Köchel/7 p. 330; Haberkamp p. 112ff.; RISM M 6958 - 6961 (not this issue); Coll. Hoboken XI, no. 86. First edition, 8th issue (some worn plates had been exchanged, others with some cracks). – The theme of these variations comes from Nicolas Dezède’s air Lison dormoit in the comic opera Julie (libretto by Monvil). These variations were composed in Paris in late summer 1778 and are among Mozart’s most virtuoso piano works. The Mozart scholar Volkmar Braunbehrens therefore suggests that Mozart almost certainly chose this work for his performance at the contest with Muzio Clementi.  

The first edition of the sonata Clementi played in the contest

67. CLEMENTI, M. – MOZART, W. A. – ATTWOOD, T. Storace’s Collection of Original Harpsichord Music. Vol. II. No. 5, Containing, a Sonata [by] Clementi; A Sonata with Accomp.ts for a Violin & Violoncello [by] Mozart; A Sonata with Accomp.ts for a Violin & Violoncello [by] Attwood Elève de Mozart. London, Printed for S. Storace… and Sold by Mess. Birchall & Andrews [July 1789]. 32 pp., paginated 138 to 170, engraved, folio, with separate title-page with pictorial decoration (Orpheus with lions); without the violin and cello parts for the Mozart and Attwood trios.
£ 1,250

RISM Rec. Impr. p. 374; Tyson (Clementi) p. 62; Haberkamp p. 319 and pl. 287. Three first editions. A unique collection combining two important names in Mozart’s world, Clementi and Attwood, with the first edition of Mozart’s piano trio K. 564. It was still published during the composer’s lifetime, but the string parts are unfortunately missing. The first composition of this collection, Clementi’s Sonata op. 24 No. 2, has an interesting anecdotal importance in Mozart’s life: Clementi played it on 24 December 1781 in his contest with Mozart at the request of Joseph II. This sonata was first published separately in 1789 by Stephen Storace before being re-published by Clementi in his opus 41 of 1804.

Clementi gave an account of this event in a letter to his pupil Ludwig Berger: “In the Emperor’s Music room, I met an elegant person I believed to be an Imperial Chamberlain, but as soon as we had engaged in conversation on musical subjects we recognised each other as artistic comrades – Mozart and Clementi.” Clementi adds: “I had never before heard a pianist playing so intelligently and with so much grace.” In the reports to his father (letters of 12 and 16 January 1782) Mozart is not as polite as his ‘comrade’: “Clementi plays well in so far as execution with the right hand goes. His greatest strength lies in his passages in thirds. Apart from this, he has not a kreutzer’s worth of taste or feeling – in short he is simply a mechanic.” Four days later Mozart writes in the same vein, only on 7 June 1783 does he criticise Clementi’s compositions: “Everyone who either hears them or plays them must feel that as compositions they are worthless. […] Clementi is a ciarlatano, like all Italians.” His father, Leopold, did not think so and used Clementi’s works for his pupil Marchand. Beethoven rated Clementi’s sonatas higher than Mozart’s and Haydn’s.

The sonata offered here is indeed remarkable. The beginning is well-known to all musical amateurs – as the opening of Mozart’s Zauberflöte! See U. Drüner, Mozarts Große Reise (2006): “This is great music which does not need to hide behind Haydn and Mozart.”  

Clementi’s second competition piece: the Toccata op. 11

68. CLEMENTI, Muzio (1752-1832). OEuvres Complettes de Muzio Clementi Cahier VI. Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel [1804]. Title-page with very fine vignette by A.W. Böhm, 110 pp. typeset, oblong folio, a few spots but a good copy; recent wrappers. £ 190

Tyson (Clementi) p. 127; RISM C 3155. – This volume contains seven Sonatas (op. 41, 24/2, 9/1- 3, 20, 11), the Toccata op. 11 and two Capriccios op. 34. According to Clementi’s account of the contest in a letter to his pupil Berger, the Toccata op. 11 was the second piece he performed. The Sonata op. 24 no. 2 with the Zauberflöte opening theme is also contained in this volume on p. 20 ff. In order to secure his artistic priority, Clementi noted at the beginning of this sonata: “Cette Sonate, avec la Toccata, qui la suit, a été jouée par l’auteur devant S. M. J. Joseph II. en 1781, Mozart étant présent.”  

Sight-reading at the contest

 Mozart reports that the Grand Duchess of Russia produced some sonatas by Paisiello for sight-reading after the solo performances. Mozart says that Paisiello’s pieces were “wretchedly written out in his own hand”. The Talleyrand collection, which was created in Naples between 1785 and 1795 in close connection with Paisiello himself, gives us the opportunity to offer a very fine manuscript – a valuable source for the pieces played by Mozart and Clementi.

69. PAISIELLO, Giovanni (1740–1816). Libro Primo [Libro Secondo] Raccolta di Varij Rondeaux e Capricci con L’Accompagnamento di Violino per il Piano forte, o Clavicembalo Composte Espressamente Per S. A. I. La Gran Duchessa di tutte le Russie dal Sig.re Giovanni Paisiello Maestro di Capella all’ Attual Servizio di S. M. I. L’Imperatrice Catterina II, 1783. Full score in a neat hand of an Italian (or Russian ?) copyist with additions and a few corrections in Paisiello’s hand, Libro Primo: title-page, 102 pp.; Libro Secondo: 124 pp., both parts with full index with thematic catalogue; oblong folio. Slightly later Neapolitan half-calf binding with marbled boards (after 1785, with Marescalchi’s label); during the binding a second title-page with printed and finely hand-coloured Chinese style passe-partout frame (frequently used by the copisteria L. Marescalchi, Napoli) has been added with a slightly different title text.
£ 2,900

Robinson 8.14; MGG/2 XII, col. 1576. This manuscript is dated 1783, the year of completion of this large collection of divertimento compositions. Paisiello was Maestro di capella at St. Petersburg from 1776 to 1784, and had begun to compose the Raccolta commissioned by the Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna of Russia as early as 1781. Our manuscript was revised by Paisiello himself; the title-page bears the “Libro Primo” and an additional “t” in “Attual” in his hand; there are a few further corrections; p.1 shows a slur in the same hand. Many of the Preludios (mostly without tempo marking) and several other movements have Paisiello’s autograph marking “fatto l’allegro”. This suggests that our manuscript may have been used by the composer for teaching purposes; since the Talleyrand collection includes several autograph manuscripts by Paisiello it seems probable that the pupil may have been Baroness Marie-Louise-Fidèle de Talleyrand-Périgord herself (she started the collection). Thus our manuscript appears to be a primary source of this important chamber music collection whose autograph seems to be lost. It appears that Paisiello gave away the manuscript for copying purposes (see next item); afterwards the manuscript was bound by the copisteria Marescalchi (established in Naples in 1785) who added his own new title-page, quoting Paisiello’s new appointment as All’attual servizio Delle L. L. M. M. Siciliane (from September 1784).

Robinson traces only ten (mostly imperfect) copies of our collection; a selection of 12 pieces was published around 1790 by Sieber, Paris (cf. BUC, p. 758; RISM P / PP 635; only 3 complete copies); Longman & Broderip, London, printed a selection of 18 pieces in 1788. (RISM P 634). Our manuscript includes 44 single movements partly grouped in small cycles (15 in Book I and 19 in book II): sonatas with a preludio for piano solo and a Rondeaux [sic] for piano and violin; several pieces are called sinfonia, cappriccio, notturno; there are also four operatic extracts, and at the end, a Sonata a Cembalo Solo. The violin part is only an accompaniment at the beginning of the collection but becomes more and more concertant and dialogué according to the French chamber music tendencies of that time. Frequently Paisiello uses a technique with a perfect interpenetration of the two instrumental parts in Haydn’s and Mozart’s manner. This collection includes 18 movements for pianoforte solo and 26 for pianoforte with violin; it is a highly interesting and valuable work which merits to be revived for performance today.

According to Robinson the Grand Duchess brought autograph parts of this collection to Vienna when visiting Emperor Joseph II in 1781. Mozart writes: “The Grand Duchess produced some sonatas by Paisiello […] of which I had to play the Allegros and Clementi the Andantes and Rondos. We then selected them and developed it on two pianofortes.”   

Primary and secondary sources

 
70. PAISIELLO, Giovanni (1740–1816). Libro Primo. Raccolta Di varj Rondò, Capricci, e Sinfonie Per Cembalo, o Piano Forte. Composti espressamente Per uso di S.A.S. La Gran Duch:a di tutte le Russie [...] All’attual Servizio delle LLMM In qualità di Maestro di Camera, e Compositore. [Neapel, Marescalchi, after 1785]. Manuscript in the hand of a professional Neapolitan copyist, 127 pp. piano score (+ 2 pp. index), [32] pp. separate violin part (stains on last pp.), each with a very fine engraved and hand-coloured title-page (vignette with an angel playing the lyre, title text in blue and red ink within an oval frame), good contemporary half-calf binding with marbled boards and gilt label on spine (corners and edges rubbed, tear on lower board). £ 800

Robinson 8.14. – The content is the same as movements 1-21 in the previous volume. When comparing these two manuscripts it becomes evident that the second has been copied directly from the first; indeed, the latter shows cross references corresponding exactly to the page layout of the second manuscript. These signs were perhaps used as orientation marks for a series of commercial manuscripts by Marescalchi’s copisteria. Thus we meet here a primary source – controlled by the composer – and a secondary one for the direct service of the Italian market (which, throughout the whole 18th century, preferred manuscript rather than printed copies).

In Robinson’s Thematic Catalogue of Paisiello’s works each movement is numbered separately. In both manuscripts offered here they generally are put into groups of two or three movements each. In respect of the manuscripts’ proximity to the composer, we believe that this arrangement may be quite close to Paisiello’s intentions. 

Clementi seeks more success in Vienna

71. CLEMENTI, Muzio. Trois Sonates Pour le Clavecin ou Pianoforte… OEuvre VII. Vienna, Artaria, pl. no. 32 [1782]. 28 pp. engraved, oblong folio, upper margin cut narrowly (a few notes are missing). £ 200

RISM C 2780; Tyson p. 43. First edition. The only collection of sonatas published by Clementi during his stay in Vienna (December 1781 – May 1782). During this sojourn he gave a public concert whilst Mozart planned his own Lent concert, as the latter reports rather crossly in his letter of 23 January 1782. Thus the ‘piano contest’ seems to have taken place in public, and Clementi almost certainly played one of the sonatas offered here with Wolfgang Amadé in the audience… The sonata no 3 (G minor) of op. 7 is said to have had a great impact on Beethoven. “These sonatas use a completely new tone […] with passionate effect demanding that espressivo which will be the most frequent expression mark in Clementi’s later compoitions” (New MGG).  

Clementi reports on a crucial moment in his career

72. CLEMENTI, Muzio (1752-1832). Long and important autograph letter signed, Londra 21 December 1798, to Clementi’s brother Gaetano in Rome, 3 pp. 4to (22.2 x 18.3 cm), some tears, small loss to the seal not affecting the text; with autograph address on p. 4. £ 1,900

Clementi reports that he had “entrato in una nuova occupazione”, the commerce of music and instruments. He will be in association with Longman, Hyde, Collard and others, but has nothing to do with Broderip: “il quale fece bancarotta qualche tempo fa” [earlier in 1798]. Clementi explains that the new association urgently needs a great quantity of gut for strings, “chiamate corde da Violino, Basso, e Arpa”; he had written to Signori Pica, Toffani and Co. to order a considerable quantity. He asks his brother to use his “eloquenza” in order to accelerate the dispatch and to ask for a “buona mercanzia” and “un disconto” since the order is quite “considerabile”. Then Clementi gives details of the last orders from early 1797 as information to support his brother’s commercial discussion. Finally he asks for news of his sister Regina and sends “mille e mille cose graziose per teperla in buon umore”, and further greetings to the other sorella Maria Louisa and to his godson Muzietto….

Clementi, who had already been involved with the firm of Longman & Broderip, had suffered serious financial losses as a consequence of the latter’s bankruptcy which lead the whole firm to fail. Due to Clementi’s efforts the firm recovered quickly and around 1811 was one of the most important in the British music trade. – A fine letter of great biographical interest.  


73. CLEMENTI, Muzio (1752-1832). Fine autograph letter signed, in Italian, [Lichfield], 27 June 1830, to Giulio Ricordi in Milano, 1 p. 4to. (24 x 20 cm), in very good condition. £ 900Clementi asks for Signor Ricordi’s help in quite a delicate matter. Clementi finds himself in an “imbroglio” with a certain Don Giacinto Frigerio who was owing Clementi “la somma di quattro mila lire Italiane coi loro interessi al 5 per cento”; Frigerio paid it to Don Marco Vico who had not yet forwarded the sum. The latter had asked: “usare un poco di pazienza, quale ho fatto ampiamente”. Now Clementi does not know how to recover that sum and asks Ricordi: “Vedete dunque, caro il mio Ricordi, di spedirmi questo affare.” He had written a long time ago, but had recently suffered “da una grava malattia” (Clementi was then 78 years of age). He gives the address of his London banker and his own address, the famous residence Lincroft House near Lichfield, Staffordshire.  

‘Die Entführung aus dem Serail’
A very rare piano arrangement
 
Die Entführung had been commissioned by Emperor Joseph II, and was composed from July 1781 to May 1782.This opera was very successful (16 performances in 1782), and a further one was givenon the request of Christoph Willibald Gluck.

 
74. MOZART, W. A. [KV 384] Sinfonia dell’opera die Entführung aus dem Serail ridotta a quadro Mane per il Clavicembalo [...] No. 2. Straubing, Schmid [c. 1800]. Engraved title-page and 17 pp. piano score in lithography, folio; a few signs of use, otherwise a good copy. £ 280

RISM M 4312 (only 2 copies); not in Twyman. – A very rare document of Bavarian local music publishing and a valuable incunabulum of lithography. This edition quotes the engraver (title-page: Joh. Nep. Hund sc. Pedeponti), and also the lithographer (at the end of the music: auf Stein gedruckt bey A. Niedermayr in Regensburg).

This edition documents the wide diffusion of the Entführung into remote local cultural life.  

Forkel reports on “Die Entführung aus dem Serail”

75. FORKEL, F. N. (Editor). Musikalischer Almanach für Deutschland auf das Jahr 1784. Leipzig, im Schwickertschen Verlag, 1784. 8vo. Pp. viii, 274 pp., 1f., 1f. adverts., contemporary boards. With the bookplate of Alfred Cortot. £ 750The Almanac, edited by F. N. Forkel, contains a brief biographical note of Mozart (p.104) referring to the journeys to Paris and London and a few published compositions. ‘Now he is said to reside in Vienna. … In 1782 he composed an opera, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, in Vienna, which was generally well received’.

Mozart’s gift for Constanze on her marriage - 
the first edition of the C minor Mass

76. MOZART, W. A. [KV 427] Missa aus C moll .... Partitur. Nach der hinterlassenen Original= Handschrift herausgegeben und mit einem Vorbericht begleitet von A. André. Offenbach, J. André, pl.-no. 6318 [1840]. 163 pp. lithographed, oblong folio, a few stains, otherwise a good copy in original wrappers. £ 1,800

Köchel/7 S. 448; RISM M 4049; Hirsch IV, 864; coll. Hoboken XI, no. 175. – The very rare first edition. The autograph was more complete in André’s time than today; the first edition therefore has an indispensable source value. The C minor Mass was never completed by Mozart, but he later re-used parts of it for the cantata Davidde penitente [K. 469].

Mozart had promised Constanze to write a Mass for her in the event of their marriage, which took place on 4 August 1782. Mozart fulfilled his promise with a performance of the Mass on 27 October 1783 in Salzburg, where Constanze sang one of the two soprano parts. According to Köchel/7, “the missing parts [Credo and Agnus Dei] almost certainly had been replaced from previous Masses”. André re-constructed the extant parts of the Mass by 1840 and eliminated the changes Mozart had marked in his autograph when arranging it for Davidde penitente; André also used a Bavarian manuscript copy which was helpful in arranging the autograph fragments. He printed the two unfinished movements in the original form without completing them; his publication is a rare and early example of editorial accuracy at a time when serious textual principles were uncommonly adhered to.

The C minor Mass is one of Mozart’s most moving religious compositions; many attempts at completion were undertaken from 1901 onwards (the most recent in 2005 by Robert Levin).  

Mozart’s publishers
A close friend among his early publishers

 
77. HOFFMEISTER
, Franz Anton (1754-1812). Sonate pour le Fortepiano, ou Clavecin. Vienna, Hoffmeister, pl.-no. 100 [1786]. 13 pp., engraved, oblong folio, a fine copy. £ 220

RISM H 6183 (only 3 copies). – This is a three movement sonata (Allegro – Adagio – Rondeau) in an advanced form of the Viennese classical style. Hoffmeister settled in Vienna in 1783 and founded a music publishing firm; his Leipzig branch later became the celebrated firm of C. F. Peters. Hoffmeister was one of Mozart’s publishers from 1785 onwards and issued 15 first editions and many reprints and arrangements. Beethoven later called Hoffmeister “my most beloved brother and friend”; it seems that his contacts with Mozart, to whom he lent money more than once, were on a similar basis.

