Beethoven's Early Years In Bonn

[robert newman]

Dear Peter,

Yes, I believe that Reicha was certainly one of the copyists. I really don't know the identity of the two others and must try to get this information from Mr Taboga or other sources. Once I find out I will post here.

(The only musical surname I know starting with 'F' that just might have been involved in producing these manuscripts is the musician, Freystadler, though this is just a pure guess and is suggested only because I'm presently trying to get some information on his possible links with Bonn during the 1790's). Freystadler's name crops up in connection with 'completion' of Mozart's Requiem though information on him is scarce it seems.

Regards

Robert Newman

[Peter]

Dear Robert,

The only problem with Reicha is I can't find any reference to him having been in Bonn prior to 1785 when he arrived with his uncle - perhaps Mr Taboga can clarify this as well?

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'Man know thyself'

[robert newman]

Dear Peter,

This is interesting. Yes, the subject of copyists is perhaps the best way to make progress on this issue. I will try to find out exactly who these copyists were from Italy and assumed that Reicha was definitely one of them.

Assuming that 'A.R' is Reicha we find these initials on the following symphonies now at Modena -

K320
K319
K201

The copy of K201 is on Italian paper.

As to the identity of 'A.F.' (which appears on K385 'Haffner' at Modena without parts for tr, tp, fl, cl) I'm looking at the possibility that this was either Freystadler or even (possibly) Giuseppe Ferlandis (1755-1810). (Ferlandis was employed at Salzburg as a virtuoso oboist and I know that some researchers have credited him with at least one oboe concerto which some writers have previously suggested was by Mozart).

I think we can say with certainty that these copies now at Modena were definitely in existence before 1794 since they appear in the catalogue of Luchesi (C.53.1) at Modena which he personally kept up to date until around that year. The same C.53.1 catalogue also records several early works of Ludwig van Beethoven (which proves Luchesi was still actively using this catalogue until around this date at least).

It's interesting that manuscripts at the British Museum which came there from the family of the Turkish Sultan Abdul Aziz (and which contained several works attributed first by the Koechel editors to Mozart and then later (1905) by others to the young Beethoven) also contain a work always assumed to have been by Mozart (K93 'De Profundis') but which has recently been shown not to be a work by Mozart at all, but by J.G. Reutter. The same British Museum manuscripts contain a transcription of the String Quintet in C Minor for winds K406 - always attributed as Mozart's own composition but about which even this transcription Paumgartner notes -

'Now the conjecture that Mozart composed this to complete the quintet series has fallen'.

I do agree with you that getting to the bottom of this copyist question may be the best way to make real progress and note that Mr Taboga has not gone in to detail on the material I have on this very interesting angle.

I will post separately on what is known about the fate of the Bonn archive prior to its arrival at Modena.

Regards

Robert Newman




[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 08-27-2005).]

[Droell]

[quote]Originally posted by Peter:

Originally posted by Droell:
I'm still intrigued by the idea that Beethoven was lured to Vienna to be remade as a "Viennese" composer. Why not take the best student from the best school of music & bring him to the big city? Before Paris did. (Bonn owed allegiance to the French court. Beethoven at one point considered moving to Paris.)


Bonn was not invaded by the French until 1794 (2 years after Beethoven left) when Max Franz was forced to flee - it remained under French dominance until 1815 when after Napoleon's defeat it came under Prussian rule. Revolutionary 1792 Paris would not have been an attractive option!

Peter, you're correct. Please accept my apologies. I should have paid more attention in history class.

The accepted story of Mozart's death stinks. If he was poisoned & his body not permitted in the cathedral, then it wasn't because of how he conducted himself as a composer. On the other hand, lack of a grave marker eliminates that solution (will leave you to puzzle it out), as well murder in general.

Anybody know Mozart's time of birth? I've got a possible solution for the mess, Luchesi, Max Franz, Mozart, etc., but it's hairy & I need all the help I can get (astrological, in this case). A Mozart birth around sunrise might have got him barred from St. Stephens 35 years later. I've got pressing work this morning (it's 10:30 here), will try & get back to this in a few hours.

My hunch is that lack of a grave marker points to Mozart having faked his death.

[This message has been edited by Droell (edited 08-27-2005).]

