-On the Origins of the Vienna Classical Period and other Matters –

[robert newman]

Dear Sorrano,

You are misunderstanding the issue. I have never said that Mozart was a liar in this case of the Requiem. It is Agnes Selby who is saying this is a possibility. It is she (not I) who says this is a genuine Mozart signature and inscription.

I have urged Agnes to drop that silly idea. It presents Mozart claiming to have composed the work at a date when he was already dead and, we know, huge sections (at least) were never by Mozart. Thus, if true, Mozart is a liar. But that view is Agnes Selby's and not my own. It's she who wants us to believe that Mozart may be liar on this point - not I.

The signature and the inscription was forged. It was not written by Mozart. It was forged.

I hope this makes things very clear.

Regards

[robert newman]

We have established a number of facts already about 'Mozart's Requiem' -

1. Contrary to popular assumption, there actually NO documentary evidence from any time during Mozart's life that Mozart was commissioned to write a Requiem.

2. Beyond reasonable doubt a signature and inscription were forged on to KV626 in a hand meant to deceive readers that the work itself had been composed by W.A. Mozart.

Thus, on these two preliminary grounds, the true history of this piece began with highly questionable activities. Yet another example of just how porous the reputation of Mozart is whenever subjected to fair criticism.

I will show later that the same dubious sorts of things continued during the years that followed. In some cases lies were told by virtually all those associated with the piece and, finally, it was published some 9 years after Mozart's death - but not without a whole catalogue of contradictions and falsehoods.

The whole work was 'manufactured' to look as if Mozart composed it. He never did.

I will continue this when I can.

[Agnes Selby]

Originally posted by robert newman:

Dear Sorrano,

You are misunderstanding the issue. I have never said that Mozart was a liar in this case of the Requiem. It is Agnes Selby who is saying this is a possibility. It is she (not I) who says this is a genuine Mozart signature and inscription.

I have urged Agnes to drop that silly idea. It presents Mozart claiming to have composed the work at a date when he was already dead and, we know, huge sections (at least) were never by Mozart. Thus, if true, Mozart is a liar. But that view is Agnes Selby's and not my own. It's she who wants us to believe that Mozart may be liar on this point - not I.

The signature and the inscription was forged. It was not written by Mozart. It was forged.

I hope this makes things very clear.

Regards

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

Please re-read your own postings. I have
NEVER STATED THAT MOZART IS A LIAR. IN FACT
IF YOU READ MY POSTING TO YOU, I OBJECTED
STRONGLY TO YOU CALLING MOZART A LIAR.

Robert, I will never ever respond to your posts again no matter how much you try to provoke me to reply to you. This is not the first time you have misused my words but the last time. There is a certain madness in your obssession with maligning Mozart and I just wonder what it is that drives you. I am sure that there must be some other matters in this world that might engage your brain more profitably.

After all, 6 years must be ample time for you to realize that neither you nor the Italian gentleman are getting nowhere in your efforts. The worthy Luchesi must prove himself of having composed and published works that equal Mozart's and the same applies to Krauss. No matter how much you and the Italian shout a scream, Luchesi will remain Luchesi, Krauss will be Krauss
and Mozart will remain Mozart as will Haydn and Beethoven.

Agnes.

[Nightklavier]

Now look what you did, Robert.

[robert newman]

Well Agnes, one of us says that Mozart may have signed KV626 and may have dated it 1792 claiming to be its author.

It isn't me who says this may have happened. It's you yourself.

In fact, I advised you earlier not to claim that Mozart wrote this signature and this inscription. But you think he may have done so. If he really did so, well, you see the problem ?

You are entitled to believe what you please about Mozart or anything else. But only one of us says that Mozart definitely did NOT sign KV626 and that person is myself.

Regards

[Agnes Selby]

Originally posted by Nightklavier:
Now look what you did, Robert.

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

I come to this forum to learn about Beethoven. I have so far been lucky to learn more about Beethoven's DNA and some of his composition. For that I am grateful to the posters concerned.

However, I find that the postings are mainly
about Mozart and these lead to endless and senseless arguments.
I will continue here to read more about Beethoven and I sincerely hope that more postings will appear on this subject.

Agnes.

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by robert newman:

We have established a number of facts already about 'Mozart's Requiem' -

1. Contrary to popular assumption, there actually NO documentary evidence from any time during Mozart's life that Mozart was commissioned to write a Requiem.

2. Beyond reasonable doubt a signature and inscription were forged on to KV626 in a hand meant to deceive readers that the work itself had been composed by W.A. Mozart.

Thus, on these two preliminary grounds, the true history of this piece began with highly questionable activities. Yet another example of just how porous the reputation of Mozart is whenever subjected to fair criticism.

