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W.A. Mozart

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As the centenary of Mozart's birth loomed in 1856, German musicologist Otto Jahn published the first volume of his ground-breaking four volume biography of Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus (Gottlieb) Mozart. Theophilus, meaning 'beloved of God', was changed to its German equivalent, Gottlieb. The names Johann and Chrysostom commemorated the boy's birth on that saint's day. He was born on 27 January 1756 at eight o'clock in the evening. He was the last of seven children: only two of whom, Nannerl, the fourth, and Wolfgang, survived. No one at the time had the slightest foreknowledge of the epochal nature of that birth.

Simultaneous to Jahn's massive undertaking was Ludwig Kochel's similarly path-breaking catalogue of Mozart's works. The two scholars created the historical landscape upon which all subsequent study and knowledge of Mozart's life and works would be based. Jahn's and Kochel's work were as comprehensive and dependable as the then current state of knowledge about Mozart's life and music permitted. In the process, the foundation of a Germanic cultural hero, a Romantic myth, of Mozart, the inestimable, miraculous child genius who created musical masterpieces Jove-like fully formed from his mind, was created. That myth is still with us in books, in concert notes, in recording liner notes, in essays and in films.

Jahn's work was revised several times before Hermann Abert fully reworked it in the post-war years of 1919-1921, taking full advantage of an additional 70 years of research and discovery: in the process modifying Jahn's 19th Century Romantic tone to fit a more modern sensibility. Abert's massive work included everything then known, the most informed and substantial biography of Mozart in any language. It is unquestionably the most comprehensive account of the composer's life and a profound analysis of the composer's work. In Abert's 'book-within-a-book', he scrutinizes the music, with individual chapters on the operas, splendid accounts of the orchestral works, the symphonies and piano concertos, church music and compositions for solo instruments. It is a titanic work that has never been rendered in English until now.

Brilliantly translated by Stewart Spencer, what makes this massive work so impressive is how even Abert's deeply considered words are brought up to date. Recent developments in Mozart scholarship since the last German edition are analyzed by Mozart scholar Cliff Eisen in his meticulous and informative annotations located on every single page. This whole massive undertaking is supported by a coterie of leading Mozart scholars. At the weight of a very healthy baby, this is not a book you will be carrying to your local Starbuck's unless you plan to use it as a portable table. It is, nevertheless, the single most important source on the life of a truly great composer. It is remarkable that it has been unavailable in English. That it now is, and in such a superlative edition, makes its publication the single most important event in English language Mozartean scholarship of this, or perhaps any other, year. This book is not an investment to be made lightly. It probably requires a program of upper arm development (a small lectern might be helpful). But for the committed Mozartean, this mighty volume would make a splendid gift. You will spend the rest of your life absorbed in its 1600 pages. Most strongly recommended.

Mike Birman

I am someone who considers Mozart to be our "greatest" composer, in fact probably a person surpassed by no other person in creative achievement and whose work comes closest to achieving perfection at the level that nature herself does. Across all the arts. So I was astonished when I learned of the existence of this book. It actually has existed for some time but is only now available in English translation. An excellent translation. Aided further by copious annotations by a contemporary Mozart scholar. I have not read the book in its entirety yet but every part that I have read has been fascinating to read. Never a dull page. A magnificent book!

This is a huge tome. Some comments on its physical aspect are in order.
For people who have only used their forearms for nothing more than holding their TV remotes or their spoon and fork, this book is absolutely not recommended, even dangerous to handle. They should only lift paperbacks.
But for people interested in Mozart's music and life, and who have regularly used their dumbbells to develop good shoulders and arms, this book is highly recommended and, in spite of its massive aspect, very manageable.

The format of 8" x 7.5" is well within the norms of standard books. However, this Abert book is definitely much thicker than your regular hardback novel, 3", for 1515 pages. And, at 6.6 lbs, heavier than most books, though not the heaviest. Any good dictionary, for instance, the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 1987 2d edition, is much larger and heavier (12 lbs).
Still, for all its forbidding look, on the whole Abert's book is relatively handy -- although not enough to stick in your pocket going to your favorite coffee-shop, or even in your bag going to the park or the beach for summer reading.