[Droell]

I am sorry to say, but upon reflection, I can no longer believe Mozart was poisoned.

For many years I was happy to believe Mozart's own statement. If he said he was poisoned, then he should know. Here are the various problems with it:

Poisoning is the most cold-blooded form of murder. It is not done casually & never by accident. Mozart may have said he was poisoned, but he fails to say who did the deed. It is imposssible he did not suspect, and unbelievable that he did not act to confirm his suspicions. Nor is the inaction of his friends & associates supportable. If he were truly poisoned, then with his dying breath he would scream the accusation into the face of his poisoner. Or at worst, seal the name in an envelope to be opened after his demise. Deathbed accusations have the greatest weight.

The poison would have presumably been slow acting. I have heard that such poisons are used by close family members to render their victims comatose, hovering perpetually at the brink of death. As a means of dispatching someone, they have considerable risk. First, that the victim will guess the identity of the poisoner & take appropriate action while time remains. Secondly, that the dose will not be strong enough. Thirdly, that the victim will find some antidote. There is no such thing as a slow poison without an antidote (whatever you might have heard to the contrary). I observe that Franz Anton Mesmer was alive at this time. "Mesmerism" (so called) was far more than mere hypnosis. It may well have been able to function as a universal antidote, should a suitably trained doctor be found in time. (I have some training in this area.)

The disposal of Mozart's remains do not support the poisoning hypothesis. Mozart is alive one day, dead & buried the very next. Only a poisoner in Mozart's own household might find that a satisfactory outcome. A poisoner has to know his victim is really dead, that the game is over & he has won. He has to see the corpse with his own eyes. If he is one of a number of people with a murderous grudge (which, if I understand Robert correctly, is what he is suggesting), then the dispoal of Mozart's body must be definitive. There can be no possibility he recovered & fled in the night. There must be an individual grave, there must be a marker, there must be Mozart's name on it. The guilty party must forever be able to stand over it & say to himself, "here lies the miserable cur!" Full in the knowledge that on any dark night, he could dig up the grave & hold the remains in his own hands. Proof that Mozart really was dead.

Mozart may have been many things, but he was not a pauper, he was not of that class. If an unmarked, unknown grave was not acceptable to the poisoner, it would not have been acceptable to Mozart's family or friends or associates.

If I read the accounts correctly, Mozart had no funeral mass. It might be that he had crossed the local bishop one too many times & was forbidden services in St. Stephen's, but there were many other parish churches in Vienna & doubtless one would have been pressed into giving him last rites. Putting him in some obscure church would have been a final humiliation, but it seems not even this was done. Robert says there was a "memorial", according to his source, but by definition this does not seem to be the same thing. Even small parishes have records. If Mozart had a service, it should have been recorded somewhere. I am not satisfied that Mozart was denied a mass because he was a Mason. He had, after all, just spent his dying days composing a requiem, which is more than enough evidence to suggest deathbed repentance. Especially as he said it was for his own service!

I suppose there are various reasons why one would be denied Church services, but the main one that comes to mind is if it was believed that Mozart was homosexual. Homosexuals were then, and presumably are still today, denied Latin rites. Has nothing to do with anybody being squeamish. Male homosexuals were presumed to be homosexual because of the abuse of magical powers that came by means of sodomy. Which was believed to be quite nasty stuff. This is not the place for a lengthy exposition of magic & magicians & how the gay world enters in to it, other than to remark that the corpse of such a person represented a liability to the parish in which it was interred. The funeral mass of a magician is itself a danger to the community at large. This is another area I've studied closely. Denial of a funeral mass is a very serious matter & would not pass unnoticed. Mozart's friends & family would have every reason to be alarmed & deeply offended.

And yes, it does seem weird that a composer of religious works would be denied the final religious service, but a corpse is a different thing from a living parishoner. There are different rules.

All of this points to Mozart having faked his death, and in a fashion that would have made it hard to undo.

I'm thinking of exile in New York. That's where Beaumarchais ended up, teaching at Columbia University, if memory serves. Shades of PDQ Bach, did they team up again to create Rogers & Hammerstein on early Broadway?

[Peter]

Originally posted by robert newman:
Dear Peter,

This is interesting. Yes, the subject of copyists is perhaps the best way to make progress on this issue. I will try to find out exactly who these copyists were from Italy and assumed that Reicha was definitely one of them.

