Mozart's compositional method: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:19, 16 July 2021

Revision as of 02:38, 17 July 2021

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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 memorization and transcription of [[Gregorio Allegri]]'s "''[[Miserere (Allegri)|Miserere]]"'' in the [[Sistine Chapel]] as a 14-year-old. 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}}, and Mozart was able to return to hear another performance, correcting his earlier errors. [[Maynard Solomon]] suggested that Mozart may have seen another copy earlier, but added that he <nowiki>''"certainly had the capacity to write out the ''Miserere'' from memory''</nowiki>".{{sfn|Solomon|1995|p=5}}

==19th-century views==

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<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. And as late as 1952 a volume of collected papers from a symposium on the creative process reproduces 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>

But although it has been influential in historical conceptions of Mozart, the letter has more recently not been regarded as an accurate description of Mozart's compositional process.{{sfn|Konrad|2006|p=101}} 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 description of how Mozart composed: