Sunday, January 15, 2017

Impossible Interviews December 2016: Mozart’s Friend A. Stadler


Who is Anton Stadler?
Called by Mozart Nàtschibinìtschibi (nickname probably meaning poor miserable young man of follies), Anton Stadler was one of the best close friends of Mozart: among them also Gottfried von Jacquin (called HinkitiHonky) and his sister Franziska (Sigra. Dinimininimi).

Friendship in 1781
Anton Stadler and his brother Johann Nepomuk Franz, with the Bohemian players Anton David and Vincent Springer, were considered the best clarinet players in Vienna in 1780s and 1790s. Mozart befriended them in 1781/1782 and in the following years wrote an important series of works (more than 15) for clarinets, basset horns and basset clarinets.

Freemasonry and The Grotto secret society
27 September 1785 Anton Stadler became a freemason and this situation helped to create a special relationship and a closer friendship with Mozart. Sources are not always very clear on this subject, but it seems that Anton Stadler became a sort of vice- (possibly a Papageno working for Tamino?) of Mozart on various matters, especially on money, pawnshops and secret societies. In fact, Mozart and A. Stadler decided to create a new reformed Freemason Lodge or a completely new Secret Society, called The Grotto, and A. Stadler was writing down the rules of this new Secret Society. Constanze Mozart had still the manual of this new Society The Grotto at the end of 18th century. After her letters on this subject, the Mozart-Stadler’s manual of the new Secret Society disappeared and is today considered lost.

Pawnshops, loss of money and debts
The activity of A.Stadler with pawnshops, carried on also on behalf of Mozart, led to the loss of a considerable amount of money: important precious watches, money (at least ca. $1500 or more in modern values), almost all the silverware and other valuable goods which belonged to Mozart. Due to such facts, Constanze Mozart and the other relatives of Mozart always considered A.Stadler just a vulgar irresponsible jester and the story of the new Secret Society The Grotto probably was used by Constanze Mozart against A.Stadler, who didn’t want to be involved any more in stories of Secret Societies after the French Revolution. Moreover, A.Stadler in 1791 received from Mozart the sum of ca. $3000 (modern value) for his Tour of Concerts across Europe and, as far as we know, not only never paid that sum back to Mozart’s family, but never paid for the famous Concert K.622 and for the new instruments built for him by Theodor Lotz.

Inventor of new instruments?
A.Stadler attributed to himself the very invention of various instruments: the basset clarinet and probably a better extended design of the basset horn. We know that, technically speaking, instead, at least the basset clarinet was, in reality, designed and built by Theodor Lotz. So A.Stadler’s inventions are, at this moment, matter of controversy.

His activity as theorist
After the death of Mozart, A.Stadler kept playing clarinet, basset clarinet and basset horn at high levels, working for the Imperial Court and receiving new music by good composers like Kozeluch, Eybler and Süssmayr, all somehow linked to Mozart as friends or adversaries. Then A.Stadler distinguished himself most as theorist, thanks principally to his highly regarded Musick Plan (1800). Nonetheless, his incapability in dealing with money continuously led him into losses of money and debts and he poorly died in 1812.

__________________________________________________
WORKS BY ANTON STADLER
__________________________________________________

A) Theory works:
• Klarinett-Schule
• Musick Plan (1800; for Count Festetics on how to organize a School of Music)
B) Compositions by Stadler:
• Partitas for 6 wind instruments (1785)
• 18 Terzetten for 3 basset horns
• 3 caprices for clarinet (1808)
• 3 fantaisies ou potpourris for clarinet (1809)
• Variations sur différents themes favorites for clarinet (1810)
• 6 Duettinos progressives for 2 Clarinets (1808)
• 6 Duettinos concertantes for 2 Clarinets
• 12 ländlerische Tänze for 2 Clarinets (lost)
• 10 Variations über Müsst ma nix in übel aufnehma for Clarinet (lost)
• 2 Märsche for Wind Ensemble (lost)
• 12 deutsche Tänze mit Trios for Wind Ensemble (lost)
• 6 Duettinos for 2 Csákans or Csákan & Violon (1808)
• 7 Variations for Csákan (1812)
• 9 Variations über Müsst ma nix in übel aufnehma for Csákan (lost)
• 3 Caprices for Csákan or Double flute (lost)

Copyright © 2016 MozartCircle. All rights reserved.MozartCircle exclusive property. 
Iconography is in public domain or in fair use.

