Wolfgang Amadé Mozart - The Compleat Mozart (Neal Zaslaw)
Vocal music and related works
Songs and Vocal Ensembles
Background and overview
Mozart composed his songs in the manner of bagatelles, Freundstücke (offerings to friends), or occasional pieces that owe their existence mainly to the private circumstances of household music-making among friends. Indeed, there was no shortage of such occasions in Mozart’s life, and it is entirely possible that there once existed even more of these Freundstücke than are attested to by the thirty songs that comprise this relatively small category of Mozart’s works. The fact that Mozart attached relatively little weight to his solo songs, that he probably didn’t include them among the works that “went forth in to the world”, is explained by the nature of the genre and its significance in the late eighteenth century. The solo song with piano accompaniment, that finds its complete crystallization in the works of Franz Schubert, attained a firm footing rather late in the Viennese musical consciousness. While the North-, Middle-, and South-German schools of song writing had already gone far in the dissemination and popularization of the German lied by mid-century, the absolute Italian domination of vocal music in Austria, and especially Vienna, stood in the way of similar developments there. The first collection of German lieder by Joseph Anton Steffan appeared, significantly, in 1778, the same year that the opening of the German National Singspiel Theater by Emperor Joseph II countered the influence of Italian opera in Vienna.
Contrary to the case of the German songwriters, the texts selected by Viennese songwriters of the late eighteenth century attest to no particular awareness of literary quality. The texts of choice, drawn from the ephemeral poetry almanacs and paperbacks of the day, are almost without exception the works of fashionable poetic kleinmeisters of the day. They are mostly of Anacreontic character, idealizing the light, entertaining pastoral genre with no particular soul-searching depth. And here, as regards the choice of texts, Mozart the songwriter is no exception. In comparison to Schubert, Mozart’s song composition is hardly inspired by the text in the same degree. And yet, many of his songs are brilliant little character pieces, in which the wealth of opera-inspired melodic invention dominates the insubstantial text with ease.
For Mozart, who in his song composition of ten proves himself a “playwright for the most intimate space” in the words of Ernst August Ballin, editor of the songs for the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, this miniature vocal form served a function in opera composition surprisingly often, in part perhaps as a mere accessory, but also as a compact means of study; motivic correspondences between song tunes and themes in his contemporaneous operas point in this direction. In general the development of Mozart’s song composition shows a stylistic similarity to that of his other vocal works. Although he did not systematically cultivate this “by-product of his muse” (in musicologist Paul Nettl’s phrase), nevertheless the process of songwriting served again and again as an important starting point for all other types of vocal composition, often so intensively that whole groups of songs were composed at once.
S.D.
Songs
K. 53 An die Freude, in F major (K3 43b, K6 47e)
Origin: Vienna, autumn 1768
Author: anonymous
K. 147 Wie unglücklich bin ich nit, in F major (K6 125g)
Origin: Salzburg, c. 1772?
Author: anonymous
Mozart’s early songs, like the contemporaneous products of Viennese song composers, are basso continuo songs; these include both a little song An die Freude (To Joy), presumably composed in November 1768 at the same time as the Singspiel Bastien und Bastienne, and two songs probably composed in the early summer of 1772 in Salzburg: the sentimental love song Wie unglücklich bin ich nit (How Unlucky I Am), in which the fifteen-year-old Mozart pointedly depicts the sighs of a slighted lover, and the Masonic song Lobgesang auf die feierliche Johannisloge (K. 148), the text of which he took from a Regensburg Masonic songbook of 1772. The occasion and purpose of the latter song are unknown (see p. 36).
Mozart returned again to the technique of basso continuo accompaniment that he had used in his early songs for the Two German Hymns (K. 343), presumably composed in early 1787, and for “Die Alte” (K. 517) of the same year (see below).
S.D.
K. 307 Oiseaux, si tous les ans, in C major (K6 284d)
Origin: Mannheim, winter 1777-78
Author: Antoine Ferrand
K. 308 Dans un bois solitaire, in A flat major (K6 295b)
Origin: Mannheim, winter 1777-78
Author: Antoine Houdart de la Motte
The two French ariettas, Oiseaux, si tous les ans (Birds, if every year) and Dans un bois solitaire (In a lonely wood), were composed during Mozart’s Mannheim visit from October 30, 1777, to March 14, 1778, for Augusta Wendling, the charming daughter of the flutist Johann Baptist Wendling and the soprano Dorothea Wendling. She is said to have performed “incomparably” these ariettas, conceived in the spirit of the French opéra comique, and containing for the first time in Mozart’s songs a fully written out piano part.
