'Le Nozze di Figaro' and the 'Mozart' Violin Concertos

[robert newman]

It certainly is incredibly protracted. I will submit two quite lengthy posts before this time next week to finish this. (It's the absolute minimum needed to make the case that Kraus was the composer of 'Le Nozze di Figaro').



[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 04-01-2006).]

[Peter]

Very good performance yesterday on BBC2 of Figaro! - Unfortunately I only caught the last act. Did you see it Robert?

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'Man know thyself'

[LizR]

Originally posted by Peter:
Very good performance yesterday on BBC2 of Figaro! - Unfortunately I only caught the last act. Did you see it Robert?

I saw this superb performance. One thing I noted was that Gerald Finlay played the Count; I have a DVD of a Glyndebourne performance where he played Figaro. I guess this is the natural progression of one's career as one gets older :-)He must know every line of the operal by heart.

[robert newman]

Dear Liz,

Sorry but I didn't see it. Had I known of it I would have done. (The Glyndebourne productions are usually very memorable and I had one of their 'Figaro' productions of a few years ago on video tape- it was really excellent. If I'm not mistaken the very first production Glyndebourne ever made was 'Le Nozze di Figaro' and they have great reputation for staging it. Could anything be nicer than to picnic and see a performance of such superb music ?

Reminds me I had this recurring image of one day seeing 'Don Giovanni' in Prague after chocolates, some nice wine and with a friend or two. Drat ! Musical desert ! Mirages of the miraculous and receding before my very eyes. (So silly to be so busy).

How nice to hear from you here. My very best regards.

Did you ever get to the British Library for the Mozart events ?

Robert
x

[Peter]

Originally posted by LizR:
I saw this superb performance. One thing I noted was that Gerald Finlay played the Count; I have a DVD of a Glyndebourne performance where he played Figaro. I guess this is the natural progression of one's career as one gets older :-)He must know every line of the operal by heart.

Yes I remember Finley as Figaro - he has great stage presence as well as a wonderful voice!


------------------
'Man know thyself'

[robert newman]

No, Peter, as just mentioned to Liz I didn't see it. How nice that it was broadcast. What a marvel it is !

[LizR]

Originally posted by robert newman:



Reminds me I had this recurring image of one day seeing 'Don Giovanni' in Prague after chocolates, some nice wine and with a friend or two.
Did you ever get to the British Library for the Mozart events ?

Robert
x

Dear Robert

We're hoping to see Don Giovanni at the Landestheater in Salzburg in June. A friend is supposedly getting us tickets as a gift. We're waiting to hear if she got them, but feel too embarrassed to ask.

I haven't been back to the British Library yet, but it's on my to-do list. I can of course view Mozart's notebook on-line in their "talking pages" section.

I've just watched Figaro all over again. There were interviews with the singers, director and conductor and the whole thing was introduced by Charles Hazelwood who is a great Mozart lover. Have you seen his documentary, The Genius of Mozart?

Liz.

[agent-K007]

Dearest, most beloved Robert...

Long time no hear from, and as usual you make me giggle and laugh. I still haven't made up my mind whether you really believe all these yarns or you're just having us all on for sport.

For the record, we all know that Pierre Du Beaumarche wrote "The Marriage of Figaro", Lorenzo DaPonte adapted it, and unless your chum Luchesi was hired out again to ghost-write for Mozart, Mozart composed the music score.

Luchesi seems to me to be the best known secret in history, right up there with the DaVinci Code and Erich VanDannekan's aliens. Get the picture?

Special Agent K.007

[agent-K007]

Originally posted by Hofrat:
Dear Forum;

During his life time, J.S. Bach had very little reputation as an international music figure or even as a religious music composer. Basically, he was only known by his students and admirers. Very few of his sacred works were ever distributed in his life time, his Brandenberg concerti were sold for pennies. In Mozart's time, Bach still was an unknown figure. In 1789 (40 years after Bach's death), Mozart writes to Constanze describing how he marvelled over cantatas and motets by Bach that were unknown to him, spreading the parts all over the floor of the St. Thomas rectory to study them.

Bach's international reknown is due to another favorite son of Leipzig, Felix Mendelssohn, who single-handedly rescued Bach from obscurity, saving manuscript after manuscript from the Leipzig merchants who were using them to wrap fish.


Hofrat

Unless I am much mistaken, wasn't Mozart resonsible for the re-discovery of a number of lost Bach manuscripts?

[robert newman]

Dear Special Agent 007,

'Il mio tesoro intanto' - I didn't write - not due to negligence but simply that a few months ago I lost a lot of data including addresses, emails, and so on. You know how incompetent I can be with wretched computers Not a day passes without being reminded of my fallibility and mortality !!! Fortunately, I scribble notes (though without indexes most of the time) and saved what might otherwise have been lost. But now I do not have your email address. So, you see, HOW could I write to you, most Mozartean maiden ? Could I say, 'Hi, it's your good friend Robert - do you..just maybe.... remember me' ? Goodness, what would you think if I'd written that ? You could simply have said, 'Who is this ? I don't know anybody of so common a name who is the slightest bit important to me - or 'I must say this correspondent is rather informal and has said some potent things, though I confess I have not the remotest idea from where his boldness comes' - and I in the meantime would have waited and waited without any reply. And so, my dear and true friend, our friendship - no our entire destiny - was until this very day in electronic limbo - a fate worse that death and, (who knows ?) ten or even eleven times worse than life !

Now I send you and you alone twenty goldfish, twelve small peaches, three large onions, and a gallon of Hock with two glasses - for you and me. Plus an active squirrel complete with hazlenuts and a parrot who is well versed in Mozartean arias.

