Mozart's personal catalog of works is a hand-written document that the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart created over the years 1784 to 1791. In it, he attempted to provide a clear description, with both verbal annotation and musical incipit, of every work he wrote during that time. The catalog survives today (in both original and published form) and serves as a standard basis for dating and authenticating Mozart's works.
Mozart entitled the document "Verzeichnüss aller meiner Werke vom Monath Febraio 1784 bis Monath _____ 1 _______", meaning "Catalog of all my works from the month of February 1784 to the month of _____ 1 _______" (underscores designate blank space). As Dexter Edge notes, "He has left both the month and year blank for the closing date of the catalogue, poignantly writing a single “1” instead of “17" in the expectation that the catalogue might serve him into the 1800s."[1] (Mozart died in 1791, at age 35.)
The spelling "Verzeichnüss" is an oddity, occasionally found in earlier 18th century sources;[2] modern Standard German has "Verzeichnis." Scholars sometimes echo Mozart's spelling simply to indicate which catalog they are referring to, since any other catalog (e.g., the Köchel catalog) would bear the standard spelling "Verzeichnis".
Format
Mozart used the verso (left-side) page of each opening (i.e., page-pair) for verbal descriptions, and the recto (right-side) page for the corresponding incipits. There are five works recorded on each opening.
Page 8, 1784
The five works on this pair of pages are as follows (Mozart's identifications):[3]
Den 21ten April. No. 6. Eine Klavier Sonata mit einer Violin
Den 25ten August. No. 7. 10 Variationen für das Klavier allein
Den 30ten September. No. 8. Ein Klavier Konzert Begleitung. 2 Violini, 2 Viole, 1 Flauto, 2 Oboe, 2 Fagotti, 2 Corni et Basso
Den 14ten October. No. 9. Eine Sonata für das Klavier allein
Den 9ten November. No. 10. Ein Quartett für 2 Violini, Viola e Violoncello
Mozart's combination of German and Italian may be translated thus:
21 April. No. 6. A piano sonata with a violin
25 August. No. 7. 10 variations for piano solo
30 September. No. 8. A piano concerto. Accompaniment: 2 violin (parts), 2 violas, 1 flute, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, and bass [instruments]
14 October. No. 9. A sonata for piano solo.
9 November. No. 10. A quartet for 2 violins, viola, and violoncello
In modern terminology, these works might referred to as follows:
The consecutive numbers in the Köchel catalog (the primary compilation by scholars of Mozart's works) attest the importance of Mozart's personal catalogue in establishing dates.
History
Hermann Abert treats the origin of the catalog as part of his assessment of Mozart's personality: "It is entirely typical of Mozart that from time to time he made a sincere effort to put his affairs in order." Abert notes that at the same time Mozart began to keep his musical catalog, he also made a catalog of all household expenditures (in which, for instance, he recorded his purchase of a pet starling). The expenditures catalog, unlike the musical one, was soon abandoned.
The first entry in the musical catalog was on 9 February 1784[4] for the Piano Concerto No. 14, K. 449. It was continued up to the last possible moment: Mozart recorded his last completed work, the Little Masonic Cantata K. 623, on 15 November 1791, and took to (what turned out to be) his deathbed five days later.
The catalog was retained for a time after Mozart's death (5 December 1791) by his widow Constanze, who used it as a resource for her campaign of publishing her husband's works. Constanze first revealed the existence of the catalog in a 1798 letter to the publishers Breitkopf & Härtel, then in 1800 sold the catalog (along with many musical works) to a different publisher, Johann Anton André, who published it in 1805. The original was kept first by André's heirs, then made its way into the prodigious autograph collection of Stefan Zweig, from which it eventually entered the collections of the British Library.[5]
The work is currently available in published form, both as a facsimile (photographs of what Mozart wrote) and in versions (such as André's) that convert Mozart's handwriting into more legible printed form.
The catalog is evidently not a perfect characterization of what Mozart wrote during the period, as there are attested works that have no entry. Further, there are entries for which the piece described had been lost.[6]
Significance
The catalog serves as a major primary source for the dating and authentication of Mozart's works. It is also widely used for Mozart scholarship and criticism; some instances are given below.
Many scholars have experienced a sense of quasi-miracle that the last three symphonies (39, 40, 41), all pinnacles of the classical literature, were composed according to the catalog within a very short period in 1786 (catalog entry dates 26 June, 25 July, 10 August, respectively).
The view that Mozart's final opera The Magic Flute is not best regarded as a mere Singspiel receives, perhaps, some support from the fact that in the catalog Mozart calls it "A German opera".
Mozart's characterization of K. 454 as "a piano sonata with a violin" supports the general view that, through the late 18th century, so-called "violin sonatas" were normally dominated by the piano part.
The famous Mozart serenade Eine kleine Nachtmusik almost certainly owes its familiar title to its catalog entry, where Mozart probably was not inventing a title but simply recording that he had finished a short notturno or night-music.
Anomalies of dating
Leeson and Whitwell (1973) point out some datings in the catalog that fail to make sense in light of other facts known about Mozart's career.
The piano variations K. 455, noted above, were unlikely to have been finished on the catalog date of 7 August 1784 given evidence that Mozart performed them in public "as early as 23 March 1783."
The violin sonata K. 454 seems to be dated too early, 21 April 1784, because Mozart wrote to his father 24 April that he was working on it. Moreover, at the premiere performance on 29 April with the violinist Regina Strinasacchi, Mozart played his own part mostly from memory, it being not yet written out.
The piano concerto K. 456 could not have been premiered by Maria Theresia Paradis in Paris any later than 2 October 1784, since she left the city then. This makes the catalog completion date of 30 September anomalous, in light of how fast mss. could be shipped in Mozart's day (it is approximately 1200 kilometers from Vienna to Paris). Even with a remarkable delivery speed, the pianist Paradis was blind and would have needed some time to memorize her part.
Leeson and Whitwell have a theory of these anomalies: that Mozart decided to start his catalog in late, not early 1784, and, choosing to begin at the beginning of the current year, did some sloppy guessing about the dates of the works he had already finished. In particular, for both K. 452 and K 454, Mozart seems to have chosen a completion date of convenience, falling two days before the premiere. In support of their hypothesis, Leeson and Whitwell suggest that the anomalies cease after 1784; which makes sense assuming that Mozart thereafter entered every work promptly on completion. Moreover, Leeson and Whitwell were able to access to the original manuscript, and from their inspection concluded that that the inks and handwriting are uniform for 1784 but vary work-by-work afterwards, as would be expected under their scenario.
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