One of Hoffmeister’s first editions of a work by Mozart

78. MOZART, W. A. [K. 478] Quatuor pour Le Clavecin, ou Forte Piano Violon, Tallie
et Basse.... Vienna, Hoffmeister, pl.-no. 22 [Dec. 1785]. Engraved; 18 pp. piano part in oblong folio, 6 pp. violin part folio, 4 pp. cello part (from the Schott edition c. 1788, pl.- no. 71), viola part in photocopy. From the Talleyrand collection. £ 1,800
 
RISM M 6306/6313; Köchel/7 p. 517 f.; Haberkamp p. 240 f. (ill. 199); Hirsch IV, 89; coll. Hoboken XI no.240. First edition of the piano and violin parts. Haberkamp claims that the issue with the underlined composer’s name and the additional “No. 1” may be the first. We do not share this opinion since the underlining is much too large for any erasure without trace. We believe that the underlining and the addition of numbering and price are the right criteria for the second issue. The numbering refers to an agreement between Hoffmeister and Mozart for the publication of three quartets, but the first was criticised as too complicated (in 1788 the Journal des Luxus und der Moden objected that Mozart had written an “incomprehensible tintamarre”; even in 1800 Rochlitz observed that it was “strange, like an appearance from another world”). The work sold badly, and according to Nissen, Hoffmeister suggested Mozart cancel the series without asking for the return of the money already paid for the two other quartets. The second (K. 493) was published by Artaria, and the third was never composed.   

An early publisher but not a friend 

79. KOZELUCH, Leopold (1747-1818). Tre Sonate Per il Clavicembalo o Forte Piano [...] Opera II. Vienna, Artaria, pl.-no. 8 [1780]. Title-page (with fine floral border, opus no. changed from I to II in manuscript), 34 pp. engraved, folio, an excellent copy. £ 280

 
RISM K 1719; Postolka XII: 11–13. One of the earliest music publications of the most successful Viennese music publisher in the late 18th century – Artaria. This edition was prepared by the celebrated engraver Huberty who had previously worked in Paris (Huberty Sculpsit on p. 2). The two first sonatas follow the conventional three-movement form; the third sonata experiments on a suite form with half cadenza transitions: Largo (C minor) – Poco Presto (C minor) – Largo (C minor) – Allegretto (C major).

The contacts between Mozart and Kozeluch seem not to have been of the best; this is not surprising since both were strong competitors in the field of piano music. The periodical quoted in the previous item cites Kozeluch and Pleyel as more successful than Mozart. Nevertheless a remark in a letter to Puchberg indicates that Mozart thought of giving the ‘Prussian quartets’ to Kozeluch’s publishing firm. Finally commercial contact was established when Kozeluch published one of the two first editions of Die Zauberflöte (cf. item 144 in this catalogue).   

The greatest publishing dynasty of Mozart’s work 

80. ANDRÉ, Johann (1741–1799). Autograph letter signed, Berlin, 17 June 1780, probably to Friedrich Wilhem Marpurg, 3 pp. 4to (23.5 x 19.5 cm), in very good condition. £ 600

 
From 1787 onwards Mozart rapidly became a pillar in the repertory of Johann André’s musical publishing house - the piano trio K. 496 was the first “Mozart” of the firm (Pl.-No. 157, a re-edition). Up to his retirement in 1799 Johann André had already issued 107 editions of works by Mozart; so it was not surprising but rather consistent with the firm’s policy that his son and successor, Johann Anton André (1775-1842), started discussing the purchase of all the Mozart manuscripts with his widow Konstanze in 1799 immediately after he took over the direction of his father’s firm. – Another point of contact between Mozart and Johann André was the fact that the latter also composed Bretzner’s Singspiel Belmont und Constanze, oder: Die Entführung aus dem Serail, premièred in Berlin on 25 May 1781, just one year before Mozart’s setting (Vienna, 16 July 1782).

The present letter dates from the period when André was Music Director in Berlin (1777-84) where he was in close contact with the supposed recipient of this letter, Marpurg. André writes: “For a long time I have wished to count you among my friends, for I have regarded myself as your friend since I came across your writings.” The recipient loved André’s songs; the latter therefore now wishes to send him two acts of his last opera Das wütende Heer: “If there are several arias you like please copy them and return my manuscript to me at your convenience through the post office.” André also mentions a ballet written for the King’s anniversary: “Please give me your opinion on both works quite frankly.” – Letters by Johann André are exceedingly rare.   

An old friend, but not a publisher - Michael Haydn  

81. MOZART, W. A. [K. 423-424] Due Duetti per Violino e Viola del Sig. W. A. Mozart. Vienna, Artaria Comp., pl.-no. 394 [Sept. 1792]. 12, 11 pp. engraved parts, folio, a splendid and very fresh copy. From the Talleyrand collection. £ 4,500
 
Köchel/7 p. 461 f.; Haberkamp p. 208 f. (ill. 164); RISM M 6267; coll. Hoboken XI no. 186; not in Hirsch. – First edition, first issue. This is one of the rarest Mozart editions; indeed no copy has been recorded in the trade during the last three decades.

Mozart composed these duos between July and October 1783 when he visited his father in Salzburg. Two pupils of Michael Haydn, Georg Schinn and Josef Otter, report in their biography of Haydn (1808) that the latter received an order from the Archbishop to compose six duets for violin and viola. Since Michael Haydn was in very frail health at that time he felt unable to complete this commission; four duos were ready (and are known today, edited in 1911). In order to help his colleague and childhood friend, Mozart wrote the two missing duos.

One may wonder whether Archbishop Colloredo recognised the stylistic differences between Mozart’s and Michael Haydn’s duos; indeed, the latter’s pieces are more like sonatas for the violin with a viola accompaniment, whereas Mozart’s duos are masterly examples of the technique of close intermingling of the instruments.

 

Written for a new friend - Ignaz Leutgeb

 
82. MOZART, W. A. [K 495] 3me Concerto pour Le Cor, accompagné de 2 Violons, Alto, Basse, deux Hautbois et deux Cors [...] Oeuvre 106. [...] Offenbach, André, pl.-no. 1591 [1801, but later issue]. Complete set of parts, lithographed, folio: Corno principale (6 pp.), Ob 1 (2 pp.), Ob 2 (2 pp.), Hr 1 (2 pp.), Hr 2 (2 pp.), Vl. 1 (5 pp.), Vl. 2 (5 pp.), Va (4 pp.), Basso (4 pp.). From the collection of Alfred Cortot. £ 450
 
RISM M 5761; Constapel, p. 133; Haberkamp, p. 264. The second edition. Mozart’s horn concertos were written for his friend Joseph Leutgeb (1732-1811), a brilliant exponent of that instrument, but a rather naive person. Mozart met him again when he settled in Vienna, and wrote four concertos and one quintet for him. Mozart used to tease him in letters and even in his manuscripts (e. g. “Signor Asino” in K. 412).
 
 

The only operatic full score published in Mozart’s lifetime

 
83. BIANCHI, Francesco (1752-1810) - MOZART, W. A. [K 480] Trio Mandina amabile in: La Villanella Rapita Ou La Villageoise enlevée. Opera Bonffon [sic] En Trois Actes, Représenté au théâtre de Monsieur en 1789. Musique Italienne de Diférens Célèbres Compositeurs, Paroles Italienne Traduite en Françaises, Par M. D.*** Prix 30tt. Paris, Sieber, pl.-no. 1060 [1789]. Title-page, 267 pp. full score with text in French and Italian, engraved, folio. In a fine contemporary half-parchment binding with brocade boards. £ 3,600
 
Köchel/7 p. 521; Haberkamp, p. 243f. (Abb. 202); RISM B & BB 2560 and RISM B II, p. 397; Hirsch 2, no. 63; not in coll. Hoboken. – The extremely rare first edition of this pasticchio and the only full score of any of Mozart’s operatic works published during his lifetime. Bianchi’s opera, originally in two acts, was first performed in Venice in autumn 1783 and became his most successful work. Mozart was asked to contribute two pieces for the first Viennese production on 25 November 1785: the quartet Dite almeno, in che mancai [K. 479], and the terzetto Mandina amabile [K. 480]. The quartet was only published posthumously in 1804 by Breitkopf & Härtel (no. VI der Mozartschen Arien; orchestral parts in 1805). The trio was published in Paris – almost certainly without Mozart’s knowledge – on the occasion of the first Paris production of Bianchi’s work on 15 June 1789. – Mozart’s composition is on pp. 51–71 and forms the finale to the first act. His authorship is mentioned at the top of the score: del Sig.r Mozart. Most of the other pieces are by Bianchi, but the score also includes numbers by Giovanni Paisiello, Giuseppe Sarti and others.
 
 

Mozart and the string quartet
He recommends “the quartets of a certain Pleyel” to his father

 
84. PLEYEL, Ignace (1757–1831). Sei Quartetti a due Violini, Viola, e Violoncello… Opera I. Vienna, presso Rodolfo Graeffer Librajo… [c. 1784-85]. 4 parts in manuscript,30, 25, 23, 23 pp., large folio (35 x 24.5 cm), browned, each part with the finely drawn title-page after the Graeffer first edition of 1783; each part with ownership note “Schrepffer”. From the Talleyrand Collection. £ 800
 
Cf. Benton (3013) 301-6; cf. RISM P 3118. – This is obviously an extremely early manuscript copy made from the first edition of Pleyel’s Opus One; it must have been copied before 1785 since from that year onwards a rapidly growing quantity of reprints overwhelmed the market: Benton and RISM quote as many as 17 editions before 1798. ‘Normal’ manuscript copies may have completed this picture, but ‘luxury’ manuscripts with four highly artistic title-pages as in our copy may not have been written while excellent and finely engraved reprints from Artaria, André, Hummel etc were available at much less outlay. This manuscript may be regarded as a tribute by an early admirer (perhaps named “Schrepffer”) of the thunderous success Pleyel obtained with his earliest publications. This success is mirrored even in the letters of Mozart, who was usually so reticent in acclaiming competitive composers, as he writes on 24 April 1784 to his father: “I must tell you that some quartets have just appeared, composed by a certain Pleyel, a pupil of Joseph Haydn. If you do not know them, do try and get hold of them; you will find them worth the trouble. They are very well written and most pleasing to listen to. You will also see at once who was his master. Well, it will be a lucky day for music if later on Pleyel should be able to replace Haydn.” – Pleyel’s output reached 2,500 editions before c. 1830 (Haydn’s works are known ‘only’ in 2,300 editions during the same period).
 
 
85. PLEYEL, Ignace (1757–1831). Autograph letter signed, Dresden, 4 September 1800, to the publisher Franz Anton Hoffmeister (1754–1812) in Leipzig, 1 p. 4to (22.5×19.5cm), 1 leaf with address; small tears to the right border, otherwise in fine condition. £ 1,350
 
After Mozart and Joseph Haydn, Ignace Pleyel was the most frequently published composer before 1800, and he was dethroned only by Mozart’s posthumous popularity after 1800, to which Pleyel himself contributed as a publisher from 1796 onwards by preparing many first French editions of the Salzburg master’s works.

The letter offered here is a document of great historical importance and shows the close friendship between two highly important publishers of that time, Hoffmeister and Pleyel. Pleyel reports that he has been in correspondence with J. Haydn for several months on the subject of his “oratorio, genant die Schopfung” [sic]. He hopes to be able to travel to Vienna since the armistice would permit such a plan; “but since I am a French citizen this is not possible. Therefore I ask you to go immediately to Vienna; with this letter I give you authority to conclude a contract in my name with Haydn referring to the purchase of that oratorio for France.” This edition was indeed published in 1801 as La Création, and it appears that the present letter must have gone through Haydn’s hands when Hoffmeister concluded the contract in Pleyel’s name.
Autograph material by Pleyel is extremely rare.
 
 

1785: Dittersdorf plays the quartets dedicated to Haydn with Mozart

 
86. DITTERS VON DITTERSDORF, Carl. Letter (probably in the hand of Dittersdorf’s son) with autograph signature (“Carl v: Dittersdorf”), Roth Lhota (Bohemia), 10 November 1798, to C. G. Breitkopf in Leipzig, 2 pp. 8vo (22 x 17.5 cm), slightly browned, otherwise in very good condition. £ 1,600
 
Mozart and Dittersdorf knew each other very well; the latter invited Mozart to perform a piano concerto (K. 482) between the acts of his oratorio Esther on 23 December 1785. Their most memorable meeting was on 12 February 1785 when Dittersdorf played the first violin and Mozart the viola in a concert in Mozart’s house, in which three of the celebrated quartets dedicated to Haydn were first performed. Both Haydn himself and Leopold Mozart attended this concert, and Haydn said on that occasion to Leopold: “Before God and as a honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name.”

Dittersdorf’s very informative letter offered here was written one year before his death. He was very ill and lived as a guest of Baron Ignaz von Stillfried in Bohemia. At this very time Dittersdorf dictated his celebrated autobiography to his son (published in 1801, see item 65), and the son almost certainly wrote this letter. In a postscript Dittersdorf adds that “I was not able to write myself since I am suffering from gout […] I was obliged to dictate all you are receiving.” The signature therefore is very shaky.

Dittersdorf confirms the receipt of a parcel sent by Breitkopf containing “the two first parts of the [Allgemeine] musikalische Zeitung”. Dittersdorf promises to send a repertory of his new compositions soon; he mentions several works which are lost today: “some Italian and 6 or 7 German operas [on librettos] by Kotzebue, Herklots and Bretzner composed by myself and not yet performed in any public theatre and therefore completely unknown. Furthermore 12 Sonatas for the Fortepiano for 4 hands, 12 Sonatas for 2 hands and 6 Symphonies after Ovid arranged for the Fortepiano for 4 hands, which have not yet been engraved in copper and which therefore are completely unknown, and then 12 Variations on celebrated romances, songs and arias from my compositions as well as from those of other composers of German and French operas.”

This letter gives a surprisingly full inventory of Dittersdorf’s late works; it shows quite a clever commercial sense linked to a true feeling of artistic responsibility: “[…] it was always my wont to keep back my compositions for several years in order to improve and polish them up, and to strike from time to time with a large quantity of them […]” – The reference to the Symphonies after Ovid is highly important: They are probably Dittersdorf’s best works and show him on an artistic level at which he was actively in competition with Mozart’s early symphonies.
 
 

Dittersdorf’s best achievement in the field of string quartet

 
87. DITTERS VON DITTERSDORF, Karl (1739–1799). Sei Quartetti per due Violini, Viola e Violoncello. Wien, Artaria, pl.-no. 221 [1789]. 4 engraved parts, folio: Vl. 1 (title, 25 pp.), Vl. 2 (19 pp.), Va (title, 15 pp.), Vc (title, 15 pp.), in excellent condition. £ 900
 
RISM D 3285 und DD 3285 (not in GB or USA). – The first violin part includes a Catalogue Thematique ou Commencement de chaque Quatuor, Quintet Trios et Duo compose par Jgnace Pleyel, qui se vendent a Vienne chez Artaria Compag. – These quartets are arranged in D, B, F, C, Es, A, an attempt to encompass the most usual tonal keys. These works do not comply with the conventional four-movement type; they mostly have only three movements with a predominance of the first allegro which takes up nearly half of each quartet. The second movement is frequently a minuet with minor alternativo, followed by a rapid finale; the quartets no. 2 and 4 terminate, however, with an andante con variazioni.

This is the only published collection of  Dittersdorf’s string quartets; surprisingly only six more in manuscript are extant (Dresden) within Dittersdorf’s very large instrumental oeuvre. They are among Dittersdorf’s last chamber music works and show the influence of Haydn and Mozart: interpenetration of the instrumental parts and contrapuntal techniques, cyclical planning and opposition of demanding and popular themes. These quartets were always highly esteemed and were re-published many times from 1866 onwards.
 
 

“Be to them a father, guide and friend!”
Mozart describes Haydn as a ‘guide’ and ‘father’ of his string quartet

 

Since his youth Mozart was familiar with Haydn’s works; the early symphonies, among them K. 42a, 43, 45 and 76, contain musical references to the great precursor. After moving to Vienna in 1781, Mozart’s writing comes even closer to Haydn’s from then onwards with the publication of the ‘Russian Quartets’ (Hob. III, 37-42) which are regarded as the models for the set of six quartets Mozart dedicated to Haydn (1782-85). We are unable to offer Albi Rosenthal’s copy of the first edition of these quartets (cf. introduction), but we recently acquired a copy of the second Artaria edition which was perhaps still prepared during the last days of Mozart’s life. This issue lacks the dedication which defines exactly Haydn’s rôle for Mozart as a “father, guide and friend” (Anderson p. 892); Mozart was sensitive enough to formulate the text as an appeal [“Be”] since Leopold was still alive. But it is clear that Mozart was spiritually (however not yet emotionally) separated from his biological father as a consequence of the bad experiences he had with him during the Paris journey in 1778.