The major problem with this thickness is that, ploughing through this 1,500-page Mozart book, it proves very difficult to write your own notes in the margins once the mammoth book is open flat on a table (forget about reading this on your lap!) The wrist having no support, you must find it necessary to haul a thick dictionary to place alongside and give your hand an even support to scribble your own sagacious comments.

The book being published by Yale, it was reasonable to expect it to be an American book. Far from it. This is a British book throughout. The translation is by Stewart Spencer, who used to be an academic at London University, and who must be lauded for what must have been a Herculean job. His translation style is formal, elevated, and very "proper" English -- to us sounding a bit dry and lacking in humour. Don't expect any Americanism or colloquial English in this book. The English text had to respect the dignified German language used by Hermann Abert. You'll never find an opportunity to laugh, giggle, or even repress a smile, reading this text. This is seriousness as heavy as it can come.

The German book was published 90 years ago. Since then, research has continued and modified many of its original conclusions -- often reverting them. The constant updating comes in excellent and copious notes written by Cliff Eisen, another academic, at King's College in London who is also a most respected Mozart scholar. These notes, printed at the bottom of all pages, correct, amplify, or, most importantly, debunk some of Abert's assertions.
One valid complaint is that the print of these immensely valuable notes is so small that they are extremely difficult to read, and even more difficult to underline when they make an important point, which is practically all the time. This beef is much more serious than any objection to the weight or thickness of the book. That a microscopic font has been selected for the most important aspect of the book seems a major mistake. Saving space was the obvious goal, but it is no saving at all and a disservice to the passionate readers.

Theses notes are truly invaluable and a good part of the interest of this book, since they define the current state of Mozart scholarship. For that reason alone, yes, an edition in two volumes, keeping the 127 pages of indexes at the back of the second volume, but with a normal font size for the notes, would have been a welcome presentation. Even a total of 2,000 pages would have been acceptable, but then in two volumes. Mozart enthusiasts, who are the only buyers of this massive tome, would have been willing to pay for the extra cost. No expense should have been spared, and the British practice of an uncomfortably tiny font for notes is not completely right for us, Mozart fanatics.

A final remark on the physical presentation: This book was printed in Great Britain, and to our dismay, on somewhat cheaper paper, not unlike blotting paper. The publisher balked at using high-quality glossy paper, as used in the great dictionaries like the the Random House Unabridged, 2d edition, one of the most superb big books ever published for the mass market.
You can't write comments in this British book's margins without the markings appearing on the other side, which is terribly annoying. And never drop some of your coffee on a page, as it would surely instantly dissolve. This is infinitely regrettable, as this is a capital book, a Bible for Mozart enthusiasts and scholars, and it should have been published with top-quality paper.
Again we have to suspect the British tendency for strict economizing on the unit cost of production to be the main reason. Book lovers would have much preferred a first-class American printing job with high-quality textbook-like paper.

Otherwise, the presentation of the text itself, the font type, the layout, the binding and cover are all irreproachable. Cliff Eisen's editorial notes (of 2007) are most interesting, while Hermann Abert's own preface of 1919 most enlightening. And the 127 pages at the end covering bibliography (brought up to date), the whole Köchel listing, the index of Mozart's works by genre, and the usual index of names and subjects, make this book invaluable for any study concerning Mozart.
All considered, for the right user, this is a fabulous book. But, physically, it could have been a bit better.

With respect to Abert's text itself, the key thing to keep in mind is that he was also another academic, publishing in 1919, with the Weltanschauung of a German scholar. He did a lot of his research during the First World War, and was still deeply steeped in the Romantic view of Mozart and his music.
Abert's style is academic to an extreme. His approach is imbued with the German scholar's typical "deutsche Gründickkeit" (German thoroughness), and his product is a temple of exhaustiveness. Not a stone is left unturned, and not a flicker of thought left unsaid.
What's exceptional in this text is that all Mozart's works (about 700 of them) receive individual attention and analysis. Nowhere else has this kind of loving attention to detail and "Gründlichkeit" been lavished on analyzing each work of Mozart.

