin Concerto No. 3 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

The work is scored for solo violin, two flutes (second movement only), two oboes (tacet in the second movement), two horns in G and D, and strings.

Movements#

The piece is in three movements:

I. Allegro#

\relative c \set Staff.midiInstrument = #“violin” \key g \major 4\f g4.\p fis16(g) fis(g) fis(g) 4\f d4.\p cis16(d) cis(d) cis(d) 4\f b4.\p c!8\trill d-! e-! g,(fis) fis4-! r2 The Allegro is in sonata form, opening with a G major theme played by the orchestra. The first theme takes up the orchestral ritornello similar to Aminta’s aria “Aer tranquillo e dì sereni” from Mozart’s opera Il re pastore. The main theme is a bright and happy discussion between the solo violin and the accompaniment, followed by a modulation to the dominant D major, then to its parallel key D minor. It experiments in other keys, but does not settle and eventually, heads back to the tonic, G major, in the recapitulation.

Violin Concerto No. 4 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

The work is scored for solo violin, strings, 2 oboes and 2 horns in D.

Structure#

The concerto has the usual fast–slow–fast structure and lasts around 23 minutes. The movements are: Opening of the first movement, Allegro, featuring a march rhythm and a bugle-like gesture. \relative c’ \set Staff.midiInstrument = #“oboe” \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 4 = 144 \key d \major \tempo “Allegro” d4\f d8. d16 d4 d d r8 fis a4 r8 fis d fis a fis d fis a fis d4 r r2

Violin Concerto No. 5 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Mozart composed the majority of his concertos for string instruments from 1773 to 1779, but it is unknown for whom, or for what occasion, he wrote them. Similarly, the dating of these works is unclear. Analysis of the handwriting, papers and watermarks has proved that all five violin concertos were re-dated several times. The year of composition of the fifth concerto “1775” was scratched out and replaced by “1780”, and later changed again to “1775”. The autograph score is preserved in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Violin Concerto No. 6 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The concerto has the usual fast-slow-fast structure and lasts around 23 minutes. The movements are: : \relative c’ \key es \major \tempo “Allegro moderato” es2-.\f bes4-. g’-. es-. bes’-. g-. es’-. f2\p f8( g as f) es2. \grace g16 f4 es r r8

Background#

This violin concerto was first published by Johann André in 1799. A contemporary writer had stated the work to have been composed in 1784 and that it had been played to Eck by Mozart, although Mozart’s widow Constanze stated that if authentic, the work must have been composed earlier. Ludwig von Köchel dated the work to 1776 in his catalogue, labelling it K. 268. A common hypothesis made in the later half of the 19th century was that the piece was based on authentic Mozart material but constructed by a less skilled composer. Cecil B. Oldman believed that the work had stylistic similarities to Mozart’s sinfonia concertante for violin and viola, K. 364, and that Eck was the completer of the work, writing in a footnote to p. 1469 of The Letters of Mozart and his Family Volume III: Donald Francis Tovey in his Essays in Musical Analysis (Concertos) of 1936 commented, “The Concerto in E flat, which is the most frequently played, and purports to be the sixth, may be based on genuine material, but no competent musical scholar believes that it can possibly be genuine in the form in which it is known to us.” However, since then, performances in the concert hall and on disc have become infrequent compared to the five authentic Mozart violin concertos. Alfred Einstein dated the work to 1780 in his third edition of the Köchel catalogue, renumbering it as K. 365b. In a 1978 comparison of this concerto with several known Eck violin concertos, Walter Lebermann confirmed the work’s probable attribution to Eck and gave a dating of before 1790. The 1980 sixth edition of the Köchel catalogue removed this concerto from the main catalogue and into the appendix for spurious and doubtful works as K. Anh.C 14.04, and the work is not included in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe.