In fact the influence will become mutual after 1785, as is well-known from Haydn’s late symphonies. But this is also true in other fields; after two editions of Mozart’s quartets dedicated to Haydn, three items follow which suggest Mozart influence on his spiritual “father”.

 
88. MOZART, W. A. [K. 387, 421, 428, 458, 464, 465] Tre Quartetti per due Violini Viola e Basso… Opera [ms:] 10. [book] No. 1 [book No. 2]. Vienna, Artaria e Compagni, pl. no. 59 [book 2: 139], [December 1791]. Two sets of complete parts; Book 1: 15, 12, 11, 10 pp.; Book 2: 16, 13, 12, 11 pp., engraved, folio; fine copies. From the Talleyrand collection. £ 800
 
RISM M 6111; Haverkamp p. 184. – Second edition by the original publisher Artaria. The titlepages show the decorative border of the first edition, but have the text Artaria used for the “Prussian Quartets” K. 575, 589, 590 which were advertised on 28 December 1791. This date is given by Haberkamp for the second edition of “Opera 10” as well (Haberkamp p. 184). Since the engraving of the 52 plates of musical scores took a considerable time it is quite probable that the production of the edition offered here started in the last days of Mozart’s lifetime.
 
 

The “Haydn quartets” have repercussions in Mozart’s lifetime
A very rare arrangement by the Dresden publisher Hilscher

 
89. MOZART, W. A. [KV 421 (417b)] Quattro Variazioni per il Forte-Piano [...] Pr. 6 gl. Dresden, Hilscher [c. 1789-90?]. Title-page (with decorative floral frame) + pp. 9–14, engraved, oblong folio. A fine copy. £ 480
 
Köchel/7 p. 784; RISM M 6220 (only 2 copies). First edition of the piano version of these celebrated variations (finale of the second string quartet dedicated to Haydn, first published in 1785). This movement was arranged several times for piano (see K. Anh. B 417b/421 and RISM M 6212- 13 and 6215-18). Hans Schneider has suggested 1786 as a possible date of publication; it may, however, only have been printed in 1789-90 as a consequence of Mozart’s visit to Dresden (on which occasion the celebrated Doris Stock portrait was drawn, see cover of this catalogue). Schneider comments on the pagination “irrige Paginierung”; perhaps Hilscher had issued or at least planned to publish the first part of the same quartet, but nothing from it has been recorded.

Editions by the firm of P. C. Hilscher have always been extremely rare; their engraving uses very attractive music type, though it is far removed from graphic perfection and later sophisticated printing standards.
 
 

Haydn’s late string quartets: A tribute to Mozart?

 
90. HAYDN, Joseph (1732-1809). [Hob. III, 78-80] Trois Quatuors pour deux Violons Alto et Violoncelle composés et dediés a Son Excellence Monsieur le Comte Joseph Erdödy […] OEuvre [ms :] 76. Vienna, Artaria et Comp., pl.-no. 837 [Dec. 1799]. Complete set of engraved parts, folio, 19, 17, 18, 17 pp., Viol. I with a fascinating title-page engraved by Sebastian Mansfeld (floral frame, instruments and angels with Haydn’s portrait); very slight spotting, otherwise a magnificent copy. From the Talleyrand collection. £ 1,600
 
Hob. I p. 431; RISM H 3574; Coll. Hoboken vol. 7 no. 647: first edition. Hob. III 78 is called “The Sunrise”. These quartets were given by Haydn to the English publisher Hyde, not to Longman as Larsen states (and, quoting him, Hoboken on p. 437); this will become evident in the contract we are offering in this catalogue (see item 93). The two sets of quartets op. 75 (Hob. III 75-77) and 76 (Hob. III 78-80) may be regarded as a unit and were published practically simultaneously in London and Vienna. The first set (op. 75) was registered in London on 13 June 1799 and advertised in Vienna on 20 July 1799; the second set (op. 76) on 25 April 1800 (London) and 7 December 1799 (Vienna). Thus it appears that our edition of op. 76 is the first edition as Hoboken supposes. In fact Artaria did not respect Haydn’s request that op. 76 should appear in Vienna after the English edition, as had indeed happened for op. 75; Haydn argues in his letter of 15 July 1799 to Artaria that otherwise “it would damage me to the tune of 75 Pounds Sterling” as a consequence of the contract mentioned above according the first publication to Hyde. Indeed, that contract quotes the exact amount of £ 75 on p. 2.

These quartets were composed in 1797 for Count Erdödy to whom the Artaria first edition is dedicated (the London first edition has no dedication). Erdödy had paid 100 ducats on the condition of being the exclusive owner of the quartets in the intervening two years and that they should not be published before the end of that period. The group is regarded as belonging amongst the highest achievements in the string quartet repertory.
 
 
91. HAYDN, Joseph (1732-1809). [Hob. III: 81, 82] Deux Quatuors pour Deux Violons, Alto, et Violoncelle [...] dediés A Son Altesse Monsigneur le Prince Regnant de Lobkowitz. [...] Oeuvre 77. Wien, Artaria, pl.-no. 898 [1802]. Complete set of engraved parts, folio, 17, 13, 11, 11 pp.; slight dust marks and tears, otherwise a fine copy. £ 950
 
Hoboken vol. 1 p. 436; RISM H 3582; coll. Hoboken vol. 7 no. 661. Authentic first edition, advertised on 6 October 1802. The contract Haydn concluded with Hyde on 30 July 1796 mentions another set of “Three Quartetts for different instruments ……£ 75”. It is probable that this refers to op. 77 which appeared approximately at the same time in London and Vienna as well as the preceding op. 76. The Lobkowitz quartets are the last finished compositions of this kind, followed only by the unfinished quartet no. 83. There is therefore no doubt that Oeuvre 77 belongs to the group of works about which Haydn negotiated in 1796.
 
 
92. HAYDN, Joseph (1732-1809). [Hob. III: 81, 82] Two Quartetts for Two Violins, Tenor & Violoncello composed by Joseph Haydn, Mus. Doct. Op. 80 [recte: 77]. London: Clementi, Banger, Hyde, Collard & Davis [1801/02?]. Complete set of engraved parts, folio, 17, 13, 11, 11 pp. with additional title-page to each part. In very good condition. £ 950
 
Hoboken vol. I p. 437; RISM H 3585/ HH 3585 (only 5 copies); coll. Hoboken vol. 7 no. 665 (later issue). – First English edition, dated by Hoboken “1801/02?”. Unfortunately no date of registration at Stationers’ Hall is known for this edition. Our copy has the watermark “1797” which, of course, does not give any proof of printing date. Since the firm of Longman became bankrupt in 1798 (but resumed trading at the end of the same year; see item 72) it is probable that their paper stock was not used before c. 1799, and the watermark criterion may confirm Hoboken’s supposition that the edition must have begun soon thereafter in 1801, before the expiry of the contract “between Haydn and Longman” (recte: Hyde). Thus it is possible that the present edition may slightly precede the Viennese first edition. Their contract, which is offered as the following item, is indeed dated 30 July 1796 and was due to expire on 30 July 1801.
 
 

The contract with Hyde:
Haydn’s plans his late string quartets from 1796-1801

 
93. HAYDN, Joseph (1732-1809). Articles of Agreement Indented had made concluded and fully agreed upon this 30th day of July in the year of our Lord 1796 Between Frederick Augustus Hyde […] Musick seller of the one part and Joseph Haydn of Vienna Doctor of Musick of the other part. 4 (un-numbered) pp. large folio (39 x 24.7 cm), p. 2 signed by F. A. Hyde and “Joseph Haydnmpr Doctor of Music”, witnessed by R[ebecca] Schroeter and E. Medley, with the red wax seals of Haydn “JH” and of the notary Medley “EM”; the following list of works on pp. 2-3 quoting 55 compositions is signed by Hyde with the same witness, and countersigned on Haydn’s authority by the Imperial notary Antonius Riedl, Vienna, 10th August 1796 with his red seal; p. 4 with title “Dated 1796 Mr. Frederick Augustus Hyde with Doctor Haydn…. Articles of Agreement […]; folded, p. 4 slightly dust marked, otherwise in excellent condition. £ 25,000
 
One of the most remarkable documents in the field of publishing history offered during the last decades.

This document has engendered five publications 1977-2000, the latest two by Albi Rosenthal, who commented on Frederick Augustus Hyde, a partner in the company of the successors of the firm of Longman & Broderip c. 1801-02 (“Clementi, Banger, Hyde, Collard & Davis”, cf. the imprint of Haydn’s ‘op. 80’ above). Albi Rosenthal states that he was “a rather shadowy figure among English music publishers of the period. His name is not listed separately in any of the standard works on music publishing in Great Britain and is mentioned, if at all, only in his capacity of partner in firms such as Longman & Broderip” and their predecessors (Houston & Hyde, 1795-97, who succeeded John Bland). A. Rosenthal notes furthermore that “H. C. Robbins Landon has suggested that the contract may be the ‘written result of a verbal agreement made about 1794’, which may indicate that Hyde acted briefly as an independent music seller from that date onward (until c. 1797). It was certainly a very remarkable achievement for him to secure a contract with the celebrated Dr Haydn […] It may well be that Hyde was initially hoping to publish as many of the 55 works proposed in the agreement as Haydn might be able to supply in the five ensuing years. However, he must have realised soon after it came into force that he could survive only as an associate of, or partner in, more powerful firms, under whose imprints, with or without a mention of his name, some of the works specified in the contract were eventually printed […]” Robbins Landon interpreted this contract as “not, strictly speaking, an agreement for these 55 works, but rather a price table to be used against whatever Haydn could and would deliver.” This interpretation is almost certainly imprecise; Haydn’s letter (quoted above, cf. item 90) shows clearly that he feared legal consequences in case of any infringement of the contract to Artaria’s benefit. The contract however applies only for instrumental compositions (piano sonatas and trios, quartets, quintets, symphonies, concertos) and songs (catches and glees, arias and duets). Haydn, however, was very busy with Masses and oratorios during these years – both categories were not called for in Hyde’s contract; the latter therefore received very little up to 1799, as a letter from Haydn’s biographer Griesinger to Härtel, dated 12 June 1799, reveals. Finally the contract may have applied only to some 12 compositions (the piano trios Hob. XV 27-29 and the quartets Hob. III 75-82 and perhaps the sonata Hob. XVI 52).

The witness Rebecca Schroeter was the widow of the pianist and composer Johann Samuel Schroeter (c. 1752-88), whose works had some influence on Mozart’s early compositions. Rebecca Schroeter was a devotee of Haydn and wrote a lot of loving letters to him (he copied them in his notebooks). Griesinger reports that Haydn might have married her had he been free to do so. She was one of his most important go-betweens in London.

Literature: J. Wilson & R. Macnutt, The Haydn Contract. 1976. – J. P. Larsen, A Haydn Contract, in: Musical Times, CXVII (1976). – H. C. Robbins Landon, Haydn: The Years of ‘The Creation’ 1796-1800. London etc. 1977. – A. Rosenthal, The Contract between Joseph Haydn and Frederick Augustus Hyde (1796), in: Essays in Honour of H. C. Robbins Landon on the occasion of his 70^th birthday (1989); reprinted in: A. Rosenthal, Obiter scripta (2000).
 
 

Rebecca Schroeter’s husband writes for Mozart’s piano repertory:
Op. III in one of the extremely rare complete copies

 
94. SCHROETER, Johann Samuel (c. 1752–1788). Six Concertos for the Harpsichord, or Piano Forte; With an Accompanyment for Two Violins, and a Bass. [...] Opera III. London, Napier [1774]. Complete set of engraved parts, folio: piano (title-page, 50 pp.), vl. 1 (16 pp.), vl. 2 (16 pp.), Basso (13 pp.). In very good condition. £ 850
 
RISM S 2172 (most copies are incomplete [piano without string parts], only 5 are complete); BUC p. 932. – Schroeter’s Opus III was very popular; RISM notes 8 different complete  editions, 4 part editions and 1 arrangement as a duo. The tutti parts are integrated in the piano score, so it can be played as ‘sonatas’ as well. Schroeter, who trained with J. A. Hiller and probably with C. P. E. Bach, was one of the most important virtuosos of his time and is regarded as “the first composer for the piano in a modern sense” (MGG). He lived in London from 1772 onwards and was J. C. Bach’s successor as music master to Queen Charlotte. His great career ended abruptly in consequence of his unfortunate marriage; Rebecca’s family prevented him from playing in public.

Mozart knew of Schroeter’s concertos through J. C. Bach and refers to them in many letters; on 30 July 1778 he recommends them to his sister Nannerl, and on 10 December Leopold confirms that Nannerl had begun studying them. Mozart played them since he composed four cadenzas for the concertos op. III no. 1, 4 and 6 (cf. K. 626a). Alfred Einstein was able to trace Schroeter’s influence on such late concertos as K. 365 and 413-415, especially in the formal structure of the solo part, in its arpeggios and further details (cf. K. Wolff in MQ 44, 1958). These cadenzas remained unpublished up to the appearance of the new Gesamtausgabe (c. 1950) but the following item contains the first edition of Mozart’s cadenzas to his own concertos.
 
 

The first edition of Mozart’s cadenzas

 
95. MOZART, W. A. [KV 624] Cadences ou points d’orgue pour le Piano-Forté composés par W. A. Mozart et se rapportant à ses concertos… No. (Ms.:) 1 [– 2]. Offenbach, J. André, pl. no. 1927-1928 [recte: 1925-1927] (1804). 2 books; 24 leaves with 31 lithographed pages, oblong folio; with one cadenza added in manuscript. Title-pages slightly dusty, otherwise a nice and fresh copy. From the library of Alfred Cortot with his ownership stamp “AC”. £ 950
 
Köchel/7 p. 732 ff.; Haberkamp p. 385; RISM M 5852. Rare first edition of 17 cadenzas for Mozart’s piano concertos K. 414 (No. 1-8 in vol. I), K. 453 (No. 15, 17), K. 449 (No. 22), K. 271 (No. 23-24), K. 450 (No. 29-31) and K. 488 (No. 35), a very early copy still without pagination. 18 other cadenzas (No. 9-11 [K. 415], 12-14 [K. 175], 16, 18-21 [K. 453 & 456], 25-28 [459 & 537] und 32-34 [K. 595]) had already appeared in 1801 in Artaria’s smaller collection of them. Mozart seems to have composed these cadenzas mainly for his pupils. It is likely that he did not write them down for his own use, since none are known for the “great” concertos.
 
 

An anonymous manuscript example of a cadenza for a piano
concerto possibly to K. 595

 
96. Cadenza for a piano concerto in B flat major. Manuscript, late 18th or very early 19^th century, 1 f. oblong folio (31.5 x 20 cm) slightly irregularly cut in dark brown ink in a neat professional hand, possibly with a French provenance (fleur-de-lys watermark). In very good condition. £ 300
 
The cadenza contains 23 bars in 4/4 and therefore may be attributed to a first movement of a concerto. Bars 4-7 and 10-13 seem to recapitulate two different themes of the concerto in the manner of quotation Mozart already used, but not as yet in the processing technique of Beethoven’s time. Free ornamental and virtuoso figures complete this. The cadenza has the exact length Mozart used for his examples. So our manuscript may be typical of the period from c. 1785 to 1800.

The second thematic element uses the triadic ascent which occurs in the first movement of Mozart’s B flat major K. 595; our cadenza starts with the same figuration as Mozart’s own cadenza (cf. Köchel/7 p. 682) but one octave lower and using another pattern after the first bar. In comparision with Mozart’s own cadenzas this manuscript may be regarded as simple, but it is a good practising piece and forms our link to some of Mozart’s pupils.
 
 

Some of Mozart’s pupils:
Josepha Aurnhammer

 
97. MOZART, W. A. [KV 296, 376-380] Six Sonates Pour le Clavecin, ou Pianoforte avec l’accompagnoment [sic] d’un Violon. Dediès [sic] A Mademoiselle Iosephe d’Aurnhamer. [...] Oeuvre II. Wien: Artaria, pl.-no. 22 [1781]. Piano part only, title-page (with beautiful frame) mounted, 85 pp. engraved, last leaf with repairs, oblong folio. £ 900
 
Köchel/7 p. 387; Haberkamp p. 173ff. (ill. 128); RISM M 6492; Coll. Hoboken No. 129. – First edition, second issue of the piano part (with pl.-no. on title-page, pasted over with a seller’s label by Longman & Broderip). – Mozart composed these sonatas in the summer of 1781 and dedicated them to his pupil Josepha Aurnhammer (1758–1820). She quickly fell in love with him, but he was quite unappreciative of her; indeed Mozart wrote on 27 June 1781: “The young lady is a fright, but plays enchantingly”, and on 22 August he adds: “If a painter wanted to portray the devil to the life, he would have to choose her face. She is as fat as a farm-wench, perspires so that you feel to vomit […]” Nevertheless Josepha was helpful in correcting several proofs of Mozart’s publications. In 1786 she married a clerk, Johann Bessenig and became a successful pianist.

