Luchesi and the Bonn Court

[Peter]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by robert newman:


In saying that many works of Mozart prior to 1784 were actually composed by composers other than him I am including Luchesi, yes. Firstly, Luchesi, was famous enough to have been sought by Leopold and Wolfgang Mozart during their visit to Italy in February 1771. And it was there (not in 1784) that Luchesi first gave Mozart a copy of a piano concerto. This relationship later extended to supplying Mozart (most probably through Leopold in Salzburg) other works, later including the Paris' and other symphonies (though this last work was sent to Mozart himself, then on tour).

So now you claim Max Franz wasn't the mastermind of this 'elaborate conspiracy', so who was?

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'Man know thyself'

[Droell]

Hello Peter,

Thanks for starting a new thread. As I didn't want my remarks stranded, I am repeating them here. Is is posssible to delete the thread I started?

Originally posted by Peter:

I think the whole issue of Lucchesi being Beethoven's teacher in Bonn is a red herring in this debate. One wonders why Robert considers Lucchesi's name was hushed up to create an impression of Beethoven appearing from nowhere since we know anyway that Beethoven had a host of teachers at Bonn - Gilles Van den Eeden, Tobias Pfeiffer, F.G.Rovantini, Franz Ries, W.Koch, Zenser and C.G.Neefe.

I think Mr. Newman is a bit repetitive, but I find the theory more than credible. Beethoven's teachers included everyone except the local Kapelmeister? Only if Luchesi refused all students, or only if Luchesi & Beethoven's family were at war is it credible that Beethoven was not taught by Luchesi. The larger question: How many of Beethoven's other teachers were themselves taught, in whole, or in part, by Luchesi? Luchesi is, after all, the bright kid from out of town. Not only does he initially arrive in Bonn with the presumed aura of being better than any of the locals, his presumed exotic contacts further south meant that he continued to be a source of new & innovative ideas throughout his stay in Bonn. For the locals not to seek him out as a preferred teacher is simply not credible.

Originally posted by Peter:


Now let us consider other points. Robert finds it incredible that Mozart could write two stylistically disimilar works in a short space of time, but has no problem in claiming Lucchesi can compose in the style of early Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn.

Let's get wicked. Suppose Luchesi was on to a gravy train. "Uncouth Germans will buy anything as long as it's Italian, so send me your stuff, I will send you money!" Suppose Luchesi has friends with compositions to sell? Who says that Luchesi wrote everything that Taboga & Newman says he did? What did he bring back from his trip to Italy in 1784?

We think it was merely Max Franz hoovering up all available compositions in the northern regions of the Austrian empire, but what if Luchesi & Franz were in cahoots? This thread has assumed Luchesi was a victim. What if he was co-conspirator? What if Luchesi had been importing & selling works by his fellow Italians right from the start of his term in Bonn?

Originally posted by Peter:


Why is there no written evidence of any kind to support this theory of major deceit, no receipts, no letters, nothing?

If Luchesi was double-dealing, he could probably have kept most of the incriminating evidence on his cuff. Not so, Max Franz. Franz heads a government. He does not hock his personal possessions to pay his compositional sources, nor does he personally collect taxes in the mornings so as to have payroll for the afternoons. He has a paymaster. The paymaster has records. Presuming they have survived, they should have answers, perhaps definitive.

Originally posted by Peter:


Why did so many respectable men such as Neefe, Reicha and Franz Ries who lived until 1846 remain silent?

In my own country, why did so many respectable people keep quiet about slavery? Factors inherent in the local environment, factors which cannot be changed, soon drop from consciousness. Good and bad. Everyone in Bonn, everyone with any interest in music, must have known. If the Elector, and his Kapelmeister, are engaged in shady business, then no local will dare criticize. If Franz Ries wants to keep his job (he has more than one talented son), if Beethoven senior wants to keep his pension (he also with a talented son), they will look the other way. A better starting point would be to ask in the other Electors' courts, their opinions of Bonn under Franz.

Originally posted by Peter:


If Lucchesi was such a great composer and teacher, why did Beethoven keep silent?

The short answer is, who said he did? He saw this going down as a kid. He is brought to Vienna as Haydn & Mozart's successor. It was envisioned his own proper works would be supplemented by whatever else could be found.

Was everyone in Vienna in on the conspiracy? In one sense, yes, they were. In late 18th century Vienna, various factors combined to greatly inflate the musical life of the city. Lots more musicians than were proper, lots more music publishers, lots more demand, among ordinary Vienese citizens, for a large, steady stream of new music. The Esterhazys, Franz & others created a demand (a monster, perhaps) which had to be satisfied.

