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Wolfgang Amadé Mozart - The Compleat Mozart (Neal Zaslaw)

Appendix A

A brief introduction to the Köchel catalogue

Sir Ludwig von Köchel’s Chronological-Thematic Catalogue of the Complete Works of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart was published in 1862 (K¹). In it were listed all of Mozart’s works known to Köchel in what he understood to be their chronological order, from number 1 (infant harpsichord piece) to 626 (the Requiem). The second edition of the Catalogue, prepared by Count Paul von Waldersee in 1905, involved for the most part minor additions, corrections, and clarifications, many of them collected by Köchel himself before his death (K²). The first thoroughgoing revision was the third edition, completed by Alfred Einstein in 1936 (K³). Einstein adjusted the position of many works in Köchel’s chronology, threw out as spurious some works Köchel had taken to be genuine, and added as authentic some works Köchel had believed spurious or not known about. He also inserted into the chronological scheme a considerable number of fragmentary and lost works, which Köchel had placed in an appendix (Anhang) without chronological order. Although many of Mozart’s works were thus redated, Köchel’s original numbers could not be dropped or reassigned, for they formed the basis for innumerable editions, concert programs, library catalogues, and reference works. Einstein therefore extended a method already established by Waldersee in K² for a handful of works: he inserted new numbers between old ones by adding lower-case letters. Thus, for instance, Köchel had given the date 1780 to the Six Variations in B flat major on “Hélas, j’ai perdu mon amant” for violin and piano and assigned it the listing 360. Einstein suspected that this work was more likely to have originated in June 1781 and assigned it the new listing K. 374b, as one of a group of seven works that he inserted between K. 374 and K. 375. Now the work bears both numbers.

The third edition of the Köchel Catalogue was reprinted with an extensive supplement of corrections and additions in 1946 and is usually identified as K^3a. So-called fourth and fifth editions were nothing more than unchanged reprints of the 1936 edition, without the 1946 supplement. The sixth and current edition, which appeared in 1964 edited by Franz Giegling, Alexander Weinmann, and Gerd Sievers (K⁶), continued Einstein’s innovations by adding even more numbers with lower-case letters appended, and a few with upper-case letters as well (for instance, the Symphony in G minor, K. 183 = 173dB), when a work had to be inserted into the chronology between two of Einstein’s lower-case insertions. So-called seventh and eighth editions are merely unchanged reprints at the sixth. This history of the various revisions of the Köchel Catalogue explains why many of Mozart’s works bear two “K” numbers and a few three, such as the Symphony in B flat major, K. 182 = 166c = 173dA.

In The Compleat Mozart Köchel listings are given, when these exist, from K¹ and from K⁶. The majority of listings in K⁶ have been taken over unchanged from K³, but where changes have been made, the K³ listing has also been added.

The chronological arrangement of Mozart’s works in the Köchel Catalogue has had both beneficial and unfortunate effects on our understanding of the composer’s life and works. The availability of such a detailed chronology, lacking for many other composers, has encouraged careful study of Mozart’s day-to-day activities and of his month-by-month artistic development. But these seemingly concrete dates have all too often proven unreliable, as can be seen by the number of works that have been renumbered in subsequent editions of the Köchel Catalogue. Writers, taken in by the Catalogue’s firm dates, have often made bold statements based upon flimsy evidence. Indeed, the very nature of the Köchel Catalogue engenders speculative behavior on the part of otherwise cautious scholars, for as the Catalogue is chronological, a work cannot be entered in to it without attempting to date that work, whether or not adequate grounds for such dating exist.

One amusing advantage of Köchel’s chronological scheme was certainly not anticipated by him. Because the rate at which Mozart added to his oeuvre was, despite fluctuations, remarkably constant over the long haul, Mozart’s age at the time of composition of a work may be calculated with some degree of accuracy from the “K” number. (This works, however, only for numbers over one hundred.) This is accomplished by dividing the “K” number by 25 and adding 10. If one then keeps in mind that Mozart was born at the beginning of 1756, the year of a work’s composition may also readily be approximated. Take a straightforward example: the Requiem on which Mozart was working when he died is K. 626. That number divided by 25 gives 25, plus ten makes 35, so Mozart was 35 when he composed the Requiem. Thirty-five added to the year 1756 gives us 1791, the year of both the Requiem and Mozart’s premature death.

N.Z.

© Christer Malmberg 2024