Klarinet Archive - Posting 000007.txt from 2000/06

From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] D. Leeson and Mozart, K. 581
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 11:31:06 -0400

Doug asks about real knowledge concerning the final account of the
manuscripts of both K. 622 and 581. To be blunt, there is absolutely no
real knowledge of what happened to them, only stories of unknown origin
and questionable accuracy.

The entire matter can be summed up as follows: Mozart wrote both piece
probably at the request of Stadler who commissioned them but never paid
for them. (This last statement is based on a summary of Mozart's
financial accounts taken after his death in which the only person who
owed Mozart money was Stadler and it was a handsome amount. Something
like the equivalent of being paid for 5 operas written for the imperial
court, but that was probably Stadler's lifetime debt to Mozart.) He
probably was given the manuscripts of both works and that was the last
anyone ever heard of them. There has arisen a story with a detail that
cannot be confirmed, namely that he carried the manuscripts in a
briefcase or suitcase or picnic basket which he pawned at some unknown
location and under unknown circumstance sometime around 1800. The only
evidence for the existence of the manuscript of 622 sometime around 1800
is a review of the printing of the performance parts of 622 in 1803 and
in which the reviewer comments on the fact that there must have been
rework to get rid of the low notes. Well, in order to make that kind of
statement, the reviewer must have known that there were low notes in the
piece so it is vaguely possible that he saw the original manuscript but
this a giant piece of speculation on my part.

Bastiaan Blomhert of the Netherlands (and the man responsible for the
rediscovery of a Harmonie arrangement of Abduction from Seraglio that is
about an hour long - he found it in Donaueschingen, Germany and claims
that it is Mozart's arrangement) has gone into print suggesting that
Stadler pawned whatever it was that held the mansucripts of 581 and 622
in Strassburg, France. His is the only assertion about where the
pawning might have taken place. I have no arguments against what he
says because Strassburg is a nice place to pawn something and I suppose
that he could have pawned there as opposed to, say, Passaic, NJ. But I
don't know what Stadler did, much less where he did it.

Besides, it makes no sense to suggest that one is going to pawn a
carrying case of some sort and not look inside it to see if there is
anything left over from previous usage. It is the kind of story that is
so fraught with unbelieveable (to say nothing of undocumented)
statements that the whole business may be trash. But it the only story
we have.

The probability that the two manuscripts still exist is about as great
as the probably that the manuscript of the Sinfonie Concertante for
winds and orchestra still exists. Whoever finds them will a wealthy
man, but don't count on them ever being found.

I should add that the lack of reliable information about what happened
to the manuscripts is the best thing possible for a fiction mystery book
on the matter. I can make up anything I like and no one can say,
"That's not what history says!"

Doug Sears wrote:
>
> Dan and his hints about his novel have gotten me to fantasizing about this
> question: if somebody wanted to devote a chunk of his life to searching for
> Mozart manuscripts, in hopes of finding the originals of K. 622 and/or K. 581,
> what would this person need to know and where would s/he look? Perhaps just
> familiarity with the pieces in question and with Mozart's manuscript style would
> be enough to be able to spot something good. Are there libraries with piles of
> old manuscripts waiting to be gone through, or is the only hope that it might be
> in somebody's attic? Is it known where in Germany Stadler's portmanteau
> containing the manuscripts was stolen or maybe pawned?
>
> --Doug
>
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--
***************************
** Dan Leeson **
** leeson0@-----.net **
***************************

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