Into this Beethoven is born, and, almost from birth, trapped. He is the wunderkind. His career is laid out. The horrible thing about the Luchesi - Franz - Esterhazy - Vienna combination was that it was going to drive talent from Bonn straight into the Viennese ground. Beethoven could either be the composer they desired, or he could live his life in poverty, obscurity, and exile. Which brings up Mozart & his curious death, but I digress.

If Beethoven had denounced Viennese musical corruption, he could well expect to have become a persona non grata as far as Vienna was concerned. But could he then have gone home to Bonn to live a quiet life? I doubt it. He would have been as much a pariah in Bonn as in Vienna. Now that we have his entire life in front of us, we can see that Beethoven did not travel well. He really had little choice in the matter. Bonn or Vienna, Vienna or Bonn.

Which is not to say that he didn't grumble. He was known for rude remarks & for being intemperate generally. Is this not the reason why? Was his sense of being trapped also the source for his republican, revolutionary opinions? (Also remember that the first thing Anton Schindler did after Beethoven died was burn everything that Schindler did not approve of.)

As things turned out, Beethoven, while unruly, was talented enough. Besides, by the first decade of the 19th century, enough manure had been spread that Vienna was attracting talent from elsewhere, and growing a lot of its own. So the need for Beethoven as a centerpiece, a figurehead, had diminished.

I am wondering about the operas. Is it credible that an original opera could be written & staged & be an overnight sensation in the time frame usually given? Would not out-of-town premieres have been helpful, in general?

A proper book, a proper study, needs to be made of all this.

[Droell]

Originally posted by Droell:
Let's get wicked... Suppose Luchesi has friends with compositions to sell? Who says that Luchesi wrote everything that Taboga & Newman says he did? What did he bring back from his trip to Italy in 1784?

So let's look again at 1784. Franz went to Bonn to set up Mozart as Kapelmeister, but changed his mind when he got there. One way or another he could have forced Luchesi out, but what if Luchesi made him a better offer?

What would it mean to Franz and his protege, Mozart, if Luchesi was not only supplying Mozart with his own works, but, as Kapelmeister, had been a conduit for many other works from Italy?

If Luchesi was honest, he could be sidelined & forced to ghost write for Mozart as new Kapelmeister, which is probably what Franz had in mind. If Kapelmeister Luchesi was himself fencing the work of other composers (a surprise to Franz), then forcing him out of his job would effectively end the stream of Italian works. Better to keep him where he was, better to find some other spot for Wolfgang. What think you, Robert?

[This message has been edited by Droell (edited 12-28-2005).]

[robert newman]

Peter,

Mozart was a highly talented child. He was by no means the only highly talented child with prodigious musical talent of his time. There were several.

But what was special about Mozart was that he was nurtured from a very early age. Look at his general education for example. What do we actually know of that ? Can it be doubted that, in point of fact, if any such child was treated as he was by his domineering father (which Leopold undoubtedly was) we would not applaud such a father, but would instead look on him with anger regardless of the tricks that Wolfgang could perform with blindfolds, cloths over keyboards, improvisational compositions etc. etc. ? If the English philosopher Daines Barrington is amazed at Mozart (Barrington being a member of the Royal Society and not a specially talented musician) in what was he actually amazed. His account (and there are several like it) is really the description of a circus act, of a young boy who was groomed to be a wonder not so much for what he did or tried to do, but for the fact that he did what he did as a child - a young person who, really, should have been in school.

Is it so far off the mark that royalty wrote that such people should not be encouraged to parade themselves around courts like 'beggars' ? But the world into which Mozart was being groomed, semi-musical at best, was the course predetermined for him by none other than his father. Who would not be amazed in such a situation ? And when the young boy whipped himself up in to a fever at the request of Barrington while playing, is THAT genius ? I venture to suggest that the novelty of such shows was simply this - that Mozart was a young child, allbeit one who could show already prodigious keyboard and other instrumental skills.

There was a time when his sister was regarded as a musician on the same level. Why is this fact seldom mentioned. Did they not tour together. (In one advertisement she is described as the joint composer of a work they both played). Her hand is also seen in far later works, including also the piano concertos.

And, frankly, let me ask this. Which work, prior to, say, KV90 can you hand on heart say is fine music - even given the indisputable fact that at every stage he and his supposed work was being managed by Leopold. ?

Now, given the fact that this circus (and I think it fair to call it that) was made in order to both make money and to promote the 'genius' of Mozart let's consider this. Leopold, convinced that his son was some visitation from on high, and surely devoted to furthering his son's reputation and prospects all over Europe nevertheless does not keep, mark, and preserve the very evidence of that genius which supposedly we find, we assume, is displayed in 'Mozart's' early compositions !!! How possible is it that this should be the fate of his first 25 or so symphonies - that hardly one score survives if, in fact, we had at the time of their creation by Wolfgang unprecedented care and attention being given to this unfolding miracle by none other than Mozart's zealous and most jealous father, Leopold ??

