Mozart's compositional method: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 04:16, 9 January 2021

Latest revision as of 15:54, 19 August 2025

(38 intermediate revisions by 20 users not shown)

Line 1:

{{Short description|none}}

[[File:Mozart (unfinished) by Lange 1782.jpg|250px|thumb|<{{center>|Mozart portrayed by his brother-in-law [[Joseph Lange]]</center>}}]]

Scholars have long studied how [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]] created his works. Nineteenth-century views on this topic were often based on a romantic, mythologizing conception of the process of composition. More recent scholarship addresses this issue by systematically examining authenticated letters and documents, and has arrived at rather different conclusions.

Line 5 ⟶ 6:

==Mozart's approach to composition==

A surviving letter of Mozart's to his father [[Leopold Mozart|Leopold]] (31 July 1778) indicates that he considered composition an active process—theprocess:<blockquote>You productknow ofthat hisI intellectplunge myself into music, carriedso outto underspeak—that I think about it all day long—that I like experimenting—studying—reflecting.</blockquote>One cannot quite determine from these words alone whether Mozart's approach to composition was a conscious control:method, or more inspired and intuitive.

<blockquote>You know that I plunged myself into music, so to speak—that I think about it all day long—that I like experimenting—studying—reflecting.</blockquote>

==Sketches==

Mozart often wrote [[Sketch (music)|sketches]], from small snippets to extensive drafts, for his compositions. Though many of these were destroyed by Mozart's widow [[Constanze Mozart|Constanze]],<ref name="Solomon 1995, 310">{{harvnb|Solomon |1995, |p=310}}</ref> about 320 sketches and drafts survive, covering about 10 percent of the composer's work.<ref name="Solomon 1995, 310"/>

[[Ulrich Konrad]], an expert on the sketches,<ref>{{harvnb|Solomon (|1995)}} relies on his book ''Mozarts Schaffensweise: Studien zu den Werkautographen, Skizzen und Entwürfen'' ("Mozart's method of composition: studies of the autograph scores, sketches, and drafts"), Göttingen 1992.</ref> describes a well-worked-out system of sketching that Mozart used, based on examination of the surviving documents. Typically the most "primitive" sketches are in casual handwriting, and give just snippets of music. More advanced sketches cover the most salient musical lines (the melody line, and often the bass), leaving other lines to fill in later. The so-called "draft score" was one in an advanced enough state for Mozart to consider it complete, and therefore enter it (after 1784) into the personal catalog that he called ''Verzeichnüss aller meiner Werke'' ("Catalog of all my works"). However, the draft score did not include all of the notes: it remained to flesh out the internal voices, filling out the harmony. These were added to create the completed score, which appeared in a highly legible hand.<ref>Source for this paragraph: {{harvnb|Konrad, |2006|p=103}}</ref>

This procedure makes sense of another letter Mozart wrote to Leopold, discussing his work in [[Munich]] on the opera ''[[Idomeneo]]'' (30 December 1780), where Mozart distinguishes "composed" from "written":

Line 21 ⟶ 20:

In Konrad's view, Mozart had completed the "draft score" of the work, but still needed to produce the completed, final version.

Of the sketches that survive, none are for solo keyboard works. Konrad suggests that "Improvisation [at which Mozart was highly skilled; see below] or the actual trying out of particularly challenging imaginative possibilities could compensate in these cases for the lack of sketches."<ref>{{sfn|Konrad, |2006|p=104</ref>}}

==Use of a keyboard==

[[File:Portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the age of 13 in Verona, 1770.jpg|thumb|1770 Verona portrait of Mozart, which shows the composer playing a [[harpsichord]]]]

Mozart evidentlysometimes neededused a keyboard to work out his musical thoughts. This can be deduced from his letters and other biographical material.<ref>This point is made by the authors of the [[Cornell University]] website "Mozart and the keyboard culture of his time", which also offers digital images of the letters in question. See [httphttps://rmc.library.cornell.edu/mozart/myth/TellTale_Letters.htm "Tell-Tale Letters"].</ref> For instance, on 1 August 1781, Mozart wrote to his father [[Leopold Mozart|Leopold]] concerning his living arrangements in Vienna, where he had recently moved:

<blockquote>

:"My room that I'm moving to is being prepared—I'm just off now to hire a keyboard, because I can't live there until that's been delivered, especially as I've got to write just now, and there isn't a minute to be lost."<ref>Cited from {{harvnb|Konrad |2006, |p=102}}</ref></blockquote>

