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THE EARLY RECEPTION OF MOZART'S OPERAS IN LONDON: BURNEY'S MISSED OPPORTUNITY
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 September 2020
Abstract
Early in 1789 Charles Burney declined a chance to purchase the score of an unnamed Mozart opera, offered to him by Franz Anton Weber, the composer's uncle-in-law, in an unsolicited letter from Hamburg. For several years Weber had been active in supplying new Viennese repertory to northern cities such as Uppsala, Hanover and Hamburg, but in a career change, he decided to launch an itinerant opera troupe. Among the family members employed in this company was Franz Anton's daughter Jeanette, who, he claimed, had been a pupil of Mozart and Aloysia Lange. In the light of Burney's missed opportunity, my article revisits the well-researched story of Mozart reception at the King's Theatre in the late 1780s.
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References
1 Charles Burney, letter to Christian Latrobe, Chelsea College, 24 March 1805. Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Osborn MSS, Box 4. The Requiem received its London premiere on 20 February 1801, but it did not start to become part of the city's regular concert repertory until a large-scale benefit performance was directed by Johann Peter Salomon on 28 May 1812. Even then, its liturgical status as a Roman Catholic mass for the dead impeded full acceptance. See Cowgill, Rachel, ‘“Hence, base intruder, hence”: Rejection and Assimilation in the Early English Reception of Mozart's Requiem’, in Europe, Empire, and Spectacle in Nineteenth-Century British Music, ed. Cowgill, Rachel and Rushton, Julian (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 9–27Google Scholar.
2 Even that committed apologist for ‘ancient’ music, William Crotch, had to admit to Burney that Mozart's Requiem was a favourite of his, although the masses of Haydn and Mozart in general left him cold: ‘sorry to say that I cannot agree with you in liking them – no not even at all’. Cited in Irving, Howard, Ancients and Moderns: William Crotch and the Development of Classical Music (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 41Google Scholar.
3 Burney, letter to William Crotch, 4 November 1805. Osborn MSS, Box 4.
4 Eisen, Cliff, New Mozart Documents (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Burney himself recalled seeing the Mozart family soon after their arrival, and later at the house of a Mr ‘Frank’, probably the ‘Mr Frenck’ listed in Leopold's Reisenotizen (travel notes). The position of this name towards the end of his running list of people that he met in London suggests that the family performed there as one of their last private engagements in England. See Hannah Templeton, ‘The Mozarts in London: Exploring the Family's Professional, Social and Intellectual Networks in 1764–1765’ (PhD dissertation, King's College London, 2016), 75.
5 For some reason, it was several years before Barrington submitted his account to Maty at the Royal Society.
6 David Steuart Erskine, letter to Burney, 13 March 1806. Osborn MSS 3, Box 2. Master Gattie appeared during the 1808 and 1809 Edinburgh concert series. See John Leonard Cranmer, ‘Concert Life and the Music Trade in Edinburgh c.1780–c.1830’ (PhD dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 1991), 64. In a similar vein, Erskine wrote to Burney on 22 March 1808 predicting ‘another MOZART’. Ever since Samuel Wesley had been called an ‘English Mozart’, this had become a standard accolade. Philip Olleson, Samuel Wesley: The Man and His Music (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2003), 10.
7 Erskine, letter to Burney, Edinburgh, 13 March 1812. Osborn MSS 3, Box 2. Paton featured in the Edinburgh concert series in 1811 and 1812. See Cranmer, ‘Concert Life’, 113. Burney mentioned Erskine's recommendation in a letter to Samuel Wesley dated 29 August 1813. See Kassler, Michael and Olleson, Philip, Samuel Wesley (1766–1837): A Source Book (Farnham: Routledge, 2001), 320Google Scholar.
8 Knox, Vicesimus, Essays, Moral and Literary, two volumes (London: Edward and Charles Dilly, 1779)Google Scholar, volume 1, 228.
9 Knox, Essays, volume 2, 116.
10 St James's Chronicle or the British Evening Post (29 June 1765): ‘Lord Cardross, eldest Son of the Earl of Buchan, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.’
11 Minutes of the Standing Committee of the Trustees of the British Museum, London, 19 July 1765. Eisen, New Mozart Documents, 8.