S.D.
K. 349 Die Zufriedenheit, in G major (K6 367a)
Origin: Munich, winter 1780-81
Author: anonymous
K. 351 Komm, liebe Zither, in C major (K6 367b)
Origin: Munich, winter 1780-81
Author: anonymous
The two songs with mandolin accompaniment, Komm, liebe Zither (Come, Beloved Harp) and Die Zufriedenheit (Contentment), were presumably composed during Mozart’s visit to Munich, at the time of Idomeneo, for the Munich hornist Martin Lang.
S.D.
K. 392 Verdankt sei es dem Glanz, in F major (K6 340a)
Origin: Vienna, 1781-82
Author: Johann Timotheus Hermes
K. 391 Sei du mein Trost, in B flat major (K6 340b)
Origin: Vienna, 1781-82
Author: Johann Timotheus Hermes
K. 390 Ich würd’ auf meinem Pfad, in D minor (K6 340c)
Origin: Vienna, 1781-82
Author: Johann Timotheus Hermes
The three songs, Verdankt sei es dem Glanz (It Is Due to the Lustre), Sei du mein Trost (Be Thou My Comfort), and Ich würd’ auf meinem Pfad (I Would Along my Path), were composed during the early Viennese years, 1781 to 1782, in the immediate vicinity of The Abduction from the Seraglio. They have curious performing indications: “gleichgültig und zufrieden” (indifferently and contentedly), “traurig, doch gelassen” (sadly yet calmly), and “mäßig gehend” (moving with restraint). Their texts come from J. T. Hermes’s novel Sophiens Reise von Memel nach Sachsen (Sophia’s journey from Memel to Saxony), one of the great sentimental effluences of the day.
S.D.
K. 472 Der Zauberer, in G minor
Origin: Vienna, May 7, 1785
Author: Christian Felix Weisse
K. 473 Die Zufriedenheit, in B flat major
Origin: Vienna, May 7, 1785
Author: Christian Felix Weisse
K. 474 Die betrogene Welt, in G major
Origin: Vienna, May 7, 1785
Author: Christian Felix Weisse
K. 476 Das Veilchen, in G major
Origin: Vienna, June 8, 1785
Author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
K. 506 Lied der Freiheit, in F major
Origin: Vienna, end of 1785?
Author: Johannes Aloys Blumauer
K. 517 Die Alte, in E minor
Origin: Vienna, May 18, 1787
Author: Friedrich von Hagedorn
K. 518 Die Verschweigung, in F major
Origin: Vienna, May 20, 1787
Author: Christian Felix Weisse
On May 7, 1785, Mozart entered three settings of texts by C. F. Weisse, an especially popular poet among the Viennese songwriters, into his catalogue: Der Zauberer (The Enchanter), Die Zufriedenheit (Contentment), and Die betrogene Welt (The Deceived World) – the text of K. 518, Die Verschweigung (The Secret) also comes from Weisse. The texts represent a typically rococo brand of happy shepherds’ life, mixed at times with a dryly moralizing stance. Wholly un-Arcadian and grippingly dramatic, however, is Mozart’s setting of the flirtatiously playful text of Weisse’s Der Zauberer. In a few swift strokes the concise introduction and conclusion depict the violent excitement of a young maiden bewitched by love.
On June 8 came the centerpiece among Mozart’s songs, Das Veilchen (The Violet) in which (for the only time) his name was linked with that of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Here Mozart departed in a most willful way from traditional strophic form, and composed each verse independently. The finely shaded textual expression – both in the vocal melody and even more in the piano accompaniment, which is handled with utmost variety – truly outlines a ”drama for the most intimate space”.
With the Lied der Freiheit (Song of Freedom) on a moralizing text by J. A. Blumauer, Mozart returns to the conventional strophic song form. A deliberately anachronistic, intentionally parodic retrogression to the basso continuo style appears in his setting of Hagedorn’s verse, Die Alte (The Old Woman), in which he nostalgically yearns, with tongue in cheek, for the good old days.
S.D.
