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Mozart's C minor Fantasy, K.475: An Editorial ‘Problem’ and its Analytical and Critical Consequences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Cliff Eisen
Affiliation:
King's College, London
Christopher Wintle
Affiliation:
King's College, London

Extract

The recent publication of Heinrich Schenker's Das Meisterwerk in der Musik (1925-30) in a translation by Ian Bent, William Drabkin and others reminds us that in the highest modern traditions textual criticism and exegesis — editing and analysis — are inseparable. Much of Schenker's commentary on Mozart's Symphony in G minor, K.550, is devoted to isolating discrepancies between manuscript and edition, and some of his most fascinating analytical suggestions grow out of just this. Conversely, analytical strategies may have editorial consequences, and decisions taken by editors of the Neue Mozart Ausgabe have been challenged justly on stylistic grounds. If a passage occurs twice in a composition, for instance, does it have to be articulated in the same way on both occasions? And if there are differences in the articulations, what exactly do they tell us? Given the intricacy of the modern analytical debate over Mozart, such questions may not be answered by editors alone. Nor can editions be undertaken without reference to changing social circumstances: for composers in general have shown themselves more than ready to provide their own variants for different performing situations (again, Mozart's re-orchestration of the Symphony in G minor is a case in point). Indeed, in another field, scholars have asked that cultural issues should also influence editorial practice; these issues similarly require learning and sensitivity, and again deserve attention.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1999

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References

1 Schenker, Heinrich, The Masterwork in Music, ed. William Drabkin, trans. Ian Bent, William Drabkin et al., 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1994-7). The essay on Mozart's G minor Symphony, K.550, is in vol. ii, 59-96. See also Cliff Eisen, ‘Another Look at the “Corrupt Passage” in Mozart's G minor Symphony K.550: Its Sources, “Solution” and Implications for the Composition of the Final Trilogy’, Early Music, 25 (1997), 373–81.Google Scholar

2 See Wintle, Christopher, ‘Generic Interaction in the Andante from Mozart's G minor Symphony, K.550: A Commentary on Schenker's Analysis’, A Composition as a Problem, ii, ed. Mart Humal (Tallinn, forthcoming).Google Scholar

3 See Deathridge, John, ‘Vollzugsbeamte oder Interpreten? Zur Kritik der Quellenforschung bei Byron und Wagner’, Der Text im musikalischen Werk: Editionsprobleme aus musikwissenschaftlicher und literaturwissenschaftlicher Sicht, ed. Walter Dürr, Helga Lühning, Norbert Oellers and Hartmut Steinecke, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, 8 (Berlin, 1998), 263–74. Deathridge supports the view of Hans Zeller and Jerome J. McGabb, who ask that ‘in the context of editions of works written since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the relation between the productive work of an author and the institutions dedicated to its reproduction be taken into account.’Google Scholar

4 Ratner, Leonard G., Classic Music: Expression, Form, and Style (London, 1980), 60, 312-13, 326.Google Scholar

5 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, ix/25/2, ed. Wolfgang Plath and Wolfgang Rehm (Kassel and Basle, 1986), 70–9. The work is described as ‘Fantasie in c KV 475'. The texts of the examples in this article are based on readings common to the autograph and first edition, many of which differ from previous editions. In the case of dynamics and portato markings, however, many of which are lacking in the autograph, we have generally followed the readings of the corrected state of the Artaria edition, without additional comment; there is good reason to believe that these represent additions by Mozart – or authorized by him – to a source intended for broad, public circulation, unlike the autograph. In a few instances, two readings are given, reflecting significant differences between the sources. See also the facsimile edition of the autograph, with a foreword by Wolfgang Plath and Wolfgang Rehm (Salzburg, 1991); the facsimile of the first edition, ed. Norbert Kaltz (Courlay, 1991); and the sole modern edition based on both the autograph and first edition, ed. Yoshio Watanabe (Tokyo, 1995).Google Scholar