CD Spotlight December 2016: Symphonies Concertantes: Kozeluch & Mozart Contemporaries






Symphonies Concertantes

Music by Kozeluch, Pleyel, Danzi,
Hoffmeister, Winter, Abel, Ritter,
Crusell, Schneider. Contemporaries of Mozart and a
few of them also friends of Mozart
and Haydn.
Consortium Classicum
Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields
cpo records

Impossible Interviews November 2016: Mozart’s Friend Abbé M. Stadler


Who is Abbé Stadler?
Most of Mozart’s music admirers and estimators totally ignore who Abbé Stadler was. However, at the same time, they owe him a lot.
Close friend of Wolfgang Mozart and of his wife Constanze, direct witness of compositional sessions by Mozart, he played a fundamental role in the preparation, organization and publication of the many manuscripts and musical scores left by Mozart at his death (see, for example, the story of the mysterious completed opera by Mozart Semiramis, Zaide?, August 1799).
He was also the custodian of various first hand anecdotes on Mozart and his style of working, anecdotes, which are still fundamental, today, to determine and correctly comprehend the genesis of a few masterpieces written by Mozart and, among them, the Requiem itself.
Thanks to a cousin of Abbé Stadler, Barbara Ployer (their family relation has been recently confirmed by the accurate genealogical studies carried on by M. Lorenz), today we have an original music theory exercise book by Mozart himself (1784, now also in NMA X/30/2). Again thanks to the intense philological activity of Stadler, we have today also the exercise book Freystädtler-Studien (NMA X/30/2), which Stadler called Mozart’s teaching in composition 1784, which is a marvellous example of how long and accurately Mozart studied the works by Handel and Bach. Stadler also completed lists of all known music fragments from Mozart, lists which then proved fundamental for both Nissen and Köchel.
Moreover, his work on Mozart’s manuscripts was so appreciated by Constanze Mozart, that he received the permission to complete a few pieces by Mozart, which had been left unfinished by the composer himself.
Among the various works by Mozart completed by Abbé Stadler, there are the piano solo Fantasia K. 396, Allegro K. 400 and Minuetto K. 355 and the Kyries K. 322 and K. 323.
Close friend also of Beethoven, during the first years of the 19th century he carried on an important philological work, to determine which parts of the Requiem by Mozart were actually by Mozart himself and which ones were by others (see also Stadler, Vertheidigung der Echtheit des Mozart’schen Requiem). According to certain sources, he worked on the Requiem also with the help of Constanze and marked, in common pencil, the parts by Mozart with an M and those by Süssmayr with an S. Stadler was also considered by a few scholars as the author of a former completion of a few parts of the Requiem, then discarded by Süssmayr in the final version.  It is sure, instead, that: Stadler corrected the first original version in possession of Constanze Mozart («I said that my copy was more correct than the original…» […] «…mine is not only more correct than any other, on account of its containing the improvements of the Abbé’s masterly hand, but may be said to exceed in correctness the original itself.» Constanze Mozart, 26 November 1800); Stadler also added to the original version the figured bass accompaniment in red pencil and then in red ink, in order to preserve it; Stadler (and Constanze) affirmed that, in creating the completion, Süssmayr used also fragments of an already outlined version and other unfinished works by Mozart (but the latter is partially a conjecture by André, based upon his theory that actually 2 Requiems, one an older unfinished work written in 1789, existed and that Mozart, before his death, asked or thought to fill up the lacunae of the actual Requiem with sketches already written by him beforehand, ca. in 1789, for another unfinished Requiem and so did Süssmayr). Stadler in 1799 and 1800 actively helped Constanze to prepare the famous first printed edition of the Requiem and to solve the many Requiem difficult legal issues with the, until then, mysterious Count von Walsegg and his lawyer Sortschan of Vienna.
Stadler was also one of the composers selected for the monumental Diabelli Variations Project by 51 Composers (1819), for which he wrote Variation 41 on a Waltz by Diabelli.
We know also that Constanze Mozart wanted Stadler to complete the Rondo for piano & orch. «Concerto No. 26» (sic! in Constanze’s letter, due to the original numbering on the autograph manuscripts: which is in reality the frag. K. 386), because she knew Abbé Stadler could re-construct the original instructions by Mozart himself thanks to his family correspondence with the pianist Barbara Ployer. K. 386 then was completed by E. Smith and A. Brendel at the end of 1980s.
__________________________________________________
WORKS & ORIGINAL SOURCES ON ABBÉ STADLER
__________________________________________________