Yes Robert, identifying these copyists with certainty is essential for any validity to be ascertained. I naturally assumed Reicha to be one of them because his initials fit and he was Luchesi's assistant (The only other A.R being Romberg who wasn't in Bonn till even later, 1790) - Taboga states emphatically that A.R. was one of the copyists, if however I'm correct that he wasn't in Bonn before 1785 then the origin of the Inventory at Modena is called into question.

Incidentally Reicha (who went on to teach Berlioz, Liszt, Gounod and Franck) apparently spoke disparagingly of Beethoven's compostions to his pupils at the Paris conservatoire.

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'Man know thyself'

[Peter]

Originally posted by Droell:

My hunch is that lack of a grave marker points to Mozart having faked his death.

"Done to death by slanderous tongues was the hero that here lies" - (Much ado about nothing! Shakespeare)

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'Man know thyself'

[This message has been edited by Peter (edited 08-28-2005).]

[robert newman]

Dear Peter,

You've certainly focused on a very important aspect of this mystery.

There is however one point that needs to be clarified. It is entirely possible that works inventoried in Bonn in 1784 were copied prior to 1794 in Bonn. Indeed, the catalogue C.53.1 at Modena (written and kept up to date by Kapellmeister Luchesi himself) clearly indicates that he, Luchesi, was still in control of the Bonn archive up to the time that it was removed by Max Franz. Therefore the copies we see in Modena could easily have been produced after 1784 at Bonn and need not have been the ones actually inventoried that year.

I will certainly try to find out which copyists were employed in Bonn between 1784 and 1794.

The fact that Reicha arrived in Bonn the year after the inventory need not therefore remove the possibility that he copied certain works which are today found at Modena.

(I understand there are 3 copyists identified in the Modena archives for the Bonn material of which Reicha was probably one). I will post on this once I have found more information.

Regards

Robert

[robert newman]

Dear Droell,

I think it highly unlikely that Mozart faked his own death in December 1791 and it may soon be possible to prove this did not occur. For instance, there has long been a good case for arguing that Mozart's skull was removed shortly after its burial at St Marx and was in the hands of early 'Phrenologists' (followers of Gall's theories). A similar fate occured to Haydn's skull as you will know.

We also have numerous witnesses who saw Mozart's remains (this besides Doctors Closset, Sallaba and Guldener) - several members of Mozart's family including Sophie, Constanze, Mozart's son, various visitors to the house on the Monday morning that followed his death.

I agree there are huge inconsistencies even in the handling of Mozart's last illness and cause of death which border on gross incompetence and even downright falsehood - but I cannot say (and I think nobody can argue with any real support) that Mozart faked his own death.

No, Mozart died in December 1791 but was ill from virtually September that year. He spoke of being poisoned - and of course these rumours were rife in Vienna shortly after his death. They died down for a while but again came to the surface with a series of confessions from Salieri to involvement in it in the 1820's.

I again appreciate that we cannot go in to this in detail here on this site although I assure you Mozart 'faking his own death' has never been a serious idea.

In fact, on the night of Mozart's death there is evidence that it was actually predicted.

1. In the Guldener Report (that offered by the city inspector Dr Guldener) which was made in the 1820's at the request of Giuseppe Carpani to counter persistent rumours of Mozart being poisoned by Salieri, Guldener specifically says that Dr Closset had predicted with great precision the actual time of Mozart's death since (according to Closset) he died of an illness that had claimed many lives in Vienna at the time.

Such a claim (as it happens) is false (since there was no epidemic in Vienna in 1791) but it is clear that the 'powers that be' wanted this episode to be ended by statements such as those Guldener produced. (Dr Closset was already dead at this time).

Guldener claimed also that Mozart was a long time friend of Dr Closset and this too is not correct. In fact, Mozart was never a patient of Dr Closset and does not appear in his list of patients.

2. There is also the curious report given to the Novellos by Constanze Mozart (found in the Travel Diaries of Mary and Vincent Novello) that Mozart had told his wife that he was certain he was being poisoned by his enemies - this several months before it occurred. And, according to this report, he, Mozart said 'they know the exact day, the exact time, when my life will end'. Such an extraordinary story is the second source that indicates that Mozart was convinced of his life being in danger.