The collection of sonatas dedicated to Josepha Aurnhammer continues the sonatas opus I composed in Mannheim and Paris (see item 55); opus II thus forms a progressive development in Mozart’s chamber music. From the Talleyrand collection.
 
 

Therese von Trattner

 
98. MOZART, W. A. [K 475, 457] Fantaisie et Sonate Pour le Forte Piano [...] oeuvre XI [...] prix 1 fl 30 Kr. Mannheim / Munich, Götz, pl.-no. 139 [1786]. Title-page, 23 pp. engraved, oblong folio; ownership mark on title-page: Maria E: et Charlotte Taylor en 1786. From the collection of Alfred Cortot with his ownership stamp “AC”. £ 1,200
 
Köchel/7 p. 496 and 515; RISM M / MM 6822 (only 3 copies). – The earliest reprint of Mozart’s C minor Fantasy, one of his most important works for solo piano. The first edition (Artaria) appeared in December 1785; our Götz edition, which was published only a few months later, marks a new stage in the reception of Mozart’s work: Not all music lovers appreciated them but it was a must to play them (this is a remark from the Journal des Luxus und der Moden quoted previously). The tragical pathos of K. 475 almost certainly did not suit many pianists in that era.

The first edition was dedicated to Madame Therese de Trattnern par le Maitre de Chapelle W. A. Mozart. She was one of Mozart’s early pupils and married the printer and publisher Johann Thomas Edler von Trattner, who was also active in the field of music (he published two operas by Chr. W. Gluck, cf. item 39 in this catalogue) and in whose large house on the Graben in Vienna Mozart lived for several years.
 
 

Mozart’s first English student

 
99. ATTWOOD, Thomas (1765-1838). Autograph letter signed “Th Attwood”, dated 1809 in another hand, to the publishers Monzani or Hill (attribution in another old hand), 2 pp. 19 x 12 cm, repair to the lower right corner (no loss of text), with address leaf (small loss of paper). £ 1,450
 
Attwood asks the addressee of this letter “please to send a sett of things for the Violin, Violoncello, & Tenor tomorrow without fail to Capet Court direct […] There is to be a musical party on Wednesday Salomon leads. We want a flute; therefore if you wish request our amico to call on Salomon’s request him to take him down with him […]” This letter refers to John Peter Salomon (1745-1815), a German violinist and concert-manager who lived in England from 1781 onwards, and is well-known for inviting Haydn to England in 1790.

Thomas Attwood was Mozart’s pupil from August 1785 to February 1787. The composer said that amongst all his pupils Attwood understood his musical style best. The manuscripts of Attwood’s lessons with Mozart show many additions and corrections in the latter’s hand. Attwood was later a very successful composer and “honoured” his former master by introducing parts of Mozart’s compositions into his own works such as “The Red Cross Knights” (1799), or “Elphi Bey, or: The Arab’s Faith” (1817).
Letters by Thomas Atwood are very scarce on the market.
 
 

An unrecorded edition by Attwood

 
100. ATTWOOD, Thomas. The Favorite Overture to the Magic Oak or Harlequin Woodcutter, performed at the Theatre Royal Covent Garden, arranged as a Sonata, for the Harp or Piano Forte. London, Goulding, Phipps & D’Almaine [c. 1799]. Title-page, 6 pp., engraved, folio; small stain on title, otherwise a fine copy.
£ 280
 
This edition is not in BUC, not in RISM; there are two other arrangements from Attwood’s two act pantomime (which was first performed on 29 January 1799): a vocal score (RISM A 2700) and one single song (RISM A 2701). – Our unrecorded print contains the overture and a further piece entitled This is the favorite Quick Step, Danc’d by Mrs. Wybrow in the Volunteer Scene. – Attwood (1765–1838) is not only known for having been one of Mozart’s few pupils; he was later a friend of Mendelssohn, who dedicated his opus 37 to him. Attwood thus forms a link between classicism and romanticism.
 
 

1785-1787: The seven-year-old Hummel studies with Mozart

 
101. HUMMEL, Johann Nepomuk (1778–1837). Autograph letter signed, Weimar, 22 September 1820, to the publishing house C.F. Peters in Leipzig, 1 p. 8vo (23 × 19.5cm) with address leaf; a little loss of paper at the seal; slightly browned, otherwise in fine condition. £ 350
 
Hummel lived for two years in Mozart’s household as his pupil from c. 1785. At that time it was usual that young students were considered as part of the master’s family and living expenses were part of the fees; Leopold did this as well, and for instance had the very gifted Marchand children from Augsburg in his home in Salzburg for several years. In 1787 when Hummel was nine years old he made his first public appearance as a pianist, and this was simultaneously a public success for Mozart as a teacher: “It is really astonishing”, wrote the Musikalische Real=Zeitung some time later, “to find in a ten-year-old child such a well-trained talent. He not only plays the most difficult concertos on the Fortepiano with the greatest skill, but also sight-reads and composes fairly well .” – Hummel made a great career as a pianist and composer and on 5 January 1819 was appointed as Hofkapellmeister at Weimar. In the letter offered here he writes that he is obliged to cancel a concert in Leipzig for his patron needed him urgently: “The Großherzog brought some operas with him we had to study immediately.” As a compensation Hummel informs Peters about the completion of his concerto in B minor: “I have got it back in order to prepare it for engraving.” Apparently this is an unknown concerto since it is not traceable.
 
 

An opera by Mozart’s student and first Basilio

 
102. KELLY, Michael (1762–1826). Feudal Times. A Musical Drama as now performing with unbounded applause at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The Words by G. Coleman the Younger [...] London: Corri, Dusek & Co. [1799]. 1 f. title with a stunning romantic landscape engraving by J. Gouyn (castle in a lake), 59 pp. engraved vocal score, oblong folio. Fine modern marbled boards. £ 220
 
RISM K 325 and KK 325 (6 copies); BUC p. 567; first edition. – Michael Kelly arrived in Vienna in 1784 as a singer at the Burgtheater and became Mozart’s pupil. In early 1787 he returned to England together with Nancy Storace and Thomas Attwood. Kelly had a very successful career, first as a leading tenor of his day, and then as a composer (after 1797). Feudal Times was first performed on 19 January 1799; J. L. Dussek contributed the overture. In 1826 Kelly published his Reminiscences which are an important source for the lives of Haydn and Mozart.

Kelly has a further Mozartian connection: He was the first Don Curzio and Basilio in the première of Le Nozze di Figaro on 1st May 1786; there follows further documentation related to this opera.
 
 

1786 : Mozart and “Figaro”

 
103. BEAUMARCHAIS, Pierre Augustin Caron de (1732–1799). Manuscript entrance ticket to Beaumarchais’ most celebrated play Le Mariage de Figaro, signed by the author “Caron de Beaumarchais”, as “Pour le Mariage de figaro… Bon pour une place à la Gallerie Ce dimanche 30. 9bre 1788” at the Théâtre Français (now the Comédie Française), 1 f. oblong 8vo (10.5 x 16 cm), slightly browned, otherwise very fine. £ 1,650
 
Two of the most successful works in the operatic repertory are based on Beaumarchais’ comedies: Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (1786) and Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia (1816), which had been composed earlier by Giovanni Paisiello (1782) with the greatest success. Beaumarchais’ La Folle journée ou Le Mariage de Figaro was first performed in Paris on 17 April 1784; Mozart’s opera, whose libretto had been adapted by Lorenzo Da Ponte, was premièred in Vienna on 1st May 1786. Le Barbier de Séville and Le Mariage de Figaro are linked by the same characters, Figaro, Rosina, Count Almaviva, Bartolo etc., Le Barbier de Seville being the first (1775) and Le Mariage de Figaro (1783) the second part of a trilogy which was completed by L’Autre Tartufe ou La Mère coupable (1792; composed only in 1965 by Darius Milhaud). Beaumarchais is considered as the most successful author of his time at the Comédie Française . He was always closely linked to music; in his early career he was music master to the daughters of Louis XV. A further piece by Beaumarchais, Tarare (1787), is also conceived in operatic idiom, and the author formulated his operatic aesthetic in the introduction demanding a symbiosis of word and music. Tarare was composed by Antonio Salieri in 1787 and adapted by Da Ponte in 1788 as Axur Re d’Ormus. (See other entries in this catalogue.) Ephemera of theatrical productions of the 18th century are scarce.
 
 

Two very early editions of the libretto

 
104. [MOZART, W. A.] [DA PONTE, L. & VULPIUS, C. A.] Arien und Gesänge aus der Hochzeit des Figaro. Eine Operette in vier Aufzügen. Die Musik ist von Herrn Mozart. Frankfurt, 1788. 8vo. Pp. 35, with names of singers in pencil added in a later hand. Later calf-backed marbled boards with ‘Libretto of Figaro –1788’ on spine; modern ex-libris. £ 750
 
Goedeke V, 513. – The third German edition, translated by C.A. Vulpius for the Frankfurt performance of 11 October 1788. It was common for Mozart’s Italian operas to be performed in translation in Germany. In the Annalen des Theaters (Berlin, 1791) Vulpius strongly protested against pirated and inaccurate editions of this Frankfurt libretto which had since appeared in various German cities.
 
 
105. [MOZART, W. A.] [DA PONTE, L. & VULPIUS, C. A.] Die Hochzeit des Figaro. Eine Operette in vier Aufzügen. Nach dem Italiänischen frei bearbeitet von C.A. Vulpius. Die Musik ist von Mozart. Köln am Rheine… in der Langenschen Buchhandlung, 1789. 8vo. Pp. 92. Contemporary wrappers. £ 700
 
Köchel 492. – This edition was probably printed for the performance in Bonn at the beginning of 1790, and uses the same translation as the one above.
 
 

The only complete copy of a Simrock variant of the first edition

 
106. MOZART, W. A. [K. 492] Ouverture Arien und Duetten, aus der Oper Die Hochzeit des Figaro. (Le Nozze di Figaro.) […] Fürs Clavier eingerichtet von C. G. Neefe. Bonn, Simrock, pl.-no. 28 [late 1796]; pp. 1-34, 47-65, 75-77, 134-144, 157-192, 223-228 [+ 2 pp. personaggi and catalogue], engraved, oblong folio, wrappers, in good condition. £ 950
 
RISM M 4393 (no complete copy recorded). An extremely rare variant of the first edition of the complete Figaro vocal score, first issued in August 1796. In this issue of favourite pieces from the opera, the two finales (nos. 15 & 29), the terzettos nos. 7 & 13 and the sextet no. 18. have been left out. Our copy contains all other pieces as quoted in the index after p. 228. RISM quotes 12 copies, all incomplete; the most complete lacks nos. 27-28 & 30 (Lübeck), or the overture and nos. 1 & 30 (Solothurn), all others only have between 1 and 7 numbers. Selected collections of Mozart’s operas were very common; Kozeluch’s edition of Die Zauberflöte took three years, many others remained incomplete (Artaria, Hoffmeister, Götz, André…).

This Figaro variant must have been prepared quickly after the first publication since the catalogue (although corresponding to Haberkamp’s 3rd issue) has no opera performed later than 1795. The 5^th issue catalogue is the earliest to introduce an opera performed in 1796 (and probably printed in 1797); it may be suggested that issues 1 to 5 all appeared by the end of 1796 – a sign of intense demand for this opera. Since the complete vocal score was rather expensive (11 gulden) this selected edition (7 gulden) was probably welcome to the public.
 
 
107. MOZART, W. A. [K. 492] Le Nozze di Figaro. Dramma Giocoso in Quattro Atti… Paris, J. Frey, Successeur de MMrs. Cherubini, Méhul, Kreutzer…, ed.-no. 366 (pl.-no. 566I-566IV) [c. 1810]. 2 ff. Title, Personaggi. / Attori. and Table indicative, Atto primo pp. 2-129; Atto II: pl.-no. “A.2.566”, pp. 1-186; Atto III: pl.-no. “566.3”, pp.1-116; Atto IV: pl.-no. “566.4.”, pp. 2-127; occasional stains, in two halfparchment volumes with old paper boards and labels. £ 950
 
Köchel/7 p. 545; RISM M 4338; Haberkamp p. 261. – First edition, second issue (of four) of the full score. The first issue was published one year earlier by the Magasin de Musique (Cherubini-Kreutzer-Méhul etc.) which had been acquired by Josfa Frey in 1810. Köchel’s indication (7th ed. 1964) of an edition by Imbault, pl.-no. 566, 1795, is an error; the reference to pl.-no. 566 shows that the copy in question was the same as ours, probably with an Imbault vendor slip pasted over the original imprint (found very frequently in France).
 
 

1787: Nancy Storace, Mozart’s first Susanna, returns to England
and sings in London

 
108. STORACE, Nancy (recte Anna Selina, 1765-1817). Advertisement in a London newspaper, 1 f. 21 x 7 cm, for a concert of the Royal Society of Musicians in the Pantheon on May 15, 1788, giving a selection from Handel’s Scipio, Alexander’s Feast, Athalia, Julius Caesar, Jephta, Theodora, Solomon, Otho and others. Signora Storace is advertised for two arias from Richard the First & Orlando; the other artists were Madame Mara, Mr. Harrison, Signora Marchesi etc., the orchestra was directed by Mr Cramer. In very good condition. £ 150
 
Nancy Storace trained with Antonio Sacchini and was appointed as prima donna at the Imperial Theatre in Vienna in 1784 at the age of 19. She was Mozart’s first Susanna, and she was the dedicatee of one of Mozart’s most beautiful concert arias; on 27 December 1786 he entered it in his own Verzeichnis as Scena con Rondo mit Klavier-Solo. Für Madelle Storace und mich (“Non temer, amato bene” K. 505). According to Jahn’s biography (1856) the piano part may express Mozart’s love for Nancy.
 
 

On Nancy Storace’s social rôle after her retirement

 
109. STORACE, Nancy (1765-1817). Autograph letter signed “ASS” [London], stamped 9 April 1810, to Sir George Smart, 1 f. 8vo. (18.8 x 12 cm), with integral address leaf; a few brownings. £ 700
 
Storace retired from the stage in 1808 and very soon found an important rôle in London concert life: “As I am generally appointed principal Secretary [of the Philharmonic Society?] I am desired to say that we both think the double Subscriptions should be 9 guineas, and it must be stated thus – two Subscriptions in one Family 9 g. […] and single subscriptions of course 5 g. – can the orchestra be as much reduced as possible […]” – Nancy Storace’s social activities in English musical life are relatively unknown, and therefore the present letter has strong biographical interest.
 
 

The great piano concertos

 
110. MOZART, W. A. [K. 413 (387a)] Grand Concerto pour le Piano Forte avec accompagnement de plusieurs instruments… Oeuvre 4me L(ivre) 3 Edition faite d’après le manuscrit original de l’Auteur. Offenbach, J. André, pl.-no. 1556 [1801]. 17 pp. piano part (p. 1 with title-page within a fine oval frame with floral decoration) oblong folio, vl. 1 (4 pp.), vl. 2, vla, basso (3 pp. each), ob. 1, ob. 2, hr. 1, hr. 2 (1 p. each), Due Fagotti (1 p. in score) folio, engraved, a very fine set in excellent condition, as issued. £ 1,250
 
Köchel/7 p. 433; Haberkamp p. 199; RISM M 5795 (only 5795). – First complete edition; the previous editions (Artaria 1785, Boyer-Le Menu 1785 and Schmitt c. 1790) lack the bassoon parts which have a solo rôle in the second movement. Haberkamp states that the André edition lacks the bassoon parts as well, but she obviously saw only incomplete copies.

André’s early Mozart editions from 1799 onwards are based on the autograph Nachlass he had acquired from Constanze Mozart in 1799. These editions merit the rank of an “Urtext-Ausgabe” in a sense avant la lettre, and the editors of the Neue Mozart Ausgabe acknowledge the high quality of André’s texts. Indeed, André had a very high sense of musicological accuracy (see especially items 76 and 146 in this catalogue); he may therefore be called one of the most ‘modern’ publishers of the 19th century. André also had commercial reasons for confirming the authenticity of his Mozart editions publicly. In 1798, Breitkopf had declined to purchase the estate. After André’s acquisition, Breitkopf publicly declared that the estate did not contain important compositions (Frankfurter Staatsristretto 6 May 1800) in order to play down his real commercial howler. André’s emphasizing of the autograph sources to his Mozart editions on each title-page from 1800 onwards is part of a public professional struggle with the means of that time: first editions to a very high standard of textual authenticity and decorated with fine title engravings (cf. item 114 in this catalogue) and making public declarations in periodicals, where André insisted on the “vollkommenste Authenticität” of his editions (ibid. 18 August 1800).

