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MOZART, KIRNBERGER AND THE IDEA OF MUSICAL PURITY: REVISITING TWO SKETCHES FROM 1782
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 August 2016
Abstract
When Beethoven praised Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, he emphasized the multitude of musical styles and genres to be found in the opera, ranging from folk tunes to arias to hymn-like textures. The most extraordinary stylistic and generic allusions occur during the ‘Song of the Armoured Men’ in Act 2. This movement owes its extraordinary character to a ‘baroque’ accompaniment and a Lutheran-hymn quotation, the source and meaning of which continue to be discussed in Mozart research. While scholars have often suggested that Mozart took the hymn melody from Johann Philipp Kirnberger's Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik (where it is quoted without its text), Reinhold Hammerstein argues that because the composer also appears to have known the hymn's text, he must have encountered the melody elsewhere. This article, based on a study of Mozart's sketches for Die Zauberflöte and a close reading of Kirnberger's writings, supports the thesis that Mozart borrowed the hymn melody – and significant details of his setting of it in the ‘Song of the Armoured Men’ – from Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik.
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References
1 German text after Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke (NMA) II/5/19: Die Zauberflöte , ed. Gruber, Gernot and Orel, Alfred (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1970), 287 Google Scholar. All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated.
2 Ulrich Konrad has recently stressed the extraordinary character of the movement: ‘That the Gesang der Geharnischten is a very unusual piece of music, stylistically far outside the normal compositional idiom around 1790, is beyond debate.’ Konrad, , ‘On Ancient Languages: The Historical Idiom in the Music of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’, in The Century of Bach and Mozart: Perspectives on Historiography, Composition, Theory, and Performance, ed. Gallagher, Sean and Kelly, Thomas Forrest (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 276 Google Scholar.
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4 See Fischer, Wilhelm, ‘Mozart und die Kunst Bachs: “Der, welcher wandelt diese Straße voll Beschwerden”’, Musik im Unterricht 58 (1967), 41–45 Google Scholar, and Hammerstein, Reinhold, ‘Der Gesang der geharnischten Männer: Eine Studie zu Mozarts Bachbild’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 13 (1956), 1–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Marshall, Robert L., ‘Bach and Mozart's Artistic Maturity’, Bach Perspectives 3 (1998), 47–79 Google Scholar.
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19 Today owned by the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Mus. Hs. 17559, f. 16r).
20 Konrad, Mozarts Schaffensweise, 303.
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25 Owned by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge (shelf mark Mu. Ms. 609).
26 The canon was replaced in the second edition (1774), so Mozart must have had access to the first edition (1771).
27 Konrad, Mozarts Schaffensweise, 297.
28 Vogler, Georg Joseph, Betrachtungen der Mannheimer Tonschule (Mannheim, 1778–1781; reprinted Hildesheim: Olms, 1974)Google Scholar, volume 3, part 7, 2–6. The musical example is in volume 4, 400 of the reprint.
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32 University Library in Uppsala, Sweden, Vokalmusik i handskrift 133 (edited in NMA X/30/3, sketch 93). See also Engländer, Richard, ‘The Sketches from “The Magic Flute” at Uppsala’, The Musical Quarterly 27/3 (1941), 343–355 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
33 Ulrich Konrad, Mozarts Schaffensweise, 469, is probably right when he suggests that Mozart made additional sketches for this scene that are now lost.
34 Kirnberger, Die Kunst des reinen Satzes, volume 2, part 3, 128–129.
35 Lütteken, Laurenz, ‘Zwischen Ohr und Verstand: Moses Mendelssohn, Johann Philipp Kirnberger und die Begründung des “reinen Satzes” in der Musik’, in Musik und Ästhetik im Berlin Moses Mendelssohns (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1999), 159 Google Scholar.
36 It is at least the only hymn setting he wrote down. During his trip to Leipzig in 1789 Mozart improvised on another hymn. A contemporary reports: ‘With very good grace, and with the greatest agility, Mozart brought to bear all the arts of harmony, improvising magnificently on themes – among others on the chorale “Jesus meine Zuversicht”’. Quoted in Solomon, Mozart, 439.
37 Schindler, Anton, Ludwig van Beethoven, fifth edition, ed. Volbach, Fritz (Münster: Aschendorff, 1927), 164 Google Scholar.
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40 Kirnberger, Die Kunst des reinen Satzes, volume 1, 142; Art of Strict Musical Composition, 159.
41 Kirnberger, Die Kunst des reinen Satzes, volume 1, 135.
42 Kirnberger, Die Kunst des reinen Satzes, volume 1, 157; Art of Strict Musical Composition, 172.
43 Kirnberger, Die Kunst des reinen Satzes, volume 1, 157. In 1784–1787 Kirnberger and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach edited a collection of Bach chorale settings that was intended to facilitate the study of composition. See Schulze, Hans-Joachim, ‘150 Stück von den Bachischen Erben. Zur Überlieferung der vierstimmigen Choräle Johann Sebastian Bachs’, Bach-Jahrbuch 69 (1983), 81–100 Google Scholar, and Wachowski, Gerd, ‘Die vierstimmigen Choräle Johann Sebastian Bachs. Untersuchungen zu den Druckausgaben von 1765 bis 1932 und zur Frage der Authentizität’, Bach-Jahrbuch 69 (1983), 51–79 Google Scholar.
44 Kirnberger, Die Kunst des reinen Satzes, volume 1, 223; Art of Strict Musical Composition, 233–234.
45 Kirnberger, Die Kunst des reinen Satzes, volume 1, 226.
46 Christoph Wolff has recently suggested that Kirnberger's concept of purity influenced Mozart's late motet Ave verum corpus and movements from the Requiem, both pieces that were written in close proximity to Die Zauberflöte. But he does not draw a connection between the singspiel and Kirnberger's aesthetic. Wolff, Christoph, Mozart at the Gateway to His Fortune: Serving the Emperor 1788–1791 (New York: Norton, 2012), 156–157 Google Scholar.