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

[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

[robert newman]

Since this thread is really an opportunity to examine the genesis of the opera 'Le Nozze di Figaro' (and this from a perspective that calls in to question its traditional attribution to Mozart/da Ponte), it might be agreed that I need to provide some sort of accurate context for the creation of music in those times.

That context (whether its welcomed or not) consisted of the fact that large areas of Europe were still under the so-called 'Holy Roman Empire'. Secondly, that large areas of Europe were still subject to religious biogtry and prejudice (on both sides of the Reformation issue). Thirdly, that up until 1773 the Jesuit Order had enjoyed a degree of educational licence that made them the virtual schoolmasters of Europe - an Order who permitted no teaching to be done in the language of the commnon people - none other than Latin - and that such a system (amazingly demolished by the papacy itself due to the centuries old complaints by rulers of Europe themselves) caused the teaching of many subjects, almost overnight, to be thrown in to a state of limbo.

It is surely a fact that in this situation the now extinct Jesuits (officially at least) had now two choices - to emigrate, or to retain their power/influence by constructing networks who would perpetuate their objectives.

The creation of the 'Weiner Klassik' is to a very great extent the product of the Jesuit Order - so that in Austria (a country whose reputation for religious conservatism is indisputable) it was possible to nurture the careers of Haydn and later Mozart by high profile propaganda related to their supposed musical achievements - perhaps the most famous of which was the circus of Mozart and his father/sister touring the courts of Europe as 'prodigies of nature' and the invention of compositional lists that were grossly inflated by Leopold and others.

That Mozart was a gifted pianist and a great arranger is not in dispute. That he rehearsed his 'Requiem' on the day before he died, or that he was visited by a 'grey messenger' or that he wrote down at Rome a forbidden church piece, or that he composed most of the symphonies today attributed to him, or that he was/is the 'wunderkind' of chocolate boxes - all of these things are the more grotesque sides of what we must call 'Mozart propaganda'.

The very fact that Mozart's name is traditionally linked to 'Le Nozze di Figaro' must reasonably give rational people reason to ask themselves how it is that he, the arch-conservative and the 'safest composer', the man whose Jesuit father bought religious icons in Italy and whose education of his son included Mozart's hatred of Voltaire etc. should somehow have taken it to himself to write in collaboration with a fugitive priest a work so blatantly contrary to the status quo as 'Le Nozze di Figaro'. To say the least, is such a question not in need of some answer ?

Here is a partial list of Jesuit educated composers whose role in Vienna/Mozart's career is beyond dispute -

Leopold Mozart
Myslievecek J
Benda F
Brixi F
Dussek FX
Dussek JL
Kozeluch L
Kramar F
Reijcha A
Stamitz JV
Stich-Punto JV
Vanhal JK
Hoffmeister JK
Zelenka J
Kraus JM
Haydn J
Vogler
Vranicky

besides others who clearly worked closely with Jesuit centres of music including -

Stadler M
Sussmayer
Martini
etc etc etc

Now, if its argued that the above people (and others far too numerous to list) had no influence upon Vienna becoming the 'city of music', yes, even before and after 1773, then we arrive at absurdity. The simple fact is that the Jesuits remained in control of Vienna as the musical Hollywood of its time.
Haydn and Mozart were the 'darlings' of such a movement - the one we today call the 'Weiner Klassik'. And to say this is doing nothing more than recording plain fact.

The Jesuits, now officially banned jumped horses and began siding themselves with those rulers who were 'reformist'. And its THIS aspect which comes to the fore in the true story of 'Le Nozze di Figaro'. Unknown to these rulers (to King Gustav, to Empress Catherine of Russia, and even to Joseph 2nd) the Jesuits were able to pull off a remarkable feat - having that opera staged in Vienna as a creation of 'Mozart/da Ponte' - thus further giving status and prestige to those men and of course to Austrian music.

That play, that opera, WAS propaganda. It was hugely controversial. It had the potential (as everyone realised) to have huge social and even political consequences. And in 1786 (with the Holy Roman Empire still in existence and still sure that it would last forever) its premiere in Vienna represented the end of a Jesuit project that Vogler and his network had masterminded from the beginning.

Music could be politics. It could be propaganda. Defuse its explosive potential by having it written and performed first in that most conservative city, Vienna.

As far as Bach is concerned, his reasonableness is everywhere proved by his profound respect for many Catholic composers and by his ability to credit the best of them. It was an attitude hardly reciprocated in his whole lifetime. Such is the record and it surely cannot be changed.

The problem was no longer one of Catholic/Protestant emnity. It was Jesuit intrigue - their own determination to obtain again with the permission of Rome their lost power and influence. A goal they continued to fight for and, less than 50 years later, were able to obtain when they were amazingly revived after the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire.