3. There is a third source which speaks of Mozart fearing for his own life. It is contained within a letter he wrote during the tour he made with Lichnowsky - in which he speaks of 'my honour, my very life may well be in danger' (this probably relating to the events that led to Mozart's prosecution in the court of the nobility - only few details of which have survived).

4. But the fourth clue that Mozart's death was predicted comes from the curious fact that on the night of Mozart's death and within hours of it occurring both Schickaneder and Baron van Sweiten were at Mozart's house, having heard of the composer having died. Now, these two friends of Mozart arrived within an hour or so of Mozart's death, which itself had occurred only a few minutes after the midnight arrival of Dr Closset.

It must surely be possible to consider that Schickander and van Sweiten were staying nearby just in case there was any attempt made to hasten Mozart's end. But they fell asleep thinking that Mozart was not under real threat - never realising that, in fact, towards midnight Dr Closset would arrive. They left instructions to be awoken should anything amiss occur. It did. Mozart suddenly died and they were amazed and greatly disturbed by it.

And so (it seems) that Mozart's fears of a threat to his life at that specific time were realised.

Schickander in particular was grief stricken and could not believe what had happened. The very next morning Baron van Sweiten was handed a written termination of his employment contract with the Emperor (Leopold 2nd).

So the very fact that these two men were in close proximity to the Mozart house on that fateful night does suggest, I think, that certain things were truly predicted to occur, as Mozart himself did say months before.

There is too the composition of the Requiem. Leaving aside K626 (which I think was invented to obscure the truth) I think there is definite evidence that Mozart worked on his own Requiem (an a cappella work) and completed it - this the one recorded as having been performed on 10th December and lost shortly afterwards. Mozart, working towards such a style in the little motet 'Ave Verum Corpus' (KV618) seems therefore to have been convinced of his own impending end. But the Memorial in Vienna (St Michael's on 10th December) and the report of Mozart's Requiem being performed there, though seemingly impossible, is I think correct - though it flies in the face of all we traditionally read of those events.

Regards

Robert (Newman)

[Peter]

Originally posted by robert newman:


Therefore the copies we see in Modena could easily have been produced after 1784 at Bonn and need not have been the ones actually inventoried that year.

Taboga states emphatically "The initials A. F. and A. R. don’t allow us to think anything different. They are the initials of those who helped in the inventory drafting, included the one finished on 8 May 1784, the last one drafted in Bonn."

So clearly for him A.R was in Bonn in 1784, so either A.R. wasn't Reicha or else Reicha was in Bonn earlier than 1785. He has to clarify and prove this point.

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'Man know thyself'

[Droell]

Originally posted by robert newman:


Dear Droell,

2. There is also the curious report given to the Novellos by Constanze Mozart (found in the Travel Diaries of Mary and Vincent Novello) that Mozart had told his wife that he was certain he was being poisoned by his enemies - this several months before it occurred. And, according to this report, he, Mozart said 'they know the exact day, the exact time, when my life will end'. Such an extraordinary story is the second source that indicates that Mozart was convinced of his life being in danger.


Regards

Robert (Newman)

Dear Robert,

I had a detailed reply - at least as long as yours, but it seems I hit some key by accident & it was lost. The essence of it:

As a pet project of Max Franz, the son of Empress Maria Theresia, Mozart was sacrosanct. No secret cabal of unhappy rivals would have dared touch him. Mozart knew it, and he saw to it that everyone else did, too.

Max Franz's arrival in Bonn in 1784 came shortly before Mozart's becoming a member of the Masonic Order. As he is unsuited in every respect for such an honor, I am curious if Max Franz was his sponsor, either directly or indirectly.

About this same time, Max Franz seems to have abandoned the idea of replacing Luchesi with Mozart as Bonn's kapellmeister. The musical theory that Luchesi studied, music as absolute number, happens to be a form of Pythagoreanism. As such, it would be of interest to a magical society such as the Masons. Presuming Max Franz was a Mason (which, in his case, would not be unusual), the two men may have seen the advantages of close partnership.