A) Mozart’s works completed by Abbé Stadler:
• Kyrie K. 322
• Kyrie K. 323
• Piano solo Minuetto K. 355/576b
• Piano solo Fantasia K. 396 (originally for piano & violin)
• Piano solo Allegro K. 400
• Piano & violin Rondo K. 372
• Piano Fugue K. 401
• Piano & violin Sonata K. 402
• Piano & violin Sonata K. 403
• Mov. Allegro for an Oboe concerto K. 416f
• Cantata Dir, Seele des Weltalls K. 429
• 3 movs. for Trio K. 442
• Piano Fugue K. 443
• No. 3 (a version revised by Stadler, Mozart original manuscript missing) of La Clemenza di Tito
• a first completion of some parts of Requiem, then discarded by Süssmayr (?)
• the Requiem figured bass accompaniment in red pencil and then in red ink
• arrangements of Mozart’s works
B) 19th century original sources on Stadler’s philological work on Mozart’s Requiem, on his friendship with Mozart and Constanze Mozart and on the theory of the 2 Requiems by André:
• The Harmonicon I (1828), p. 101 (.pdf = p. 114)
The Musical World IX (1838), p. 462 (.pdf = p. 291)
C) Works by Stadler on Mozart’s Requiem and the History of Music:
• Vertheidigung der Echtheit des Mozartischen Requiem (1826)
Nachtrag zur Vertheidigung (1827)
Zweyter und letzter Nachtrag… sammt Nachbericht über die Ausgaben dieses Requiems durch André in Offenbach, nebst Ehrenrettung Mozart’s und vier fremden Briefen (1827)
Materialen zur Geschichte der Musik unter den österreichischen Regenten (ms.)
D) Compositions by Stadler:
Tabelle, aus welcher man Menuetten und Trios nerauswurfeln kann (1781)
• Oratorio: Befreyung von Jerusalem (1816)
• Cantatas:
Seladon
Komposition auf den Tod der Gemahlin weiland Kaiser Joseph
Das Gewitter
Frühlingsfeyer
• 2 cori & 5 scenes for Polyxena
• Sacred Music:
• 2 Missae solemnes
• 8 Masses
• 2 Requiem
Te Deum
• 3 Magnificat
• 2 Miserere
• Gradual
• 4 Offertories
• 42 Psalms
• 10 Salve Regina
Ave Regina
Regina Coeli
• 3 Litanies
• 4 Corpus Domini Antiphonies
• 10 Responsories for the Holy Week
• other Sacred Music works
• For Orchestra:
• 12 Minuets
• 12 English Dances
• Chamber Music:
• Quartets
• Trios
• Sonatas for piano & horn
• Fugues for piano & organ
• For Piano & Keyboard:
• Sonatas
• Sonatinas
• Fugues
• Variations
• Var. 41 on a Waltz by Diabelli
• Vocal Music:
• Arias & choruses for a Singspiel
• Arias for a Pastoral comedy
• Hymns & Cori:
Glaube, Hoffnung und Liebe
Es ist ein Gott
Gott
Hoch du, mein Österreich
Klage auf den Tod der Kaiserin Maria Theresia
• 42 Lieder
• Arrangements of works by Haydn, Gluck, Mozart, Cherubini, Dalayrac, Beethoven and others

Copyright © 2016 MozartCircle. All rights reserved.MozartCircle exclusive property. 
Iconography is in public domain or in fair use.

CD Spotlight November 2016: 230th Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (1786-2016)






230th Le Nozze di Figaro
(1786-2016)
Pisaroni Karg Yoncheva Hampson
Brower Von Otter Muraro Villazón
Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Yannick Nézet-Séguin
(Release July 2016)
www.deutschegrammophon.com