2006 - 'Annis Horribilis' for Mozart Conservatism
Despite this year of 2006 being designated as 'a year long celebration of Mozart' it has been, in fact, something of an 'annis horribilis' as far as conservative and often greatly 'hyped' versions of his life and career are concerned. This short update aims to show why.
There are 4 separate but simultaneous cracks that are appearing in attempts to teach conventional biographies of the composer, all of them serious in their own way but, in combination, representing something of a structural crisis in 'established' thinking. I mean, specifically, appreciation of -
1. The Prince Lichnowsky lawsuite against Mozart - an affair not even acknowledged till recently - which had a very rich man suing the composer in the final years of his life for an amount which, in fact, was virtually insignificant to that Prince and which, to date, has not been explained outside of admission by several modern Mozart researchers that it involved rather more than finance.
2. The recent discovery that, in fact, 'Mozart's first biographer', F Niemetscheck, hardly ever met or personally knew Mozart (if at all) - this contrary to traditional assumption that they were close friends and casting doubt, yet again on the reliability of Constanze, Mozart's widow's, major input into the eventual creation of that early biography.
3. The general recognition within Mozart research that whole areas of 'Nissen's' early biography of Mozart contains a whole series of statements on his life and career which are, at best, 'bending the truth' or have been fabricated, are factually wrong, or were omitted in that work, so as to falsify and mislead readers of it - with blame for such things resting not with Nissen (who actually wrote not a word of that biography and never actually met Mozart) but, once again, squarely with Constanze, widow of Mozart, then second wife of Nissen.
and finally -
4. With publication of Mozart's Yearbook of 1993/4 came general recognition of 'A newly discovered piece of paper in Mozart's handwriting' (known as Item 1203/7 on page 174 in the collected Mozart family letters - ed.Bauer/Deutsch) which justified an article in that same yearbook publicly announcing its content written by V.Braunbehrens and U.Druner.
Such things, collectively, have been described in Mozart studies as -
'erupting, like raw, misshapen stones into the mosaic of our knowledge (of Mozart and his career).
This last item (the piece of paper in Mozart's own hand) can be seen in German and in English on www.aproposmozart.com and is an attempt by Mozart in the mid to late 1780's to account for his personal income and expenditure 'during the past year' in Vienna. Nothing unusual in that, except that Mozart expressly says in writing that the money left after calculating his normal expenses in that year needs to be 'divided (equally) in to 5 parts'.
Which begs the question of how Mozart could ever have needed to make such a calculation if, at that time, he did not have 5 persons to whom he was required to pay such money, in equal amounts.
But such a possibility, of course, raises some disturbing questions about Mozart's career in Vienna and the way in which it was financially underpinned.
These, then, are major areas which, in combination, represent a very serious challenge to the relevance of conservative views of Mozart's mature life and career in Vienna. They are by no means the only ones. But they are issues that do not conform to traditional views of his life and career during those years.
[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 09-22-2006).]
There are 4 separate but simultaneous cracks that are appearing in attempts to teach conventional biographies of the composer, all of them serious in their own way but, in combination, representing something of a structural crisis in 'established' thinking. I mean, specifically, appreciation of -
1. The Prince Lichnowsky lawsuite against Mozart - an affair not even acknowledged till recently - which had a very rich man suing the composer in the final years of his life for an amount which, in fact, was virtually insignificant to that Prince and which, to date, has not been explained outside of admission by several modern Mozart researchers that it involved rather more than finance.
2. The recent discovery that, in fact, 'Mozart's first biographer', F Niemetscheck, hardly ever met or personally knew Mozart (if at all) - this contrary to traditional assumption that they were close friends and casting doubt, yet again on the reliability of Constanze, Mozart's widow's, major input into the eventual creation of that early biography.
3. The general recognition within Mozart research that whole areas of 'Nissen's' early biography of Mozart contains a whole series of statements on his life and career which are, at best, 'bending the truth' or have been fabricated, are factually wrong, or were omitted in that work, so as to falsify and mislead readers of it - with blame for such things resting not with Nissen (who actually wrote not a word of that biography and never actually met Mozart) but, once again, squarely with Constanze, widow of Mozart, then second wife of Nissen.
and finally -
4. With publication of Mozart's Yearbook of 1993/4 came general recognition of 'A newly discovered piece of paper in Mozart's handwriting' (known as Item 1203/7 on page 174 in the collected Mozart family letters - ed.Bauer/Deutsch) which justified an article in that same yearbook publicly announcing its content written by V.Braunbehrens and U.Druner.
Such things, collectively, have been described in Mozart studies as -
'erupting, like raw, misshapen stones into the mosaic of our knowledge (of Mozart and his career).
This last item (the piece of paper in Mozart's own hand) can be seen in German and in English on www.aproposmozart.com and is an attempt by Mozart in the mid to late 1780's to account for his personal income and expenditure 'during the past year' in Vienna. Nothing unusual in that, except that Mozart expressly says in writing that the money left after calculating his normal expenses in that year needs to be 'divided (equally) in to 5 parts'.
Which begs the question of how Mozart could ever have needed to make such a calculation if, at that time, he did not have 5 persons to whom he was required to pay such money, in equal amounts.
But such a possibility, of course, raises some disturbing questions about Mozart's career in Vienna and the way in which it was financially underpinned.
These, then, are major areas which, in combination, represent a very serious challenge to the relevance of conservative views of Mozart's mature life and career in Vienna. They are by no means the only ones. But they are issues that do not conform to traditional views of his life and career during those years.
[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 09-22-2006).]
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