Bach was a novelty almost unknown in Austria at this time. And yet Bach was to astound the mature Mozart. It was Bach who, I think, presented German speaking lands of the Holy Roman Empire with a formidable challenge. Could he be ignored forever ? And who could compare with him in Germany ? Or Italy ? What had come of this dominance of church and state within the Holy Roman Empire in matters of music that could compare in any meaningful sense with the overwhelming musical achievements of a Johann Sebastian Bach ?

I have no doubt that the Italian theorists such as Martini (with whom Mozart studied counterpoint in Italy) knew of Bach - as Bach knew of the Italians. But the difference was, of course, that antagonisms existed that made any recognition of Bach within the Empire highly problematic in practice.

I think that an answer to your question (or at least the beginning of an answer) lies here. There was a search to develop a Catholic prodigy within the Austrian Empire. Weren't all the Habsburg's musically trained themselves ? So Haydn first, and then Mozart. In Mozart's case, he seems to have been specially exploited. He seems (to me at least) to have had not much of a childhood (if by this we mean discovering things other than music, and developing lasting friendships). Leopold, a man who at age 4 or 5 had been educated in a Jesuit school and who by the time of Mozart's boyhood could include as a family friend in Salzburg a former Jesuit - one who lent money to Leopold and even (perhaps) gave some sort of schooling to Wolfgang at home. I believe that it isn't till we see the whole picture of the person that we begin to appreciate the manufacture of Mozart as he has so long been portrayed.

So, in answer to your question, I think that up until around 1773 or so (i.e. until Mozart was around 16 or 17) to have seen Mozart might not have been such a joy as you might suppose. By this time he had met (whether by accident or design) in Italy, a man who would in time be of huge significance to his career and reputation from then on, Andrea Luchesi.

And Rome, of course, now moved in to top gear with Mozart, the prodigy. He receives the Golden Spur from none other than the Pope himself. Is this too not part of the same process ? For, according to popular belief, it was in Rome that this boy wrote down from memory the sacred music of the Allegri Miserere - a further confirmation (if one was needed of the boy being destined for great things). The fact that this work was actually already available in print (contrary to popular belief) must not spoil the legend. For it's here in Rome (allbeit at the second attempt) that he is credited with having written the piece down illegally while he was at service.

In truth, the only version ever to be found which is supposedly that which Mozart made is full of errors and the achievement (had he access to this piece beforehand) is not a great challenge to anyone. But the important thing is that the reputation grew and now it was confirmed for all the world to see.

In this way, and in others like it, we can understand how this grooming, this exaggeration, together with the ongoing circus, created a mystique and an aura around Leopold and his genius son. But one that fitted very well in to the idea of Haydn, and now Mozart, being the glories of music to all of Europe.

Yes, the relationship with Max Franz really began, like so much else, in Salzburg. It was Max Franz who repeatedly promised Mozart that when the right time came he, Max Franz, would make him Kapellmeister at Bonn. But 1784 came and that promise was destined never to be fulfilled. Max Franz now became the sponsor, the underwriter, of Mozart's continuing career. For the same objective existed - one in which 'Papa' Haydn and the mercurial Mozart were the twin glories of the late Holy Roman Empire.

The last few years of Mozart's life sees Mozart himself begin to rebel against this and I think this can be documented in a biography. Notice his Benedictine musical 'minders' in the last few years when things begin to go wrong - Maximilian Stadler, Sussmayr, and the Kremsmunster representative at Vienna's court, Georg Pasterwitz. And their 'care' for Mozart's musical legacy on the composer's untimely death in December 1791.

How 'big' a deal was the 'Wiener Klassik' during the time of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven ? We ordinary people aware of all this marvellous music ? I think they increasingly were. So, although Austria could fail repeatedly on the battlefields of Europe Max Franz and others ensured that the victory was won in music.

Taboga would have us believe that it was rare for Haydn or Mozart to ever raise to great heights in their compositions. But having never looked at the period from 1782 onwards from this perspective (i.e. from the perspective of Mozart being constantly supplied works by others) I cannot say so. These musical miracles exist within the body of music we know today as Mozart's and I for one would not rush to credit others with his concertos or operas without very strong and convincing evidence. Whether such evidence exists remains to be seen.

I think it does although I also think Mozart was a sublimely gifted arranger/orchestrator/and operatic talent. Unless I find out differently that is what I will continue to think.

