Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

with Mozart's realization of nine numbers from Ligniville's puzzle canons notated in brown ink on three three-stave systems per page, with autograph title to the first section ("Canon ad unisonum"), the text underlay to the first section and to bb. 1-12 of the second, as well as the tempo marking of the first section ("Largo") and possibly the title of the second ("Canon") by Leopold Mozart, the title ("Stabat Mater") in another hand, the sections numbered "1" to "9" by Johann Anton André [not Leopold Mozart as stated in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe], with a few corrections and smudgings-out

12 pages, small oblong 4to (c. 17 x 22.5cm), 10-stave paper (Tyson 31), uncut, with, on the first page, a manuscript dating by Johann Anton André ("177-."), an attestation by Heinrich Henkel ("Diese sechs Blätter sind / W.A. Mozart's Handschrift / H. Henkel / Kgl. MD."), and a manuscript numbering ('N^ro 27') by Franz Gleißner, seemingly in the same ink as the title, fitted red calf gilt folder, light foxing to first and last leaf, otherwise in good condition, remains of mount to fourth page

Johann Anton André, Offenbach am Main; Heinrich Henkel (?); Leo Liepmannssohn, Berlin (LLA 55, 12 October 1929, lot 3); Antiquariat Heinrich Hinterberger, Vienna (1936); Mrs Meyer Davis, Philadelphia; Sotheby's, London (9 December 1996, lot 164); private collection

Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, X/28/Abteilung 3-5/3, pp. 23-33 and 120-124 (critical report); Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, X/33/Abteilung 2, 'Wasserzeichen 31', pp. 13-14 and xxi (commentary) [K. Anh. 17 was not inspected by Tyson]; Emily Anderson (trans.), The Letters of Mozart and his Family (London, 1985), pp. 125 and 886; Alan Tyson, Mozart. Studies of the Autograph Scores (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1987), pp. 162-176;  The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia, ed.Cliff Eisen and Simon P. Keefe (Cambridge, 2006), p. 248; John A. Rice, 'Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo's Musical Patronage in Florence, 1765-1790, as reflected in the Ricasoli Collection': https.//sites.google.com/site/johnaricecv/grand-duke-pietro-leopold-s-musical-patronage-in-florence-1760-1790-as-reflected-in-the-ricasoli-collection

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

THIS IS AN ATTRACTIVE TWELVE-PAGE MANUSCRIPT IN MOZART'S HAND, ONE OF THE MOST SUBSTANTIAL BY THE COMPOSER TO BE OFFERED AT AUCTION IN RECENT YEARS.

Since the nineteenth-century this manuscript has been only fleetingly available for study, and we know of no published reproductions of the autograph, with the exception of an illustration of one page in the catalogue for Sotheby's sale on 6 December 1996 (lot 164). The manuscript was not examined by the British expert on Mozart's papers and their watermarks, Alan Tyson.

It is one of the most impressive single manuscripts arising from Mozart's concentrated canonic and contrapuntal studies in Salzburg between 1772 and 1774 (its dating to c. 1773 is suggested by the handwriting and the paper, which is of a type first used by Mozart in Salzburg in March 1773).  It is Tyson's paper-type no.31, ie "Type I" of the five types of Klein-Querformat paper identified by him as having been used by Mozart between 1773 and 1779)

Mozart probably came across the canonic Stabat mater of Marchese Eugenio di Ligniville, Prince of Conca (1730-1788) when he met the composer in April 1770 in Florence during his first Italian journey. Ligniville, of whom a fine portrait by Angelo Crescimbeni survives among the portraits in the Padre Martini collection in Bologna, was then director of music at the court of Tuscany. Leopold Mozart described him as 'the finest expert in counterpoint in the whole of Italy' and recorded that he 'placed the most difficult fugues before Wolfgang and gave him the most difficult themes, which he played off and worked out as easily as one eats a piece of bread'. That meeting and Ligniville's music will still have resonated with Mozart a few years later in Salzburg when he composed the arcane tour de force which is the canonic Kyrie for five soprano voices, K. 89, and when he prepared the present manuscript.

The basis for Mozart's partial transcription(-cum-realization) - in which we glimpse Mozart in the very act of studying a highly technical aspect of his craft - is presumed to have been the first of at least two authorized published versions (not distinguished by RISM in the entry for L 2416). In the first edition (published by April 1767, to judge, as John Rice has noted, from a notice in the Gazzetta Toscana), all the canons transcribed by Mozart are notated in one-part form with entry-indications for the other parts; in the later, somewhat expanded, edition, which describes Ligniville as 'Direttore della Musica della real Corte di Toscana' (his appointment to this post was only announced in 1768), the canons are presented in score. While the text of the latter edition clearly diverges from Mozart's manuscript in places, it should be noted that Mozart does not reproduce the text of the first edition exactly either: bb. 31ff. of Mozart's first section, for example, diverge considerably from the model: where Mozart has 6 bars (bb. 31-36) Ligniville has 29.

The importance of the manuscript lies particularly in the light it sheds on Mozart's contrapuntal studies, complementing as it does the scattered complex of manuscripts - including K. Anh. 109d (73x) - in which Mozart wrestled with the puzzle canons from Padre Martini's Storia della musica. When in 1785 Joseph Haydn famously stated to Leopold Mozart, then visiting his son in Vienna, that Mozart possessed 'taste and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition', he was stating no more than the truth. The autograph of K. Anh. A 17 is a testament to the fact that such knowledge was not acquired easily by Mozart, but rather was the result of painstaking and concentrated effort.

The unnumbered sections from Ligniville's Stabat mater transcribed by Mozart are the following (numbers in square brackets indicate the order in Mozart's autograph; canon descriptions are based on the 1767 edition; clef details are those of the autograph):

[1] 'Stabat mater' (= Largo. Canone ad unisonum, S, S, S clefs)
[2] 'Cuius animam gementem' (= Andante. Canon ad unisonum et octavam, A, A, B clefs)
[3] 'Quae maerebat' (= Larghetto. Canon ad unisonum, A, A, A clefs)
[4] 'Quis non posset' (= Canon ad quartam inferiorem et octavam, S, A, T clefs)
[5] 'Pro peccatis' (= Andante. Canon ad unisonum, S, S, S clefs)
[6] 'Vidit suum' (= Andante. Canon ad octavam inferiorem, S, S, T clefs)
[7] 'Virgo virginum' (= Canon ad unisonum et octavam inferiorem, S, S, S - not T, as in Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, X/28/Abteilung 3-5/3 - clefs)
[8] 'Fac, ut portem' (= Larghetto moderato. Canon ad unisonum, S, S, S clefs)
[9] 'Inflammatus' (= Andante. Canon ad unisonum, S, S, S clefs). As remarked in Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, X/28/Abteilung 3-5/3, p. 120 n. 30, the description in K.⁶ of the movements transcribed by Mozart is misleading.