I cannot speak for anyone else, but if my hunch is correct & if I were in Luchesi's place, I would have been excited by the possibilities. An extensive, challenging series of experiments, with a defined goal. I frankly would not care what happened to my scores, as to me they would merely be studies en route to a larger result. Passing Masonic-charged scores to Mozart might only have been feasable if Mozart was himself a Mason.

What kinds of experiments, and how far can they go? Beethoven, Luchesi's student, made the same sort of experiments, starting no later than the Pathetique sonata (itself derived from two pieces by "Mozart", probably by Luchesi himself), ending with the 5th symphony.

What is the end result? One possibility is the manipulation of physical reality. That's what the 5th symphony is really all about, but that's a story for another day.

So time passes. Luchesi & Max Franz come to the end of their experiments, at least as far as they were concerned. Mozart, on the other hand, does not pan out. He never quite becomes what Max had hoped for. Knowing he was untouchable, Mozart stages operas flatly offensive to the Hapsburg royal house. Max Franz becomes tired of explaining, over and over again, why his friend should not be jailed as a public nuisance.

At some point a line is drawn. As I imagine it, Mozart is given a year to put his affairs in order, and then disappear. He is to be banished. I imagine the deadline was 31 December 1791. For someone with a nervous constitution, like Mozart, such a sentence would have health consequences. I once had a deadline like that (the month of August, 1981, when I left London) & to me it seemed very much like death. Before, during, and for a long time afterwards.

You've mentioned Mozart's prosecution in the secret court of the nobility. My guess is that it ordered his banishment. As an alternative sentencing possibility, it may have ordered him poisoned. If Mozart was, in fact, poisoned, it could only have been by order of such a court, and only then with the express permission of Max Franz. But for Mozart's known offenses, this seems cruel indeed. Could Max have lived with the secret of Mozart's condemnation? Keeping it forever to himself? He who sent Beethoven to Vienna, and he to whom Beethoven planned to dedicate his first symphony some years later? (Franz died before Beethoven completed the work.)

Only a court-imposed sentence can account for Mozart's preknowledge of the date of his demise, whether banishment or actual death. For that matter, it would seem to account for much of Mozart's attitude (passive resignation) during the process.

The traditional poisoning story, as I understand it, is that Mozart unknowingly consumed some evil thing, cunningly given him by someone who remains so secret that his name is still unknown. One serving of death, on one occasion only. That from one chance encounter both Mozart & his doctors could work out an exact (or even approximate) date of death is absurd, and for more than one reason. Preknowledge of date of death by poisoning becomes more certain if Mozart had been sentenced to drink a poison on a regular basis, but is there any evidence for this? Any evidence that poison was a favored means of Hapsburg execution? Execution is execution, it's inhuman to drag it out. Drink the hemlock, lay down, die & finish with it. For a first-hand account of an actual poisoning, see the last pages in Benvenuto's Cellini's Autobiography. (Yes, he survived, even though he was elderly at the time.)

This secret court, like all judicial bodies, would have an archive. Is it still secret?

David R. Roell

PS: In researching the Masons & The Magic Flute, I learn they consider it to be his second Masonic opera. The first was The Abduction from the Seraglio (1781), though I forget exactly why.

[This message has been edited by Droell (edited 08-28-2005).]

[robert newman]

Dear Peter,

You write -

'' Taboga states emphatically "The initials A. F. and A. R. don’t allow us to think anything different. They are the initials of those who helped in the inventory drafting, included the one finished on 8 May 1784, the last one drafted in Bonn." ''

And you also write -

'So clearly for him A.R was in Bonn in 1784, so either A.R. wasn't Reicha or else Reicha was in Bonn earlier than 1785. He has to clarify and prove this point'.

Again, this is an excellent point. I honestly do not know the answer to this. To be fair, Taboga (in the material I have of his authorship) does not identify the copyists to which he is refering other than to list these initials of copyists.

It seems that between us we have quite a lot of Taboga material. All I have is an unpublished thesis of his authorship (some 150 pages in all including a number of appendixes) which Taboga had bound for me and sent some 3 months ago entitled 'False Headings to Joseph Haydn and W.A.Mozart'

It seems the initials of the copyist 'A.R.' are also found in Modena on a copy of the 'Haydn' symphony normally known as 'The Philosopher'(reference Mus-D-149).