Konrad cites a similar letter written from Paris that indicates that Mozart didn't compose where he was staying, but visited another home to borrow the keyboard instrument there. Similar evidence is found in early biographies based on [[Constanze Mozart]]'s memories.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Prod'Homme |first=J.-G. |date=1927 |title=THE WIFE OF MOZART : CONSTANZE WEBER |url=https://academic.oup.com/mq/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/mq/XIII.3.384 |journal=The Musical Quarterly |language=en |volume=XIII |issue=3 |pages=384–409 |doi=10.1093/mq/XIII.3.384 |issn=0027-4631|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Mozart evidently needed a keyboard to work out his musical thoughts. This can be deduced from his letters and other biographical material.<ref>This point is made by the authors of the [[Cornell University]] website "Mozart and the keyboard culture of his time", which also offers digital images of the letters in question. See [http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/mozart/myth/TellTale_Letters.htm].</ref> For instance, on 1 August 1781, Mozart wrote to his father [[Leopold Mozart|Leopold]] concerning his living arrangements in Vienna, where he had recently moved:

On the other hand, Mozart was in fact able to compose without a keyboard, according to various sources. German musicologist [[Hermann Abert]] cited Mozart's first biographer [[Franz Xaver Niemetschek]] in his book, who originally wrote: "He never went to the keyboard when composing." Mozart's wife, Constanze, has also stated the same thing and added that he "only tried out a movement when it was finished".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Abert|first=Hermann|author-link=Hermann Abert|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l6I6BwTMJ3sC|title=W. A. Mozart|date=2007-01-01|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-07223-5|page=824}}</ref>

:"My room that I'm moving to is being prepared—I'm just off now to hire a keyboard, because I can't live there until that's been delivered, especially as I've got to write just now, and there isn't a minute to be lost."<ref>Cited from Konrad 2006, 102</ref>

Konrad cites a similar letter written from Paris that indicates that Mozart didn't compose where he was staying, but visited another home to borrow the keyboard instrument there. Similar evidence is found in early biographies based on [[Constanze Mozart]]'s memories.

==Incomplete works==

Line 35 ⟶ 36:

About 150 of Mozart's surviving works are incomplete, roughly a quarter of the total count of surviving works.<ref name="Solomon 1995, 310" /> A number of completed works can be shown (e.g., by inspecting watermarks or inks) to be completions of fragments that had long been left incomplete. These include the piano concertos [[Piano Concerto No. 14 (Mozart)|K. 449]], [[Piano Concerto No. 23 (Mozart)|K. 488]], [[Piano Concerto No. 25 (Mozart)|K. 503]], and [[Piano Concerto No. 27 (Mozart)|K. 595]], as well as the [[Clarinet Concerto (Mozart)|Clarinet Concerto]] K. 622.

It is not known why so many works were left incomplete. In a number of cases, the historical record shows that what Mozart thought was an opportunity for performance or sale evaporated during the course of composition.<ref>See {{harvnb|Konrad |2006|p=106}} for instances.</ref> {{harvtxt|Braunbehrens|1990}} observes: "Most pieces ... were written on request or with a specific performance in mind, if not for the composer's own use. Mozart frequently emphasized that he would never consider writing something for which there was no such occasion. Indeed, hardly a single work of his was not written for a particular occasion, or at least for use in his own concerts."<ref>{{harvtxt|Braunbehrens|1990|loc=147}}. The same point is argued by {{harvnb|Zaslaw (|1994)}}.</ref>

==Improvisation==

Line 49 ⟶ 50:

The meeting of Grétry and the young Mozart apparently took place in 1766.<ref>{{harvnb|Deutsch|1965|p=477}}. Deutsch seems secure in the view that although Grétry does not identify the child he heard, it was in fact Mozart.</ref>

As a teenager visiting Italy, Mozart gave a concert in Venice (5 March 1771). According to a witness, "An experienced musician gave him a fugue theme, which he worked out for more than an hour with such science, dexterity, harmony, and proper attention to rhythm, that even the greatest connoisseurs were astounded."<ref>Quoted in {{harvnb|Solomon (|1995, |p=543)}}</ref>

Mozart continued to improvise in public as an adult. For instance, the highly successful concert of 1787 in [[Prague]] that premiered his [[Symphony No. 38 (Mozart)|"Prague Symphony"]] concluded with a half-hour improvisation by the composer.<ref>{{sfn|Solomon |1995, |p=419</ref>}} For other instances, see [[Mozart's Berlin journey]] and [[Dora Stock]].