We know that the score (still unfinished) of the 'Magic Flute' was sent to Bonn by Mozart himself where it was somehow orchestrated by another person. (The publisher Simrock discusses this little known fact in a letter to Gottfried Weber in the 1820's).

If we discover Mozart to be human will that be such a bad thing ?

Robert

[Peter]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Droell:
Beethoven's teachers included everyone except the local Kapelmeister? Only if Luchesi refused all students, or only if Luchesi & Beethoven's family were at war is it credible that Beethoven was not taught by Luchesi. The larger question: How many of Beethoven's other teachers were themselves taught, in whole, or in part, by Luchesi? Luchesi is, after all, the bright kid from out of town.


Thanks for posting again as I wanted to reply to your points.

I have no problem with the possibility that Luchesi taught Beethoven, but so did many others at Bonn and it is no more significant than that. The one man who Beethoven actually credited was Neefe. It is also interesting that neither Wegeler nor the Fischers despite referring to other musicians at Bonn who taught Beethoven actually mention Luchesi.

As to Luchesi having taught Beethoven's teachers at Bonn, that is most unlikely. For example Neefe who when he arrived in Bonn in 1779 aged 31 had already written many works, amongst them sonatas and operas.



This thread has assumed Luchesi was a victim. What if he was co-conspirator? What if Luchesi had been importing & selling works by his fellow Italians right from the start of his term in Bonn?


Well he would have had to be a conspirator not a victim! He couldn't have been forced to do this. Why would all these Italian composers including Luchesi willingly write great masterpieces to further the cause of German music at their own expense?



Everyone in Bonn, everyone with any interest in music, must have known.

Yes exactly.


If the Elector, and his Kapelmeister, are engaged in shady business, then no local will dare criticize. If Franz Ries wants to keep his job (he has more than one talented son), if Beethoven senior wants to keep his pension (he also with a talented son), they will look the other way.

Why the silence after 1794 when Max Franz had to flee because of the French invasion -surely this was the time for someone to reveal all?





If Beethoven had denounced Viennese musical corruption, he could well expect to have become a persona non grata as far as Vienna was concerned. But could he then have gone home to Bonn to live a quiet life? I doubt it. He would have been as much a pariah in Bonn as in Vienna. Now that we have his entire life in front of us, we can see that Beethoven did not travel well. He really had little choice in the matter. Bonn or Vienna, Vienna or Bonn.

Which is not to say that he didn't grumble. He was known for rude remarks & for being intemperate generally. Is this not the reason why? Was his sense of being trapped also the source for his republican, revolutionary opinions?

Had Beethoven felt oppressed he could easily have gone to Paris like Reicha or London as did Ries. He was a man of musical integrity and would not have kept quite on such matters. There were simply too many people who said nothing who should have said something if there were the slightest truth in any of these theories. Many of these people directly involved at Bonn moved to different countries and were still living decades after these events, yet not one of them, none of the Italian composers and none of the Bonn musicians expressed even a hint of what is being proposed.

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'Man know thyself'

[This message has been edited by Peter (edited 12-28-2005).]

[Peter]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by robert newman:

Taboga would have us believe that it was rare for Haydn or Mozart to ever raise to great heights in their compositions. But having never looked at the period from 1782 onwards from this perspective (i.e. from the perspective of Mozart being constantly supplied works by others) I cannot say so. These musical miracles exist within the body of music we know today as Mozart's and I for one would not rush to credit others with his concertos or operas without very strong and convincing evidence. Whether such evidence exists remains to be seen.

Yet this is not what you have previously said - you have claimed Don Giovani and The marriage of Figaro were written years before Mozart claimed to have written them! I still would like to know how Figaro was available in Bonn years before 1785 since the play was only performed in Paris in 1784? If there were conclusive proof then there would be no debate and the burden of proof lies with Taboga.

Your comments on Mozart's childhood are not new - most scholars accept that he was an exploited talented child. You could use your srgument with Schubert, how does one suddenly explain Gretchen am Spinnrade? The unfinished symphony after trifles such as his 6th? Or look at Beethoven - where on earth did the Eroica come from? In these cases you don't conclude that another composer must have been involved!

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'Man know thyself'

[This message has been edited by Peter (edited 12-28-2005).]

[Droell]

Originally posted by Peter:


Why the silence after 1794 when Max Franz had to flee because of the French invasion -surely this was the time for someone to reveal all?

Suppose they did, and they were ignored? When prevailing opinion blows in your face, shouts will not be heard. So, since this has been raised, we must go very carefully through the available evidence & study afresh.

Everyone in ancient Rome could speak Etruscan, but somehow everyone, to the last, forgot to actually write the language down & it is today completely lost.

Originally posted by Peter:



Had Beethoven felt oppressed he could easily have gone to Paris or London.