In the field of music publishing the years from 1800 to c. 1810 are marked by extremely strong competition in Mozart editions between the firms of Breitkopf and André which is without precedent in printing history. (Today the struggle for Mozart’s supremacy is more likely to comprise salesfigures for Mozartkugeln…)
 
 
111. MOZART, W. A. [K. 467] Concert pour le Pianoforte avec Accompagnement de 2 Violons, Alto et Basse, Flûte, 2 Hautbois, 2 Bassons, 2 Cors, 2 Trompettes et Timballes […] N° I. Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel [1800]. Complete set of parts: Piano (28 pp.) oblong folio, vl. 1, vl. 2, vla., Basso (each 6 pp.), fl., ob. 1 (each 3 pp.), ob. 2, fag. 1, fag. 2 (each 4 pp.), hr. 1, hr. 2, tr. 1, tr. 2, timp. (each 2 pp.), folio, typeset, as issued. £ 1,200
 
Köchel/7 p. 506 ; Haberkamp, p. 230f. (ill. 191); RISM M 7344. – First edition, 4th issue (but Haberkamp is not sure whether these are different issues or only differently arranged copies). This concerto was completed on 9 March 1785 in Vienna; it was published as number one in Breitkopf’s series of 17 piano concertos in his edition of Mozart’s Oeuvres complettes. Many of Haberkamp’s distinctive criteria refer to the wrappers and to binding material; most probably the parts used were the same for most of the recorded issues, but bound in different wrappers. New typeset plates were extremely expensive and therefore their use is unlikely.
 
 

Constanze Mozart as a subscription publisher

 
112. MOZART, W. A. [K. 503] Concerto per il Clavicembalo o Piano Forte composto di Wolfgango Amadeo Mozart e dedicato all’Altezza Reale il Principe Luigi Ferdinando di Prussia per Costanza Mozart. No. 1 del retaggio del defunto publicato alle spese della Vedova. Si trova da tutti buoni mercanti di Musicali. [Leipzig, J. P. von Thonus, June 1797, printed at the expense of Constanze Mozart.] Complete set of parts: Piano (title-page + 23 pp. oblong folio; vl. 1, vl. 2 (4 pp. each), vla, basso, fl., ob. 1, (3 pp. each), ob. 2 (2 pp.), fag. 1 (3 pp.), fag. 2, hr. 1, hr. 2 (2 pp. each), trp. 1, trp. 2, timp. (1 p. each), folio, engraved; slight browning and spotting, otherwise a fine copy, as issued. £ 7,500
 
Köchel/7 p. 560 f.; Haberkamp p. 273-275 (ill. 231); RISM M5839: Hirsch IV, no. 119a; coll. Hoboken XI no. 297. – First edition of Constanze Mozart’s only subscription publication (another publication, in which Constanze was involved as a signatory to the public offer on subscription, is included in this catalogue as item 59, the Idomeneo first edition). The first edition of this concerto is one of the rarest in the Mozart canon: indeed, we cannot trace any complete set offered during the last three decades; only a single piano part was offered in 1986 (DM 5000).

On 11 December 1795 Constanze wrote to the publisher André: “I will risk the dangerous enterprise of allowing a totally unknown grand piano concerto composed by my late husband to be engraved at my expense”, and she asked André to undertake it on commission in order to prevent piracy. Finally she left it to Breitkopf & Härtel on commission; the plates were engraved by Thonus and went to Breitkopf in 1799; the latter nevertheless prepared another edition in typeset (which allows for a much larger issue) in 1800. Constanze demanded back the remaining 211 copies of her edition and handed them over to André together with the autograph Nachlass; André offered them adding his own imprint on the title-page (see Haberkamp, ill. 232). This Titelauflage rapidly sold out and by August 1800 André had already announced a new edition (see item 114).

Constanze dedicated this concerto to Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia (1772-1806), himself an excellent pianist and a highly regarded composer. André took over this dedication and incorporated it in his whole series of the six piano concertos published in 1800 as opus 82 (K. 467, 482, 488, 491, 503, 595).
 
 
113. MOZART, W. A. [K. 503] Concert Pour le Clavecin ou Fortepiano Composé par W. A. Mozart. OEuvre posthume N° 1. Arrangé de manière à pouvoir être exécuté à 5. Parties ou à grand Orchestre. Bonn, Simrock, pl.-no. 45 [1797]. Complete set of engraved parts: Piano (23 pp.), vl. 1 (title-page + 7 pp + Nachricht), vl. 2 (6 pp.), vla (3 pp.), extra viole (4 pp.), basso, fl., ob. 1, (3 pp. each), ob. 2 (2 pp.), fag. 1 (3 pp.), fag. 2, hr. 1, hr. 2 (2 pp. each), trp. 1, trp. 2, timp. (1 p. each), oblong folio, a fine copy. £ 1,500
 
Köchel/7 p. 561; Haberkamp, p. 275; RISM M 5842; coll. Hoboken XI no. 298 (piano part lacking); not in Hirsch. – The second edition, advertised only three weeks after the first edition (see previous item); Deutsch/Oldman still took the Simrock edition for the first edition. The last page of the violin part shows a Nachricht (see ill. in coll. Hoboken vol. XI p. 159), in which Simrock states his special intentions. Indeed, his edition allows performances in three versions: 1) piano with strings (they may play the wind notes printed in small type); 2) piano with wind instruments (this version calls for the additional extra viole part); 3) piano with full orchestra.

Simrock’s edition shows Mozart’s work at a crucial turning point in its historical reception. As the former explains, Mozart’s orchestration was regarded as too demanding; the piano concertos were rarely performed, Simrock says, for the mediocre performance of a single wind instrument could spoil the whole performance (Constanze was also anxious about the success of her edition, see previous item). In order to “save the masterpieces of this immortal [composer] and make them more familiar”, Simrock offers the alternative versions in his edition. He could not imagine the speed of progress in aesthetic thought and  performance which becomes evident with the overwhelming quantity of editions of Mozart’s piano concertos only three years later from 1800 onwards. Simrock then prepared a second issue of his edition and sought to save the situation by adding “Propriété de l’Editeur. Enregistré à la Bibliothèque nationale” on the title-page, thus suggesting an access to sources he probably did not have.
 
 
114. MOZART, W. A. [K. 503] No. [1] des six grands concertos pour le Piano-Forté, [...] respectueusement dédiés à S. A. R. le Prince Louis Ferdinand de Prusse par l’editeur. Oeuvre 82. [...] Prix f 3. Edition faite d’après la partition en manuscrit. Offenbach, André, pl.-no. 1415 [summer 1800]. Complete set of parts, piano 25 pp., engraved, oblong folio with the celebrated decorative title-page in lithography; vl. 1, vl. 2 (4 pp. each), vla, Basso, fl., ob. 1 (3 pp. each); ob. 2, fag. 1, fag. 2 (2 pp. each), hr. 1, hr. 2 (1 pp. each), tr. 1 (3 pp.), tr. 2 (2 pp.), timp. (1 p.), folio, in excellent condition, as issued. £ 700
 
Köchel/7 p. 524; Haberkamp p. 245 ff.; RISM M 5841 (only 4 copies). – André reprinted this famous concerto but seems to have revised the text of Constanze’s edition on the basis of the autograph score he had purchased from her in 1799. This concerto had been composed in late 1786 but remained unpublished until 1797. Another edition prepared by Naderman, Paris, documents the spread of Mozart’s piano concertos from 1800 onwards.
 
 
115. MOZART, W. A. [K. 595] Concerto Per Il Clavicembalo o Forte-Piano Con l’accompagnamento Di due Violini, Viola e Basso, 2 Oboe, 2 Corni, 2 Fagotti e Flauto [...] Opera 17. Wien, Artaria, pl.-no. 346 [August 1791]. Title-page + 22pp., engraved, oblong folio; title page soiled, repairs to margins on first three leaves, tears to corners. See ill. p. 78 £ 1,400
 
Köchel/7 p. 682; Haberkamp, p. 338f. (ill. 311); RISM M 5846; coll. Hoboken XII, no. 434; not in Hirsch. – First edition of Mozart’s last piano concerto, composed in January 1791 (finished on 5 January, first performed on 4 March) and published four months before his death. Our copy still lacks the price and therefore may be regarded as the only extant copy of an issue which must be earlier than the first issue described by Haberkamp. Although the condition of this copy is not very good, this is a highly desirable lifetime first edition, all of which have now become very rare.
 
 

1786: Are “Salieri’s plots” true or apocryphal?

Salieri plays a different rôle in ‘collective memory’ than in reality: The images of poisoning (Pushkin) and exaggeration (Shaffer’s Amadeus) are almost popular, but historically incorrect. In discussions with Albi Rosenthal about the famous film, he was not at all shocked by the tone but rather by the historical ignorance which was deeply offensive to Salieri. He is known as a kind and helpful character, as an excellent teacher (Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt, Mozart’s youngest son, and many others) and a great artist as Volkmar Braunbehrens demonstrated most convincingly in his biography.

 
116. SALIERI, Antonio (1750-1825). La Grotta di Trofonio. Opera Comica in due Atti. Rappresentata nel Regio Imperial Teatro di Corte l’anno 1785. Wien: Artaria, pl.-no. 77 [April 1786]. 2 ff. title (with a picturesque scene from the opera, engraved by Mansfeld) and Argomento, 393 pp. engraved full score, folio, in two similar half-morocco volumes (slightly rubbed) with marbled plates and gilt labels M.rs de Talleyrand. An exceptionally fine and early Artaria edition. From the Talleyrand collection. £ 1,800
 
RISM S 520; Hirsch II, no. 836. – One of the extremely rare examples of printed opera full scores in Austria during the 18th century (the first for an opera buffa); this must be regarded as a special testimony of appreciation for the composer who, as well as Gluck, was honoured in this manner (Alceste, 1769, and Paride e Helena, 1770). In contrast to France, Austria (as well as Italy and Germany) did not have the rule of compulsory publication of a full score in order to obtain the royal privilege and its legal protection for the composer. Therefore, in the other countries operas were spread in manuscript form, thus facilitating individual versions satisfying local needs for opera productions.

The Argomento tells us that Salieri composed the work for Laxenburg castle; but the first performance was at the Vienna Burgtheater on 12 October 1785 and was a splendid success. La Grotta had been widely performed in Germany (in translation) but for Italy G. Palumba and G. Paisiello quickly arranged a version for Naples which is almost a piracy. Their version was already performed in November or December 1785 and was a flop. Two pairs of lovers, one serious (Ofelia – Artemidoro) and one comical (Dori – Plistene), enter Trofonio’s cave where the young men’s character changes into the opposite of before – a highly popular story at that time which after many setbacks finishes with a double wedding. La Grotta may be regarded as a precursor of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte.

The engraver of the title illustration, Sebastian Mansfeld, was the leading light in Viennese business; he also engraved one famous Mozart portrait as well as the very fine title-page of the cantata Die Maurerfreude (K. 471; ill. see Drüner catalogue 53 no. 97). Salieri’s title illustration shows a wild landscape (resembling Weber’s ‘Wolfsschlucht’ in Freischütz): Trofonio meets the twins Dori and Ofelia (Act II, scene 2). In the lower left hand corner is a half cropped numbering in manuscript which may be “420” or “429”; this probably relates to the printer’s or the composer’s numbering of the copy.

Mozart and Salieri first worked together on the occasion of the two one-act productions of Prima la Musica e poi le parole and Der Schauspieldirektor K. 486 before Joseph II at Schönbrunn on 7 February 1786. Possibly their last meeting was on 13 October 1791 when Salieri and Mozart attended a performance of Die Zauberflöte together: “there was not a single number that did not call forth from him a bravo! or bello!” (Mozart’s report to his wife). Mozart only once speaks of “Salieri’s  plots” – in a letter to Michael Puchberg where he needs arguments for begging for money (29 Dec. 1789). Otherwise Mozart calls him “that very gifted Kapellmeister” (May 1790), and one must concur with Erich Valentin that all legends about him from the early 19th century onwards are unfounded.
 
 
117. SALIERI, Antonio. Autograph manuscript of a French operatic text referring to the character of Renaud, 1 p. 4to (23 x 19 cm), a few small tears and brownings, otherwise in fine condition. On the verso is an authentication note signed by Moritz Bermann, Vienna: “Umstehend Salieri’s Handschrift”. £ 2,400
 
The text belongs to Salieri’s very early dramma per musica ‘Armida’ (premièred at the Vienna Burgtheater, 2 June 1771). This is an opera about the medieval story of the sorceress Armida, a daughter of the King of Damascus. In act I she complains that she was hitherto unable to seduce Renaud, one of the greatest heroes among the Christian crusaders Armida is trying to enslave with her charms: “Je ne triomphe pas du plus vaillant de tous, Renaud, pour qui ma haine a tant de Violence…” A very fine and rare example of Salieri’s handwriting.
 
 

Salieri’s masterpiece

 
118. [BEAUMARCHAIS & SALIERI]. Tarare. Opéra en Cinq Actes, avec un prologue, Représente pour la première fois, sur le Théâtre de l’Académie-Royale de Musique, le Vendredi 8 Juin 1787. Paris, P. de Lormel, 1787. 8vo. 4ff., 16pp. 1f., 104pp. Bound with, Analyse Critique de Tarare. Ormutz and Paris, 1787. Contemporary mottled calf–backed boards, some worming to spine with gilt stamp on lower cover “ De la Bibliothèque de Mr. Le Pr. Alexandre Lubomirski”, and his coat of arms on upper cover. £ 350
 
First edition of Beaumarchais’ libretto. – “Salieri’s chief work. Given in Paris 131 times until 1826; revived 3 August 1790 with some additions;…Even more successful was an adaptation by Da Ponte ‘Axur, Re d’Ormus’, celebrating the wedding of the Archduke (later Emperor Francis II)… An English translation was published as early as 1787…” (Loewenberg 2 col.443/4 [1787]).
 
 

Beethoven’s patron writes to Salieri

 
119. [SALIERI, Antonio] LOBKOWITZ, Prince Franz Joseph Maximilian (1772-1816). Autograph letter signed (“Prince LobkowitzmpraL:C:”), without date [1810], to Antonio Salieri (“Mon chêr Salieri”), 2 pp. small 4to (20.5 x 18 cm), part of upper margin (perhaps containing a date) cut, otherwise in fine condition. £ 650
 
Prince Lobkowitz was a co-leaseholder of the Burgtheater and the Kärntnertor theatre in Vienna from 1807 and in the present letter informs Hofkapellmeister Salieri of the directors’ interest in staging his opera Les Danaides. This opera had been first performed in Paris with spectacular success under the protection of Chr. W. Gluck in 1784 (the first performances were even announced as Gluck’s own work!). Lobkowitz writes: “Nous désirons très fort la direction et moi d’entendre quelque ouvrage de vous qui ne soit pas ancor (sic) connu du public de Vienne, et nous voudrions mettre en Scène Votre grand Opéra les Danaides”… Lobkowitz asks for a quick reply in order to be able to plan the cast. Among other singers he names Kathinka Buchwieser (1785-1828), Anna Milder-Hauptmann (1785-1838), Giuseppe Siboni (1780-1839) and Johann Michael Vogl (1768-1840; due to the very short overlapping of their careers this letter can be dated exactly to the year 1810). Lobkowitz is very closely acquainted with these singers and describes them to Salieri in the best light. Lobkowitz’s hurry is explained by his commercial strategy: “comme nous haussons les Prix il seroit à désirer que cet opéra puisse être donné au mois de novembre de cette année” – the Prince indeed wishes to use the opportunity of the big visual effect of Les Danaides in order to sweeten the bitter pill of higher prices for the Viennese public – This letter is briefly quoted in Angermüller (Salieri) III, 279. AViennese production of Les Danaides is, however, not known, and apparently Lobkowitz’s plans did not come off.

Prince Lobkowitz is one of the central figures in Austrian cultural life of the early 19th century. He is particularly known as one of Beethoven’s patrons whose opuses 18, 55, 56, 67, 68, 74 and 98 are dedicated to him.
Documents concerning non-composing leading figures in music history are rare.
 
 

1787: Beethoven visits Mozart who says:
“This young man will become a great talking point in the world”

 

Beethoven went to Vienna on 7 April 1787. His first patron, Archbishop Max Friedrich, Elector of Cologne, wished him to be Mozart’s pupil, but on 20 April he had to return to Bonn as a result of his mother’s illness. The records of Beethoven’s meeting with Mozart are contradictory. In his celebrated biography Schindler reports that Mozart is said to have exclaimed after hearing Beethoven’s improvised fantasy on a fugue theme by Mozart: “This young man will become a great talking point in the world ”. Seyfried’s and Czerny’s reports about lessons with Mozart are, however, improbable.

