Martines, Maron, and a Latin Inscription

On 27 May 1773, the composer Marianna Martines was appointed member of the renowned Accademia filarmonica of Bologna. Following Padre Martini's favorable judgment of her work and being aware of Pietro Metastasio's interest in her musical career, a committee of eighteen members voted unanimously to grant Martines the title Accademia filarmonica Onorata. A diploma of honor on parchment was prepared explicitly for her to be dispatched to Vienna and a report of the meeting was published on 13 July 1773, in the Gazzetta di Bologna. In the 108 years of the academy's existence since 1666, Martines was the first woman composer to receive this honor. Only five more women would earn this distinction by the end of the eighteenth century. Soon after she had received the exquisite academic accolades, Martines must have commissioned a portrait of herself to be painted by the renowned artist Anton von Maron, who in 1772 had returned to Vienna after having spent seventeen years in Rome.

The inscription on this painting, which today is held by the Wien Museum (Inv. No. 158.809), was first published in 1995, by my friend the late Irving Godt (1923–2006), as follows.

This flawed transcription ("METASTASIO", "VINDIBO") was then also mistranslated by Godt thusly: "Marianna Martines, Pupil of P. Metastasio; born in Vienna, 4th day of May 1744, Member Academia Filarmonica."

When Melanie Unseld was working on her book Mozarts Frauen. Begegnungen in Musik und Liebe, and spent time in Vienna "to make original sources the basis of her book" (as she proudly claimed in a press interview), she visited the Wien Museum's deposit to take a look at the Martines portrait. Her "on-site inspection in Vienna" (as she described this excursion) yielded rather modest results: although her book contains a nice color picture of Maron's painting on which the Latin inscription is perfectly legible, Unseld simply copied the flawed transcription from Godt's article "Marianna in Italy" in the 1995 Journal of Musicology. In a review of Unseld's book, which in 2007 I wrote for the Mozart-Jahrbuch 2007/2008 (and which was published only in November 2011), I pointed out this mistake and noted that Unseld should have copied the inscription from the painting itself instead of using Irving Godt's old transcription. It turned out that Unseld was able to even go one better. In the February 2011 issue of the Schweizer Musikzeitung, she published a short article about Martines in which she not only repeated Godt's misreading of the Latin text, but also presented a new translation in which she turned the poet Pietro Metastasio into a "Padre Metastasio".

When in February 2012 Sony Music published the CD Marianna Martines: Il Primo Amore with cantatas and concertos by Martines, in the booklet of this CD, Unseld not only repeated her "Padre Metastasio" gem, but also redated Maron's portrait to the year 1780.

We can safely presume that neither Irving Godt (who only received his Ph.D. at the age of 46, after having been a postal worker for decades) nor Melanie Unseld ever studied Latin. Otherwise, they would have realized that the first transcription and its translation were already flawed. The missing genitive in "Metastasio alumna" is a gross mistake, and the translation of the date with "4th day of May" reveal a certain unfamiliarity with the Roman calendar. Maron's Latin inscription on the Martines portrait reads as follows.

MARIA ANNA. MARTINES. P[ETRI]. METASTASII. ALUMNA

NAT[A]. VINDOBO[NÆ].[ANTE DIEM] IV. NON[AS]. MAI[AS]. MDIIXLIV. ACAD[EMIÆ]. PHIL[HARMONICÆ]. SOC[IA].

Maria Anna Martines. Pupil of Pietro Metastasio

Born in Vienna, on the fourth day before the Nones [the 7th] of May 1744, member of the Philharmonic Academy.

On 23 January 1774, together with her four brothers Joseph, Dionys, Johann Baptist, and Karl Borromäus, and her sister Antonia, Marianna Martines was ennobled by Maria Theresia. In the patent of nobility the coat of arms of the Martines family is described as follows.

Namely an upright blue escutcheon with an erect golden cadeuceus, across which in the the middle a black fess is drawn, which again is overlaid with a broad silver band. On the shield, rest two open knights' jousting helms facing each other, with pendent decorative mantling, crowned with golden coronets artfully intertwined in gold and blue on the right, and in black and silver on the left. Above the helm in the front, between two black eagle wings facing each other, the front part of a silver greyhound, looking to the left, stands displayed with a red collar bordered in gold and furnished with a golden ring; on the back helm, facing left, stands a simple golden eagle with outspread wings, open beak, and outstretched claws.