No. Read Ries. He extended the invitation, made extensive arrangements, to which Beethoven agreed. This was in more than one exchange of letters between them, over a considerable period of time, dealing with this at length. But Beethoven's great London trip never happened. There might have been all manner of reasons why, but the simple fact is that, after he moved to Vienna, he made only one trip from it, fairly early on. I've spent my entire life traveling. There are people who travel & move about, there are those who simply do not.

Originally posted by Peter:


Many of these people directly involved at Bonn moved to different countries and were still living decades after these events, yet not one of them, none of the Italian composers and none of the Bonn musicians expressed even a hint of what is being proposed.

But there was nothing unique here. Boccherini, an Italian, moved to Madrid & made his career there. From what I've read, he published many works that he did not, himself, write. Where was the fuss?

[Droell]

Originally posted by Peter:
Why would all these Italian composers including Luchesi willingly write great masterpieces to further the cause of German music at their own expense?

Why wouldn't they? It might be a masterpiece, you might have an entire chest full of masterpieces, but if the local populace has heard them - once too often, perhaps, if you are no longer in favor, then those old pieces no longer do you much good. If, in your own personal experience, the music of your father, your grandfather, and your great-grandfather, all fell into obscurity after they died (think of JC Bach), then it would be reasonable to think your own works would, too. Of course, the guy in the next town could never possibly pass off one of your works as his, the fraud would be seen instantly. But imagine that you're 55 or 65 years old, towards the end of your life, you've lately been usurped by the local 10 year old & his domineering father, there are few new commissions & no interest in your old stuff. You feel old & forgotten. Someone comes knocking from afar with money in hand, wanting copies.

Are you going to tell him you've already sold them three times over?!

[robert newman]

Droell has made some good suggestions why Luchesi was left in place by Max Franz. Had Max Franz wanted to replace him this could of course have been done on some pretext - difficult though it would have been. But there's another way of looking at this and it may be more correct.

What if Mozart, even from a few years old, was nurtured specially by Leopold and a circle of people with whom Lepold was in contact to become a child celebrity ? That this search for blossoming talent had begun even before Mozart was born (since Haydn was earlier singled out for preference also). Not a conspiracy, as such, (at least in the beginning) but the making of reputations for those two composers who had (in the eyes of certain people) already been seen to have talent and potential far above the norm.

This line of argument suggests that nothing was really coincidence, that the Mozart father and son did not accidentally bump in to Andrea Luchesi in Italy but met him because in a few more weeks this same Luchesi would be in the employ of the then Elector at Bonn, Max Friedrich (1771) - the very place where, 13 years later, Mozart had been promised by the successor of Max Friedrich (Maz Franz) the post of Kapellmeister.

The very year of Mozart's birth his father had published a violin method that was to be hugely popular across Europe. Is this not the context within which the set of 5 'Mozart' violin concertos was to appear ? What is the real story of their genesis ? These works, I think, must surely rate amongst the very best which are attributed to the young Mozart.

From what I see already it appears that Luchesi's symphonies often lacked the wonderful orchestration that Mozart would bring to them and in these early years this conversion of Luchesi symphony in to 'Mozart' Serenade and from 'Mozart' Serenade in to Mozart Symphony was a school in itself.

But at what point did this remarkable system break down ? Leopold Mozart, terrified when Wolfgang is kicked out of service to Colloredo by Count Arco, now pleads for his own job at Salzburg. No son of a Jesuit educated musician should rush in to marriage, and yet Wolfgang falls head over heels and marries, supposedly without first telling Leopold of the fact. It's THIS Mozart who fascinates me. The one who (I suggest) can rebel but never escape.

Every attempt was made to thwart Mozart's career by Colloredo. His first opera booed and hissed by paid agents of the Archbishop of Salzburg. And Mozart, today seen as demanding his freedom had not been patient enough. The period between Mozart's arrival in Vienna and the accession of Max Franz at Bonn does not stop the flood of letters of advice/warning from Salzburg. There is even a letter from Wolfgang telling his father that he fears returning to Salzburg with his new wife, since he could be arrested.

All these things seem to me suggestive of political power struggles between the Austrian Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, and the career that had been envisaged for Mozart as one of the glories of his age.

So Mozart, in 1782, turns to piano concertos and in 1784 the time comes when he is made an offer he simply cannot refuse, the supply through Luchesi of fine musical works. This at the same time as the Haydn/Mozart relationship is publicised.

Was Luchesi a 'dealer' or a music machine ? I think he was both. And, provided that the relationship between Mozart and Bonn could be concealed the project was back on the rails.
So 1784 sees a change in fortune for Mozart. His name is now everywhere. His catalogue begins. And even Luchesi in Bonn is happy to note masterpiece after masterpiece in his catalogue of music now at the archives.