K. 519 Das Lied der Trennung, in F minor
Origin: Vienna, May 23, 1787
Author: Klamer Eberhardt Karl Schmidt
K. 520 Als Luise die Briefe ihres ungetreuen Liebhabers verbrannte, in C minor
Origin: Vienna, May 26, 1787
Author: Gabriele von Baumberg
K. 523 Abendempfindung an Laura, in F major
Origin: Vienna, June 24, 1787
Author: Joachim Heinrich Campe
K. 524 An Chloe, in E flat major
Origin: Vienna, June 24, 1787
Author: Johann Georg Jacobi
K. 529 Des kleinen Friedrich Geburtstag, in F major
Origin: Prague, November 6, 1787
Author: Johann Eberhard Friedrich Schall
K. 530 Das Traumbild, in E flat major
Origin: Prague, November 6, 1787
Author: Ludwig Heinrich Christopher Hölty
K. 531 Die kleine Spinnerin, in C major
Origin: Vienna, December 11, 1787
Author: anonymous
K. 552 Beim Auszug in das Feld, in A major
Origin: Vienna, August 11, 1788
Author: anonymous
The “Don Giovanni year”, 1787, brings the richest harvest of Mozart songs, with a total of 9 works, in addition to the Two German Hymns (K. 343) discussed on p. 28. After Die Alte and Die Verschweigung, mentioned above, came Das Lied der Trennung (The Song of Separation), whose roundly tasteless text, by K. E. K. Schmidt, could have inspired Mozart to such a passionate F minor setting only on the spur of the moment.
The two songs Als Luise die Briefe ihres ungetreuen Liebhabers verbrannte (As Louise Burned the Letters of Her Unfaithful Lover) and Das Traumbild (The Dream Scene) have a close connection to Mozart’s friend and pupil Gottfried von Jacquin. Mozart frequently emerges as a songwriter within the circle of Jacquin’s family and friends, but in such a way that the listener is occasionally left in the dark as to a song’s precise authorship; this has given rise to all sorts of mixups and misattributions. For a long time Jacquin was assumed to be the author of these two songs. In fact, Jacquin dedicated the dramatic monologue of the abandoned Louise – in whose piano accompaniment are distilled all the elements of recitativo accompagnato – to a certain Fräulein von Altomonte, after having, it seems, jokingly forced his friend Mozart to compose it under lock and key. (This was probably the gifted singer, Katharina von Altomonte, who sang many of the arias in the March 1789 premiere in Vienna of Mozart’s reorchestration of Handel’s Messiah.) The text comes from the Viennese poetess Gabriele von Baumberg, who wrote it out of her own personal experience.
In 1789 at Artaria and Co. in Vienna, under the title of Zwei deutsche Arien zum Singen beim Clavier (Two German Arias to Sing at the Piano), Mozart published two songs that are among his most popular today: Abendempfindung (Sentiments At Evening) and An Chloe (To Chloe), both entered in his catalogue on June 24, 1787. Abendempfindung is a deeply felt, through-composed portrait of the soul. Contrastingly, the setting of J. G. Jacobi’s text An Chloe, which is stamped with the spirit of rococo galanterie, approximates a rondo form.
The simple little strophic song, Des klein en Friedrich Geburtstag (Little Frederick’s Birthday), was composed in Prague, possibly for a children’s magazine. Whether the “little Frederick” of Schall’s verse refers to the crown prince Friedrich of Anhalt-Dessau has not been convincingly proven. In another unassuming strophic song, Die kleine Spinnerin (The Little Spinner), Mozart set a naive, childlike text by an unknown author.
The author of Mozart’s Beim Auszug in das Feld (On Going Forth into the Field) is likewise unknown. The eighteen-verse song was first published as a supplement to a handbook, Angenehme und lehrreiche Beschäftigung für Kinder in ihren Freistunden (Pleasant and Instructive Pastimes for Children), and has only recently been accepted as an authentic work of Mozart.
S.D.
K. 596 Sehnsucht nach dem Frühlinge, in F major
Origin: Vienna, January 14, 1791
Author: Christian Adolf Overbeck
K. 597 Im Frühlingsanfang, in E flat major
Origin: Vienna, January 14, 1791
Author: Christian Christoph Sturm
K. 598 Das Kinderspiel, in A major
Origin: Vienna, January 14, 1791
Author: Christian Adolf Overbeck
These three songs, on verses by C. A. Overbeck and C. C. Sturm, appeared in early 1791 in the Liedersammlung für Kinder and Kinderfreunde am Clavier: Frühlingslieder (Collection of Songs for Children and Those Who Love Children at the Piano: Spring Songs), published by Ignaz Alberti in Vienna. The first of these three children’s songs, the “Mayday Song”, has particularly enjoyed an almost folkloric popularity. Just a few days before writing down this little strophic song, easily accessible even to children, Mozart lent another dimension to its introductory theme in the rondo of his last piano concerto, in B flat, K. 595.