[robert newman]

Q. Why on earth would Italian composers seek to establish the supremacy of a Viennese school of Austrian/ German composers at their own expense?

A. They did so for several reasons. First, because for a long time the Italian language was a rival to German literary progress and to its use in opera. This Italianate movement allowed the Jesuits to continue denying German pupils German. It also ensured that German nationalism would be far more difficult to obtain. (Joseph 2nd's short-lived German opera project of the early 1780's was doomed from the beginning for this reason). Secondly, money. And thirdly, in the case of Haydn and Mozart there were patrons willing to pay for supplying both men the choicest works by other composers.

Dozens of works by others were attributed to Haydn in this way. In Haydn's case symphonies were 'vetted' first in Vienna by Berhard Kees before becoming through Esterhazy part of the 'official' works of Joseph Haydn. They came from composers such as Sammartini and (later) from Luchesi etc. But the same occurred in the case of Mozart.

This, of course, is wholesale fraud and is the manufacture of reputations. But every effort was made to conceal the truth and to obscure the fact that these things were financed by patrons using a network - a creative member of which was the equally little appreciated Andrea Luchesi in Bonn. In this way the growing reputations of these two 'giants' of the Weiner Klassik would be assured. Koechel, Otto Jahn, Constanze Mozart and others would (eventually) create the seamless myth we know today.

[robert newman]

Dear Hofrat,

Can you suggest how JM Kraus, resident in Paris in the autumn of 1785 could possibly have known that Mozart was composing 'Le Nozze di Figaro' in Vienna ?

And will you say whether, at the time of this letter, permission had been obtained by the Vienna censors for such an opera ? Furthermore, can you suggest how much earlier than the autumn of 1785 da Ponte must have completed the libretto on which the Vienna censors could have approved the creation of such an opera ?

These are a few basic questions if you would suggest that the traditional attribution is the correct one.

Regards

[Hofrat]

Originally posted by robert newman:

Dear Hofrat,

Can you suggest how JM Kraus, resident in Paris in the autumn of 1785 could possibly have known that Mozart was composing 'Le Nozze di Figaro' in Vienna ?

And will you say whether, at the time of this letter, permission had been obtained by the Vienna censors for such an opera ? Furthermore, can you suggest how much earlier than the autumn of 1785 da Ponte must have completed the libretto on which the Vienna censors could have approved the creation of such an opera ?

These are a few basic questions if you would suggest that the traditional attribution is the correct one.

Regards

Dear Robert;

The collaboration between Da Ponte and Mozart to do "Figaro" started in the summer of 1785. Kraus wrote to his sister in December 1785. That leaves Kraus 4-5 months to learn about Mozart's writing "Figaro." Come to think of it, with the opera's premiere on 1 May 1786, it was most probably common knowledge when Kraus wrote his sister.

Permission was not needed to write an opera. Many operas were written on speculation, including a few by Mozart himself. Permission would be needed for the following:
1. To perform an opera (either existing or in progress).
2. To accept or fulfill a commission.


Hofrat

[Peter]

Originally posted by robert newman:

Dear Hofrat,

Can you suggest how JM Kraus, resident in Paris in the autumn of 1785 could possibly have known that Mozart was composing 'Le Nozze di Figaro' in Vienna ?

And will you say whether, at the time of this letter, permission had been obtained by the Vienna censors for such an opera ? Furthermore, can you suggest how much earlier than the autumn of 1785 da Ponte must have completed the libretto on which the Vienna censors could have approved the creation of such an opera ?

These are a few basic questions if you would suggest that the traditional attribution is the correct one.

Regards

You can't answer the basic questions to fit your own theory! Never mind the timings or how Kraus knew which could have a hundred explanations, answer this basic question which you have ignored so far, why did Kraus write to his sister that Mozart was writing Figaro?




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'Man know thyself'

[robert newman]

I have no problem answering such a question. He wrote as he did to his sister because the project in which he was involved required Mozart and da Ponte in Vienna (but not he himself) to be credited with this opera. Simple, really.

It is precisely for this same reason that this thread is attempting to show (and with some submissions still to come) that, in fact, he, JM Kraus, is the true composer of that work.

In your desire to preserve the traditional attribution you seem unable to identify what tradition actually is. You now seem quite prepared to throw out the very story on which the tradition has always been constructed. That story says (and I base this on the account of the supposed librettist himself) that da Ponte and Mozart collaborated on the piece in the 6 weeks prior to its first performance in May of 1786. But it's manifestly obvious that this, the 'traditional' version is not true. Will you now concede that this same version (the 'traditional' one) is false ?

Regards

[robert newman]

Dear Hofrat,

Thank you for your reply. I have to hand notes on the life and career of JM Kraus from various sources such as Carl Stridsberg (1755-1819), FS Silverthorpe (1759-1851) and KF Schreiber (1864-1933). In the interests of truth is it possible you can arrange to have published here (through your good connection with Kraus scholars such as Professor Boer) the full text of the Kraus letter to his sister ? I ask this because I have only the quote in German extracted from Schreiber and from a book printed in archaic German. It would definitely serve the best interests of this discussion for all to see exactly what Kraus wrote there and what he did not write.