Within days of Mozart's death in the winter of 1791 it was the pious Constanze Mozart who, recovering miraculously from illness that made her unable to attend her husband's funeral could find enough strength to negotiate the future of Mozart's manuscripts with an agent of Max Franz (the tenor Luigi Simonetti from Bonn) - this a rare insight in to a relationship that really existed for years before Mozart's death.

Mozart the rebel, the heretic, in fact, who by the late 1780's is falling out of favour with the Vienna elite. Mozart who, at one time was weeks away from home performing at the homes of the great and the good of Vienna society but who, by 1789, had somehow fallen from grace. The end of symphonies and of concertos. Involvement in small things and even signs of Mozart, the recluse.

How is it possible not to love this person if, in fact, this is roughly the outline of the life that he lived and whether he arranged (rather than composed) many works which are today routinely credited to him ?
Is it mere concincidence that in spite of attempts to portray his end as cause for grief in Vienna the truth is so different ?

The biography of Mozart is every bit as interesting and as remarkable as his music. From a musical point of view I think that Bonn opens up a whole new area of study on the man.

Regards

[Peter]

Originally posted by robert newman:

Droell has made some good suggestions why Luchesi was left in place by Max Franz. Had Max Franz wanted to replace him this could of course have been done on some pretext - difficult though it would have been. But there's another way of looking at this and it may be more correct.

You can (mis)interpret it how you like, but no hard evidence has been produced and until then we will simply go round in circles. You never answer my points, merely skirt round them repeating the same accusations and coming up with yet more hypothesis. The whole theory is so fantastical that you have the burden of proof, only when you have published such evidence that can be substantiated will I and I'm sure most members of this forum take this seriously.

Those of you who already do are quite willing to believe Mozart, Haydn and even Beethoven to some extent were frauds yet this Luchessi was the greatest composer capable of writing masterpieces in any style. Apparently if Mozart produces a masterpiece it is a mystery, but not Luchesi! Even the young Beethoven is incapable of writing his own music without Luchesi, who sounds more like God to me.

You are willing to believe that the entire Bonn court and the whole musical establishment ever since have maintained a conspiracy of silence. A conspiracy of Italian composers writing great works, sacrificing their own achievement so as to establish the supremacy of German music. No doubt many of you are also members of the flat earth society!
These are serious allegations, accepted without real hard evidence - a dangerous road that I believe leads us blindly into situations like Iraq.

It seems to me Robert that you enjoy supporting any conspiracy theory. You mention the American landings on the moon were faked and also on this forum implied you believed the hypothesis put forward in the film Immortal beloved that Beethoven was in love with his sister-in-law. I have no doubt there are many more on your list.

I have put forward all my objections to your arguments that I possibly can - I have no access to manuscripts, nor am I a musicologist so I do not see how we can take this further. Maybe when your book is published we can observe critical reaction!


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'Man know thyself'



[This message has been edited by Peter (edited 12-29-2005).]

[Peter]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Droell:


Suppose they did, and they were ignored? When prevailing opinion blows in your face, shouts will not be heard. Everyone in ancient Rome could speak Etruscan, but somehow everyone, to the last, forgot to actually write the language down & it is today completely lost.

There are no letters, no diaries, no receipts, no invoices - no evidence. Reicha went to Paris where he taught at the conservatoire. Amongst his pupils was Berlioz and strangely in his detailed and lengthy memoirs, not a mention of the goings on at Bonn.


There are people who travel & move about, there are those who simply do not.

You presented a scenario where Beethoven was forced to keep quite (doesn't sound like Beethoven to me!) - if this were so he WOULD have left.

If, in your own personal experience, the music of your father, your grandfather, and your great-grandfather, all fell into obscurity after they died (think of JC Bach), then it would be reasonable to think your own works would, too.

OK lets use your example J S Bach - who passed his works off as their own? Handel perhaps, now there's a thought!

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'Man know thyself'



[This message has been edited by Peter (edited 12-29-2005).]

[Joy]

Dear Joy,

My friend lives in a place called Jeffersonville, Indiana (near Indianapolis) though I have never visited him there. Of Tucson I know very little except that somebody told me the air is very good for asthmatics and those who are recovering from illness. Oh! and Tucson has some wonderful hills and valleys.

A few weeks back I was looking at the USA on an atlas - it's such a huge country !! Well, of the places I'd like to see (just from photographs) these include Philadelphia, Boston, parts of Georgia, Colorado, and even New Hampshire. And Cape Cod !