S.D.
Vocal ensembles
K3 43a Ach, was müssen wir erfahren? (K1 Anh 24a)
Origin: Vienna, shortly after October 15, 1767
Author: anonymous
Scoring: 2 sopranos, [keyboard]
This tiny, sorrowful duet (“Ah, what must we suffer?”) was probably inspired by the untimely death on October 15, 1767, from smallpox, of the sixteen-year-old Archduchess Maria Josepha, bride-to-be of King Ferdinand of Naples.
N.Z.
K. 441 Liebes Mandel, wo is’s Bandel?
Origin: Vienna, 1783?
Author: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?
Scoring: soprano, tenor, bass, strings
The “Bandel” Trio owes its existence to an amusing incident in Mozart’s household, as we may guess from the designations of the vocal parts in the score (“Constantz”, “Mozart”, and “Jacquin”). Before going for a drive, Mozart and his wife look agitatedly for a new ribbon with which Constanze wants to adorn herself. The friend Gottfried von Jacquin arrives and is drawn in to the general commotion. He finds the ribbon and closes the work, together with the Mozarts, with a most hilarious victory song.
The first line of text (Dearest Almond, where’s my hatband?) indicates the level of nonsense present here. Gottfried von Jacquin was a young Viennese friend and student of Mozart’s, for whom the latter composed his Notturnos and Canzonetta for voices and winds (see below).
E.F.S.
K. 436 Notturno, “Ecco quel fiero istante”
Origin: Vienna, c. 1787
Author: Pietro Metastasio
Scoring: 2 sopranos, bass, 3 basset horns
K. 437 Notturno, “Mi lagnerò tacendo”
Origin: Vienna, c. 1787
Author: Pietro Metastasio
Scoring: 2 sopranos, bass, 2 clarinets, basset horn
K. 438 Notturno, “Se lontan ben mio”
Origin: Vienna, c. 1787
Author: Pietro Metastasio
Scoring: 2 sopranos, bass, 2 clarinets, basset horn
K. 439 Notturno, “Due pupille amabile”
Origin: Vienna, c. 1787
Author: Pietro Metastasio?
Scoring: 2 sopranos, bass, 3 basset horns
K. 346 Notturno, “Luci care, luci belle” (K6 439a)
Origin: Vienna, c. 1787
Author: Pietro Metastasio?
Scoring: 2 sopranos, bass, 3 basset horns
K. 549 Canzonetta, “Più non si trovano”
Origin: Vienna, July 16, 1788
Author: Pietro Metastasio
Scoring: 2 sopranos, bass, 3 basset horns
Mozart’s composition of these works was sparked by his friendship with the family of the famous botanist Nicolaus Josef von Jacquin (1727-1817) whose son Gottfried (1767-92) and daughter Franziska (1769-1857) were very musical. She was one of Mozart’s best piano students and it is said that he composed his well-known Trio for Piano, Clarinet, and Viola in E flat, K. 498, for her. Mozart was fond of Gottfried, who was gifted musically and known as such, which may explain why Mozart’s five Notturni were later ascribed to Gottfried von Jacquin. Mozart’s widow Constanze supposed that Jacquin and Mozart collaborated on the Notturni, but Mozart’s authorship is generally accepted.
K. 436, 437, and 438 are based on texts by Pietro Metastasio, the most important librettist of the eighteenth century; the texts were taken from the Canzonette, the opera seria Siroe, and the Strofe per musica (Verses for Music), respectively. Sources for the texts of K. 439 and 346 have not yet been discovered. K. 549 is based on lines taken from Metastasio’s often-composed opera Olimpiade. All the Notturni are short, simple love songs, comprising between sixteen and seventy measures each. The style of K. 437 approaches that of an operatic terzetto.
A most interesting aspect is the employment of the basset horn for the accompaniments. Mozart had previously used this instrument, an alto member of the clarinet family, only in the Serenade, K. 361, and Constanze’s G minor aria in The Abduction from the Seraglio (Act II, No. 10). In the Notturni – as well as the five Divertimentos for three basset horns, K. 439b, which were presumably also intended for the musical activities of the Jacquin family – the basset horns, emancipated from the full orchestra, come into their own. The technical prowess of the brothers Anton and Johann Stadler, two fine Viennese clarinetists who presumably participated in the sessions held in the home of the Jacquins, stimulated Mozart to experiment with the instrument. These endeavors were to climax in Mozart’s last works, The Magic Flute, La clemenza di Tito, and the Requiem.
J.B.