12 Reproduced in King, Alex Hyatt, The Mozart Legacy: Aspects of the British Library Collections (London: British Library, 1984), 25Google Scholar. This was not the first musical gift received by the Museum. In the summer of 1763 Thomas Hollis agreed to distribute Francesco Algarotti's Saggio sopra l'opera in musica. One copy went to the British Museum and an acknowledgement was duly received, with Hollis noting that it was ‘[a] dry one, according to the more usual mode of this Country, from the Trustees of the Musaeum’. British Library, Add MS 26889, 9 August 1763.
13 These four items were two sets of sonatas (k6–7 and k8–9), ‘God is our refuge’ (k20) and a copy of the Carmontelle print of the Mozart family. Eisen, New Mozart Documents, 8, notes an entry in the Book of Presents of the Trustees, also dated 19 July: ‘A copy of the Printed Music of his son: from Mr. Mozart. Omitted in the Donation Book.’
14 Deutsch, Otto Erich, Mozart: A Documentary Biography (London: Simon & Schuster, 1965), 125Google Scholar.
15 Burney, Charles, The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and United Provinces, two volumes (London: T. Becket & Co., 1773)Google Scholar, volume 1, 126.
16 See Woodfield, Ian, Opera and Drama in Eighteenth-Century London (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 57–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
17 Miscellanies by the Honourable Daines Barrington (London: J. Nichols, 1781), 288.
18 See Price, Curtis, Milhous, Judith and Hume, Robert D., Italian Opera in Late Eighteenth-Century London, volume 1: The King's Theatre, Haymarket, 1778–1791 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 415–416Google Scholar, and Link, Dorothea, ‘Mozart's “Batti, batti, o bel Masetto” Performed in London in 1789’, Newsletter of the Mozart Society of America 20/2 (2016), 5–7Google Scholar.
19 The London Chronicle (2–4 February 1790), reviewing I due castellani burlati, noted that the opera was ‘enlivened by several arias by other masters, particularly one or two by Mozart’. See Price, Milhous and Hume, Italian Opera, 429. Their suggestion that the second ‘aria’ was an arrangement for trio of ‘Batti, batti, o bel Masetto’ (‘Pace, pace, bel mostaccio’) was questioned by Link in ‘Mozart's “Batti, batti”’, 5–7.
20 Price, Milhous and Hume, Italian Opera, 431–432.
21 The World (11 May 1789).
22 On Luigi Bassi see Magnus Tessing Schneider, ‘Acting Don Giovanni’ (Routledge, forthcoming).
23 London newspapers, whether using the four- or the eight-sided format, were usually unpaginated. The volume number, seen in the header, equated to the calendar year. Issues were sometimes numbered in an unending sequence. By the late 1780s several well-established newspapers had passed the ten-thousand mark. In modern databases, such as the Burney Newspapers in the British Library, date is by far the most efficient way of locating an issue.
24 English Chronicle or Universal Evening Post (2 February 1790).
25 No poster survives to clarify whether Costa took part in the festive first performance in Leipzig on 3 August 1788. See Ian Woodfield, Performing Operas for Mozart (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 48–49, 57, 60–61.
26 Woodfield, Performing Operas for Mozart, 113 and 134. The immediate impact on Leipzig concert programmes of the aria ‘Il mio tesoro’ as sung by Antonio Baglioni adds weight to John Rice's characterization of this singer's strengths in Mozart on the Stage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 119–128.
27 The libretto for Da Ponte's L'ape musicale (1789) places a version of Cimarosa's ‘Parlar le cause’ from Il falegname at the start of Act 2, to be sung by the character played by Francesco Albertarelli. But in two ensuing advertisements in the Wiener Zeitung this position was usurped by ‘Voi che sapete’, listed as an aria for ‘T[enor]’. The reason remains unclear, but it is certainly possible that Francesco Morella, that season's unsuccessful tenor, was being given a chance to participate in a benefit before he left.
28 Morning Post and Daily Advertiser (12 March 1788): ‘Signora GIULIANI . . . actually arrived in this country . . . accompanied by Tarchi the composer’. Tarchi had made his name in England (in his absence) on 4 May 1786, when the role he composed for the castrato Giovanni Maria Rubinelli in the pasticcio Virginia was very well received. Charles Burney, A General History of Music, four volumes, volume 4 (London: Payne and Son, 1789), 525, accurately described him as ‘a young Neapolitan, who is advancing into eminence with great rapidity’.
29 Price, Milhous and Hume, Italian Opera, 414–415.
30 The only piece by Tarchi that survives is his setting of ‘Che soave zeffiretto’. See Claudio Sartori, ‘Lo “Zeffiretto” di Angelo Tarchi’, Rivista Musicale Italiana 56 (1954), 223–230.
31 An early Viennese copy of Figaro was annotated with the necessary changes in Monza before being transferred to the library of Maximilian Franz. See Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, Kritische Berichte, series 2, group 5, volume 16, Le nozze di Figaro, ed. Ulrich Leisinger (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2007), 72–74, 91–92, 79–80.
32 Einstein, Alfred, ‘Mozart and Tarchi’, Monthly Musical Record 65 (1935), 127Google Scholar.
33 Calendrier musical universal 10 (1789), 168.
34 His arrival was reported by the General Evening Post (20 January 1789): ‘Tarchi, the great composer, who is now in London . . .’.
35 Diary or Woodfall's Register (12 May 1789): ‘Mozart's delicious duet was encored also, and Benucci and Storace sang it very well’. Morning Post and Daily Advertiser (18 May 1789): ‘The charming duet of MOZART was encored’. Harder to understand is a curious comment in the Morning Star (11 May 1789): ‘The most remarkable was the Duet by STORACE and BENUCCI, admirably composed of thirds and fifths – the world are tired of extraneous chords!!’.
36 A self-confessed supporter of this duet was Kelly, who in his memoirs recalled trying it out informally with the composer and being ‘delighted’ with it. Michael Kelly, Reminiscences (London: Colburn, 1826), 258–259. Tarchi himself contributed an unidentified piece to La vendemmia, but he is not likely to have been responsible for arranging the score; that duty would have fallen to the general company factotum, Joseph Mazzingi. A report in the World (11 May 1789) identified Tarchi's contribution as Benucci's Act 2 aria. It could have been his opening aria on gluttony (‘Son vari degli uomini’), which ends in a manner much favoured by this singer (a good physical comedian with dancing skills): ‘Io caccio, cavalco / Ho musica, e danza’ (I hunt and ride, I have music and dance). But just as likely, given that Tarchi was making his mark in opera seria, is the mock suicide scene: ‘In questo istante ingrata’.
37 The Bibliothek der Grazien was a monthly periodical issued by Bossler in Speyer between 1789 and 1791. If he had continued with his subscription, Burney would also have received Mozart's contredanse La Bataille (k535) in February 1790 and an arrangement of the overture to Le nozze di Figaro in June 1790.
38 Burney, letter to Fanny Burney, [13] December [1790], in Kerry S. Grant, Dr Burney as Critic and Historian of Music (Ann Arbor: UMI, 1983), 202, and Eisen, New Mozart Documents, 5. At the start of 1789 Christian Friedrich Trötscher in Graz offered ‘Vedrai carino’ as well as ‘Madamina, il catalogo’ in a lengthy list of named Italian arias. A few months later, a still larger selection included ‘Deh! vieni alla finestra’, ‘Fin ch'han dal vino’ and ‘Là ci darem la mano’, all from Don Giovanni.
39 Eisen, New Mozart Documents, 5.
40 Burney, letter to Christian La Trobe, 8 March 1789: Osborn MSS, Box 4, Folder 274.
41 Deutsch, Mozart: A Documentary Biography, 248.
42 Franz Anton Weber, letter to Daniel Itzig, Eutin, 18 September 1786: ‘und soll bey unserm grösten KapellMeister jeziger Zeit, dH von Haydn in Esterhaz zum KapellMeister gebildet worden’ (shall be trained as a Kapellmeister by the greatest Kapellmeister of the present time, Haydn in Eszterháza). Franz Anton intended this letter of introduction to assist his son while he waited in Berlin for the Dresden post, to continue his journey south to Vienna and Eszterháza. See Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Gesamtausgabe: Digitale Edition, https://weber-gesamtausgabe.de/de/A002074/Korrespondenz/A040021.html (30 June 2019). Like other documents in the Weber correspondence, it shows how significant masonic contacts were to musicians, especially when embarking upon long-distance travel.
43 Deutsch, Mozart: A Documentary Biography, 283. On Edmund's album see Higuchi, Ryuichi and Ziegler, Frank, ‘“Fürchte Gott! Und wandle den Weg der Tugend”: Das Stammbuch Edmund von Webers als biographische Quelle’, Weberiana 18 (2008), 1–32Google Scholar.
44 Deutsch, Mozart: A Documentary Biography, 283.
45 Pohl, Carl Ferdinand, Joseph Haydn, two volumes, volume 2 (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1882), 204Google Scholar. An accompanying footnote gives the credit: ‘Dr Johannes Brahms hatte die Güte, mir eine Photographie obigen Blattes während seines Aufenthaltes in Ziegelhausen bei Heidelberg zuzusenden’ (Dr Johannes Brahms was kind enough to send me a photograph of the above leaf during his stay at Ziegelhausen near Heidelberg).
46 I am most grateful to Professor Joachim Veit for providing me with access to the full text of some of the letters prior to online release, and for bibliographical references that I would otherwise have missed.
47 Vincent Weyrauch, letter to Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Grossmann, Meiningen, 1 October 1789: ‘Der alte Weber hat, da er zahlreiche Familie hat, sich entschloβen selbst ein kleines Operchen zu ent[r]epreniren . . . des Alten seine Frau – singt nicht ganz schlecht, zur dritten Sängerin vortreflich – Jeanette Weber 1e Sängerin – Mad: Josepha Weber = 2e Sängerin: Hl Edmund Weber 1t Tenor, wird wenn Hl Hiller ankömmt 2en Tenor übernehmen – Fritz Weber 3e Bassrollen . . . meine wenigkeit 1e Bassrollen’ (As old Weber has a numerous family, he has decided to form a small opera troupe . . . the wife of the old man does not sing badly, excellently as third singer . . . Jeanette Weber [as] first singer . . . Madame Josepha Weber [as] second singer . . . Herr Edmund Weber [as] first tenor, will take second tenor if Herr Hiller comes . . . Fritz Weber third-bass roles . . . yours truly first-bass roles). Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Gesamtausgabe: Digitale Edition, https://weber-gesamtausgabe.de/de/A002129/Korrespondenz/A044931.html (30 June 2019).
48 Franz Anton Weber, letter to Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Grossmann, 20 January 1789: ‘Meine Tochter [Jeanette] ein Frauenzimmer von 18 Jahren bereits im 3t Jahr bey hiesiger Bühne als Sängerin bey der Oper sey . . . sie ist eine Schülerin von Mozardt und Mad: [Aloysia] Lange in Wien. Nachdeme sie vorher bey mir das nöthige studirt hatte’ (My daughter, a young lady aged eighteen, is already in her third year as an opera singer on the stage here. She is a pupil of Mozart and Madame Lange in Vienna, having previously studied the necessary [basics] with me). Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Gesamtausgabe: Digitale Edition, https://weber-gesamtausgabe.de/de/A002074/Korrespondenz/A040030.html (30 June 2019). Nothing is known of Mozart as Jeanette Weber's teacher. He had previously instructed Aloysia Weber in the performance of Italian arias and composed a piece for her to demonstrate what she had learned. He asked her to study and perform it without his assistance and was impressed by the result. As Jeanette is most likely to have been in Vienna for a period in the spring months of 1785, it is interesting to speculate on the possibility that one or more of a group of German songs dating from that period – k472–474 (7 May) and k476 (‘Das Veilchen’) (8 June) – were written for her.
49 Aloysia Lange sang in Hamburg during the summer of 1784, but it cannot be assumed that she was yet featuring the music of her brother-in-law as a matter of course. A programme for a concert in the Leipzig Gewandhaus dated 13 May 1784 shows that she performed arias by Johann André, Trajetta, Sarti and Hiller. Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Leipzig.
50 Heinrich August Ottokar Reichard, Theater Kalendar auf das Jahr 1788 (Gotha: Ettinger, 1788), 185.
51 A review of her performance as Queen Isabella in Una cosa rara noted, ‘nur Schade, daβ ihr Anstand und ihre Gesten gar zu hölzern sind’ (only a pity that her manner and gestures are much too wooden). Annalen des Theaters, volume 1 (1788), 70. No more encouraging was the following appraisal: ‘Mlle. Weber spielte die zanksüchtige Betschwester zu kalt und wurde dadurch langweilig’ (Mademoiselle Weber played the quarrelsome nurse too coldly and so was boring). Annalen des Theaters, volume 3 (1789), 125, accessed via Mozart im Spiegel des frühen Musikjournalismus, http://dme.mozarteum.at/mozart-rezeption/edition/sessions.php (30 June 2019).
52 Friedrich Ludwig Schröder, letter to Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Grossmann, 27 January 1789: ‘Mdlle Weber ist das häslichste Geschöpf das man je auf der Bühne sah. Sie hat viel Fertigkeit, aber sie nimmt keinen Menschen mit ihrer Stimme ein. Sie spielt elend. Und bei allen diesen Tugenden möchte sie gern irgendwo prima Donna seyn . . . Ich laße Dem: Weber herzlich gern gehn’ (Mademoiselle Weber is the ugliest creature you ever saw on stage. She has plenty of skill, but she engages no one with her voice. She acts wretchedly. And with all these virtues, she would very much like to be a prima donna somewhere. I will gladly let Demoiselle Weber go). Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Gesamtausgabe: Digitale Edition, https://weber-gesamtausgabe.de/de/A001744/Korrespondenz/A046157.html (30 June 2019).
53 Frank Ziegler, ‘Die Webers – eine Familie macht Theater’, 136, in Musiker auf Reisen: Beiträge zum Kulturtransfer im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert, ed. Christoph-Hellmut Mahling (Augsburg: Wiβner, 2011). The request for an engagement in Baden is dated 19 July 1792: ‘meine Oper ist ganz Musicalisch, und was meine Familie betrift, lauter Zöglinge von Mozart und Haydn in Wien gebildet’ (my opera [company] is very musical, and as far as my family is concerned, none but pupils of Mozart and Haydn trained in Vienna). General-Landesarchiv Karlsruhe, 206/2636.
54 Franz Anton Weber, letter to Patrick Alströmer, Eutin, 3 November 1785: ‘wie ich vor 8 Tagen von meiner 6 Monatlichen Reise von Wien und ungarn von dem lieben Vater Hayden retourniret bin, und einen wahren Schaz der schönsten Musicalien aller nur zu erdenkenden Gattungen . . .’ (as I returned eight days ago from my journey to Vienna and Hungary from the beloved father Haydn, [with] a true treasure of the most beautiful scores in every conceivable genre . . .). Although no individual pieces are named, he singled out an opera for four characters by Haydn, probably L'isola disabitata. This had received its Vienna premiere in a concert performance given by the Willmann family on 19 March 1785, probably a month or so before Franz Anton Weber's arrival.
55 Franz Anton Weber, letter to Artaria & Co., Eutin, 6 March 1786. In this communication, Weber remembers with pleasure their acquaintance the previous summer (1785) and asks to be sent ‘alle Sinfonien, Quartetten und Clavirsachen von Mozard’ (all the symphonies, quartets and keyboard pieces by Mozart) as soon as possible, as well as the newest three symphonies ‘von unserm unsterblichen Vater Hayden’ (by our immortal father Haydn). Payment will be prompt. He signs off as ‘Kapellmeister oncle des dortigen Hofschauspielers H v Lange [Joseph Lange]’, from whom he is waiting for a reply. Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Gesamtausgabe: Digitale Edition, https://weber-gesamtausgabe.de/de/A002074/Korrespondenz/A040020.html (30 June 2019).
56 Franz Anton Weber, letter to Artaria & Co., Hamburg, 22 October 1788: ‘in sonderheit die neuen Quintetten von Mozart auf 2 VV. 2 Viole e Violoncello. Nicht minder die neuesten 6 Quartetten von Haydn, so wie auch 3 Lief: von demselben, so er für den Esterhazyschen Violinisten Tost componirt hat’ (especially the new quintets by Mozart for two violins, two violas and cello, no less the newest six quartets by Haydn, as well as three pieces by the same, composed for the Eszterháza violinist Tost). Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Gesamtausgabe: Digitale Edition, https://weber-gesamtausgabe.de/de/A002074/Korrespondenz/A040029.html (30 June 2019).
57 Franz Anton Weber, letter to Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Grossmann, 20 January 1789: ‘auch habe die oper Die Höhle des Trofonio vorräthig liegen, die für 4 Louisdor zu Dero Befehle steht’ ([I] also have in stock the opera Die Höhle des Trofonio, at your command for four louis d'or). Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Gesamtausgabe: Digitale Edition, https://weber-gesamtausgabe.de/de/A002074/Korrespondenz/A040030.html (30 June 2019).
58 Jonášová, Milada, ‘Anton Grams berichtet an Gustav Groβmann, Mozart schreibe eine neue Oper’, Hudební veda 53/1 (2016), 29–54Google Scholar, and Woodfield, Ian, ‘Christian Gottlob Neefe and the Early Reception of Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni’, Newsletter of the Mozart Society of America 20/1 (2016), 4–6Google Scholar.
59 Ziegler, Frank, ‘Die Familie von Weber in Südthuringien’, Weberiana 26 (2016), 20Google Scholar: ‘dem Schauspieler Herrn von Weber bezalt, für verschiedene Stücke von Pleyel, Girovez, Mozardt laut Zettel den 20tenJanuar 1790’ (paid to the actor Herr von Weber for various pieces by Pleyel, Gyrowetz and Mozart according to the schedule for 20 January 1790).
60 Vincent Weyrauch, letter to Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Grossmann, Meiningen, 7 April 1790: ‘Diese Woche wird mit der Entführung das Abbonement geschlossen’ (This week my subscription will close with Die Entführung). Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Gesamtausgabe: Digitale Edition, https://weber-gesamtausgabe.de/de/A002129/Korrespondenz/A046129.html (30 June 2019).
61 London Chronicle (5 May 1789).
62 Schröder was a key link between Hamburg and Vienna, where he had worked for several years: Dexter Edge, ‘A Memorial Concert for Hamburg (19 February 1792)’, with credit to Josef Sittard, in Mozart: New Documents, ed. Dexter Edge and David Black, first published 21 December 2016, updated 4 January 2017 https://sites.google.com/site/mozartdocuments/documents/1792-02-19-correspondent (25 July 2019).
63 I am grateful to Rachel Cowgill for her generosity many years ago in supplying me with a copy of her transcription of the musical portions of this journal, prior to the publication of her study of Latrobe and, indeed, the submission of her own PhD. Rachel Cowgill, ‘The Papers of C. I. Latrobe: New Light on Musicians, Music and the Christian Family in Late Eighteenth-Century England’, in Music in Eighteenth-Century Britain, ed. David Wyn Jones (Farnham: Routledge, 2000), 234–260.
64 Cowgill, ‘The Papers of C. I. Latrobe’, 245.
65 Musical Travels through England by the late Joel Collier (London: G. Kearsley, 1775); Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik, volume 1 (Leipzig: Schwickert, 1788); Gebhard Friedrich August Wendeborn, Der Zustand des Staats, der Religion, der Gelehrsamkeit und der Kunst in Groβbritannien gegen das Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts, four volumes (Berlin: Spener, 1785–1788).
66 A case in point is perhaps Burney's celebrated comment on J. S. Bach's Credo from the B minor Mass, a copy of which he possessed. His evaluation (‘clear, correct and masterly’) evinces high esteem. See A General History of Music, volume 4, 592. The language is entirely his own, although it is cliché-ridden. The adjectives ‘clear’, ‘correct’ and (especially) ‘masterly’ occur numerous times throughout his writings, singly and in different combinations; Pepusch's counterpoint, for example, is ‘clear and masterly’ (637). Burney derived the substance of his remarks on the sacred oeuvre of J. S. Bach from a Breitkopf catalogue provided with incipits. Other fragments of commentary may also derive from German sources, as suggested by Yo Tomita, ‘Bach's Credo in England: An Early History’, in Irish Musical Studies 8, ed. Anne Leahy and Yo Tomita (Dublin: Four Courts, 2004), 224. They are not direct translations of the passages identified as possible sources, but they could easily have resulted from Burney's reliance on an intermediary summarizer like Latrobe.
67 Burney, letter to Latrobe, undated [1788]. See Cowgill, ‘The Papers of C. I. Latrobe’, 244.
68 Perhaps Latrobe confused the identity of Martín y Soler with that of Joseph Martin Kraus.
69 Cowgill, ‘The Papers of C. I. Latrobe’, 249.
70 Cowgill, Rachel, ‘“Wise Men from the East”: Mozart's Operas and Their Advocates in Early Nineteenth-Century London’, in Music and British Culture 1785–1914: Essays in Honour of Cyril Ehrlich, ed. Bashford, Christina and Langley, Leanne (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 52Google Scholar.