{"id":1182,"date":"2013-09-30T08:00:52","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T06:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.henle.de\/blog\/en\/?p=1182"},"modified":"2015-06-15T08:53:29","modified_gmt":"2015-06-15T06:53:29","slug":"a-forgery-and-if-so-by-whom-on-the-closing-bars-in-mozart%e2%80%99s-wind-quintet-kv-452","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/2013\/09\/30\/a-forgery-and-if-so-by-whom-on-the-closing-bars-in-mozart%e2%80%99s-wind-quintet-kv-452\/","title":{"rendered":"A forgery? And if so, by whom? On the closing bars in Mozart\u2019s Wind Quintet K. 452"},"content":{"rendered":"

The autograph of Mozart\u2019s piano quintet for piano and four winds K. 452 harboured a secret for more than 200 long years. I could first reveal it as part of my Urtext edition (HN 665<\/a> and HN 9665<\/a>) in the year 2000. The Preface<\/a> and Critical Report<\/a> give all ne\u00adces\u00adsa\u00adry information. A minor philological mystery thriller! Meanwhile, my discovery seems by and large to have gotten about, for on the Internet<\/a> as well as also in a recently pub\u00adlished Edition<\/a>, the facts and my elucidations of the reasons are correctly conveyed.<\/p>\n

The secret is that the close of the work supposedly exists in two different Mozart ver\u00adsions; since year one, that is, we have thought that in both cases these were in Mo\u00adzart\u2019s handwriting. Even the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (1957) did not recognise that only the lon\u00adger, though not the shorter, version was written by Mozart. The latter only re\u00adsemb\u00adles Mozart\u2019s handwriting at first glance.<\/p>\n

But why should anyone want to forge Mozart\u2019s handwriting on the last page of the K. 452 autograph. especially in consideration of the fact, that the original is existing? My answer to that: the single leaf on which Mozart\u2019s genuine hand is located must have gone missing for some time from the autograph of the work; presumably, the last leaf had fal\u00adlen off and been temporarily lost. There had to be a closing in order to be able to play and print the work that its composer after all took to be \u2018the best that I have yet written in my life\u2019. An un\u00adknown person jumped in and composed\/notated four concluding bars on a blank piece of Mozart\u2019s paper. Mozart\u2019s original leaf with, that is, a completely dif\u00adfe\u00adrent 11-bar close was later found in the estate and restored then to its rightful place. All that and more too can be looked up in my edition.<\/p>\n

I would like in this blog to find out who the writer was and whether he was a forger. Mean\u00adtime, we can indeed be exceedingly grateful for the generosity of the owner of Mo\u00adzart\u2019s autograph and study it comfortably online: Mozart’s Autograph<\/a> (Biblioth\u00e8que na\u00adti\u00ado\u00adna\u00adle in Paris). Here<\/a>, the final inscribed page with the close of the third movement in the unidentified hand:<\/p>\n

\"Detail:<\/a>

Detail: Mozart Autograph, p. 16r (Source gallica.bnf.fr\/Biblioth\u00e8que nationale de France)<\/p><\/div>\n

And now for comparison<\/a>, Mozart\u2019s own eleven autograph closing bars as they are to be found on the directly preceding autograph leaf:<\/p>\n

\"Mozart<\/a>

Mozart Autograph, p. 15r (Source gallica.bnf.fr\/Biblioth\u00e8que nationale de France)<\/p><\/div>\n

Let\u2019s consider more closely the characteristics of the unidentified hand. It is not<\/em> the hand of a calligraphically-skilled, professional music copyist, but rather the distinctive hand of a writer experienced to some extent in writing music, presumably a musician:<\/p>\n