Lot n° 230
Estimation :
400000 - 500000
EUR
Result without fees
Result
: 300 000EUR
MOZART Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791).
autograph musical manuscript, Kyrie in C (K Anh.
18 /166F), [1772]; 5 oblong pages in-4 (22.8 x 29.7 cm) on 2 sewn-in bi-fold.
Important manuscript of an unfinished Kyrie for choir and orchestra.
This Kyrie has 49 measures. It is composed for a four-part choir, 2 oboes, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, strings (violins I and II, violas I and II, bass) and organ. It is a first draft and working manuscript, written in brown ink on 5 pages of 2 double sheets of paper with 12 staves (not recorded NMA X/ 33/2, Wasserzeichen
Katalog), with autograph tempo indications at the beginning: Adagio, then at bar 15: Allegro. This manuscript has scratch corrections; also in Mozart's hand, in addition to the music and lyrics, the list of instruments, in the margin of the staves, on the first page. The manuscript is headed by annotations in the hand of Abbot Maximilian Stadler (1748-1833, composer, librarian and musicologist, executor of Mozart's estate): "Anfang eines Kyrie" [beginning of a Kyrie] and in that of Georg Nikolaus von Nissen (1721-1826, second husband of Constanze Mozart): "NB.
(Bruchstück von Kirchenmusik) Von Mozart und seiner Handschrift" [fragment of church music in Mozart's hand]; Nissen also noted for classification in the upper left corner of the first folio: "M.f.d.G. / Kirche" [Musik für den Gesang / Kirche (church vocal music)]", some of these notes are underlined and placed in parentheses in red ink by Aloys Fuchs (1799-1853, musicologist and collector). There are also two almost erased inscriptions: the first is a "VII" in red pencil in the right margin of the first page, which corresponds to the number assigned to this Kyrie in the list of Mozart's vocal fragments compiled by Maximilian Stadler (1748-1833), and which was used by Constanze Mozart in 1800 as the basis for negotiations with the publishers Breitkopf & Härtel during Mozart's succession. The second inscription is a classification number given by G.N.von Nissen on the last blank page: perhaps "IA a1". One of the most important Mozart manuscripts to come to the market in recent years, and one of the most remarkable of Mozart's unfinished compositions, it has been missing since the 1930s. The music of the 49 bars of this Kyrie is music of great scope and quality, by turns solemn and lyrical. Had it been completed, this Kyrie would certainly rank among Mozart's masterpieces of church music. After a solemn proclamation of the "Kyrie" by the choir, supported by chords from the entire orchestra, and ending with an organ point, a brief quivering of the piano orchestra leads to a canonical reprise of the "Kyrie eleison. This slow introduction (14 bars) ends on a climax, before an Allegro begins in sharp contrast, where a jubilant orchestra leads in 20 bars to the choir repeating the "Kyrie eleison," supported by the entire orchestra in 15 bars, at the end of which the work is abruptly interrupted by the first syllable of an "eleison. At the time of his death, Mozart left about 150 unfinished compositions and various fragments in draft form. The present fragment of the Kyrie occupies an important place among Mozart's other famous unfinished church music, including the dramatic Kyrie in D minor (K. 341/368a), probably dating from about 1781, the powerful Mass in C minor (K. 427/417a), which dates from Mozart's early years in Vienna, and, of course, the sublime Requiem (K. 626), composed at the end of his life and abruptly interrupted by death. The manuscript is neither dated nor signed, as is appropriate for an unfinished work. The paper was probably brought back by Mozart to Salzburg on his first trip to Italy (where he composed Ascanio In Alba, K.111 on a paper of the same type); he used the same paper [NMA X/33/2, Wasserzeichenkatalog (1992), p. 53 "Wasserzeichen IV"] to write, among other things, the Litaniae from Venerabili Altaris Sacramento (K.125), in March 1772, and the unfinished opera Zaide (K.344/336b) in 1779- 1780. According to Wolfgang Plath, the musical writing, with the small form of the notes and a well-ordered general appearance, probably dates the work to the first half of 1772, in Salzburg, when Mozart was only sixteen. Attached is a strip of paper in the hand of the collector and musicologist Aloys Fuchs elucidating the inscriptions on the first page by Stadler and Nissen and indicating that these two men put Mozart's musical estate in order; plus a modern transcription of part of the Kyrie entry in the 3rd edition of the Köchel catalogue (1937). Bibliography: L. von Köchel, Chronologisch-thematisches Verzeichnis sämtlicher Tonwerke Wolfgang Amadé Mozarts [K.1 ]
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