Mozart's compositional method: Difference between revisions

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[[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. Twenty firstNineteenth-century views on this topic were often based on a romantic, mythologizing conception of the process of composition. The moreMore recent scholarship addresses this issue by systematically examining authenticated letters and documents, and has arrived at rather different conclusions.

==Mozart's approach to composition==

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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>Solomon 1995, 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 Solomon 1995, 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.

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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:

<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>

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>

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'''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.}}

*[[Simon P. Keefe|Keefe, Simon P.]] (2006) "Rochlitz, (Johann) Friedrich," in Cliff Eisen and Simon P. Keefe, ''The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

*[[Ulrich Konrad|Konrad, Ulrich]] (2006) "Compositional method," in Cliff Eisen and Simon P. Keefe, ''The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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{{Portal bar|Classical music}}

{{DEFAULTSORT: Mozart's Compositional Method}}

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

[[Category: Classical music analysis]]