"Beim Auszug in das Feld", K. 552, is a military-patriotic song composed for tenor voice and piano accompaniment by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The title may be translated "On going forth to the field" (i.e., of battle).
"Beim Auszug in das Feld", K. 552, is a military-patriotic song composed for tenor voice and piano accompaniment by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The title may be translated "On going forth to the field" (i.e., of battle).
Mozart entered the composition into his personal catalog of completed works on 11 August 1788, one day after he had similarly recorded the completion of his celebrated Symphony No. 41 (Jupiter Symphony). The song was a response to the war against Turkey that had been launched by the Austrian emperor (and Mozart's patron) Joseph II; said war initially gave rise to a highly patriotic public response, though later on it proved a fiasco for Austria (negligible territorial gains, severe economic stress, and the loss of political freedom). [1]
The song was one of three patriotic works written by Mozart in response to the war. Christoph Wolff writes that Mozart "paid patriotic tribute when he wrote the orchestral contradanse La bataille, K. 535, a piece of martial music on the siege of Belgrade for the entertainment of the Redoubtensaal society" (the Redoubtensäle were the Imperial ballrooms, and Mozart's job with the Emperor required him to write music to be danced there). Wolff also mentions "the war song 'Ich möchte wohl der Kaiser sein' ('I wish I were the emperor'), K. 539, for bass and a Turkish-style military band"; [2] it was sung by the comedian Friedrich Baumann in a patriotic concert in the Theater in der Leopoldstadt in Vienna, 7 March 1788. [3] [lower-alpha 1]
"Beim Auszug in das Feld" was published in "a short-lived periodical, to which Mozart subscribed, entitled Wochenblatt für Kinder zur angenehmen und lehrreichen Beschäftigung in ihren Freystunden ('Weekly for children, providing Pleasant and Instructive Occupation in their Leisure Hours'; iv, 1788)". [5] The journal publication also provided some annotation and commentary, highly patriotic in tone.
According to Alexander Hyatt King, only three copies of the original publication survive today; Mozart's autograph (hand-written original) is lost. [6]
The song is short (21 bars long) and the music includes many dotted rhythms, characteristic of a military march. Its key signature is A major and its time signature is 
(2/2) with a tempo indication of Mäßig (moderate). The music combines pairs of stanzas into its Strophic form.
Mozart set 18 stanzas of verse by an unknown poet; [7] each repetition of the music covers two stanzas, so the music must be sung nine times over to cover the whole poem.
Dem hohen Kaiserworte treu, | Joseph called forth his armies; |
Wo sie erschienen, fanden sie | Wherever they appeared, they found |
Denn Vater Josephs Beispiel schnitt | Because father Joseph's example cut |
Drum läßt er seinen Regen so | That's why He lets the rain |
Ein Gott auf Erden duldete | Thus Joseph, like a god on earth, |
Und kennt kein Recht als seine Hand | And knows no justice but its own fist |
Und möchte so durch Heuchellist | And so it seeks through cunning sham |
Bei uns wird jeder Bruder steh'n, | Every brother who values justice and humanity |
Und eure Enkel segnen euch | And your descendents will also bless you |
Derek Beales describes the lyrics as "manifestly propagandist, directed at persuading young men of the justice of the emperor's cause". [8] Another English translation, in metrical verse, may be found in his book Enlightenment and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Europe. [9]
After Mozart's death, the work went missing and was restored to the awareness of scholars and musicians only early in the 20th century; further decades were needed before the work was printed in standard scholarly editions.
Beales' essay "Court, Government and Society in Mozart's Vienna" suggests that a certain degree of taboo has shrouded the work, based perhaps in scholars' reluctance to imagine Mozart participating in the creation of truculent military propaganda. [10] One early published English-language edition eliminated the lyrics entirely, substituting a poem entitled "The Maiden and the Faun". Subsequent recordings and publications have omitted certain verses in a way that "minimiz[es] the song's bellicosity". [11] One apologist viewpoint is offered by pianist Ulrich Eisenlohr in commentary for his Naxos Records recording of the song; he suggests that while the words are bellicose, Mozart's setting is (subversively) not so:
[The song can be] regarded as a commission. It was intended as propaganda for young people to support the unpopular Turkish campaign of Emperor Joseph II in 1788. Whether Mozart himself took the commission and subject-matter entirely seriously is open to doubt, if the subtle and humorous music is anything to go by. The big pause between "... rief Joseph seinen Heeren" ("...Joseph summoned his armies") and "sie eilten flügelschnell herbei" (“they hurried quickly to him”) has the effect of an irritating delay in the alleged lightning-quick and eager drawing-up of the army, while the violent and somewhat grotesque outburst right at the start of the piano postlude can be seen as having subversive potential. [12]
The work is widely unknown today and is seldom performed or recorded; [13] [14] Beales calls it "one of the most obscure of Mozart's published and completed works".
Notes
References
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition resulted in more than 800 works representing virtually every Western classical genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoire. Mozart is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture".