 
120. BEETHOVEN, Ludwig van. Trois Trios Pour le Piano-Forte, Violon, et Violoncelle Composés & Dediés A Son Altesse Monseigneur le Prince Charles de Lichnowsky… OEuvre 1.re. Vienna, Artaria et Comp., without Pl.-No. [1795]. 3 parts; Piano: 1 f. title (repaired; some paper loss affecting the floral border on the upper left-hand corner), [2] pp. subscribers’ list, 65 pp.; Violin: 21 pp.; Cello: 17 pp. engraved, oblong folio, some tears and dust marks, otherwise in good condition. £ 14,000
 
Kinsky-Halm p. 4; Dorfmüller p. 207 & 292; Coll. Hoboken II, 1; not in Hirsch. First edition, earliest issue (Kinsky’s “First issue” is incorrectly described, cf. Dorfmüller.) This is certainly one of the very rarest first editions of any work by Beethoven. Dorfmüller quotes only 1 incomplete copy in Germany (Bonn; the title-page and the string parts are lacking); only three complete copies can be located: GB-Lbl, A-Wn and A-Wgm. During the last thirty years this publication has been offered only once in the trade (in December 1994): that copy was bought by Albi Rosenthal and is now offered here. Opus 1 is missing in the Beethoven Catalogues published by Hans Schneider in 1986 and Jürgen Voerster in 1989 and has not appeared in any other catalogue since 1975.

These trios are the earliest compositions Beethoven considered to be “worthy of publication with an opus number and to proclaim his name” (Thayer). After his first attempt to study in Vienna in 1787, Beethoven returned to the Austrian capital in 1792, one year after Mozart’s death. He was now believed to study with Joseph Haydn, and Count Waldstein, one of his friends in Bonn, wrote in a letter: “Dear Beethoven! You are now travelling to Vienna […] Through incessant application you will obtain Mozart’s spirit from Haydn’s hands” (29 October 1792). Beethoven’s opus 1 was composed in 1793-1794 and is doubtless the first fruit of his “incessant application”.

The autograph of these trios is lost. The first edition therefore is the primary source, and it is considered as the jewel in the crown of every important music collection.
 
 

“Mozart’s spirit through Haydn’s hands”

 
121. BEETHOVEN, Ludwig van. Grand Trio pour le Piano-Forte avec un Clarinette ou Violon, et Violoncelle Composé et Dedié A Son Excellence Madame la Comtesse de Thun née Comtesse d’Uhlefeld … OEuvre XIme. Vienna, T. Mollo … No. 106 [Oct. 1798]. Complete set of engraved parts, oblong folio. 15, 4, 3 pp.; slightly browned, otherwise a very fine copy in contemporary decorated paper wrappers with ms. title label. Ownership stamp from the library of Max Kergl. £ 3,500
 
Kinsky-Halm p. 26; Dorfmüller p. 209 (only 1 copy; Bonn owns only a Titelauflage c. 1808); Coll. Hoboken II, 51. An extremely rare Beethoven first edition in the earliest issue. Since the autograph is lost, the first edition is the primary source for this work.

This trio was composed in early 1798, dedicated to Maria Wilhelmine Gräfin von Thun (1744- 1800). She was one of Mozart’s and Haydn’s most important supporters in the 1780s and first met the young Beethoven in the house of her sister, Princess Maria Christiane Lichnowsky. Her brother- in-law, Prince Carl Lichnowsky, accompanied Mozart during his journey to Berlin in 1789.
 
 

Last corrections

 
122. BEETHOVEN, Ludwig van (1770–1827). Autograph note, undated [c. Nov. 1822 – March 1823], unsigned, in a powerful pencilled hand on an irregularly cut leaf, oblong 4to (c. 24.5 x 14 cm), mounted on a folio card; in fine condition. £ 8,400
 
Beethoven sends a short message to his Parisian publisher with corrections to the title-page of his piano sonata opus 111: “Maurice Schlesinger Editeur Rue de Richelieu No 107 statt …esment eusment – de van etc”. According to a later pencil note this leaf was given by Anton Schindler, Beethoven’s last factotum, to his acquaintance Frau Eggloff, a washerwoman in Mannheim. Most of her Beethoven relics were sold to the Berlin state library. – M. Schlesinger was the publisher of Beethoven’s opuses 110, 111 and 119; he had his office at Rue de Richelieu from October 1822 to February 1824. Schlesinger misprinted the dedication on the title-page in two places (underlined): “très respecteusement Dédiée à […] L’Archiduc Rodolphe d’Autriche […] Par Louis de Beethoven”. The author’s message was not respected, and corrections were only made for Cappi & Diabelli’s first Viennese edition in 1823.
 
 

The first work completed after Leopold’s death: ‘A musical joke’

 
123. MOZART, W. A. [K. 522] Musikalischer Spass für zwei Violinen, Bratsche, zwei Hörner u: Bass, geschrieben in Wien den 14ten Juny 1787 [...] 93tes Werk. Nach dem Originalmanuscripte des Autors herausgegeben. [...] Preis f 2. Offenbach, André, pl.-no. 1508 [1802]. Complete set of lithographed parts, vl. 1 (7 pp., p. 1 with title and the wellknown representation of the comical sextet of musicians; first and last leaf pasted on wrappers), vl. 2 (5 pp.), Vla (5 pp.), Basso (3 pp.), hr. 1 (2 pp.), hr. 2 (2 pp.), folio, a few signs of use on the external leaves, otherwise a fresh and sound copy. £ 1,250
 
Köchel/7 p. 586; Haberkamp, p. 287f. (ill. 246). Constapel, p. 129; RISM M 5928. – First edition. – The title illustration has been reproduced countless times in reprints and books and is among the best known musical caricatures. Wolfgang Hildesheimer’s celebrated Mozart essay of 1977 discusses in depth the coincidence of Leopold Mozart’s death on 28 May 1787 and the composition of the ‘musical joke’ K. 522, which was completed on 14 June, just a fortnight after Wolfgang had learned of his father’s death. Hildesheimer wrote: “Of what is Mozart thinking on the occasion of his father’s death? Apparently he thinks of the incapacity of his colleagues and pupils. This is absurd but not inconceivable. It is probable that, consciously, with regard to this death, he thought of nothing at all, but with regard to ‘Don Giovanni’, he thought of a lot of things.”
 
 

Il commendatore: another
speculative portrait of Leopold?

 
124. MOZART, W. A. [KV 527] Il Dissoluto Punito osia (sic) il Don Giovanni Dramma giocoso in due Atti posto in Musica da Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. in Partitura. Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel [1801]. [Half-title before each act:] Don Juan oder der steinerne Gast, komische Oper in zwey Aufzügen... 2 volumes, together 590 pp. (the frequently missing last leaf pp. 589-590 with the additional trombone parts is supplied in facsimile on old paper) oblong folio, typeset, title-page with the famous vignette by F. Bolt after V. G. Kininger; some spots, otherwise a good copy in two volumes (vol. I in half cloth; vol. II still in the original green wrappers (slightly disbound). Without the libretto which is said to have been added only to later copies. From the Talleyrand collection. £ 1,750
 
Köchel/7 S. 591 ff.; Hirsch II, 645; Haberkamp S. 295 ff.; RISM M 4502. First edition of the full score of Don Giovanni. This is the first of Mozart’s operas to have been published thus; it was part of Breitkopf’s attempt at a complete edition of Mozart’s works. Avocal score had already been published in 1791, with Mozart’s name in the subscribers’ list.

Don Giovanni was first performed in Prague on 29th October 1787, only one day after the completion of the overture. The performance received “den lautesten beyfall” (“the loudest applause”), as Mozart wrote to his friend G. v. Jacquin. The work spread from Prague very quickly although the early reviews made strong objections for moral reasons.
 
 
125. MOZART, W. A. [KV 527] Il Dissoluto Punito o Sia Il D. Giovanni. Drama giocoso [...] messa per il Piano Forte Del Carlo Zulehner. [...] Fr. 21. Fl. 10. Mainz, Schott, pl.- no. 138 [1791 or later]. 207 pp. full score with Italian and German text, oblong folio; halfleather binding with paper boards, rubbed. £ 950
 
Köchel/7 p. 597; Haberkamp, p. 292–295 (ill. 249). RISM M 4504. Hoboken XI, no. 343 – First edition of the vocal score, here in the 5th issue according to Haberkamp’s classification. This edition is based on a translation by H. G. Schmieder used for the first performanced at Mainz on 3 May 1789. The publisher, Bernhard Schott in Mainz, seized the opportunity for the first publication of this opera, among whose subscribers Mozart himself is found. The subscribers’ list was only added to the first issue.
 
 

Early and late symphonies

 
126. MOZART, W. A. [K. 338] and MOZART, Leopold [K. Anh. 293]. Sinfonien von Mozart. Partitur. Sinfonie No. 10 [- No. XII]. Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel. 2 engraved full scores, quarto, modern marbled boards; markings on first title-page in blue ink. Contents: KV 338 Pl.-no. 6207 [1840] 52 pp.; K. Anh. 293 (C. 11.09) = Leopold Mozart: Pl.-no. 6426 [1840]. 48 pp. £ 250
 
Not in RISM. Hirsch III, Nr. 415. – From Breitkopf’s early series of 12 full scores of Mozart’s symphonies containing K. 504, 550, 543, 551, 385, 425, 320, 250, 297, 338, 319, Anh. 293. The latter is mentioned in the Breitkopf Catalogue of 1775 as a work by Leopold Mozart, previously spread only in manuscript form and appearing here as a first edition. K. 338 is printed here in the threemovement version (without the minuet K. 409 Mozart added in Vienna).
 
 
127. MOZART, W. A. [KV 543] Grosse Sinfonie ins Klavier gesetzt und dem verdienstvollen Tonkünstler und Verehrer dieses unvergesslichen Meisters Herrn Franz Duschek aus besonderer Hochachtung gewidmet von Johann Wenzel an der Metropolitankirche Organisten und Claviermeister zu Prag. 1te Ausgabe. Preis 2. f. Prag: Beym Verfasser. Leipzig, Breitkopfische Buchhandlung [c. 1794]. 2 ff. title and subscribers’ list (Verzeichniß deren Herren Pränumeranten), 20 pp. engraved piano score, oblong folio; title-page browned and with small spots and repairs (also to pp. 5, 7, 15, 19 and a few margins); good cloth binding. £ 5,500
 
Köchel/7 p. 616; Haberkamp p. 307 ff. (ill. 270-272); RISM M 5540; coll. Hoboken XI, no, 367; not in Hirsch. – First edition of one of the rarest of Mozart’s compositions; indeed, only one copy was offered in the trade during the last 25 years. The orchestral parts were published only in 1797 by André. The titlepage was engraved by Johann Berka in Prague and has been reproduced many times, it includes the Mozart portrait after Leonhard Posch within a fine decorative laurel and instrumental border. The subscribers’ list contains 126 names (this is its second variant with four additional names on the second page) for a total of 317 copies (100 for Breitkopf in Leipzig). The list contains some well-known names such as Jean Louis Duport, Franz Duscheck, Friedrich Eck, Johann Anton Kozeluch, Johann Gottlieb Naumann, and Mozart’s friends Franziska Duschek and Franz Xaver Süßmayr.
This is the earliest edition of any of Mozart’s last three ‘great’ symphonies (K. 543, 550, 551).
 
 

The first editions of the full score of the three last symphonies

 
128. MOZART, W. A. A Compleat Collection of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven’s Symphonies in Score. Most Respectfully Dedicated by Permission to H. R. H. the Prince of Wales. N° XVII London: Cianchetti & Sperati, [1810].Title-page and 52, 53, 34, 20, 53, 68 pp. engraved full score, 4to; half-leather binding with marbled boards, slight foxing. £ 2,200
 
Köchel/7 p. 616, 623f.; Haberkamp p. 311f.; RISM M 5549 (1 copy) / 5565 (1 copy) / 5571 (3 copies); Hirsch III no. 438; not in coll. Hoboken. – The legendary rare first editions of Mozart’s late symphonies in full score. The publisher combined them with several overtures in the following order: I) K. 550, II) K. 504 (‘Prague’), III) Overture Zauberflöte (called Symphony III), IV) Overture Le Nozze di Figaro (called Symphony IV), V) K. 543, VI) K. 551 (‘Jupiter’). The single parts of the three last symphonies were published by André in 1797 (K. 543), 1794 (K. 550) and 1793 (K. 551). The fact that full scores of symphonies and operas did not appear before 1800-1810 is an interesting detail in the development of musical practice. In this period audiences and orchestras increased considerably as a consequence of the burgeoning bourgeoisie. The concertmaster, leading the orchestra with his bow, had to cede direction to kapellmeister now, conducting the orchestra with a baton and requiring full scores.
 
 
129. MOZART, W. A. [KV 572] F. G. [sic] Händel‘s Oratorium Der Messias nach W. A. Mozart‘s Bearbeitung... Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel [1803]. Title-page, 108, 95, 48 p. (separate pagination for each part), full score in typeset, slightly foxed. Contemporary half-calf with marbled boards and highly decorative label; very slightly rubbed else fine. £ 600
 
HWV 56 and KV 572 (Köchel/7 p. 645); RISM H 723; Hoboken V, no. 104. – First edition of the full score of Mozart’s arrangement and re-instrumentation of Handel’s Messiah. This edition, largely spread by Breitkopf, is one of the most important and an early document of the reception of Handel’s work on the continent. Mozart knew Handel’s works (as well as Bach’s) as a consequence of his close acquaintance with Baron van Swieten in whose ‘Sunday Morning Concerts’ he was a regular performer. – The German translation of Handel’s Messias is by C. D. Ebeling who used Klopstock’s original poem.
 
 

Cosi fan tutte: One of the earliest editions of the libretto

 
130. [MOZART, W. A.] [DA PONTE, L.] Così fan tutte, o sia La scuola degli amanti… Eine wie die Andre, oder Die Schule der Liebhaber. Ein scherzhaftes Singspiel für das Kurfürstlich- Sächsiche Theater. Dresden, 1791. 8vo. Pp. 159. Later cloth-backed boards. £ 750
 
Köchel 588; Sonneck p.325; Abert II 641; Gugitz III 380-1 [mentioning a 1791 Dresden edition of only 147pp. as does Sonneck]. Text in Italian and German on opposite pages. One of three versions of the opera performed in Mozart’s lifetime: Vienna 26 January 1790, Prague 1791, and Dresden, 5 October 1791. This is apparently the first libretto of the opera with German translation. Only at the end of the dramatis personae is the composer acknowledged: ‘Die Musik ist vom Herrn Wolfgang Mozart, Sr. kaiserlichen Majestät wirklichem Kapellmeister’. The Cosi production almost certainly was a consequence of Mozart’s visit to Dresden which the publisher Bossler gave an account of.
 
 

First edition of the vocal score

 
131. MOZART, W. A. [KV 588] Così fan tutte o sia la scuola degli amanti, per il Cembalo [...] Weibertreue oder die Mädchen sind aus Flandern, ein komisches Singspiel in zwey Acten [...] Im Klavierauszuge von Siegfried Schmiedt. Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel [1794]. 3 separately paginated parts (2 leaves frontispiece [left side foreshortened] and title-page, 78, 80, 82 pp., vocal score typeset, tall oblong folio; slight brownings. £ 1,900
 
Köchel/7 p. 669; Haberkamp, pp. 333f. (ill. 304–306); RISM M 469; Hirsch IV no. 166; not in coll. Hoboken. – First edition of the vocal score (the full score was published only in 1810). The frontispiece, engraved by Rosmäsler (after L. Posch), is one of the most famous of its kind and shows an idealised Mozart obelisk depicting angels with musical instruments, and a trio of putti encircling a codex, paying homage. This engraving is typical of the early period in Mozart reception (true sorrow) which in the early 19th century turned into a kind of adoration of ‘Mozart the eternal child’ followed by the cliché of ‘Mozart the misunderstood genius’.

Cosi fan tutte is one of the greatest operatic masterpieces and shows Da Ponte and Mozart as antiidealists and anti-moralists, depicting men from their ‘good’ as well from their ‘bad’ sides. Mozart adopted this view as early as 1778 when he writes to his father on Madame Cannabich in Mannheim: “Of course, there may be some self-interest in [her assistance to me], but where […] can anything be done in this world without some self-interest? And what I like best about Madame Cannabich is that she never attempts to deny it.” (18 December 1778) This quotation may be a key for understanding Cosi. But many 19th century dramatists (among them H. von Treitschke and K. A. von Lichtenstein) distorted this work in a sexist fashion or falsified the action.
 
