Mozart's compositional method: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 01:45, 29 January 2021

Revision as of 00:47, 6 March 2021

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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. Nineteenthtwenty first-century views on this topic were often based on a romantic, mythologizing conception of the process of composition. MoreThe more 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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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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{{Portal bar|Classical music}}

{{DEFAULTSORT: Mozart's Compositional Method}}

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

[[Category: Classical music analysis]]