The coat of arms of the Martines siblings (AT-OeStA/AVA Adel HAA AR 573.1, fol. 7r). The fact that the State Archives' description of the certificate of nobility states "Brüder, Ritterstand" seems to be the reason why Marianna von Martines has recently been denied the title of nobility. The sisters' names are implied in the certificate of nobility, but not named, because their legitimate heirs would not have borne the name Martines.

Seal impressions of the Martines coat of arms appear in the 1775 probate file of Theresia Martines where a list of assets bears the signatures of four of her children. The custodian of the I. & R. Court library, Joseph von Martines signed on behalf of his absent brothers Dionys and Johann Baptist von Martines.

The seals and signatures of Joseph, Carl, Maria Anna, and Antonia von Martines in their mother's Sperrs-Relation (A-Whh, OMaA, 21-4)

And since he somehow caused the whole confusion, Anton von Maron gets the final word with his signature and seal from 1764.

Anton Maron's signature in the probate file of his wife Josepha (A-Wsa, AZJ 210/9)

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Updated and expanded: 26 March 2025 (with thanks to John Rice)

© Dr. Michael Lorenz 2012. All rights reserved.

A Review of Stanley Sadie's Last Book

In the 2009/2010 issue of the Mozart-Jahrbuch, Daniel Brandenburg reviews the late Stanley Sadie's book Mozart: The Early Years, 1756-1781. It is by itself a minor absurdity that, owing to the MJb's perpetual tardiness, a book is being reviewed six years after its publication. On p. 252, Brandenburg addresses the (supposed) deficiencies of Sadie's book as follows:

Die einschlägige Sekundärliteratur wird bis zum Jahr 2005 erfasst, allerdings mit ein paar schmerzlichen Lücken: Dexter Edges Dissertation zu Mozarts Kopisten von 2001 ist von Sadie ebenso wenig rezipiert worden wie etwa Michael Lorenz' Untersuchung zu dem sogenannten Jeunehomme-Konzert oder auch die neuen Erkenntnisse zur Licenza KV 36 (33i).

The relevant secondary literature is being covered until the year 2005, but with a few painful gaps: Dexter Edge's 2001 dissertation on Mozart's copyists has been noted by Sadie just as little as Michael Lorenz's research on the so-called Jeunehomme concerto, or the new findings on the Licenza K. 36 (33i).

Apart from the fact that a part of Brandenburg's review seems to be heavily inspired by a review of the same book by David Black, published in Music and Letters in 2007, the following question comes to mind: did Brandenburg really read Sadie's book with the necessary attention? If he had looked on p. 410 of Sadie's final opus (or had at least checked Google Books on this issue), he would have come across the following text concerning my work and the Jeunehomme/Jenamy topic:

It is surprising that Brandenburg's gaffe was overlooked by the editors of the Mozart-Jahrbuch. Not only did Sadie take my research on the identity of the dedicatee of Mozart's piano concerto K. 271 into account, (apart from giving a wrong year of Jenamy's wedding) he also was one of the very few colleagues who actually understood how the misnomer Jeunehomme Concerto came to be: the name Jeunehomme is a total fabrication, a figment of the imagination of Wyzewa and Saint-Foix. This basic fact seemed easy to understand after I had explained it in several publications. And yet, according to a review by Ulrich Leisinger in the Mozart-Jahrbuch 2007/2008 (p. 139), the name Jeunehomme Concerto "is based on a misunderstanding". In the book Mensch Mozart!, published in 2005 by the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum (and reperpetrated in 2011, in English under the title Next to Mozart), we surprisingly are being told that the name Jeunehomme was caused by a "Verballhornung", i.e. a corruption.

It is to be noted, by the way, that not at any price the solver of the Jeunehomme puzzle is to be named.

Updated: 21 July 2017

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Update (January 2025)

In the new Köchel-Verzeichnis, which was presented with delay, but all the greater fanfare in 2024, in the commentary on K. 271 (p. 310), Ulrich Leisinger's "Verballhornung" nonsense actually reappears, along with a wrong first name for Mrs. Jenamy. This disgrace will be discussed in more detail in an upcoming blog post.

Joseph Lange's Mozart Portrait

Joseph Lange's unfinished portrait of Mozart is one of the most popular and best known images of the composer. Its somber coloring and its unfinished state have made it a visual icon of Mozart in his Vienna years. Mozart's life, being tragically cut short, is hauntingly paraphrased by the  incompleteness of the painting.