===Improvisation as a time-saving device===

[[Volkmar Braunbehrens|Braunbehrens]] suggests that on at least one occasion, Mozart met a deadline by simply not writing down part of the music and improvising it instead while performing before the audience. This was evidently true of the [[Piano Concerto No. 26 (Mozart)|Piano Concerto in D, K. 537]], premiered 24 February 1788. In this work, the second movement opens with a solo passage for the pianist. The autograph (composer-written) score of the music gives the notes as follows:

{{Listen|type=music|filename=Mozart; Piano Concerto No. 26 in D Major, KV 537 "Coronation", 2. Larghetto.flac|title=Performance|description=By [[Lili Kraus]] in 1955}}

<score %vorbis%="1">

\new PianoStaff <<

\new Staff \relative c'' {

Line 82 ⟶ 83:

Braunbehrens and other scholars infer that Mozart could not conceivably have opened a movement with a completely unadorned melody line, and instead improvised a suitable accompaniment for the left hand. Similar passages occur throughout the concerto.

The work was published only in 1794, three years after Mozart's death, and the publisher [[Johann André]] found some other composer (whose identity is unknown) to fill in the missing passages; these interpolations have become the standard for performance.<ref>This section is based on {{harvtxt|Braunbehrens|1990|loc=5–7}}. For further discussion of the incomplete piano part in this concerto, see the [[Piano Concerto No. 26 (Mozart)#The_unfinished_piano_partThe unfinished keyboard part|relevant section]] of this encyclopedia's article.</ref>

==Mozart's memory==

Line 88 ⟶ 89:

Mozart appears to have possessed an excellent memory for music, though probably not the quasi-miraculous ability that has passed into legend. In particular, the use of keyboards and sketches to compose, noted above, would not have been necessary for a composer who possessed superhuman memory. Various anecdotes attest to Mozart's memory abilities.

Two of the violin sonatas gave rise to anecdotes to the effect that Mozart played the piano part at the premiere from memory, with only the violinist playing from the music. This is true for the Violin Sonata in G, K. 379/373a, where Mozart wrote in a letter to Leopold (8 April 1781) that he wrote out the violin part in an hour the night before the performance<ref>{{harvnb|Solomon |1995, |p=309}}. {{harvnb|Irving (|2006, |p=474)}}, suggests it is not certain that K. 379/373a was the particular sonata Mozart was referring to.</ref> "but in order to be able to finish it, I only wrote out the accompaniment for Brunetti and retained my own part in my head."<ref>quoted from {{harvnb|Solomon |1995, |p=309}}</ref> A similar story survives that concerns the Violin Sonata in B -flat, K. 454, performed before the [[Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor|Emperor]] in the [[Kärntnertortheater]] on 29 April 1784.<ref>{{sfn|Irving (|2006, |p=474)</ref>}}

One may question whether, in these instances, Mozart remembered the entire keyboard part note-for-note. Given the independent testimony (above) for his ability to fill in gaps through improvisation, it would seem that Mozart could have done this as well in performing the violin sonatas.

Another instance of Mozart's powerful memory concerns his purported memorization and transcription of [[Gregorio Allegri]]'s "''[[Miserere (Allegri)|Miserere]]"'' in the [[Sistine Chapel]] as a 14-year-old.<ref>Doubts have been cast as to the veracity of this story. See [[Miserere (Allegri)#History]] for further details.</ref> Here again, various factors suggest great skill on Mozart's part, but not a superhuman miracle. The work in question is somewhat repetitive{{fact|date=September 2014}}, andalternating Mozartthe wassame ablefour toand return to hear anotherfive-part performancesettings, correcting his earlier errors.and [[Maynard Solomon]] suggestssuggested that Mozart may have seen another copy earlier, but added that he "certainly had the capacity to write out the ''Miserere'' from memory".{{sfn|Solomon|1995|p=5}} Furthermore, Mozart may have already heard the piece when he was in London in 1764-65 and thus recalled it when he heard it in Rome.<ref name="Chrissochoidis2010">Solomon{{cite 1995,journal 5|last1=Chrissochoidis |first1=Ilias |title=London Mozartiana: Wolfgang's disputed age & early performances of Allegri's Miserere |journal=The Musical Times |date=2010 |volume=151 |issue=1911 |pages=83–89 |jstor=20721620 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20721620 |issn=0027-4666}}</ref>

==19th-century views==

Konrad describes the views that were prevalent during the 19th century period of Mozart scholarship.<ref>See {{sfn|Konrad |2006</ref>}} In particular, "The 'making of music' was ... mythologized as a creative act." The 19th century regarded Mozart's compositional process as a form "of impulsive and improvisatorial composition ... an almost vegetative act of creation."<ref>Quotations from {{harvnb|Konrad, |2006|pp=100–101.}}</ref> Konrad states that the 19th century also mythologized Mozart's abilities in the area of musical memory.