I'm originally from a town called Dunfermline, in Scotland though (like most people born in Scotland) am living 'in exile' in London !!

Best regards

Robert Newman
_____________________________________________
Hi Robert,

I know this has nothing to do with the topic but to let you know, Robert, I do know where Jefferson, Indiana is, been there, beautiful countryside in Indiana.
As for Tucson the air is clearer there than here in the valley but it's still a big city, yes, there are hills there as well as here in Phoenix.
U.S. is a BIG country and I've been to all the places you mentioned. New England is beautiful as is Colorado with the Rocky Mountains. Spectacular! Am not familiar with Dunfermline?

Joy


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'Truth and beauty joined'

[This message has been edited by Joy (edited 12-29-2005).]

[This message has been edited by Joy (edited 12-29-2005).]

[robert newman]

Well Peter, I understand and respect your point of view. I strongly disagree there is no evidence in support of what has been put forward. There are the Modena archives, paper studies, correspondence, admissions made by members of the Mozart family, and many other converging lines of evidence. They all suggest Mozart and Bonn had a relationship - one that's crucially important for us to appreciate in getting to the truth of Mozart's life and career and also that of Haydn.

Nobody has suggested Luchesi was the only composer of these wonderful works. But we are forced to accept on the flimsiest evidence that Mozart wrote dozens of works for which there is either no evidence or for which we have only Leopold Mozart being the real explanation.

You may even accept that Haydn did not write dozens of works he is traditionally credited with. But isn't this the same thing ? There is a pattern of such things in the careers of both men which are at odds with the 'official' version of these men's lives.

Nor do I deny for a moment that Luchesi was as involved in these things as Haydn and Mozart and as guilty as they. But I strongly disagree that no evidence for such activities exists. We disagree because we arrive at very different interpretations of the same evidence and not because no evidence exists.

If Luchesi was for more than 20 years not a teacher in Bonn then we can believe almost anything, can we not ? If he is marginalised is it not fair that this is pointed out, especially since it is obviously so important ? And why has he been marginalised ? There are really many reasons (some of them entirely understandable) but they surely include the inconvenient fact that he was as responsible for the teaching of the young Beethoven as anyone - far more so, in fact, than seems to have been appreciated by biographers. He cannot be mentioned too much because people might start to ask what he actually did for those 23 years or so. And that would never do, of course !

That's what I mean when I say that tradition sometimes obscures things that are really as clear as daylight.

It is mere coincidence that so many things came together in 1784 as far as the official history of Mozart is concerned ? And though Haydn may be proved to have forged a few dozen symphonies, so what, if we've already made up our minds that this is not important ? Isn't this the same thing that makes us accept Mozart's 'official' history ?

In a few years from now other writers and researchers will be saying similar things. Will you tell them they're conspiracy theorists too ?

It is a documented fact that reports exist of a collector of Haydn works at Bonn in 1783 supposedly owning (at that time) more than 70 Haydn symphonies ! How is THAT possible ?

It's a fact that Hayn at no time had any idea which symphonies and masses he had supposedly written. In later years he was busy trying to manufacture originals in his own hand.

In Mozart's case dozens of examples where the history of a given piece is more of a farce than anything else. Take KV105. One could choose many others. KV 105 is 6 Minuets. These credited first to Joseph Haydn, then to Mozart, and today credited to Michael Haydn ! But anyone who wants to buy recordings of 'Mozart's' KV105 can choose from almost 50 recordings, all of them still on sale.

The whole system is a mess. And that's because there are fundamental flaws in the accepted biography of both composers.

The Haydn/Mozart situation was really an 18th century public relations exercise. The music itself is often marvellous. But no-one has ever denied that. I hope they never will.

Regards

Robert

[robert newman]

Can anyone say if the portrait of Neefe is the exact same as that which is the portrait of Luchesi ? Clearly, one of these has to be correct, but not both. They seem to be the very same portrait.

Robert

[Droell]

Originally posted by Peter:

You presented a scenario where Beethoven was forced to keep quiet (doesn't sound like Beethoven to me!) - if this were so he WOULD have left.

Beethoven was brought to Vienna to meet Mozart. He didn't come on his own. Years later, Beethoven was again brought to Vienna. He didn't come on his own. This time, he stayed. There was a trip to Prague & Berlin, afterwards, nothing.

For an ambitious young virtuoso, a tour of Europe would have established Beethoven overnight. He would have returned home with a stack of commissions. It might be that he did not travel in his later years because of declining health, it might be his deafness made him feel isolated, but there was nothing to stop the young Beethoven from a second tour, if touring, or travel in general, was of interest to him. I cannot believe he was never asked. He could have made somebody (even a mere touring partner) a lot of money if he did. Beethoven traveled widely in Vienna, but, it seems, never went anywhere else unless he had to.