I will show later that the same dubious sorts of things continued during the years that followed. In some cases lies were told by virtually all those associated with the piece and, finally, it was published some 9 years after Mozart's death - but not without a whole catalogue of contradictions and falsehoods.

The whole work was 'manufactured' to look as if Mozart composed it. He never did.

I will continue this when I can.

1) Are YOU the one that was making the assumption that there was no documentary evidence of a commission? It wasn't me, but you said "popular"--what do you mean by that?

But there is documented evidence that surfaced after to support that there was indeed a commission. See my earlier posting with the references.

2. How can you make the assertion that the intention of the forger of Mozart´s name on the Requiem was to deceive "readers" that Mozart composed the Requiem? You haven´t even established the forger let alone the forger´s motive!! My theory is that Sussmayer did the forgery in order that Mozart´s Widow could collect on the balance of the commission. My reasoning is thus:

a) Mozart did not sign the Requiem. He was dead and did not care.

b) Walsegg did not forge Mozart's name on the Requiem. He had nothing to gain and everything to lose by doing so. Had he composed the Requiem he would have put his own name on it. Evidence is clear that he was vain and had prior put his name on other composers' works. See, again, my earlier post with it's reference.

C) Constanze had money to gain IF there was a commission as stated in the history books. If there wasn't there was no need to forge the name becaue there was no money involved.

d) Sussmayer had nothing to gain by putting Mozart's name on the Requiem. After Walsegg claimed it was his Sussmayer claimed to have written PARTS of the Requiem. Again, he had more to gain by lying that he wrote it all.

My conclusion is that there WAS a commission and that at Constanze's prodding Sussmayer signed Mozart's name, thereby giving the dead composer credit for the entire work when Mozart only composed sections of it. Sussmayer signed it to ensure that Mozart's widow would be able to collect on the 2nd half of the commission that would be available upon the completion of the Requiem.

Does that sound reasonable to you?

[This message has been edited by Sorrano (edited 09-07-2006).]

[robert newman]

How foolish can people be ? Signatures and inscriptions are forged on documents for the obvious purpose of deceiving readers to believe they were actually written by another person. Eh - right ??? Duh !

The entire point of the exercise was to fool the world/posterity that Mozart, (whose life had just ended in circumstances highly suggestive of an unnatural death) had nevertheless composed a Requiem and that he, Mozart, had virtually completed it. Such a scheme deflected atttention away from the real truth.

It does not take a genius to understand this. It requires rather less brain power, I suggest, than that required to open a can of spaghetti.

The signature and inscription bear testimony to the original plan of those involved- to deceive the world that Mozart HAD virtually completed KV626.

And as to documentary evidence for such a plan - this is found in two separate documents -

1. The statements of Constanze Mozart at the time as to the supposed state of completion of KV626 at the time of Mozart's death.

2. The same statement repeated by Stadler in 1826 in his 'Defence of the Authenticity of the Requiem'

In both cases (and both had access to Mozart and to KV626) they swore that the work was in a state of 'virtual completion' at the time of Mozart's death. Such statements were cruel lies and acts of deception.

THEREFORE, INDISPUTABLY, BEYOND ALL REASONABLE DOUBT, AND SURELY, SURELY, THE TRUE REASON FOR FORGERY OF THE SIGNATURE AND THE MAKING OF THAT INSCRIPTION ON KV626 WAS AN ATTEMPT TO DECEIVE THE PUBLIC AND POSTERITY THAT HE, MOZART, WAS AUTHOR/COMPOSER OF KV626 - A REQUIEM MASS THAT WAS (AT LEAST OFFICIALLY) COMMISSIONED AMD VIRTUALLY COMPLETED AT THE TIME OF HIS (MOZART'S) DEATH. IN ACTUAL FACT THERE NEVER WAS ANY SUCH COMMISSION GIVEN TO MOZART TO WRITE THIS WORK AND ALL OF THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN BY OTHERS. SO TOO THE INSCRIPTION/THE SUPPOSED 'MOZART' SIGNATURE. THE ENTIRE STORY WAS STAGE MANAGED BY WALSEGG, CONSTANZE MOZART, MAXIMILIAN STADLER AND OTHERS COMPLIANT IN THIS FORGERY. IT WAS THE FINAL END OF THE MOZART STORY AND IT WAS INTENDED NEVER TO BE DISCOVERED.

This is of course a reason so simple, so obvious, that it has escaped the vast majority of investigators. Since it has always (wrongly) been assumed (by the documented theatrical machinations of Walsegg, Constanze Mozart, Stadler etc and by a series of stage managed meetings/discussions etc. etc over its supposed 'completion' and publication) that Mozart had definitely been commissioned to write such a Requiem and that he had supposedly laboured on it in the months/weeks before his untimely death. HE HAD NOT. IN FACT MOZART NEVER WROTE KV626. THE ENTIRE MANUSCRIPT IS A FORGERY. SO TOO, OF COURSE, IS ITS INSCRIPTION AND SIGNATURE.