I note that a trio by Ferlandis is also found in the catalogue C.53.1 at Modena (this kept by Luchesi himself).

Various initials are also found on some of the 'Haydn' symphonies at Modena including the following -

Hob Reference Modena Reference Initials
75 D-131 'AF'
42 D-133 'MM'
57 D-136 'AR'
74 D-137 'AR-AF'
48 D-139 'AR'
70 D-147 'AR'
22 D-149 'AR'
71 D-156 'AR'
62 D-157 'AR'
73 D-158 'AF'
22 D-167 'AF'

Whoever 'AR' was used Italian paper quite often but used NicHeisler paper almost as often. The same is true for 'AF'. The only work with the initials 'MM' (Hob.42) was made on NicHeisler paper.

The very survival of these title pages and copyists initials is remarkable since by far the majority of works at Modena attributed today to Haydn and Mozart have had their title pages ripped off and these survive only (in most cases) because their removal would have removed the first bars of the music itself.

All the more reason to get to the bottom of who these copyists actually were, where they worked and when.

Like yourself I am very interested to know if Reicha was the copyist 'AR' since his arrival in Bonn 1 year after the Bonn Inventory of 1784 begs an explanation if these intitials are really his.

I will as promised try to get this resolved from both Bonn and also from other sources.

(I wonder which copyists worked on early Beethoven pieces at Bonn ?)

Robert

[robert newman]

Dear David,

There are several parts of your letter which I find to be correct and extraordinary, though I myself have not looked at things from your perspective of magic/symbolism/mathematics etc.

Yes, it is remarkable that Mozart joins the Freemasons around the time when Max Franz comes to power in Bonn. And that Mozart's Vienna catalogue of works begins the same year. It is remarkable too that Luchesi should have been so busy working to boost the reputations of Haydn and later Mozart with a great number of symphonies and masses (as he seems to have been) unless he (as you suggest) had some motive other than personal vanity or financial gain.

I do not know if Max Franz was a Freemason but I agree that this is very likely.

Two things immediately come to mind - it was none other than Mozart himself who persuaded Haydn to become a Freemason in Vienna (though Haydn rarely attended Masonic meetings).

So you've made an interesting suggestion as to motive - as to why Luchesi, Kapellmeister at Bonn to the young Beethoven might have dedicated his life not to his own glory but to a project he considered more important - in making the reputations greater of Haydn and Mozart.

(This in turn reminds me of something Mr Taboga in Italy told me early in correspondence - that he had begun this research in to the real history of the Bonn archive at Modena at the request of an Italian professor of mathematics).

I also agree that any arrangement made between Luchesi and Mozart/Luchesi would have tended to make Mozart untouchable in a sense - at least for a time. I do not however agree that Mozart's 'Marriage of Figaro' or 'Magic Flute' were considered to be threats to the Habsburgs during the lifetime of the Emperor Joseph 2nd, since Joseph was hated for precisely the fact that he was a great reformer who was continually being criticised by the leaders of the established church. It was Joseph's reform programme that split society and Mozart was protected to some degree. But in 1790 this all changed and Leopold 2nd came to power - Mozart not even invited to the coronation festivities.

Also, a key date in Mozart biography was 1787, the date when Leopold Mozart died. Now it was possible for Mozart's enemies in Salzburg (the group headed by Colloredo) to home in on the composer - a person they had long wanted to deal with and against which Joseph had tried to protect Mozart as well as he was able. (Bear in mind that Salzburg Principality was at this time still not part of the Austrian state).

You then make the remarkable suggestion that there may be a relationship between the court case and the ruin of Mozart. Yes, I believe the same. I have also said previously elsewhere that the judgement of that court may well have included confiscation of his property - since Constanze Mozart moved home while Mozart was outside of Vienna (during the same time as the music tour with Lichnowsky - the very man who was to bring the prosecution). In Canon Law a heretic was given 1 year to change his ways. (This is why I think that the actual prosecution of Mozart on trumped up charges occurred earlier than 1791, though its findings were formalised that year, literally weeks before the composer's death).

I might as well say it here - I think the real enemies of Mozart (those who thwarted him and in the end destroyed him) were all members of the ultra conservative Order of the Golden Fleece (Austrian Order). Its members certainly included many people who are already part of the Mozart story - Count Arco, Colloredo, Rosenberg etc. etc.

