{"id":5490,"date":"2019-07-22T08:00:34","date_gmt":"2019-07-22T06:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.henle.de\/blog\/en\/?p=5490"},"modified":"2019-07-21T17:20:26","modified_gmt":"2019-07-21T15:20:26","slug":"an-insightful-correction-in-mozarts-autograph-of-the-string-quartet-in-c-major-k-170","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/2019\/07\/22\/an-insightful-correction-in-mozarts-autograph-of-the-string-quartet-in-c-major-k-170\/","title":{"rendered":"An insightful correction in Mozart\u2019s autograph of the String Quartet in C major K. 170"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In a few weeks a long-cherished dream of mine will come true: This 2019 autumn we are going to publish Mozart\u2018s early Viennese String Quartets K. 168 \u2013 173, in Urtext (HN 1121 and HN 7121). To be sure, the text that I\u2019ve edited and our production team has magnificently typeset and printed will not be presented as any totally \u201cnew Mozart\u201d, but in the end will feature in detail many, many improvements for the quartet-playing profession. For when the relevant volume of the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (NMA =[\u2018New Mozart Edition\u2019]) was published (1966) \u2013 and its music text is still being offered by the B\u00e4renreiter publishing house today \u2013, that edition could not [!] be based on four of the six Mozart autographs. Then in 1989, exactly 30 years ago, the NMA at least gained access to the three manuscripts in Cracow: K. 169, 171, 173. At that time whilst I was still a musicology student, I was commissioned by the NMA to produce the \u201cCritical Report\u201d for this NMA volume (NMA VIII\/20\/Section 1\/1: String Quartets \u00b7 Volume 1, Critical Report, Kassel, etc., 1989). If now these Mozart works, on which, by the way, I did, amongst other things, my doctoral dissertation in 1990, is to appear in my own edition, this is, of course, a wonderful event for me.<\/p>\n

Today, I want to go into only one rather more external aspect of these quartets, namely, a small, but insightful inscription at the head of the autograph score for the C-major Quartet K. 170. This autograph was, incidentally, the only one that I was unable to examine in the original for my critical report in 1989. Meanwhile, this has also become available, that is, in the fantastic Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel. Here, as a little service (only for my blog readers) is the overview of the Mozart autographs for these six string quartets, together with the link to their digital copies (as applicable):<\/p>\n

Mozart Autographs | The early Viennese String Quartets K. 168 \u2013 173<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
No. 1<\/td>\nF major<\/td>\nK. 168<\/td>\nNo digital copy
\nFacsimile edition<\/a>
\nG. Henle Verlag HN 3209<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
No. 2<\/td>\nA major<\/td>\nK. 169<\/td>\nDigital<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
No. 3<\/td>\nC major<\/td>\nK. 170<\/td>\nNo digital copy, but verification<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
No. 4<\/td>\nE-flat major<\/td>\nK. 171<\/td>\nDigital<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
No. 5<\/td>\nB-flat major<\/td>\nK. 172<\/td>\nDigital<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
No. 6<\/td>\nd minor<\/td>\nK. 173
\nK. 173\/4<\/td>\n		Digital<\/a>
\nOriginal version: Digital<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

All that interests me in this blog post is the title at the head of the autograph of the C-major quartet K. 170: \u201cquartetto III\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Arthur Wilhelm Collection, Paul Sacher Stiftung, Basel. With kind permission.<\/p><\/div>\n

The heading does not come from Mozart himself, but from his father Leopold (whose 300th birthday we\u2019ll be celebrating this year). The father was obviously very proud of what his seventeen-year-old son had put on paper during his Vienna stay in August 1773:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n\u201cdi Wolfgango Amadeo Mozart. | accademico di Bologna e di Verona\u201d, he writes in ink at the top left of the first page. Let\u2019s recall: In 1770 at only 14 years of age, Mozart was accepted as a member into the noble \u201cAccademia Filarmonica\u201d of Bologna<\/a>, after studying with the famous contrapuntist Padre Martini. Though why his father also mentions the Verona academy (was Wolfgang also a member of it?), I have no idea.<\/p>\n

Be that as it may, the heading \u201cquartetto\u201d also comes from Leopold Mozart\u2019s hand, whereas the subsequent Roman numeral \u201cIII\u201d looks more like it comes from another hand. So far, so good. Although I had noticed the ink blurring above \u201cVerona\u201d in the photos then available, it had been impossible to decipher what Leopold Mozart had originally written (\u201cillegible, blurred correction above Verona\u201d, I write in the pertinent critical report, p. a\/65). Recently, I was permitted the on-site privilege of examining Mozart\u2019s original in the rooms at the Paul Sacher Stiftung (available for viewing there are high-resolution scans that are just as good); lo and behold, Leopold had originally written and then wiped out: \u201cDiv[ertimento]\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cDivertimento\u201d is, of course, the old, virtually pass\u00e9 string-quartet titling. In the 1760s Joseph Haydn had still termed his earliest string quartets as \u201cDivertimento\u201d, but Mozart was already using the \u201cmodern\u201d term to head his earliest quartets of 1770 and 1772\/73 (K. 80, K. 155 \u2013 160), with an eye to the scoring (4 parts) rather than to the function (entertaining). Leopold Mozart, immediately recognising his own error in writing out the wrong term, no longer in use, thus wiped it out in the still wet ink and corrected it to the scoring title.<\/p>\n

This trifle seems so important to me, because I am hypothesising as follows: From the outset on their respective title pages, each of the five other autographs for the string quartets K. 168 \u2013 173 carries the so-to-speak correct \u201cquartetto\u201d \u2013 yet only K. 170 still doesn\u2019t at the first attempt. (This can all be gleaned by reading the relevant critical report.) From this, and from the fact that only in K. 170 does the autograph bear the rather proud inscription, and even exceptionally, at the top left<\/em> (\u201caccademico di Bologna e di Verona\u201d), means, I\u2019m surmising, that the C-major quartet K. 170, was likely the first of Mozart\u2019s six string quartets written down in Vienna in 1773. The other five followed thereupon, I maintain. For stated in K. 168, 171 and 173 at the top right<\/em>, differing from K. 170, is: \u201cdel Sgr. Caval: [KV 173 only \u201cCav:\u201d] Amadeo Wolfgango Mozart\u201d; added after the title in K. 168, when the binding sequence of the six quartets had subsequently (!) been clarified, was: \u201c6 quartetti del Sgr: Caval: \u2026\u201d (K. 169 and 172 bear no such relevant signing).<\/p>\n

In what a messed up form the C-major quartet then appeared when it was first published posthumously (that is, shortly after Mozart\u2019s death, in a corrupted thrown-together form with a movement from the earlier C-major string quartet K. 157) is another story altogether and could one day play a role in one of my next blog posts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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