Violin Concerto No. 7 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

: \relative c \key d \major \tempo “Allegro maestoso” 4\f r16. d,32-. cis16.-. d32-. e16.-. d32-. cis16.-. d32-. e16.-. d32-. cis16.-. b32-. a8-. a’-. r4 The concerto has the usual fast-slow-fast structure and lasts around 26 minutes. The movements are:

Background#

This violin concerto was first published by Breitkopf & Härtel in an edition by Albert Kopfermann in 1907. Two sources are known for the concerto: a full score from the collection of Aloys Fuchs and a set of parts in Paris made by Eugène Sauzay in 1837 for his teacher (and also father-in-law) Pierre Baillot from the lost autograph (then in the possession of François Habeneck). The source of Fuchs’ copy is unknown, and he himself was not sure of the work’s authenticity: its layout with the solo violin part on the bottom staff is very uncharacteristic of Mozart, where the solo instrument is usually on the top staff. However, a paper scrap in Sauzay’s copy lists the instruments in exactly the same order and the same horn solmisation found in Mozart’s authentic violin concerti, supporting the work’s authenticity: this was noted by Robert D. Levin. As to how the autograph (if it was truly that) ended up in Habeneck’s possession, Mozart may have sold the autograph privately in Paris and the husband of Sauzay’s friend Marie Bigot de Moragues had connections to Viennese music publishers. Three cadenzas are found in the Paris copy; two may be Baillot’s and the third Sauzay’s. Fuchs’ copy also had different cadenzas, which Kopfermann suppressed, considering them inauthentic. The two copies differ in some places, and a 37-bar ending in Fuchs’ copy corresponds to a short 7-bar ending in the Paris copy: this is seen by some to correspond to Mozart’s 1778 statement “If I have time, I shall rearrange some of my violin concertos, and shorten them”. The concerto was unknown to Ludwig Ritter von Köchel and hence it is absent from the first edition of the Köchel catalogue. Paul von Waldersee placed it as K. 271a in the second edition, dating it to 16 July 1777. It was first performed on 4 November 1907 in Dresden. After its first publication and performance, scholars took sides regarding its authenticity. Georges de Saint-Foix did not doubt the work, but believed the published version was a later revision by Mozart dating to 1779 or 1780. Others thought that the work had some content deriving from Mozart but was finished by another person. Rudolf Gerber published another edition in 1934, considering it genuine and noted a theme in the Finale’s epilogue to be similar to a theme from the “Gavotte joyeuse” from Mozart’s own ballet music to Les petits riens, K. 299b. He also noted similarities between the opening themes of this concerto and the authentic K. 211. The concerto was recorded by Yehudi Menuhin in 1932, with George Enescu’s cadenzas, Alfred Einstein renumbered the work as K. 271i, due to the insertion of new works bearing the numbers K. 271b to K. 271h in the catalogue. He believed that the work was based on a rough sketch of a violin concerto by Mozart from 1777, but states that the original form of the work cannot easily be reconstructed. The uncharacteristic number of passages for the solo violin in the high register, in pizzicato (in the second movement), and in double stops in tenths were considered by Einstein to be 19th-century additions. Friedrich Blume, on the other hand, was firmly in favour of the work’s authenticity, stating that “not one passage allows of any room for doubt in regard to themes, harmony, rhythm, construction and orchestration”. He noted similarities to violin movements of authentic Mozart serenades and divertimenti, stated that some unusual usage of violin technique was not sufficient grounds for doubting the work’s authenticity, and criticized Einstein’s ideas regarding the concerto. Carl Bär published a paper in 1963 that came down in favour of Mozart’s authorship, noting that a passage in Joachim von Schiedenhofen’s diary for 25 July 1777 stated that a Mozart symphony, a violin concerto (played by Mozart), and a flute concerto were rehearsed at Gusset’s. Bär believed that the violin concerto was K. 271a/271i, and also identified this with the violin concerto Leopold referred to as “the concerto you Wolfgang wrote for Kolb” on 3 August 1778. He ruled out the five certainly authentic violin concerti as possibilities, as they were written in 1775, and Leopold had stated on 13 August 1778 in a letter that Count Czernin (who had been in Salzburg since April 1775) had never heard the violin being played by Kolb. Kolb was originally thought to be Franz Xavier Kolb (1731–1782), but Bär suspected it to actually have been his older son Johann Andreas (born sometime between 1746-8?). Bär hypothesized that he had been given the concerto by Mozart just before leaving Salzburg, thus dating the concerto to between 16 June (performance of the second Lodron Nachtmusik, K. 287/271h) and 26 July 1777 (Nannerl’s name day). Bär also believed the dating of the manuscript (“Salisburgo li 16 di Luglio 1777”) to be another point in favour of the work’s authenticity, as it was in a similar form to those on most contemporary autographs and was in a time that the author of the heading would not have known a violin concerto had probably been written. But Ernest Hess noted that the work had compositional errors, un-Mozartian phrases, weaknesses in instrumentation, and sequences without meaning that Mozart himself had parodied in his A Musical Joke, K. 522, all speaking against Mozart being the author of this concerto. The sixth edition of the Köchel catalogue kept the work as K. 271i, copying the third edition’s remarks, but referencing Hess’ doubts as to its authenticity. Christoph-Hellmut Mahling asked in 1978 if the work could be by someone else and was copied by Mozart, but noted that most questions regarding the work remained unsolved. He edited the volume of the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe containing this work (and the also doubtful Sinfonia Concertante for Four Winds, K. 297b/Anh.C 14.01) in 1980, placing it in the section for doubtful works, and included all the cadenzas in the original copies. Hermann Schmid called the work thoroughly un-Mozartian based on matters of form and technique, saying “I find in the entire Concerto K. 271i no music which I in earnest would put in a claim for Mozart”, and dating the composition to the 1780s to a composer who used different forms and techniques to Mozart. In the 2001 Mozart-Jahrbuch, Mahling reviewed earlier published information and gave new commentary and information. He found the concerto to have not much in common with those of Baillot and much more in common with those of Rodolphe Kreutzer, but also noted that the frequent leaps into the high register (reaching up to D 7 ) without many musical reasons was characteristic of the French composition school of the Paris Conservatoire a little later than the customary dating of this concerto: this school included Baillot and Kreutzer. The unusual usage of pizzicato in the second movement has a precedent in Baillot’s Sinfonia Concertante for two violins in D minor (Op. 38, written in 1816). The tempo marking “Allegro maestoso” is also characteristic of contemporary French concerti, while the majestic beginning of the concerto in dotted rhythms has much in common with the French overture form. Mahling thus thought that, if the concerto was an arrangement, it was most likely one of Baillot or Kreutzer dating from around 1830. He distinguished five possibilities for the actual provenance of the concerto: #Mozart, but dated later; #a Mozart arrangement of another’s violin concerto; #another’s arrangement of a Mozart violin concerto; #a false attribution or thought attribution to Mozart for a later unrelated work by an unknown composer; #a simple forgery (viz. the Adélaïde Concerto, a later violin concerto forgery also attributed to Mozart) Richard Kapp stated that players from the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra laughed when playing the piece, because a melody from the third movement is similar to that of the Czech Christmas carol Půjdem spolu do Betléma. This raises the possibility of the concerto having been written by a Czech composer. The true provenance of the K. 271a/271i concerto remains unknown and debated. All known recordings use the longer ending from Fuchs’ copy; but only that of Jean-Jacques Kantorow uses the cadenzas originally found in the copies.

