On 11 Jan 2007 at 8:54, Johannes Gebauer wrote: > On 11.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote: > > I would be skeptical of this claim until real experts on Mozart's > > MSS and copyists weigh in (such as Dexter Edge and Cliff Eisen). I'm > > surprised the Times didn't seek comment from Eisen, who, so far as > > I'm aware, still holds a teaching position in London. > > > > Remember the Mozart portrait "discovery?" Well that turned out to be > > wrong. These archivists often let their Endeckungsfreude get the > > best of their finer judgment skills. > > Although I partly agree with you, I see Ulrich Leisinger's name there, > too, who is a very careful and responsible musicologist.
While I certainly known Ulrich and believe him to be reliable, he has a vested interest. (and you probably didn't notice, but the UPI wire report on this (derived from the London Times article), describes Hintermeier as the head of the Salzburg archdiocese! Should we all now call him Archbishop Hintermeier? cf: http://washingtontimes.com/upi/20061229-034549-6951r.htm ) > Personally I don't think it really matters that much, I am not crazy > about Mozart's early works anyway, and if it turns out to be a > worthwile piece I couldn't care less whether it is by Mozart or not. That's interesting. I'm not excited about much of any of the music from c. 1750-70 -- the galant style just seems very boring to me (even Haydn from that period). But you do lots of music from that period, no? What do you find is the difference between the music you do and Mozart's pre-1770 work? Youth and inexperience? Lack of sophistication? > Now if someone discovered Haydn's missing violin concerto in D major, > that would be another story. (If someone does, please tell me first, > and let me do the first recording...) I suspect that most of the lost major works are forever lost, though the situation with the C Minor Fantasy/Sonata MS gives one cause for hope (i.e., a lost autograph that was known to exist long into the 19th century), or the situation with the fragments of the horn concerto found in the Süssmayer MS in the British Library. I suspect that most of the lost major works (like the clarinet quintet, clarinet concerto or the g minor string quintet) are likely lost forever because they were destroyed somehow after they left the possession of the original holders of the MSS. I haven't checked, but right now I think there's only one lost André MS, the violin rondo, K373. I've had as a project to look at André's edition (of which I have a photocopy), which declares (as was the case with dozens of André editions of the time) that it was prepared from the composer's autograph (which André owned) and compare it the contemporary André editions for which the autograph still exists. I've done major work in this area on the string quintets (most interestingly on the two that were published before André acquired the autographs, so that you have André's pre-autograph edition and his post-autograph edition, in one case re-using the exact same plates with editorial additions; this clues you into what aspects of the autograph André's editors felt were essential to maintain from the autograph) and one of the piano concertos, but it would need to be done on the violin concertos. André owned the autographs for all the violin concertos, but seems to have published only K211 (in 1802, with the title page rubric "Edition faite d'après le manuscrit de l'auteur" ("d'après le manuscrit original" or "d'après la partition en manuscrit") and K218 (1807, which seems to lack the rubric, though my records don't show for certain). Anyway, I digress! The early works were lost very early on. Almost none of the works on Leopold's list of his son's work that was made up in 1768 (I don't have the Zaslaw article on this catalog handy, so can't say if any keyboard concerto is listed there) are extent today, so there are a lot of possible works to be found, if the MSS still exist. But likely they are not in a hand that is as recognizably Mozart's, since many of his youthful works were copied out by his father (whose handwriting does resemble his sons enough to require more than casual examination). None of the published accounts about this new find say whether it's in Leopold's hand or a copyist's. The paper evidence is quite convincing in showing that the source does derive from the same milieu as Mozart's authenticated MSS of the time, but paper alone can't prove an attribution -- it can only disprove it or provide support for it. But I've gone on too long already... -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