Johann Georg Leopold Mozart was a German composer, violinist, and music theorist. He is best known today as the father and teacher of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and for his violin textbook Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule (1756).
Johann Peter Salomon was a German violinist, composer, conductor and musical impresario. Although an accomplished violinist, he is best known for bringing Joseph Haydn to London and for conducting the symphonies that Haydn wrote during his stay in England. He also knew and worked with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completed his Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551, on 10 August 1788. The longest and last symphony that he composed, it is regarded by many critics as among the greatest symphonies in classical music. The work is nicknamed the Jupiter Symphony, probably coined by the impresario Johann Peter Salomon.
Lo sposo deluso, ossia La rivalità di tre donne per un solo amante is a two-act opera buffa, K. 430, composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart between 1783 and 1784. However, the opera was never completed and only a 20-minute fragment from act 1 exists.
The composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart went by many different names in his lifetime. This resulted partly from the church traditions of the day, and partly from Mozart being multilingual and freely adapting his name to other languages.
Maria Aloysia Antonia Weber Lange was a German soprano, remembered primarily for her association with the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The Symphony No. 31 in D major, K. 297/300a, better known as the Paris Symphony, is one of the most famous symphonies by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It may have been first of his symphonies to be published when Jean-Georges Sieber released their edition in 1779.
The Piano Concerto No. 27 in B♭ major, K. 595, is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's last piano concerto; it was first performed early in 1791, the year of his death.
Leopold Koželuch was a Czech composer and music teacher.
Bardengesang auf Gibraltar: O Calpe! Dir donnert's am Fuße is the title of a fragment for voice and piano composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1782. It was created to celebrate the British Royal Navy's successful relief of the besieged garrison of Gibraltar in October 1782, during the Great Siege of Gibraltar. A British fleet had evaded a joint Franco-Spanish force to deliver supplies and reinforcements to the garrison before returning home safely – an achievement that was widely lauded and soon forced France and Spain to give up the siege. Mozart's reaction to the British victory was to declare to his father that he considered himself an "arch-Englishman". This was an unusually political outburst from someone who was ordinarily very apolitical, perhaps reflecting antipathy towards the French. He was commissioned to set to music a "bardic song" (Bardengesang) by Michael Denis celebrating the British success but gave up after only completing three stanzas. In a letter to his father sent at the end of December 1782, he complained of the poet's "exaggerated and bombastic" style.
There is no question that the Praguers of the late eighteenth century exhibited a special appreciation for the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, even though, as recently pointed out by Daniel E. Freeman, confirmations of this fact attributed to Mozart himself in sayings such as "Meine Prager verstehen mich" have only come down to posterity second or third hand. Perhaps the most valuable direct testimony that attests to the discernment of the musical public in Prague with regard to Mozart's music comes from Lorenzo Da Ponte, the librettist of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, which was first performed in Prague:
It is not easy to convey an adequate conception of the enthusiasm of the Bohemians for [Mozart's] music. The pieces which were admired least of all in other countries were regarded by those people as things divine; and, more wonderful still, the great beauties which other nations discovered in the music of that rare genius only after many, many performances, were perfectly appreciated by the Bohemians on the very first evening.
The Mozart family grand tour was a journey through western Europe, undertaken by Leopold Mozart, his wife Anna Maria, and their musically gifted children Maria Anna (Nannerl) and Wolfgang Theophilus (Wolferl) from 1763 to 1766. At the start of the tour the children were aged eleven and seven respectively. Their extraordinary skills had been demonstrated during a visit to Vienna in 1762, when they had played before the Empress Maria Theresa at the Imperial Court. Sensing the social and pecuniary opportunities that might accrue from a prolonged trip embracing the capitals and main cultural centres of Europe, Leopold obtained an extended leave of absence from his post as deputy Kapellmeister to the Prince-Archbishopric of Salzburg. Throughout the subsequent tour, the children's Wunderkind status was confirmed as their precocious performances consistently amazed and gratified their audiences.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died after a short illness on 5 December 1791, aged 35. His reputation as a composer, already strong during his lifetime, rose rapidly in the years after his death, and he became one of the most celebrated of all composers.
Between 1769 and 1773, the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his father Leopold Mozart made three Italian journeys. The first, an extended tour of 15 months, was financed by performances for the nobility and by public concerts, and took in the most important Italian cities. The second and third journeys were to Milan, for Wolfgang to complete operas that had been commissioned there on the first visit. From the perspective of Wolfgang's musical development the journeys were a considerable success, and his talents were recognised by honours which included a papal knighthood and memberships in leading philharmonic societies.
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The two main labels that have been used to describe the nationality of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are "Austrian" and "German". However, in Mozart's own life, those terms were used differently from the way they are used today, because the modern nation states of Austria and Germany did not yet exist. Any decision to label Mozart as "Austrian" or "German" involves political boundaries, history, language, culture, and Mozart's own views. Editors of modern encyclopedias and other reference sources differ in how they assign a nationality to Mozart in light of conflicting criteria.
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