Violin Sonata No. 24 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Movements#

The sonata is in three movements:

Discography#

Hilary Hahn, violin and Natalie Zhu, piano: Violine Sonatas K. 301 No. 18, K. 304 No. 21, K. 376 No. 24, and K. 526 No. 35 - 2005.
, violin and Amandine Savary, piano: Sonatas K. 376 No. 24, K. 379 No. 27 and K. 526 No. 35 - 2019.

Violin Sonata No. 25 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The work was the third of six violin sonatas published in Vienna by Artaria and Co. in November 1781. This piece was dedicated to the pianist Josepha Barbara Auernhammer. The work, along with its companion sonatas, received a warm review in 1783 from an anonymous author in the pages of Magazin der Musik: These sonatas are the only ones of their kind … They are rich in new ideas, showing traces of the great musical genius of their author. … Moreover, the violin accompaniment is so ingeniously combined with the piano part that both instruments are continuously employed; and thus these sonatas demand a violinist as accomplished as the pianist.” The reviewer’s remarks reflect the status of the violin sonata in Mozart’s time; it was construed primarily as a piano sonata, with the violin part serving as accompaniment; Mozart’s work reflects the beginning of the move toward coequal status in this genre. The popularity of the work is also attested by the fact that five other publishers, in three other cities, issued their own editions: *Boyer, Paris, ca. 1785 *Hummel, Amsterdam, ca. 1786 *London, Longman and Broderip, ca. 1790 *London, Birchall, ca. 1790 *London, John Bland, ca. 1790

Violin Sonata No. 32 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Recordings#

1955 - David Oistrakh (violin), Vladimir Yampolsky (piano) - EMI - Warner classics)
1956 – Arthur Grumiaux (violin), Clara Haskil (piano) – Philips
1981 – Arthur Grumiaux (violin), Walter Klien (piano) – Philips

References#

- Ulrich Konrad: Komponieren und Schreiben. Beobachtungen an der autographen Niederschrift von Wolfgang Amadé Mozarts Violinsonate KV 454. In: Die Tonkunst 9 (2015), Heft 2, S. 131–141.