 

Mozart visits Dresden

 
132. [BOSSLER, Heinrich Philipp, editor] Musikalische Real-Zeitung für das Jahr 1789. Erster Band: von Jenner bis Brachmond. Zweiter Band: von Julius bis Dezember. Speier, in der Expedition dieser Zeitung [H.P.Bossler]. Bound with: Anthologie für Kenner und Liebhaber der Tonkunst. Erster Band: von Jenner bis Brachmond, Speier, Bossler 1789. 1f., 415pp., 4to., printed in double columns 3ff.,+ 1 plate containing the 52 issues for 1789 with index; Anthologie - 208 pp. musical notation forming the practical part of the Realzeitung. Original boards, spine very worn. £ 2,750
 
On page 191 there is an extract from a report from Dresden dated 28 May [1789]. ‘On 14 April the famous composer Herr W.A. Mozart of Vienna performed here in Dresden in many distinguished private houses to boundless applause; his skill at the piano and fortepiano is quite extraordinary - in addition, his amazing ability for sight-reading borders on the unbelievable. He is himself almost unable to play a piece better through practising than he played it at first sight. He also proved his great mastery at the organ…He is leaving Dresden for Berlin.’ It was during one of these sessions at the piano just described, that Doris Stock executed her celebrated silverpoint portrait of the composer, the last likeness of Mozart drawn from life, now in the Mozarteum, Salzburg (see cover of this catalogue). On page 367 there is a review of the Hamburg performance of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, (30 October) remarking on the complexity of the music and the outstanding performances of the singers and orchestra despite this. - The Musikalische Real-Zeitung is of extreme rarity.
 
 

Another contest: J.W. Hässler, pianist and organist

 
133. HÄSSLER, Johann Wilhelm (1747–1822) and HÄSSLER, Sophie (17?? - after 1782): Clavier= und Singstücke verschiedener Art, componirt [...]. Erste Sammlung. Erfurt, auf Kosten des Verfassers, 1782. 3 ff (title, preface, subscribers’ list), 44 pp. typeset, oblong folio; slightly dust marked and browned, otherwise a good copy in old wrappers. £ 500
 
RISM H 1577. BUC, S. 414. – Hässler was a pupil of Joh. Christ. Kittel in Erfurt (“one of Bach’s highest regarded fellows“) and trained later with C. P. E. Bach in Hamburg and J. A. Hiller in Leipzig. In 1789 he took part in a public contest with Mozart on the organ, in which Hässler was not considered to be the winner... After 1794 he lived in Moscow where he had notable success as a pianist and teacher.

Here we offer his first publication showing in a fine vignette of a pianist and a singer, perhaps his wife, who contributed the three pieces marked with an asterisk (Minuetto, Alla polacca and 1 song). Printed music by women composers is extremely rare in the 18th century.
 
 

1790: Mozart’s first entry in a music dictionary

 
134. GERBER, Ernst Ludwig. Historisch- Biographisches Lexicon der Tonkünstler, welches Nachrichten von dem Leben und Werken musikalischer Schriftsteller, berühmter Componisten, Sänger, Meister auf Instrumenten, Dilettanten, Orgel- und Instrumentenmacher….Erster Theil A-M …Zweyter Theil N-Z. Leipzig, Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf, 1790 and 1792 2 vols. 4to. Pp. xiv, 1f., with text following printed in 992 columns; 1f., 860 columns; 1f. blank, xvi pp., 86 pp. iconography of composers’ portraits including statues, busts and medals. Contemporary mottled half-calf with marbled boards and the bookplates of Alfred Cortot; a very good set. £ 1,250
 
RISM, Ecrits p. 357. First edition. One of the main sources for music history in the 18th century, it also contains the first account on Mozart in musical lexicography (vol. I column 977-79) – the only to be published during Mozart’s lifetime. It had already been written in 1789 and gives a precise image of general ideas about Mozart at that time as they are documented from other sources in Deutsch (Dokumente). Gerber totally admires Mozart as a piano virtuoso as well as the composer of Die Entführung aus den Serail. However, he criticises the works thereafter: “A non-experienced ear will hardly be able to follow those compositions; even well-trained persons must hear his things several times.” Gerber compares Mozart to a cautionary example, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, “ whose flight only the eyes of a few mortals were able to follow”. Gerber’s opinion on Mozart in his New Dictionary (1812) is completely different and gives a characteristic specimen of the development in Mozart reception during the first decades after the composer’s death (see item 188 in this catalogue).
 
 
135. GERBER, Ernst Ludwig (1746–1819). Autograph letter signed, Sondershausen, 30 July 1781, to a friend (apparently a publisher), 2 pp. 8vo (20 × 17.5cm). In very good condition. £ 850
 
Gerber, well-known as one of the most reliable lexographers in late 18th and early 19th century, twice wrote about Mozart, in 1790 and in 1812, and the differences between these two entries constitute a typical example of the re-assessment which characterised the early Mozart reception; cf. previous item and no 180.

In the letter offered here, Gerber says that he is sending back the score of an opera; he was not able to copy it since the theatre had changed its plans. He quotes another opera, Die Aehrenleserin, identified by Stieger’s Opera Dictionary as being one of the only two composed by Franz Schubert’s brother, Karl. – Gerber’s two Music Dictionaries are among the “classics” of early musicology; his autograph letters, nevertheless, are quite uncommon.
 
 

Almost certainly the only dedication to Mozart in his lifetime

 
136. LIPAWSKY, Josef (1772–1810). XII Variationi per il Forte-piano [...] dedicati All Signore W. A. Mozart, Maestro di Capella di S. M. [...] Opera I. Wien, Hoffmeister, pl.-no. 233 (232 on title) [1791]. 19 pp. engraved, oblong folio; stain on title, otherwise in good condition. £ 180
 
Weinmann, S. 128; New MGG XI 181 f.; not in RISM. – In Mozart’s time dedications generally were addressed to members of the nobility for pecuniary reasons. Lipawsky’s dedication must therefore be regarded as a particular sign of admiration by the 19 year-old Czech musician, who trained with Vanhal and possibly with Mozart. He started a career as a piano virtuoso but accepted an appointment as chancellor to the imperial Treasury two years later. However, he continued composing and enjoyed a favourable reception until 1806.

Lipawsky used the celebrated “Nel cor più non mi sento” from Paisiello’s La molinara as theme for his variations op. I (Beethoven wrote variations on it as well). Lipawsky’s op. I had been advertised on 13 July 1791 in the Wiener Zeitung at a period when Mozart could still enjoy it. On 23 November 1791 Bossler’s Musikalische Korrespondenz published a review of it: “This first attempt at piano composition shows an already well-trained composer and raises hope that he will compete with some of his contemporaries in the gallant style. We are already able to compare this work with variations by Mozart, Kozeluch and other celebrated composers.”
 
 

Masonic friends and music written for them

 
137. MOZART, W. A. [K 623-623a] Mozart’s letztes Meisterstück, eine Cantate. Gegeben vor seinem Tode im Kreise vertrauter Freunde. Wien, J. Hraschanzky, k. k. Hofbuchdrucker, 1792. Title-page in letterpress, 44 pp. + (3) pp. (appendix: Chorus “Lasst uns mit geschlungnen Händen”), full score in letterpress, large oblong folio; the two right corners of the title-page are torn away affecting the ruled line over the publisher’s imprint; repair to upper margin, otherwise a good copy. £ 2,750
 
RISM M 4169. Haberkamp p. 383f., ill. 342. – First edition. – Mozart’s last completed composition is this Masonic cantata entered in his own work list on 15 November 1791. Emmanuel Schikaneder was supposed to have written the text, but nowadays Carl Ludwig Giesecke is believed to have written it. The appendix contains the chorus “At the conclusion of the [symbol for the Masonic session]” which became one of the most celebrated settings among German lieder and well- known as a kind of National Austrian Anthem with the text Lasst uns mit geschlungnen Händen. Mozart however used the text Laut verkündet unsre Freude. This edition had been advertised in the Wiener Zeitung on 25 January 1792 and is one of the earliest after the composer’s death. The advertisement gives additional information: “Zum Vorteil seiner Witwe und Waisen. Ein Schwanengesang, dessen Ausführung er zwei Tage vor seiner letzten Krankheit im Kreise seiner besten Freunde dirigirt hat.” (Published for the benefit of Mozart’s widow and children. The composer performed this work two days before his last illness in the circle of his best friends.)
 
 

1790: Paul Wranitzky joins Mozart’s masonic lodge

 
138. WRANITZKY, Paul (1756-1808). Six Quartetts pour deux Violons, Alte & Basse Composés & dédiés à Monsieur Ant. Salieri Maitre premier de la Chapelle… OEuvre IX. Spire ches Bossler Conseiller pl. no. 162 [1792]. 4 parts, 23, 21, 15, 15 pp. folio, engraved, the 1st violin part with fine title-page to which Wranitzky’s only known portrait has been added printed from a second plate (covering the “Oeuvre IX” imprint of the first plate); a few dust and finger markings (of some old performers), otherwise in fine condition. From the Talleyrand collection. £ 800
 
RISM W 2096 (only 4 copies), Schneider (Bossler) p. 161 (with ill.), 162; MGG XIV, 883. First edition. This is Wranitzky’s third set of string quartets; it pays a large tribute to the virtuosity of the violin one generation before Louis Spohr, who also put the lower instruments in the shadow of the brilliance of the first violin. Wranitzky’s opus 9 is dedicated to a non-violin player, Antonio Salieri, who was Wranitzky’s music director at the Vienna Imperial Theatre. These quartets seem to have been written for the author himself; indeed, Wranitzky was described by his contemporaries as a “wonderful violin player”, but he was also a “worthy” orchestra director: Haydn wanted his oratorio The Creation and Beethoven his First Symphony to be premièred by Wranitzky.

Wranitzky was also a highly interesting and helpful personality. He went to Vienna in 1790 as “first orchestra director” or “director on the violin” (i. e. concert master) and very soon joined Mozart’s masonic lodge “Zur gekrönten Hoffnung” (At the crowned Hope) where he almost certainly made Mozart’s personal acquaintance. After the latter’s death he remained in close contact with Mozart’s widow Constanze and played an important role in preparing the estate of autograph manuscripts; indeed, on one occasion Nissen notes “Wranitzky knows the location of the remaining manuscripts” with reference to a horn concerto. In 1799 Wranitzky arranged the sale contract between Constanze and the publisher André for the complete collection of Mozart’s autographs.
 
 

Written for Michael Puchberg

 
139. MOZART, W. A. [K. 563] Gran Trio per Violino, Viola, e Basso [...] Opera 19. f. 2. Vienna-Mainz, Artaria pl.-no. 368 [1792]. Complete set of engraved parts: vl. (title-page with very decorative frame) 13 pp.; vla (13 pp.), vc. (13 pp.), folio, some marks of use, vla. and vc. parts with some tears and water-stains to margins (only slightly affecting the music). £ 2,400
 
Köchel/7 p. 634; Haberkamp p. 318 (ill. 286); RISM M/MM 6250; coll. Hoboken XI, no. 378; Hirsch VI, no. 150. – First edition. – The cello part is said to have been engraved by Hoffmeister; it had almost certainly been prepared in Mozart’s lifetime since the whole trio was already advertised on 3 March 1792, less than four months after the composer’s death.

Mozarts entered this trio in his autograph work list on 27 September 1788: “Ein Divertimento à 1 Violino, 1 Viola, e Violoncello; di sei pezzi” referring to the six important movements which are much more than a divertimento, whose singularity had already been emphasised by Jahn and Abert. According to a letter of 16 April 1789 this work was composed for Mozart’s masonic brother Michael Puchberg who had played a major rôle in balancing financial problems in the composer’s last years. These loans have been overrated and misinterpreted for nearly two centuries. In fact, Constanze was able to pay them back within a relatively short period after Mozart’s death.

According to our interpretation of the Puchberg loans (cf. comment to Mozart’s letter to Puchberg of 17 June 1788 in Drüner catalogue 44, p.20), only the smaller ones are linked to financial problems. The only important loan of June 1788 was, according to Mozart’s own interpretation, a sponsorship demand for artistic freedom.

Mozart himself was a great viola player. He first performed the viola part of his Divertimento privately with Puchberg and thereafter twice publicly in Dresden (13 April 1789) and Vienna (9 April 1790). All viola players agree that a musician mastering the K. 563 viola part must be first rate.
 
 

Freemasonry and philanthropy

 
140. ZIEGENHAGEN, Franz Heinrich (editor). Lehre vom richtigen Verhältnisse zu den Schöpfungswerken, und die durch öffentliche Einführung derselben allein zu bewürkende algemeine Menschenbeglükkung. Mit 8 Kupfert. von D. Chodowiecki und einer Musik von W.A. Mozart. Hamburg, by the Editor, 1792. 8vo. 4ff,. 633pp., 2ff., + 8 horstexte plates by Chodowiecki, 2 folding (one of a Utopian, bucolic landscape extending to 39.5 x 29cm.), + folded leaves (8pp.) of Mozart’s recitative “Die ihr des unermesslichen Weltalls Schöpfers ehrt.” [Köchel 619, pp. 705-6] – the “Kleine deutsche Kantate” for voice and piano, composed in Vienna in July 1791 to a text by Franz Heinrich Ziegenhagen. Twentieth-century full calf with gilt tooled borders to upper and lower covers, t.e.g., marbled endpapers signed on doublures by H. Fikentscher, Leipzig (1922); wear to top row of vignettes on upper cover; in slipcase.          £ 2,450
 
First edition. Steeped in the Leibnitzian moral optimism of the Enlightenment, the work lays down the tenets for human happiness as solely dependent on a general, public, religious and philosophical application of the works of creation. Mozart’s recitative pays tribute to the “immeasurable universe” of the Creator.
 
 

The ‘Zauberflöte’
Two early editions of the libretto
 

141. [MOZART, W. A.] [SCHIKANEDER, E.] Die Zauberflöte. Eine grosse Oper in zwey Aufzügen. … Die Musik ist von Herrn Wolfgang Amade Mozart, Kapellmeister, und wirklichem k.k. Kammer-Compositeur. Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1794. 8vo. 1f., 90pp., + hand-coloured frontispiece of Schikaneder as Papageno (the rôle he created) with his birdcage on his back, in an Arcadian landscape with steps leading to a classical pavilion. Original boards, very worn, foxing, with early ownership inscriptions, one dating from 1809 with red stamp on title-page. Köchel 620. See colour illustration on lower cover. £ 450
 
 
142. [MOZART.W.A.] [SCHIKANEDER, E.] Il Flauto Magico. Dramma Eroicomico per Musica in due atti tradotto dall’ idioma Tedesco nell’ Italiano. [Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel], 1794. 8vo. 2ff., 98 pp., 1f. blank; disbound. The first Italian libretto from Emanuel Schikaneder’s German original. – Köchel 620, p.712. £ 450
 
 

Schikaneder’s co-author of the ‘Zauberflöte’ libretto

 
143. GIESECKE, Karl Ludwig (1761–1833). Autograph letter signed, written somewhere in Greenland, 12 June 1809, to an unnamed Chevalier at Augsburg (Giesecke’s birth-place), 4 pp. 8vo (21.5 × 16cm). Small loss of paper on the seal area; upper part of second leaf missing (cut off under the signature); the address (on p. 4) is therefore incomplete, otherwise in good condition. £ 950
 
The real name of Giesecke, an actor, dramatical author and mineralogist, was Georg Johann Metzler. He therefore signs Karl Ludwig Metzler, genannt Giesecke. Stieger’s Opera Dictionary quotes fourteen of his libretti. – Giesecke was almost certainly the author of the text of the Masonic Cantata K. 623 (see no. 137 in this catalogue). He worked with Schikaneder from 1789 onwards and wrote several librettos for the latter’s company using several motifs which are also found in the Zauberflöte. Therefore references to him have been given in connection with that work, and he is generally supposed to have largely contributed to its libretto. In any case he claimed co-authorship on the occasion of a visit to Vienna in 1818-1819. Therefore one can reasonably presume a strong influence on Schikaneder even if the precise extent of Giesecke’s contribution cannot be quantified. In 1801 Giesecke left the theatre and travelled as a natural scientist to Greenland; he stayed there for more than seven years, since he was unable to return to Austria during the Napoleonic occupation. Our letter is from that period. He is answering a letter of 1st April 1808 which reached him in Greenland only on 28 May 1809. Our letter was even slower since it has a reception mark “empfang 18. September 1814”. Giesecke writes about the Copenhagen bombing (Sept. 1807) where he lost his whole collection of books and minerals: “I am growing tired of all these accidents, and additionally we are getting into difficulties due to the lack of food from Europe. There was no wood and we were obliged to heat and to cook with fish-oil lamps during last winter […]”
 
 

1791: The Zauberflöte first editions and
the most fascinating editorial competition of the 18th century

 
144. MOZART, W. A. [KV 620] Die Zauberflöte in Clavierauszug von Herrn W.A. Mozart. Vienna, “in dem musikalischen Magazin in der untern Breunerstrasse No 1158” [Nov. 1791 for nos. 23 and 8; 3 Dec. 1791 for no. 24; 17 Dec. 1791 until 28 Sept. 1793 for the remainder]. 228 pp. [paginated in ms; printed pagination separately for each of the 38 numbers], engraved, oblong folio; repairs to margins on pp. 23, 27, 81, 83, 84-87, 149, 155, 157, 161 without affecting text; some signs of use in the first half of the volume; contemporary half-leather binding with remarkably fresh tasteful marbled boards; red edging, gilt label on spine. From the Talleyrand collection. £ 17,800
 
RISM M 4775; Köchel/7 p. 711; Haberkamp, pp. 354-360 and plates 331-332; Hirsch IV, p. 184; Hoboken XII No. 458-495. A particularly fine copy of the complete Kozeluch first edition of the Zauberflöte. This edition appeared in competition with Artaria’s publication of the Zauberflöte, which, however, remained unfinished (only 24 numbers appeared between Dec. 1791 and 1792; for description see Drüner catalogue 53 no. 99 and Haberkamp p. 360ff.). In this competition Kozeluch and Artaria published the same highlights of the opera and undercut each other by lowering prices until Artaria gave in. Hoffmeister’s edition (1792, Haberkamp p. 378) remained unfinished as well. Haberkamp gives the complete account of this editorial competition which is the most spectacular in music history. As a consequence of the publication in single numbers complete copies of both editions are of utmost rarity; only one copy of the complete Kozeluch edition was offered on the market (1986). The Sotheby’s copy (May 2000) was incomplete: the title-page and index were missing. They were in fact issued with the last numbers, as has been pointed out by Haberkamp p. 358. Our copy confirms this since the imprint of no. 18 shows the misprint ‘Unternbrennerstrasse’ (instead of ‘Unternbreunerstrasse’) which is only found in the earliest ones (Haberkamp p. 355). Our copy corresponds to all the other criteria of the earliest issue: no continuous pagination, separate titles to numbers 7-9, 13, 19, 23, 24 and 27 (which are lacking in later issues), missing plate numbers which were added only to later issues. There is, however, a difference suggesting that our’s is earlier than the copy Haberkamp used for her bibliography: our Verzeichnis (fol. 2) still lacks the currency symbols ‘fl’/’Kr.’ for the prices in the last two columns.