If Kraus really believes Mozart is writing 'Figaro' it follows that Kraus is somehow in contact with Mozart. Does he describe the story merely as a rumour, or as as fact ? Is it not also correct that Kraus is under the impression that the opera is to be in 2 Acts, and not 4 or 5 ? But how could such a question exist if such an issue has already been resolved at the time when he wrote the letter ? Mozart (he says) is already writing the opera.

We now have situation where Mozart, according to convention, has no commission at all to write 'Le Nozze di Figaro'. Nor does da Ponte have a commission to be its librettist. This is surely highly unusual given the hugely controversial nature of this opera and the fact (perhaps you agree ?) that no permit had yet been granted by Vienna nor any sought to get one. Why then does da Ponte contradict the timetable you wish to defend ? And where in all of this is the approval of the Vienna censors ?

We have JM Kraus in Paris, the very city where the play was written, at the very time it is first being staged at the Comedie Francaise with yet another Kraus/Mozart mystery (this at least the fourth that I know of) strongly suggesting that Kraus and Mozart had a relationship that has been officially suppressed from the tradtional version of events.

If you have access to this full text it would certainly be illuminating if you could post it here.

Many thanks

Robert

[Peter]

Originally posted by robert newman:

I have no problem answering such a question. He wrote as he did to his sister because the project in which he was involved required Mozart and da Ponte in Vienna (but not he himself) to be credited with this opera. Simple, really.

It is precisely for this same reason that this thread is attempting to show (and with some submissions still to come) that, in fact, he, JM Kraus, is the true composer of that work.

In your desire to preserve the traditional attribution you seem unable to identify what tradition actually is. You now seem quite prepared to throw out the very story on which the tradition has always been constructed. That story says (and I base this on the account of the supposed librettist himself) that da Ponte and Mozart collaborated on the piece in the 6 weeks prior to its first performance in May of 1786. But it's manifestly obvious that this, the 'traditional' version is not true. Will you now concede that this same version (the 'traditional' one) is false ?

Regards

That is utter nonsense and if that is your idea of a scholarly response! kraus had absolutely no need what so ever to tell his sister anything about the project. However he chose to, and he told her the truth that Mozart was working on Figaro. You know full well that if you had such a letter from Mozart claiming kraus was writing Figaro it would be your best piece of evidence.

I have no problems that Da Ponte may well have exaggerated the 6 week period - we know he embellished a lot, but this does not mean Mozart wasn't the composer of Figaro. I have no problem that Kraus and Mozart were well acquainted in Vienna, indeed I think it highly unlikely that they didn't meet. I also think it highly unlikely that Beethoven and Mozart didn't meet!

My desire is for the truth not some silly fabrication based on assumptions and if it turns out that you can prove Kraus composed Figaro I will be only too willing to applaud you. However since you can't, you would gain more respect if you presented it as a theory rather than a fact written in stone.

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'Man know thyself'

[robert newman]

Dear Peter,

This is farcical. Will you please tell this board what the traditional history of the opera 'Le Nozze di Figaro' actually is ??? I mean simple things like -

1. When did Mozart and da Ponte begin work on it ? Was it in 1785, 1786 or 1921 ?

2. Who commissioned the opera ? Nobody ? Or somebody ?

3. When did the Vienna authorities approve the libretto ? Or didn't they bother ??

You are happy to accept that da Ponte exaggerated. OK, please provide a straight answer to the above questions.

Having been accused of not giving answers I am really interested by what you will reply to these simple and straightforward questions - you who wish to defend the traditional version of events.

(Frankly, I think you are floundering to describe what the traditional version is. It seems to me like a moveable feast).

[Peter]

Originally posted by robert newman:

Dear Peter,

This is farcical. Will you please tell this board what the traditional history of the opera 'Le Nozze di Figaro' actually is ??? I mean simple things like -

1. When did Mozart and da Ponte begin work on it ? Was it in 1785, 1786 or 1921 ?

2. Who commissioned the opera ? Nobody ? Or somebody ?

3. When did the Vienna authorities approve the libretto ? Or didn't they bother ??

You are happy to accept that da Ponte exaggerated. OK, please provide a straight answer to the above questions.

Having been accused of not giving answers I am really interested by what you will reply to these simple and straightforward questions - you who wish to defend the traditional version of events.

(Frankly, I think you are floundering to describe what the traditional version is. It seems to me like a moveable feast).