Mozart's Requiem has nothing to do with KV626. And that too was one of the reasons for its creation.

5 days after Mozart's death, 10th December, at a small gathering of friends in Vienna, attended by a handful of people brought together by Emanuel Schickander and the Freihaus group, Mozart's real requiem, now lost, an 'a capella work', was performed, - a work now lost - attended by virtually none of Mozart's supposed'friends' or family. THAT work was the real Mozart's Requiem. Not KV626.



[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 09-07-2006).]

[robert newman]

Having earlier in this thread promised to focus on a single example of Haydn being involved in musical fakery during his career I suggested we could examine (of literally dozens of possibilities) ‘The 7 Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross’, a work always traditionally attributed to Joseph Haydn and which was commissioned and first performed in his name for the 1787 Good Friday service of the Grotto Santa Cueva, near Cadiz in southern Spain. It, like ‘Mozart’s Requiem’ shares the fact that it was a church piece for Lent.

In 1802 Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) gave an account of how this piece was (supposedly) written by him –

‘ Some 15 years ago I was requested by a Canon of Cádiz to compose instrumental music on the ‘7 Last words Of Our Saviour On The Cross’. It was customary at the Cathedral of Cádiz to produce an oratorio each year during Lent .... it was no easy task to compose 7 Adagios of 10 minutes each, and to succeed one another without fatiguing the listeners; indeed, I found it quite impossible to confine myself to the appointed limits...’

Bear in mind that Joseph Haydn by 1802 was barely able to write, suffered with eye problems for years before this and had used the services of an amenuesis G.A.Griesinger to record the above. He was almost certainly suffering from cerebrosclerosis which, certainly since 1797, had increasingly affected his ability to write music or, even, to write letters. (This fact has not stopped him being credited, however, with all sorts of works, such as the ‘Harmonienmesse’ of 1802, others such as ‘The Creation’, (1797/8), and ‘The Seasons’(1798-1801). But those works and their true story we must leave for another time). We will focus here on the ‘7 Last Words’.

Note that Haydn claims he wrote this work in response to a commission from Cadiz. Let us assume this commission came not earlier than the year before its premiere. Thus around 1786 at the earliest and with its premiere (as stated) at Cadiz during the Lent season of 1787. Haydn also says in 1802 that it happened (‘some 15 years ago’). And therefore, this provides further support to the view that (at least officially) Haydn wrote the piece in 1786 or 1787 but not before.

But it’s at this point that cracks begin to appear in the official story of this ‘Haydn’ work. Firstly, the Neefe inventory of music made at Bonn in 1784 (during the absence of Luchesi) lists among works by ‘Hayden’ ‘Instrumental music on the 7 words of our Redeemer on the Cross’ (this on p.25 recto of the inventory) and consisting of those movements that are today known as Hob.88, 89,90, 91,92, 56, 64, 48, 68, 45, 50 and 70. (These include an adagio Introduction and a Presto ‘Earthquake’). And this instrumental music is, today, in a copy at Estense Library in Modena.

In short, the available evidence indicates that an ‘agreement’ made in private with Luchesi at Bonn was for Haydn to publicly use music in ‘Haydn’s’ name 5 years after it had actually been composed for him, by Luchesi and by others. That is why the ‘7 Last Words’ publicly appears for the first time in 1787 in Haydn's name, having been actually composed around 1782 by Luchesi for Haydn while at Bonn. He must have paid for it since it is in the inventory there already attributed to him. It is also why the Bonn Inventory of 1784 has this work in its archives fully 3 years before Haydn claims to have composed it. And 3 years before it was first published in Paris and London. Yet this piece is today at Modena existing as orchestral parts under the reference Mus-D-167 – parts that are not even even mentioned by editors of the Haydn (Hoboken) catalogue. Nor are they refered to by Robbins Landon or others such as Vignal. Such an obvious discrepancy should of course be noted by Haydn scholars. A familiar enough story.

We know too that 3 performances of this work were given in ‘Haydn’s’ name in that year –

1. The actual premiere at Cadiz
2. 26th March 1787 at the residence of Prince Auersperg *
3. 30th March 1787 at Bonn Chapel, conducted by Joseph Reicha. (It is this copy of the work which is today still at Modena).