Three numbers of this edition still appeared during Mozart’s lifetime: [no. 8] Bey Männer welche, [no. 23] In diesen Heil’gen, [no. 24] Seyd uns zum zweytenmal willkomen. When describing this edition in 1986, Hans Schneider said that Mozart prepared it himself after the first performance on 30 September 1791; Schneider is almost certainly right since Mozart was very well acquainted with both publishers, Artaria and Kozeluch. Albi Rosenthal, however, when describing the British Library copy of the Kozeluch edition for the Oxford Mozart exhibition in 1991, quotes Charles Mackerras who was astonished by the textual differences between the Artaria and Kozeluch editions. A large field for investigation by future researchers remains.
This is one of the most desirable Mozart first editions.
 
 

Kozeluch’s competitor: Artaria

 
145. MOZART, W. A. [K. 620/1, 8, 21] Overtura dell’ Opera Die Zauberflöte per Clavicembalo o Forte Piano [...] 24 Xr. Vienna, Artaria, pl.-no. 377 [May 1792]. 7 pp. engraved piano score, oblong folio. – Haberkamp, p. 362; RISM M 4811. – First edition, first issue (the price was erased in later issues). With: Duet Bey Männern welche Liebe Fühlen. Für das Klavier aus der neuen Opera Die Zauberflöte [...] Samlung von Arien N° 94 [...] 10 Xr. Vienna and Mainz, Artaria, pl.-no. 94 [shortly after 8 December 1791]. 7 pp. engraved vocal score, oblong folio; dust marks, some tears. – Haberkamp, p. 362f., ill. 334 (price 20 Xr.); RISM M 4846. – First edition, second issue (half price as a consequence of the competition with Kozeluch). With:

Aria. Papagena! Weibchen! Täubchen! meine Schöne! für das Clavier aus der Opera Die Zauberflöte [...] Samlung von Arien Nro. 111 [...] 24 Xr. Vienna, Artaria, pl.-no. 111, [May 1792]. 7 pp. engraved vocal score, oblong folio; some tears repaired. – Haberkamp, p. 365; RISM M 4876. – First edition, first issue. £ 900
 
Three single numbers from the Artaria vocal score; the Duet Bey Männern…, which is a second issue at the reduced price 10 Xr (instead 20). This vividly illustrates the bizarre nature of the competition between the two Viennese publishers Artaria and Kozeluch.
 
 

Mozart’s compositional ‘secrets’

 
146. MOZART, W. A. [K 620, Overture] Partitur der W. A. Mozart’schen Ouverture zu seiner Oper: Die Zauberflöte, in genauer Übereinstimmung mit dem Manuscript des Komponisten, so wie er solches entworfen, instrumentirt und beendet hat, herausgegeben mit einem Vorbericht begleitet von A. André. [...] Original-Ausgabe. Preis fl. 3. Offenbach, André, ed.-no. 5200 [1829]. 3 ff. title and preface (Vorbericht), 28 pp. full score in red and black lithography, additionally 2 pp. score for the 3 trombones, oblong folio; fine blue wrappers; in very good condition. £ 800
 
Not in Köchel/7; RISM M / MM 4803 (only 6 copies). – After the acquisition of the autograph Nachlass from Mozart’s widow Constanze in 1799, Johann Anton André published many first editions with practical (and, of course, commercial) aims. Perhaps it was André’s violon d’Ingres to add a few benchmark editions such as the first edition of the C minor Mass, K. 427 (see item 76) and the score of the Zauberflöte overture offered here, in which he first shows and discovers Mozart’s compositional process. The musical border of the string and bass parts are printed in black; the wind parts, which were written by Mozart in a slightly different ink (and therefore at a later time), were printed in red; Mozart’s corrections and cancellations are fully reproduced in the respective colour. This difficult typographical task has been achieved by André’s printers with admirable skill and forms a score of stunning beauty.

Thus André gives a first indication that Mozart did not ‘receive fully finished masterpieces from the heavens’: He planned them, sketched contrapuntal sections separately and incorporated them into a first melodic basso framework which was orchestrated at a separate working stage. Unfortunately André’s discoveries did not have an impact on Mozart scholars of the 19th century, and very soon the most incredible legends about Mozart’s inspirations became widespread. Only at the end of the 20th century, scholars such as Alan Tyson and Ulrich Konrad came to the conclusion that the compositional processes demonstrated by André in 1829 in one single example were identical for the majority of Mozart’s vocal, orchestral and greater chamber music works. André announced his intention to publish other works in the same manner, but he did not realise these plans.
 
 

1792: The Magic Flute takes off:
A few choice reprints

 
147. MOZART, W. A. [K 620] Die Zauberflöte, eine grosse Oper in zwey Aufzügen fürs Clavier oder Pianoforte von W. A. Mozart. Berlin – Amsterdam, J. J. Hummel, Pl. No. 842/846 [1792]. 2 ff., 64 pp., 2 ff. (with second title: Die Zauberflöte… Zweyter Theil), 64 pp. vocal score, folio, engraved, with 2 striking title-pages (engraved by C. C. Glaßbach), slightly soiled, one corner torn away in the margin, some light signs of use), fine modern half-leather with marbled boards. £ 900
 
Köchel/7 p. 712; RISM M 4792. One of the earliest and rarest reprints of the vocal score, containing the overture and the 36 numbers. Each act has its own finely decorated title-page and separate pagination.
 
 
148. MOZART, W. A. [KV 620] Clavier Auszug von Mozarts Zauberfloete Fürs Clavier eingerichtet von Friedrich Eunike, Churfürstlt: Cölnischen Hof- und Opern Sænger. Bonn: Simmrock [sic], pl. no. 4 [1793]. Title-page with price “fl. 7½” (found only on the earliest issue). 145 pp. vocal score oblong folio, with a very fine title-page (J. G. Pflugfelder del: & sculps:); half-leather binding with marbled boards, worn.
£ 600
 
Köchel/7 p. 712; RISM M 4780; Hoboken Vol.. 12, No. 558 (quotes only a later issue with French price). One of the earliest editions of the Zauberflöte, published at the same time as the Hummel edition. These two vocal scores are the earliest after the famous Artaria and Kozeluch editions which were completed in 1793, just when the Simrock and Hummel editions appeared. The Simrock title-page is decorated with an important medallion engraving by G. Pflugfelder representing two mourning muses near Mozart’s grave. In 1793 the impact of Mozart’s death was still topical; later the reception changed, and illustrators preferred the comical or solemn aspects of the Zauberflöte, depicting Papageno or the priests as title illustrations.
 
 

The two ‘first editions’ of La Clemenza di Tito

 
149. MOZART, W. A. [KV 621] La Clemenza di Tito, Opera seria di W. A. Mozart in due atti aggiustata per il Cembalo. Titus der Großmüthige, eine ernsthafte Oper in zwey Akten, von W. A. Mozart. Im Klavierauszuge von Siegfried Schmiedt. Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel [1795]. 2 ff. (title [right fifth replaced in facsimile], index, errata leaf), 110 pp. vocal score with Italian and German text, typeset, oblong folio, brownings, a few stains and repairs to edges; the missing frontispiece is replaced in facsimile; contemporary marbled boards, rebacked. £ 800
 
Köchel/7 p. 720; Haberkamp pp. 378ff. (ill. 336-338); RISM M 5097; Hirsch IV, Nr.212; Hoboken XII no. 575. – One of the two possible first editions, according to Haberkamp in the second issue which includes the errata leaf. She wonders whether this is a separate issue or whether some copies are only missing this leaf. Our copy seems to confirm the second possibility: The errata leaf she claims to be at the end of the volume is between the title-page and p. 1, in our copy. The leaf therefore was once isolated and is not part of a separate issue.

The Breitkopf edition has been regarded as the earliest, but there is no clear evidence since the Hamburg edition (see next item) was advertised during the same period for Easter 1795.
 
 
150. MOZART, W. A. [KV 621] La Clemenza di Tito. Opera seria... Aggiustata per il Piano Forte del Sign. A. E. Müller. Hamburg, Günther & Böhme [1795]. Title-page with fine scenic engraving; ownership stamp and small annotations in ink, 1 f. with Personen, 129 pp. vocal score, engraved, oblong folio, contemporary marbled boards, with some repairs, rubbed. £ 750
 
Köchel/7 S. 720; Haberkamp S. 379; BUC S. 701; RISM M 5111. – The second of the two possible first editions of Mozart’s last opera. The Hamburg edition had been offered on subscription in January and February 1795 announced to appear at Easter 1795; in May this edition is reported as available. The Breitkopf edition also was announced as appearing on Easter 1795, but is documented only in October 1795 as “neue Musikalien… Oster-Messe 1795”. At present, it still has not been possible to be certain as to the accuracy of the two extant advertisements.
 
 
151. MOZART, W. A. [KV 626] W. A. Mozarti Missa pro defunctis. Requiem. / W. A. Mozarts Seelenmesse mit unterlegtem deutschem Texte. Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel [c. 1800]. Frontispiece (W. Böhm after Kininger) with Mozart’s grave, 178 pp. typeset, oblong folio, spotting, some water-stains to inner margin, some repairs, good late 19th century binding with marbled boards. £ 750
 
Köchel/7 p. 720; Haberkamp p. 387 (ill. 346); not in Hirsch and coll. Hoboken. – First edition, fifth issue. Early Mozart scholars around 1800 reproached the publisher for errors and differences from the sources (e. g. the trombone solo part of Tuba mirum is partly played on the bassoon – a change unscrupulously introduced by J.A. Hiller). In 1827 Johann André therefore prepared a new edition ‘corrected after Mozart’s and Sussmayr’s manuscript’, and in 1829 a further one at Constanze Mozart’s request, with an appendix discussing the parts added by Abbé Stadler.
 
 

1791 : On his deathbed Mozart designates Albrechtsberger as his successor

 

On Mozart’s suggestion Albrechtsberger was appointed assistant and then Kapellmeister to St. Stephan Cathedral in Vienna, a post to which the official candidature was granted to Mozart by the Vienna City Council on 9 May 1791. Since Leopold Hofmann, his predecessor, only died in 1793, Mozart did not live long enough to benefit from this highly remunerated position, and Albrechtsberger was appointed to it directly after Hofmann’s death. This is sad coincidence: the St Stephan Kapellmeister was the municipal equivalent of the imperial Kapellmeister’s position held by Salieri from 1788, and if Mozart could have only enjoyed it for a short time, all the legends about him as the unrecognised genius would have been superfluous!

 
 
152. ALBRECHTSBERGER, Johann Georg (1736–1809). Six Fugues Pour le Piano-Forte ou l’Orgue, composées, et dediées aux Amateurs [...] 18me et dernier Oeuvre. […] Vienna Cappi, pl.-no. 1455 [1808]. 15 pp. oblong folio, engraved, title-page with some dust marks and slight tears; in a good half parchment early 20th century binding. From the collection of Vincent Novello (1781–1861) with his note on the title-page: “This Copy formerly belonged to my beloved friend Signor Dragonetti” [1763–1846]. £ 300
 
RISM AA 748 I, 62. – Mozart thought very highly of Albrechtsberger; he owned his first collection of Sei Fughe e preludie dating from 1787. The similar collection offered here is the last of the kind in Albrechtsberger’s work. He had great influence on his pupils, and Beethoven was also among his students. Albrechtsberger himself was not very happy with his own over-scholarly imagination and wrote with resignation: “I never have ideas which may not be used for double counterpoint”…
 
 

The first obituary of Mozart

 
153. [BOSSLER, Heinrich Phillip, editor]. Musikalische Korrespondenz der teutschen Filarmonischen Gesellschaft für das Jahr 1791. Speier, in der Expedizion dieser musical. Korrespondenz [H. Bossler], 1792. 4to. 416 numbered columns, 2ff. index, 200pp. musical notation as above. The 52 issues for the year 1791. Original boards, extremities worn. From the library of Alfred Cortot with his bookplate. £ 2,850
 
No.12 (column 90), dated 23 March 1791, includes notices on Leopold and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, mentioning Leopold’s fame created by his Violinschule and the triumphant tour of Germany, France and England with his exceptionally gifted children. No.52, (column 411) dated Wednesday, 28 December 1791, contains the earliest obituary of Mozart written by the editor, a friend of Mozart, who was present at the memorial concert in Prague on 11 December 1791:

‘Ganz Wien, und mit dieser Kaiserstadt die ganze musikalische Welt – betrauert den frühen Verlust dieses unsterblichen Mannes. Sein Körper ist dahin, seine Seele schwung sich zu höhern Harmonien, und uns hinterlässt er zum Troste die schönen Produkte seines Geistes.’…

There follows an announcement of the publication of the last set of three string quartets engraved by Artaria in Vienna and a forthcoming harpsichord concerto to be published by Bossler in the New Year.
 
 

The best known of Mozart’s obituaries

 
154. [SCHLICHTEGROLL, A.H. Friedrich von]. Nekrolog auf das Jahr 1790. Enthaltend Nachrichten von dem Leben merkwürdiger in diesem Jahre verstorbener Personen. Erster Band … Zweyter Band. Gotha: Justus Perthes, 1791. 2 vols. Together with: Nekrolog aus das Jahr 1791… Zweystes Jahr. Erster Band … Zweyter Band. Gotha:Perthes, 1792-93. 8vo. 2ff., 378pp., 1f.; viii pp., 372pp., 3ff.; 4ff., 376pp.; 4ff., 388pp., 2ff. Original boards. Duplicates from the Stadtbibliothek, Breslau, with rubber stamps on versos of title-pages. £ 1,900
 
Eitner VII, 98. – The first four volumes in this notable series, the first pair including the obituaries of Emperor Joseph II and Johannes Gessner, the second from pages 82-112 (vol. II) that of Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart, a substantial attempt at a first biography of the composer, written with information supplied to the author by Mozart’s sister and widow, checked and elaborated by his close friends.
 
 
155. [SCHLICHTEGROLL, A.H. Friedrich von]. Nekrolog auf das Jahr 1791]. Den 5. December [sic]. Johannes Chrysostumus Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart. [Gotha: J. Perthes: 1793]. Later parchment-backed marbled boards. From the library of Alfred Cortot with his bookplate and small green library stamp. £ 750
 
8vo. Pp. 82-112. Mozart’s obituary extracted from volume II of the work above, written shortly after his death: “So glänzend seine Laufbahn war, so kurz war sie auch. Kaum war er 36 Jahr alt, als er starb. Aber er hat sich in dieser kurzen Zeit einen Nahmen gemacht, der nicht untergehen wird, so lange nur noch Ein Tempel der Muse der Tonkunst stehen wird, und oft noch wird von gefühlvollen Seelen, sanft bewegt durch den Reichtum und die Schönheit seiner Harmonien, seinem Andenken ein begeistertes, dankbares Lob gewidmet werden.”