Of course, Abert's view of Mozart is still strongly colored by the Romantic image of the "genius" as an outworldly artist who follows his own artistic urges, trajectory and destiny, nearly always in battle with his philistine social environment. For the Romantics, Mozart's life was elevated and revered as the emblematic example of genius against society.
This 19th-century Romantic view tends to deify a great artist, turning him (practically never "her") into an iconic figure obeying different rules of behavior and artistic pursuit, and ultimately driven by an inner engine and fueled by a personal flame to overcome all obstacles and resistance to his miraculous creativity. The script is always "Extraordinary Creativity Triumphing over Conformity" -- usually at a painful cost. Mozart became a vivid illustration of this cultural myth.
No attention was paid to the fact that this ideal image didn't even apply to all great artists of the 19th century. Rossini, for instance, who spent all his time and money eating the most delicate French foods in Paris, did not seem to have suffered much. Verdi and Puccini had fairly happy lives, and even Wagner was pretty successful in organizing the practicalities of his personal triumph. Bizet, in France, could have been another example of the unrecognized great artist.

However, we've fortunately come a long way from this Romantic iconic image of Mozart. The debunking of the "divine" Mozart image is the healthy product of modern scholarship, which has brought back Mozart to the level of us, human mortals, without denying his one-off miraculous talent.
We thus have restored Cosi fan Tutte, previously rejected and abhorred by Beethoven and the whole 19th century as "immoral", to its legitimate place as perhaps the most brilliant and psychologically profound opera of Mozart.
In the same spirit, modern publishers have stopped suppressing the delightful "Bäsle" letters to his charming cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart in Augsburg, who became Mozart's famous sexual playmate in his early 20's. And thank God for this, because those letters are a true classic.

And most importantly, the 20th century finally stopped bowdlerizing Mozart's precious letters, restoring his scatological outbursts, his delight in joking, fun and unbounded nonsense.
For instance, publishers started reintroducing the suppressed original texts of the famous scatological canons such as " Leck Mich Im Arsch," K 231, in the body of his music, that nobody before wanted to mention in the original, ashamed and unbelieving that the "divine" Mozart could indulge in such low-class language.
Abert, for all his "deutsche Gründlichkeit" could not bring himself to print the original Mozart text of these canons, coyly apologizing that it "is better never repeated here". Similarly, Abert mentions only the bowdlerized and sanitized text for K 233, where the original reads "Leck mir den Arsch fein recht schön sauber." Abert must have fainted the first time he encountered this canon. How could one reconcile this with the Great Mass in C minor, K427?

It is only in the late 20th century that a truer picture of Mozart the man has begun to appear in all its crude and sublime expressions. Suddenly Mozart does not look any longer like the music director of God's angels, but much more like another great earth-bound genius such as, for instance, Shakespeare.

Abert could not foresee this new perspective, and he still lived with the artificially prudish and divine image constructed by the Romantics and Victorians of the 19th century, who hypocritically averted their glances when discovering that Mozart, for all his genius, was human all the same.
Abert, as all the prudish critics who preceded him, had to respect the formalities and respectabilities of his academic milieu.
He could not admit that Mozart found great pleasure in using salty and scatological language, a predilection that modern research has established to have been a cultural habit for his mother, sister, and probably most of his intimate circle in Salzburg. Abert was a prisoner of his time, still far removed from our modern obsession of recovering the "authentic" and historic Mozart in all his forms and expressions, bar none.

As late as 1938, Emily Anderson had translated in English the Letters of Mozart and his Family using a beautiful, high-sounding polished English, which bore little resemblance to the real, natural style of Mozart, as has been strongly underlined by Robert Spaethling, a recent translator. He rightly mentions that Emily Anderson made Mozart sound like his sententious and pedagogical father Leopold, (and now we could also say, like Hermann Abert himself).
Emily Anderson cannot entirely be blamed, since the German edition used by her had already bowdlerized Mozart's own writings. Only in 1975 was completed for the first time a German edition of Mozart's letters in their original, natural language and style, "Mozart: Briefe & Aufzeichnungen", that is, for us, "Mozart: Letters & Documents" (by Bauer, Deutsch & Eibl, in 7 volumes, published by Bärenreiter Verlag, Kassel, 1962-1975.) This historical edition has not yet been translated into English.

