O du eselhafter Peierl

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.”

Revised version#

Mozart later transposed “O du eselhafter Peierl” into G major, in versions that replaced “Peierl” with the names of two other individuals, named Martin and Jakob. There are other minor differences in words and notes. According to Link (2007), “Martin” was the composer Vicente Martín y Soler. Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein suggested a different hypothesis, that “Martin” was Philipp Jakob Martin, who served as impresario for Mozart’s concerts in the and in the Augarten. The lyrics of the revised canon replace “Nepomuk” (see above) with “Lipperl”, a German diminutive form of “Philipp”.

Autographs#

The autograph (original manuscript copy) of K. 559a has survived; it is a “tiny slip of paper” (Searle) on the reverse side of which is the original of K. 559. For discussion, see Difficile lectu. The later G major version, K. 560, is also preserved and is currently in the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

See also#

• Bona nox
• Leck mich im Arsch
• Leck mir den Arsch fein recht schön sauber

Sources#

• Abert, Hermann (2007) W. A. Mozart. Translated by Stewart Spencer with notes by Cliff Eisen. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Hocquard, Jean-Victor (1999) Mozart ou la voix du comique, Maisonneuve & Larose.
• Link, Dorothea (2007) “Vicente Martín y Soler (Martini)”, in Cliff Eisen and Simon P. Keefe, eds., The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Quinn, Michael (2007) “Canon”, in Cliff Eisen and Simon P. Keefe, eds., The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Weber, Gottfried (1824) “Originalhandschrift von Mozart” (An original manuscript of Mozart), Caecilia 1:179–182

External links#

• . The preface, in German, discusses the origin of the canon.
• “O du eselhafter …”, Köchel-Verzeichnis, International Mozarteum Foundation
• , Chorus Viennensis
• K. 560