So far as complaining, what you want is for Beethoven to have sat down, organized his thoughts & his memories, and told a coherent story. A memoir. An autobiography. The story of his life. Storytelling, in words, is not a talent that Ludwig had. Otherwise, we have an abundance of off-the-cuff, out of context opinions of his seniors & contemporaries. Which, as we know, were often not nice. Are these to be explained as Beethoven having a sour disposition, or can we find a reason for his unhappiness? Myself, I tire of Beethoven's many moods explained away by his broken heart & his upset tummy.

Originally posted by Peter:

OK lets use your example J S Bach - who passed his works off as their own? Handel perhaps, now there's a thought!

Bach's manuscripts were not sold, in part because there was no need, and in part as they were not saleable. First, he had a secure, lifetime position, one that demanded a new work every Sunday. In favor or not, he's the guy who provides music for Sunday service & although the ministers may have tired of him & his music a long time ago, the parishoners will always want the old reliable - and, for JS Bach, that's the worse case scenario. In Bach's old age, things were probably much better than that. Economic security, an important thing. Bach had no economic need.

What happens to his manuscripts after he dies? His children are already working in their own, more modern, styles, so their daddy's music is of no use to them. Leipzig might not have been the center of the musical universe, but what Bach's widow had on offer were hundreds of cantatas, suitable for church services. Extracted, chopped up, rearranged, there's a lot of saleable stuff in them (look at the modern pop charts), but extraction, chopping & arranging is a lot of work & requires talent. If that's not available, then I doubt the works were readily saleable.

The bulk of Vivaldi's works were never pirated for similar reasons: He had a secure, lifetime position & after he died, his manuscripts became property of his employer. Like as not, they had a considerable archive of various works by various deceased colleagues & a strict policy of what was to be done with them. There are fabulous unknown treasures in the archives of European monasteries, to this day.

Ferdinand Ries is a person who, only a few decades earlier, would have profited by selling his old stuff. He left London in a blaze of glory and immediately fell into obscurity back in the Rhineland. I once heard he took enough money out of London to live comfortably for the rest of his life, but then I heard he lost most of it when the banks failed. Impoverished, why didn't Ries sell? Not from pride. He was well-known throughout Europe, had already published almost everything he ever wrote, which made further sales impossible.

So. We are considering composers, principally of the 17th & 18th centuries, who as young men were reasonably popular, wrote a lot of works which were circulated privately, but who subsequently fell upon hard times & in their latter years found it expedient to sell their works to passing strangers.

Who were these strangers, what did they do with the works they bought? Leopold & Wolfgang would have been typical, I suspect. Touring virtuosi who wanted new works to pass off as their own. And, like the jokes told by stand-up comics (which, by the way, they rarely write themselves), you can only really use them once. For the next tour, you need a new supply. The ultimate fate of these copies? Lost, for the most part, when the virtuoso retired. (Touring is a young man's game.) The ability to play music is not at all the same as the ability to compose music. Mozart is unique in precisely this area, that he & his father had the talent to get a lot more than a single playing from the stuff they bought.

In Mozart's case, consider also that travel was slow & often uncomfortable. It is impossible to write in a carriage lurching about. It would be good for strengthning one's memory (one has to do something to while away the hours), which is a good thing. Writing could only be done while at rest, but even here, quills are just not a very fast way to write. So here's the next problem for you: Mozart spends much of his life traveling, yet composes volumes in the process. Exactly when, in a busy, very short life, did he have time for 626 distinct works?

Piracy still goes on, to this day. I sell books for a living. There was an Indian "author" named M.C. Jain, who died in 1984. I have six of his books in stock, all published by Sagar or Ranjan, two well-established publishers in Delhi. Two of the books are, in fact, word-for-word copies of books by earlier authors, which are themselves in print & which I also stock (I publish one of them myself). A third book was written, not by an Indian living in India, but by an American, probably living in New York, circa 1960. I've yet to stumble across the original. A fourth book, on gems, I strongly suspect was written by an American or English author, not by an Indian. The fifth book takes an idea from Mohan Koparkar, an American living in Rochester, New York, & expands on it. A couple of years ago I asked Mohan directly (he's still living). He thinks Jain stole the entire book, and it might be that he did. The sixth book by MC Jain might actually be by M.C. Jain, but with 4.5 strikes against him already, why should I have hope?

I know this goes against what we're supposed to believe, I know this perfectly wrecks the idea of "canons of works" by a great many composers, I know it will upset the academics, but life is messy. It always has been. For various reasons, the worst of this has largely stopped. I think it was during Beethoven's lifetime, or so I would like to believe.