I am a professional composer myself,having studied composition and music under world wide known authorities./Peter Van Grob,Zdenek Bilek,ao/
Some of topics discussed here are showing misunderstanding of common composition principles and issues.
Anybody familiar with compostional process and process of developing ideas ( especially in means of counterpoint and instrumentation,which are topics that require vertical compositional thinking ) understands,that :
Mozart coudnt "need piano to compose" ,and that writing such type of music indeed requires memoral capabilites of ordinarily unparalleled extent
The existing letters do not show his need to compose by sitting in front of keyboard,they show what we know as need for sort of "musizieren" /german word for making music on the spot,but not improvising / By the very nature of his works ,one could easily see ,that basically this type of music cannot be written sitting by the piano,when one takes into consideration the inner flow and very specific logic of his music. If hed try to composer behind the piano,it would cause considerable amount of limitations.
One can to some extent determine if a composer was working on piano while composing.This is possible especcialy in realm of tonal music.For example,Betthovens music is easilly readable in these terms.His instrumentation and harmonization proportions are into large extent influenced by piano,which inst observable in any of Mozarts works,possibly with exceptions in early age. Mozarts music is " ready" from beginning to end,which is easilly observable on nature of his decisions in concrete compositional situations.
There are two things to support this claim : if records about his improvising on fugues and fugato styles are relevant,then this makes "romantic " claims on his memory absolutely valid.Such an improvisation ( that relies on perfect,realtime manipulation with two,three and more voices in total harmony) requires several times greater memory and logic capabiliteis than composing sonata or symphony from begging to end completely in head.There are some other hsitorical records about him improvising fugas with high number of voices.We also know about his pleasure in mathematic and logic riddles and games ,that undoubtly points to his capabilities in areas of memory and logic.
Adam Kuruc
--195.91.79.181 (talk) 10:11, 29 August 2008 (UTC)Adam Kuruc--195.91.79.181 (talk) 10:11, 29 August 2008 (UTC)