6 The textual history of the Fantasy and Sonata is described in ibid., xiii-xv; both versions of the cross-hand passage are reproduced in the score.Google Scholar

7 The history of the autograph's discovery and sale, as well as numerous details concerning its physical make-up and readings, is given in Eugene K. Wolf, ‘The Rediscovered Autograph of Mozart's Fantasy and Sonata in C minor, K.475/457’, Journal of Musicology, 10 (1992), 347. See also the facsimile edition of the autograph referred to in note 5 above.Google Scholar

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9 Wolf, , ibid., 35, incorrectly asserts that the e/c to d/B♭ thirds are transmitted by the first edition.Google Scholar

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16 See in particular Cliff Eisen, ‘The Old and New Mozart Editions’, Early Music, 19 (1991), 513–32.Google Scholar

17 The two sides of the expression in the Andantino recall the antithetical nature of the opening of Mozart's String Quartet in D minor, K.421, as emphasized in the celebrated texted analysis by Jérôme-Joseph de Momigny, in his Cours complet d'harmonie et de composition (1803-6), iii, 109ff. This is quoted in Ian Bent, ‘Analysis’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1980), i, 340–88 (p. 349). In both cases, the duality forms the source of the thematic working of the entire section or movement.Google Scholar

18 In the bass in bar 97, there is a beautiful splitting of the two notes F, with the second sounding an octave lower than expected. This is to prepare for the downward octave transposition of the entire consequent starting in the following bar. There is a reciprocal, though unexpected, reinforcement of this very low F’ in bar 100. The only other point in the Fantasy at which this note appears (it is the lowest in the piece) is in the cadenza immediately preceding the Andantino.Google Scholar

19 Le nozze di Figaro, K.492 (1786), Act 4.Google Scholar

20 In Sonata Forms (New York, 1980), 214, Charles Rosen makes a similar point about the lead-in to the subsidiary (A major) theme of the first movement of the ‘Prague’ Symphony in D major, K.504: ‘The second theme begins three notes before the cadence is actually accomplished, and it opens and continues with the simple formula used for the cadence. The break in texture is both clearly set in relief and overridden by the entrance of the new theme: in fact we do not even know that the theme has started until it is well into the next bar. Thematic and harmonic structure are, therefore, very slightly out of phase, a sophisticated technique that achieves the continuity that the eighteenth-century theorist (like Koch) thought necessary for the symphony, in contrast to the solo sonata.’Google Scholar

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33 Elaine Sisman cites Johann Mattheson and Dene Bamett to support her view that the gestures of actors and orators form an integral part of the musical oration and should be recognized as ‘an essential conveyor of meaning': see her ‘Genre, Gesture, and Meaning in Mozart's Prague Symphony’, Mozart Studies 2, ed. Cliff Eisen (Oxford, 1997), 2784 (pp. 64-5).Google Scholar

34 See Janet M. Levy, ‘Texture as a Sign in Classic and Early Romantic Music’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 35 (1982), 482–531, for a stimulating discussion of the textural function of unisons. There are two other beautiful foreshadowings in the first five bars. In bar 3 the embellishment qualifies the austerity of the unisons by adumbrating the singing style of bar 6; and on the last quaver of bar 5, the unisons are abandoned in favour of a single quaver in the right hand, which prefigures the single melodic line introduced in the next bar.Google Scholar

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37 Steblin, , A History of Key Characteristics, 296-300.Google Scholar

38 Levy, Janet M., ‘“Something Mechanical Encrusted on the Living”: A Source of Musical Wit and Humor’, Convention in Eighteenth-Century and Nineteenth-Century Music, 225-56.Google Scholar

39 Mozart entered this opening differently in his thematic catalogue. The discrepancy, however, might indicate two different performances of the overture without demanding resolution in favour of one reading or the other. See Eisen, Cliff, ‘Text in Action’ (forthcoming).Google Scholar

40 Alastair Fowler, Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes (Oxford, 1982), 187. Fowler is presenting a view of Cyrus Hoy's.Google Scholar