External links#

- *Performance of Violin Sonata No. 32 by Ani Kavafian (violin) and Andre-Michel Schub (piano) from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format

Violin Sonata No. 33 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The work consists of three movements: The second movement is a rondo in the key of A which modulates enharmonically to the remote keys of C minor and A major. The finale is a set of six variations based on a theme which is twenty measures in length. The piano part shows some virtuosity in the writing, for the left hand in the third variation and for both hands in the fifth. The last variation sets the theme in a gigue-like rhythm. It is virtuosic as well in the violin part, using scalar passages to highten the excitement.

Violin Sonata No. 35 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Discography#

Isaac Stern, violin and Yefim Bronfman, piano: Violine Sonatas K. 296 No. 17, K. 454 No. 32 and K. 526 No. 35 - 1994.
Hilary Hahn, violin and Natalie Zhu, piano: Violine Sonatas K. 301 No. 18, K. 304 No. 21, K. 376 No. 24, and K. 526 No. 35 - 2005.
, violin and Amandine Savary, piano: Violine Sonatas K. 376 No. 24, K. 379 No. 27 and K. 526 No. 35 - 2019.

Violin Sonata No. 36 (Mozart)

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Violin Sonatas, KV 10–15 (Mozart)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

- - - - *Naxos.com liner notes

Violin Sonatas, KV 26–31 (Mozart)

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Violin Sonatas, KV 6–9 (Mozart)

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Sonata in C major for Keyboard and Violin, K. 6#

The precise date and location of composition is disputed: some suggest that it was written in Salzburg, the boy’s home town, in 1762 or 1763; others suggest that it was written in Paris in 1763 or 1764, during Mozart’s first visit to that city. It was published in Paris in February 1764, along with another violin sonata, K. 7, as Mozart’s Opus 1. K. 6 has 4 movements, the third being a pair of menuets: The keyboard and violin interact in various ways throughout the piece: the violin echoing the tune of the keyboard, the two moving in synchronicity. The violin sometimes doubles the tune while the keyboard provides the bass. It is quite a lively and light-hearted work. Mozart employs Alberti bass throughout the entire sonata. The Nannerl Notenbuch contains versions for solo piano of the first three movements of this sonata. It is thought that the first and second of these movements and the Menuet I from the third movement were inscribed in the Notenbuch by Leopold in Brussels in 1763. A version for solo piano of Menuet II (together with a piano version of the third movement of Leopold’s Serenade in D) can also be found in Leopold’s hand in the Notenbuch with the comment, “di Wolfgango Mozart d. 16 ten Julÿ 1762” by Wolfgang Mozart on 16 July 1762 ; Mozart was in Salzburg on that date.

Voi avete un cor fedele

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Description#

Sung by the character Dorina, the aria is marked Andantino grazioso, then allegro, and consists of 126 bars in the key of G major. The vocal range reaches from D to B. A typical performance lasts for around seven minutes. The work calls for two oboes, two natural horns in G and strings. The time signature for the is triple metre, then for the allegro, common time . The aria contains scales and trills with bravura passages.

Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Mozart entered the aria into his catalogue on 20 June 1783 Vienna. It was performed in the Burgtheater, Vienna, on 30 June 1783, as an insertion aria for a performance of Pasquale Anfossi’s opera Il curioso indiscreto which had premiered with great success in 1777 in Rome. Mozart wrote two other insertion arias for that occasion, “No, che non sei capace” (I. 7) (K. 419) and “Per pietà, non ricercate” (II. 4) (K. 420). K. 418 and K. 419 were written for Mozart’s sister-in-law Aloysia Weber. K. 420 was written for Valentin Adamberger, but that aria was not performed because of some intrigue initiated by Salieri. The aria is part of the 1991 pasticcio opera The Jewel Box.

Zaide

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Style#

Zaide can neither be described as opera buffa or opera seria; it contained elements of both forms, and parallels may be drawn to both genre in Mozart’s work. Zaide is also notable as being one of only two dramatic pieces by Mozart to contain melodrama (the other being Thamos, King of Egypt). Most of the spoken dialogue to Zaide has been lost, though there have been various attempts in modern times to write new dialogue to substitute for Schachtner’s lost words.