Again as 'proof' you simply ask questions that I who am far from being a Mozart scholar cannot answer. I doubt that these facts are known. There is much we do not know about many things, we don't deduce they didn't happen because of it unless we are completely unscientific in our approach. It is you who are challenging the status quo who have to provide answers and so far you have none.

Provide proof of a commission for Kraus to write Figaro and provide verifiable dates when this was done.

Provide dates when the censors agreed to perform Kraus's Figaro under the name of Mozart.

Explain (properly this time) why Kraus wrote to his sister that Mozart was composing Figaro - I notice in your response to Hofrat that even you ackowledge the significance of this.

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'Man know thyself'



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

[Hofrat]

Originally posted by robert newman:

Dear Hofrat,

Thank you for your reply. I have to hand notes on the life and career of JM Kraus from various sources such as Carl Stridsberg (1755-1819), FS Silverthorpe (1759-1851) and KF Schreiber (1864-1933). In the interests of truth is it possible you can arrange to have published here (through your good connection with Kraus scholars such as Professor Boer) the full text of the Kraus letter to his sister ? I ask this because I have only the quote in German extracted from Schreiber and from a book printed in archaic German. It would definitely serve the best interests of this discussion for all to see exactly what Kraus wrote there and what he did not write.

If Kraus really believes Mozart is writing 'Figaro' it follows that Kraus is somehow in contact with Mozart. Does he describe the story merely as a rumour, or as as fact ? Is it not also correct that Kraus is under the impression that the opera is to be in 2 Acts, and not 4 or 5 ? But how could such a question exist if such an issue has already been resolved at the time when he wrote the letter ? Mozart (he says) is already writing the opera.

We now have situation where Mozart, according to convention, has no commission at all to write 'Le Nozze di Figaro'. Nor does da Ponte have a commission to be its librettist. This is surely highly unusual given the hugely controversial nature of this opera and the fact (perhaps you agree ?) that no permit had yet been granted by Vienna nor any sought to get one. Why then does da Ponte contradict the timetable you wish to defend ? And where in all of this is the approval of the Vienna censors ?

We have JM Kraus in Paris, the very city where the play was written, at the very time it is first being staged at the Comedie Francaise with yet another Kraus/Mozart mystery (this at least the fourth that I know of) strongly suggesting that Kraus and Mozart had a relationship that has been officially suppressed from the tradtional version of events.

If you have access to this full text it would certainly be illuminating if you could post it here.

Many thanks

Robert

Dear Robert;

In the December 1785 letter to his sister, Kraus made an aside comment that Mozart was writing "Figaro." That is all. Please do not make it the historical peg on which you hang your entire theory.

Once again, permission was not needed to write an opera. Many operas in that period were written on speculation, including Mozart himself. Permission was needed to perform an opera. There is a vast difference.


Hofrat

[robert newman]

You write -

'It is you who are challenging the status quo'.

Then may we know what the status quo IS on these issues ??

I entirely agree that the onus is on me to sustain the view that Kraus's composition of this opera is superior to the one that it was written by Mozart. That, with respect, is the verdict given when the case has been fully made. But I am simply asking on what factual basis (if any) the status quo (which you say is superior and more trustworthy) is based and whether it has answers to these most simple and basic questions.

If there is no progress on this issue I reserve the right to remind fair minded readers of it when I sum up my case.



We have so far established that a principle witness in this affair (a man who supposedly represents the status quo - Lorenzo da Ponte, the supposed librettist - is not even telling us the truth).

[robert newman]

Dear Hofrat,

Thanks for your comments. Of course I do not hang my entire theory on the content of the Kraus letter. That would hardly convince you or anyone else. And I will gladly move on to other issues. It simply amazes me that one side of this debate (who claims truth is on its side) is so silenced by such basic questions. I mean 'the status quo' side, so-called.

It seems reasonable to me that the 'status quo' provide straight answers to such basic questions as those asked here on this forum. Perhaps the truth is there is no 'status quo' at all ? But if no 'status quo'(in respect of these 3 questions about the date of composition, the date when the libretto was approved etc) are we not in all fairness seeing clearly that what is popularly believed lacks support on those very issues ?

Regards

[Peter]

Originally posted by robert newman:

You write -

'It is you who are challenging the status quo'.

Then may we know what the status quo IS on these issues ??

I entirely agree that the onus is on me to sustain the view that Kraus's composition of this opera is superior to the one that it was written by Mozart. That, with respect, is the verdict given when the case has been fully made. But I am simply asking on what factual basis (if any) the status quo (which you say is superior and more trustworthy) is based and whether it has answers to these most simple and basic questions.

If there is no progress on this issue I reserve the right to remind fair minded readers of it when I sum up my case.

We have so far established that a principle witness in this affair (a man who supposedly represents the status quo - Lorenzo da Ponte, the supposed librettist - is not even telling us the truth).

As I thought no answers - more questions. Please sum up now because this is incredibly protracted.

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'Man know thyself'