We had the extraordinary situation in Vienna where there was real fear of the French Revolution, the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, and a composer able to write/stage works that were undoubtedly highly controversial, both politically and in other ways - Mozart. In 1790 we see the suppression of Freemasonry in Austria, a virtual police state, censorship tightened even more and Mozart with his begging letters to Puchberg (the same Puchberg who acted as paymaster for Max Franz).

I do not think that the young Beethoven's visit to Vienna (at which time he may have met Mozart) proves any motive by Max Franz. They barely met one another (if at all) and Beethoven may not even have known about the politics with which Haydn/Mozart/Luchesi and Max Franz were involved. Certainly Beethoven seems determined to have a remarkable degree of artistic independence. If anything, he seems to have purposely avoided becoming a serf to anyone, and this from the time of his youth.

There is however clear evidence that the pension of Ludwig van Beethoven senior was paid with the help of some 'creative accountancy' through Luchesi.

I tend to agree with you that by December 1791 Mozart's enemies considered him a lapsed heretic. I also agree that a court-imposed sentence would have provided the reason for him being able to predict with some precision the time when his life was in danger.

(You can find a great deal of information on the Lichnowsky case on the forum 'Mozart Forum').

You ask whether the court of the nobility was secret. Yes, it sat in secret (as did the consistory courts of all the dioceses).

It is highly significant too that in the last few years of his life men such as Maximilian Stadler, Georg Pasterwitz, and Sussmayr (all musical Benedictines from Kremsmunster) virtually crowd in on Mozart (invited by Constanze Mozart). It was this group who 'stage managed' the Requiem, K626. (For example the anecdote that the dying Mozart gathered friends around him to rehearse the Requiem at his home days before his death is pure fantasy and has no historical or documentary support). Like so much else it is nevertheless portrayed as evidence that Mozart was hard at work on this piece right up to the moment of his death.

I honestly believe that the Memorial Service of 10th December 1791 at St Michael's Vienna was the place where a Requiem of Mozart's own composition was sung, this completed by the composer. But news of this small gathering caused great embarrasment and the 'Requiem' project was begun - so that K626 (finally manufactured and published virtually 10 years after Mozart's death) is today portrayed as being 'Mozart's Requiem'. (There are even two newspaper reports that the Requiem was being prepared for performance in early 1792).

I am sure Mozart entrusted this piece to Schickaneder, his friend. (I'm also sure that this piece is the same piece wrongly described as a 'Quintet version of the Requiem' that is known to have been owned by Count Walsegg for some time, the supposed 'commissioner' of K626. Perhaps Schickaneder sold it to him (?) Anton Herzog speaks of this curious 'arrangement' and even owned it for several years, though its whereabouts today are unknown). The many lies and false statements made in defence of the authenticity of K626 (which I've studied in quite a lot of detail) convince me that every attempt has been made to falsify many aspects of Mozart's last days. Chiefly responsible for this was Constanze Mozart and the circle of 'helpers' who quickly sanitised all aspects of the Mozart legacy.

Yes, Mozart had been very kindly treated by Freemasons long before he actually joined them. (Mannheim and Paris, for example).

Regards

Robert N

[robert newman]

I noted today that a work by Jaroslav Celeda, "Mozart, Beethoven and Lichnowsky" published in Prague in 1967 may reveal some information regarding aspects of Beethoven's early career. Unfortunately this article has so far not been made available to Western scholars by the Czech Music Foundation.

Robert Newman

[robert newman]

CD Review in 'Records International Catalogue' by Ernst Mielck of a recording made in 1999 of Andrea Luchesi's '6 Sonatas for Piano and Violin Obligato', Op.1.

Mielck writes -

'A remarkable find. Luchesi was Maestro di Cappelle at the same Bonn court where Beethoven's grandfather had been in charge and the young Beethoven spent much time with Luchesi in the court musical activities. How startling to find 'Beethovenian' characteristics sprinkled here and there in Luchesi's sonatas - these published 6 years before Beethoven's birth !'

Maria Grazia Baiocchi (Piano)
Carlos Garfias (Violin)

CD available on Agora (Italy) AG 210.1 - 12B031 @ US$18.98

Regards

RN