(*Furthermore, the Kapellmeister of Prince Auersperg at this time (1787) was Johann Schenk (1753-1826) a man who was subsequently one of Beethoven’s teachers in Vienna and who all his life accused Haydn of being a fake but without ever revealing the basis for him holding such a low opinion of him. G. Taboga has written on the 7 Last Words in ‘Recerca Musicologica No.13’ Barcelona University, 1998, pp.165-200 and has argued there in detail for a non-Haydn origin of this piece and for the correct attribution to be Kapellmeister Andrea Luchesi).

But even this is not the full story. Haydn’s brother, Michael (a frequent source of music that somehow stubbornly remains in the Mozart catalogue till this day) is known to have transformed this same orchestral piece in to the oratorio we know today – not Joseph Haydn (doing so in co-operation with the Kapellmeister of Passau, Karl Friberth. And Joseph Haydn had virtually nothing to do with this piece, either as an orchestral one or as an oratorio. He limited himself, later, to providing a version for string quartet in later years that was riddled with musical errors and omissions – so many, in fact, that Haydn supporters have always argued that this quartet version was not by Haydn ! But it certainly was. In fact, the appearance of that quartet version by an English publisher was grounds for legal action being considered against Haydn for having infringed a copyright agreement made on the earlier version with another English publisher.

Such was the increasingly complicated world of Joseph Haydn with regard to this single piece. A fairly typical example of the way in which Haydn's reputation as a composer was, in fact, heavily dependent on works actually written by various other composers – that reputation under increasing criticism in his last years as anomalies and blatant errors began to reveal the true scale of manipulation in his ‘official’ output. Much more could be said but this is a rough outline of the case on that one 'Haydn' piece.

Regards

[Peter]

Fpr Robert!

Being away at the moment I am unable to spend much time reading these posts or responding, but at a cursory glance it seems the thread has drifted back to wasting time debating Mozart's requiem. I notice you've posted at length on Haydn but I'm afraid I can't respond yet.

Robert you stated earlier "That in the case of, say, the G Minor Symphony (No.40) there is indisputable evidence that this material originated with a work of many decades prior written by Traetta and performed in Italy."

Please can you now present the evidence to this forum. Thank you.

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

[Rod]

Originally posted by Peter:
Fpr Robert!

Being away at the moment I am unable to spend much time reading these posts or responding, but at a cursory glance it seems the thread has drifted back to wasting time debating Mozart's requiem. I notice you've posted at length on Haydn but I'm afraid I can't respond yet.

Robert you stated earlier "That in the case of, say, the G Minor Symphony (No.40) there is indisputable evidence that this material originated with a work of many decades prior written by Traetta and performed in Italy."

Please can you now present the evidence to this forum. Thank you.

I hope you appreciated that for a short while I moved the discussion to K452.

------------------
"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Nightklavier]

Rod, I was trying to possibly move the discussion to *music*. On the first page here I asked if you could repeat your musical analysis where you "wrote off all of Roberts theories about Beethoven with a couple of paragraphs of musical assessment of the most basic level."

I never read your assessment so I'm quite curious about what you have to say. I mean, it might not affect Roberts views right now if you engaged it with him before, but at least it's a new avenue to take in this pedantic discussion.

[PDG]

Originally posted by robert newman:
...spaghetti.

Surely not another forgotten Italian composer??...

(Forgive me, Robert <hee hee>)...

[Rod]

Originally posted by Nightklavier:
Rod, I was trying to possibly move the discussion to *music*. On the first page here I asked if you could repeat your musical analysis where you "wrote off all of Roberts theories about Beethoven with a couple of paragraphs of musical assessment of the most basic level."

I never read your assessment so I'm quite curious about what you have to say. I mean, it might not affect Roberts views right now if you engaged it with him before, but at least it's a new avenue to take in this pedantic discussion.

Well we discussed these issues here many times as we know Robert has this canny knack of resurrecting his theories. Basically Rob has the notion that a number of Beethoven's works we have from his teens were infact composed by someone else, based largely on rather inconclusive historial and cirumstantial evidence. I felt confident enough to judge the ownership just by listening to the music in question, for indeed there have been a few works attributed to B in the past and indeed present that are not his. Based on stylistic assessment the music in question I deemed to be Beethoven's. It's not rocket science.

------------------
"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited 09-07-2006).]

[robert newman]

Well Peter, I will post on the G Minor Symphony as soon as I can, but I really have lots of things to do over the coming few days in particular - all of which need close attention - so I will post on the understanding that it will be the last here for a while. In this case ('Mozart' 40) I have a lot less material than on many other pieces (but that's because I have not sought to have sources translated, and because I have really always been busy with different things). I would personally prefer to have posted on KV361, or Don Giovanni, the quartets dedicated to Haydn, KV622 etc, but OK.

It won't be much. But it will at least (hopefully) be enough for you to look more closely at it yourself.

Rgds