===The Rochlitz letter===

An important source for earlier conceptions concerning Mozart's composition method was the work of the early 19th century publisher [[Friedrich Rochlitz]]. He propagated anecdotes about Mozart that were long assumed authentic, but with more recent research are now widely doubted.<ref>{{sfn|Keefe |2006</ref>}} Among other things, Rochlitz published a letter,<ref>''[[Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung]]'' in 1815, vol. 17, pp. 561–566; {{harvnb|Konrad |2006|p=101.}}</ref> purporting to be by Mozart but now considered fraudulent,<ref>The [[Cornell University]] website "Mozart and the keyboard culture of his time" offers an image of the original published version of the letter, as well as one of the salient reasons why it is considered fraudulent: it has Mozart saying "the letter I wrote to my father-in-law, to request the hand of my present wife"; [[Constanze Mozart]]'s father Fridolin Weber died before Mozart ever began courting her. See [httphttps://rmc.library.cornell.edu/mozart/myth/Forged_Letter_pic3.htm "A Forged Letter"].</ref> concerning his method of composition. This letter was taken as evidence concerning two points considered dubious by modern scholars. One is the idea that Mozart composed in a kind of passive mental process, letting the ideas simply come to him:

<blockquote>When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer; say traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how they come I know not, nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me, I retain in ... memory, and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me, how I may turn this or that morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it, that is to say, agreeably to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of the various instruments, &c.<ref>The letter is quoted as it appears in {{harvnb|Zaslaw (|1994)}}.</ref></blockquote>

Rochlitz's forged letter also was used in earlier study to bolster the (apparently false) story that Mozart could compose relying entirely on his memory, without the use of keyboard or sketches:

<blockquote>All this fires my soul, and provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodized and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost finished and complete in my mind, so that I can survey it, like a fine picture or a beautiful statue, at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once... When I proceed to write down my ideas, I take out of the bag of my memory, if I may use that phrase, what has previously been collected into it, in the way I have mentioned. For this reason, the committing to paper is done quickly enough, for everything is, as I said before, already finished; and it rarely differs on paper from what it was in my imagination.</blockquote>

The contents of the Rochlitz letter were relayed by such authorities as the mathematician [[Henri Poincaré]] and the musician [[Albert Lavignac]]<ref>{{cite book|last=Lavignac|first=Albert|author-link=Albert Lavignac, ''|title=L'éducation musicale'', p. |year=1902|page=290}}</ref> and had a great influence on the popular view of Mozart's compositional process. AsAnd as late as 1952 a volume of collected papers from a symposium on the creative process reproducereproduces the letter, albeit with a warning that "the authenticity of this letter remains in doubt".<ref>Brewster Ghiseli (editor), ''The Creative Process: A Symposium'', University of California Press, 1952, p. 34</ref>

Although it has been influential in historical conceptions of Mozart, the letter is no longer regarded as an accurate description of Mozart's compositional process.<ref>Konrad, 101</ref> On the other hand, Mozart's first biographer, in collaboration with Mozart's wife, related a congruent account of how Mozart composed:

AlthoughBut although it has been influential in historical conceptions of Mozart, the letter ishas nomore longerrecently not been regarded as an accurate description of Mozart's compositional process.<ref>{{sfn|Konrad, |2006|p=101</ref>}} On the other hand, there is still no reason to suppose that even if Rochlitz did forge the letter, he would have wanted to misrepresent what he knew of Mozart's actual compositional practice any more than he would have wanted to misrepresent his handwriting. Moreover, in direct support of Rochlitz's account, Mozart's first biographer, in collaboration with Mozart's wife, related a congruent accountdescription of how Mozart composed:

<blockquote>Mozart wrote everything with a facility and rapidity, which perhaps at first sight could appear as carelessness or haste; and while writing he never came to the klavier. His imagination presented the whole work, when it came to him, clearly and vividly. ... In the quiet repose of the night, when no obstacle hindered his soul, the power of his imagination became incandescent with the most animated activity, and unfolded all the wealth of tone which nature had placed in his spirit ... Only the person who heard Mozart at such times knows the depth and the whole range of his musical genius: free and independent of all concern his spirit could soar in daring flight to the highest regions of art.<ref>Niemetschek, pp. 54–55</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>Mozart wrote everything with a facility and rapidity, which perhaps at first sight could appear as carelessness or haste; and while writing he never came to the klavier. His imagination presented the whole work, when it came to him, clearly and vividly. ... In the quiet repose of the night, when no obstacle hindered his soul, the power of his imagination became incandescent with the most animated activity, and unfolded all the wealth of tone which nature had placed in his spirit ... Only the person who heard Mozart at such times knows the depth and the whole range of his musical genius: free and independent of all concern his spirit could soar in daring flight to the highest regions of art.<ref>{{sfn|Niemetschek, |1798|pp. =54–55</ref>}}</blockquote>

The contents of the Rochlitz letter were relayed by such authorities as the mathematician [[Henri Poincaré]] and the musician [[Albert Lavignac]]<ref>Albert Lavignac, ''L'éducation musicale'', p. 290</ref> and had a great influence on the popular view of Mozart's compositional process. As late as 1952 a volume of collected papers from a symposium on the creative process reproduce the letter, albeit with a warning that "the authenticity of this letter remains in doubt".<ref>Brewster Ghiseli (editor), ''The Creative Process: A Symposium'', University of California Press, 1952, p. 34</ref>

==Notes==

Line 117 ⟶ 118:

'''Sources'''

*{{cite book|last=Braunbehrens|first=Volkmar|author-link=Volkmar Braunbehrens|year=1990|title=Mozart in Vienna: 1781–1791|___location=New York|publisher=Grove Weidenfeld}}

*{{cite book|last=Deutsch|first=Otto Erich|author-link=Otto Erich Deutsch|year=1965|title=Mozart: A Documentary Biography|___location=Stanford, California|publisher=Stanford University Press}}

*{{cite encyclopedia|last=Irving, |first=John (|year=2006) "|title=Sonatas", in |editor1=[[Cliff Eisen]] and |editor2=[[Simon P. Keefe]], ''|encyclopedia=The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia''. |___location=Cambridge: |publisher=Cambridge University Press.}}

*[[{{cite encyclopedia|last=Keefe|first=Simon P. Keefe|Keefe, author-link=Simon P.]] (Keefe|year=2006) "|title=Rochlitz, (Johann) Friedrich," in |editor1=[[Cliff Eisen and ]]|editor2=Simon P. Keefe, ''|encyclopedia=The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia''. |___location=Cambridge: |publisher=Cambridge University Press.}}

*[[Ulrich{{cite encyclopedia|last=Konrad|Konrad, first=Ulrich|author-link=Ulrich]] (Konrad|year=2006) "|title=Compositional method," in |editor1=Cliff Eisen and |editor2=Simon P. Keefe, ''|encyclopedia=The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia''. |___location=Cambridge: |publisher=Cambridge University Press.}}

*[[{{cite book|last=Niemetschek|first=Franz|author-link=Franz Xaver Niemetschek|Niemetschek, Franz]] (year=1798), |title=Leben des K.K. Kapellmeisters Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart, nach Originalquellen beschrieben.|language=de}}

*[[Maynard{{cite Solomonbook|last=Solomon, |first=Maynard|author-link=Maynard]] (Solomon|year=1995) ''|title=Mozart: A Life''. |___location=New York: |publisher=Harper Perennial.}}

*[[Neal{{cite book|last=Zaslaw|Zaslaw, first=Neal|author-link=Neal]] (Zaslaw|year=1994) "|chapter=Mozart as a working stiff", in |editor=James M. Morris, ed., ''|title=On Mozart'', |publisher=Cambridge University Press.}} An influential assertion of the practicality of Mozart's motivations in composition, attacking older conceptions as romanticized and unrealistic.

==Further reading==

*[[Ulrich Konrad|Konrad, Ulrich]] "How Mozart Went about Composing: A New View" in ''Mozart Society of America Newsletter'', Volume VIII, Number 2 (27 August 2004) (an English translation of the overview in his 1992 book)

*Konrad, Ulrich (1992) "Mozarts Schaffensweise", Göttingen: Vandehoeck & Ruprecht. (Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen Philologisch-Historische Klasse 3. Folge Band 201)

Line 137 ⟶ 139:

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mozart's Compositional Method}}

[[Category:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Compositional method]]

[[Category:MusicalClassical music analysis]]