Robert Spaethling, an American academic, born and raised in Bavaria where the local dialect is close to that of Salzburg, has rendered an immense service to all lovers of Mozart and contributed significantly to the job of cleaning up Mozart's image of its Romantic polish, thanks to his new translation of Mozart's Selected Letters (2000, Norton & Co).
Spaethling set himself the task of preserving all the original colors, crudities, language games, and mannerisms of Mozart's natural style. Mozart was a superb and fun writer, with a style influenced by his musical sensibility, lively and spontaneous, proceeding immediately "in medias res", that is coming at once to the point, unlike any other writer, and Spaethling is to be unreservedly admired and complimented for his unique success in rendering Mozart's idiosyncratic German style in equivalent English.
Our only regrets are first, that the selected letters are often not completely translated, subjected, alas, to unwelcome cuts marked by ellipses, a breach of the promise made in the title "Mozart' Letters, Mozart's Life"; and, second, that Spaethling was discouraged from translating ALL of Mozart's letters -- which is a big shame -- in order to give his book a wider market.
In Spaethling's book, we have the opposite of the Abert book: large font, wide spacing, huge margins, little text per page, all the drawbacks of American packaging.

And our vivid hope is that -- since Spaethling has abundant leisure time in retirement, and that he already has honed his skill in fashioning an acceptable rendition of Mozart's natural German style -- he may seriously consider the natural extension of his last project in tackling the monumental job of fully translating Bärenreiter's seven volumes of "Mozart: Letters & Documents". This would give splendid meaning to the use of his retirement time.
This new complete translation by Spaethling, if it ever comes to publication, would be as valuable to us as the translation of Abert's Mozart, and its natural companion. (Norton editor, please pass on this important message to Robert Spaethling. Nobody else but he can do this urgently needed job). This new, modern translation, restoring Mozart's own authentic style, of the complete "Mozart: Letters & Documents", should be about the same size as the current Abert book, and together they would inseparably become the two fundamental texts of any future Mozart study.

Contrary to Mozart's fluid and concise style, Abert suffers from the German academic tendency to express all nuances and connotations in long inflated phrases, which could have been drastically shortened without losing any of their content. Any page of his book would offer countless examples of this long-winded style. For instance, at random, let's mention "the various canons that Mozart probably wrote throughout the whole of his time in Vienna", the concise meaning being "Mozart's canons in Vienna".
But conciseness was not an acceptable virtue for Abert. Hence 1,515 pages. The English translator, Stewart Spencer, has done his best at making this heavily plodding style digestible, thanks to his elegant, much lighter, and airy rendition.
Amazingly, Abert never learnt from Mozart the art of coming to the point tellingly and swiftly with lovely musical sentences interspersed with dashes of humour.

From a purely musical perspective, Abert's analysis is incomparable.
But it is sometimes annoying to see Abert distributing compliments and criticisms to Mozart's works from the top of his pontifical academic chair that only reflect his own personal standards and biases of the time.
Some of his criticisms are biased or obsolete. He is always lauding Mozart whenever he finds unified thematic development, and mercilessly criticizing Mozart for his instinctive and irresistible compulsion to introduce new ideas and unexpected new themes and motifs. Abert is always taking Beethoven or other Romantics as an example of composers who knew how to exploit one musical idea to death.

But this is terribly unfair and touches on the very essence of Mozart's composition style. For Mozart's own natural tendency is to give free rein to his inventions and to follow his own spontaneous melodies and orchestral ideas wherever they want to lead him, most often unpredictably to us and also to him. Even during the course of the purest melodic line of an aria or a sublime concerto, the orchestra is constantly animated with bizarre and astonishing, but always supremely effective, interventions and sound effects.
Above all, Mozart's supreme value in writing music was "flow" -- music "flowing like oil" is his fundamental motto for composition, as he continually repeated to his father Leopold, even if Mozart was the only one to clearly perceive how the flow should go -- not music laboriously constructed simply to apply intellectual principles of composition.