A terrible loss. I'm inconsolable. And so, you see, I never did write to my best, nicest, most favourite lady agent in all the world. It's so unfair. And what do you suppose I've done since we last spoke ? Nothing - nothing at all - nothing whatsoever - it's terrible.

Do me the kind favour sweet Fraulein of writing, asp. If you too have lost my address, well, then, 007, I must and will write to your site. Or, if plain words and ciphers fail, leave a message in a rock, as is the fashion these days in Russia amongst those who speak English.

In answer to your questions, yes, wherever there is Mozart there is laughter and sunshine and life. I believe, I honestly believe you will not be offended that your hero is/was an ordinary man. Sort of inspiring really, is it not. But enough, or I will be found guilty of heresy.

Luchesi was a hugely gifted man (like Mozart) but nobody suggests he wrote hundreds of Mozart works.

Now, dearest Fraulein, a hundred creamcakes, and twenty pumpkins - and with sighs and blushes voila (allegro molto vivace) for two violas.

Newman


[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 04-03-2006).]

[robert newman]

Dear Liz,

I hope you get those tickets.

You mention the Mozart catalogue at the British Library. Yes, I've used the electronic version of the Mozart catalogue quite a lot. It's amazing, isn't it ?

What puzzled me most were the use of --- and +++'s which he so often uses against his entry of particular works and I spent quite some time looking at this and what those symbols could represent.

There are a stack of books I have on my list to find once I am there next but I was not able to attend the various lectures held on Mozart recently.

There is some very interesting diplomatic and private correspondence from Italy from the 1780's in various London libraries that I've only recently become aware of - and some I've finally traced (still existing) from an English sponsor of Mozart's friends who at one time owned two paintings by Raphael. This man arranged for one composer to write symphonies - six of which were published in London. It's all very interesting but I don't know if it will yield anything spectacular.

Very best

Robert

[A. Selby]

Originally posted by agent-K007:
Dearest, most beloved Robert...

Long time no hear from, and as usual you make me giggle and laugh. I still haven't made up my mind whether you really believe all these yarns or you're just having us all on for sport.

For the record, we all know that Pierre Du Beaumarche wrote "The Marriage of Figaro", Lorenzo DaPonte adapted it, and unless your chum Luchesi was hired out again to ghost-write for Mozart, Mozart composed the music score.

Luchesi seems to me to be the best known secret in history, right up there with the DaVinci Code and Erich VanDannekan's aliens. Get the picture?

Special Agent K.007

---------------------------------

Hello Agent 007. It boggles the mind.
Agnes Selby.
--------------------

Yes, this is quite amazing

[robert newman]

Dear Agent K007,

You wrote this morning -

'Unless I am much mistaken, wasn't Mozart resonsible for the re-discovery of a number of lost Bach manuscripts?'

Honest, I think you may be mistaken. We are told Mozart heard the great Bach motet 'Singet dem Herrn' being rehearsed in the late 1780's. You will perhaps agree he heard it because it was being sung at the time of his visit. He was so struck by it that he made enquiry of what other pieces by Bach were there and (supposedly) spread them out before him on the floor saying, 'Here is something from which I can learn' (or something to the same effect). The only Bach works discovered on that day (or any other by Mozart) were those that day which, till then, he knew nothing of.

Talking of Bach/Mozart discoveries you will pardon me noting several (though not all) arrangements of fugues/canons by Bach which have traditionally described as having been made by Mozart were not, in fact, made by Mozart but by others who with Mozart attended the weekend musical meetings held at the home of van Sweiten.

It is said (by Attwood, I think) that Mozart kept the 48 Preludes and Fugues always at his piano.

Honestly, I think music could have become something very different if Bach's music had been allowed to be the education of many great composers of the 18th century.
He never wished to suggest fugue and counterpoint was an end in itself. But that failure to appreciate Bach has dogged music ever since.

Best

Robert

[A. Selby]

Originally posted by robert newman:

Dear Agent K007,

You wrote this morning -

'Unless I am much mistaken, wasn't Mozart resonsible for the re-discovery of a number of lost Bach manuscripts?'

Honest, I think you may be mistaken. We are told Mozart heard the great Bach motet 'Singet dem Herrn' being rehearsed in the late 1780's. You will perhaps agree he heard it because it was being sung at the time of his visit. He was so struck by it that he made enquiry of what other pieces by Bach were there and (supposedly) spread them out before him on the floor saying, 'Here is something from which I can learn' (or something to the same effect). The only Bach works discovered on that day (or any other by Mozart) were those that day which, till then, he knew nothing of.

Talking of Bach/Mozart discoveries you will pardon me noting several (though not all) arrangements of fugues/canons by Bach which have traditionally described as having been made by Mozart were not, in fact, made by Mozart but by others who with Mozart attended the weekend musical meetings held at the home of van Sweiten.

It is said (by Attwood, I think) that Mozart kept the 48 Preludes and Fugues always at his piano.

Honestly, I think music could have become something very different if Bach's music had been allowed to be the education of many great composers of the 18th century.
He never wished to suggest fugue and counterpoint was an end in itself. But that failure to appreciate Bach has dogged music ever since.

Best

Robert

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Has Mozart ever written a single "tune"?

How on earth did it happen that such an inept fellow managed to fool the entire world and acquire every men's composition and sell it in his own name?

Just curious.

A. Selby

[agent-K007]

Originally posted by A. Selby:
----------------

Has Mozart ever written a single "tune"?

How on earth did it happen that such an inept fellow managed to fool the entire world and acquire every men's composition and sell it in his own name?

Just curious.

A. Selby

Dearest, Most beloved Agnes,

Yes he did! He wrote "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", and had it shot into space with VOYGER 6 so that Captain Kirk and Mr.Spock could some day shut V'GER down (as Voyager became) and save the Earth.

Special Agent K.007

[This message has been edited by agent-K007 (edited 04-04-2006).]