Fortunately, as a creative composer, Mozart never allowed pedantic criticism to intimidate him into reviewing or distorting his original output. He resisted his father Leopold's stern advice, never agreed with the Emperor Joseph II's veiled chiding about his "too many notes," and refused to simplify for the sake of his aristocratic audience, who complained about not being able to follow and remember the immense and relentless outpouring of Mozart's creative ideas.
And no doubt about it, Mozart would have never retouched any of his music simply to abide by Abert's punditry.

For one of the immense charms of Mozart's music is exactly in following him through this happy, unbridled sudden jumps to new musical phrases, themes, and ideas which take him and us we never know where, but always have a gracious way to blend with the whole while they deliver at the end a unified piece.
And they're so quickly gone that we want and need to re-listen again and again to the work to capture all its subtleties and evanescent beauties.
This is the essence of Mozart's "flow" for which there is no formula, and which needs Mozart himself to be perceived and created. He was an astounding master at improvisations, where he simply used to let himself go and create extraordinary music, a lot of which was never written down, and was thus lost for ever. Reflecting on his extempore creations, Mozart himself was often astonished and pleased by the quality of what came out of this free-style play.

Unchecked and inexhaustible spontaneous creativity was a major force of Mozart's composing. And if this was the true, indelible, mark of his "genius", it should be respected and lauded.
Abert failed to be consistent with his own concept of "genius" as that of an artist being his only own rule-giver. Abert erected himself as the final judge of "quality" as soon as Mozart's musical composition didn't exactly correspond to Abert's own academic expectations. These abstract analyses and criticisms often fade in importance as soon as we return to the living beauty of Mozart's music itself.
Abert, a strong disciplinarian (in the same mold as Mozart's father, Leopold), was not plugged into this absolute freedom of writing music "flowing like oil". Whereas Mozart always allowed himself to be freely guided by his instinct, remaining supremely confident that his inner genius was never going to fail him or lead him astray. This superior self-confidence in his exceptional creativity marked him off from all his contemporaries and from all other musicians of the past and the future.

In this perspective, it can be argued that Alfred Einstein -- in his excellent musical analysis of MOZART - HIS CHARACTER, HIS WORK -- when it comes to assessing merits and criticisms, is more nuanced and more tolerant of Mozart's idiosyncracies.
In addition, it is a more recent book, published directly in English in 1945, of only 512 pages, and weighing only one pound. Alfred Einstein not only lived in the States and wrote in English. He also was the editor of the 3d edition of the famous Köchel catalogue of 1937, which incorporated many revisions and additions to the original catalogue, and was reprinted as the 4th edition in 1958 and the 5th in 1961. His expertise in Mozart's music is the direct and more modern successor to Abert's own encyclopedic knowledge of Mozart. It is often interesting to contrast Einstein's approach and analysis to those of Abert.

All in all, for its content, Abert's "magnum opus", even if showing the limitations of its 1919 dating, is a monumental book, a towering Bible for any Mozart enthusiast and scholar. This book can be annotated and updated, but never reduplicated.
And thanks to Cliff Eisen's impeccably scholarly notes, this colossal book also provides the most current state of research on Mozart's life and work.
As a physical product, this book is also mightily impressive, but could have been slightly improved with higher-quality paper, a larger font for the notes, and a publication in two volumes.
And, as with the Bible, we are not obliged to take some of its myths at face value

ROO.BOOKAROO
March 4, 2010

This is a serious reference work that comprehensively details Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's life and works, together with the Kochel catalogue, a chronology, a bibliography of other authors' works, and a comprehensive index of significant people, places, and events in Mozart's life. This English-language edition has only been available for about 12 months, and I have found it to be one of the most valuable books in my collection of musical literature. Yes, it's a bit dry in its style, but this is not some fluffy novel. If you present classical music for radio, TV, the internet, or are a teacher, this is a work you should have on your bookshelf.

Great book, have only read a little so far since I am obliged to sit at the table to read it and not in my favorite armchair. It would have been so much simpler to have this published in two volumes. I am prepared to buy it again in order to read it in a more comfortable position. I think I would really enjoy it much more.