And yet, Mozart scholarship does not even know for sure when Mozart's brother-in-law painted this portrait. In 1913, Edward J. Dent claimed that it originates from 1791. After having met sharp criticism from Téodor de Wyzewa in a review in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and Edward Speyer, Dent, in a later edition of his book Mozart's Operas, corrected the dating to 1782. In an article in the 1926 Salzburger Museumsblätter, art historian Julius Leisching assigned the Lange portrait to 1790. This dating did not gain acceptance either, and in 1931, Roland Tenschert, in his book Mozart. Ein Künstlerleben in Bildern und Dokumenten, presented the portrait as having been painted in 1782. Otto Erich Deutsch seems to have pondered for several decades over a possible dating of  Lange's work. In 1956, he dated the portrait with "winter of 1782-83", curiously describing it as "a sketch in oils, unfortunately never completed". This dating was influenced by the assumption that Lange's portrait of Mozart was somehow related to his portrait of Constanze Mozart which, since 1931, belongs to the University of Glasgow as part of the Zavertal Collection, and is presumed to have been one of the two small portraits that Mozart sent to his father on 3 April 1783: "Auch folgen die 2 Portraits; – wünsche nur daß sie damit zufrieden seyn möchten; mir scheint sie gleichen beyde gut, und alle die es gesehen sind der nemlichen Meynung." ("The two portraits will follow; – I only wish that you will be pleased with them. I think they are both good likenesses and all who have seen them are of the same opinion."). Within the next five years, however, Deutsch changed his opinion again, and in his 1961 book Mozart und seine Welt in zeitgenössischen Bildern (published as part of the NMA), he assigned the Lange portrait to 1782/83. Since then, this dating has been revised by Mozart scholarship to 1789, based on Mozart's remark in a letter to his wife from 16 April 1789: "ich möchte gerne wissen ob schwager Hofer den Tag nach meiner Abreise gekommen ist? ob er öfters kommt, so wie er mir versprochen hat; – ob die Langischen bisweilen kommen? – ob an den Portrait fortgearbeitet wird?" ("I want to know if brother-in-law Hofer visited the day after my departure? If he is visiting more often, as he promised me; – Whether the Langes come by now and then? – If work on the portrait is being continued?")

I have been studying Joseph Lange's life and work for over ten years and I assume in all modesty that I have seen more of Lange's paintings than anybody else. Lange's Mozart portrait has been the object of my scrutiny for a long time and I have always been intrigued as to how its appearance and its state of preservation have changed during the last 60 years. Moreover, I was always sceptic regarding its supposed "state of incompleteness", which, owing to the unusually straight edges of paint on Mozart's body, is at odds with many other unfinished paintings I know. Could it be that the painting was not unfinished, but represents an enlargement of an orignal small portrait which then was never completed? There is a model for this particular procedure: Lange's portrait of Constanze Mozart which today is on display in Glasgow. That this painting is an enlarged version of a small portrait (previously 18 x 13 cm, now 32,3 x 24,8 cm) has long been known and has been pointed out several times in the literature, most recently in the catalog of the 1991 Mozart exhibition in Salzburg. The irregular size of the original portrait (as shown approximately in the following picture) was caused by cutting and the obviously bad state of canvas quality on the lower left corner of the original painting. The enlargement was either sewn or glued to the original painting after it had been turned about eleven degrees to the right.

The difference of color between the old and the new canvas becomes visible with the picture's histogram being modified.

It is not known when the Constanze portrait was enlarged. Old black and white photographs, taken before a very intensive restoration of Mozart's portrait in the early 1960s, show that the painting underwent a similar treatment as the painting in Glasgow: a miniature, showing only Mozart's head, was turned about four degrees to the right and inserted into a bigger canvas which was supposed to show Mozart's upper body and the shape of a piano, but later remained unfinished. A photograph of the unrestored painting (in deplorable state of conservation), taken in 1946, eerily shows the distinct contour of the original small painting:

Lange's painting in 1946 (photograph by David E. Scherman)

The pre-restoration state of the painting is also documented in Roland Tenschert's article entitled "Wie Mozart wirklich aussah", which in 1941 was published in the Austrian journal Die Bühne.

Die Bühne, Heft 24/1941, 7

The original miniature, about 19 x 15 centimeters in size, looked like this (in exact size relation to the colored picture above):

In March 2009, I realized that the portrait is an enlargement, a discovery whose date can be attested by several colleague musicologists. On 29 June 2010, I visited Mozart's birthplace and examined the Lange portrait, which at that time, had been taken from the exhibition to be scrutinized by the museum staff. I told Dr. Großpietsch and Dr. Ramsauer about my hypothesis and had to realize that there was no scholarly documentation on the 1963 restoration of the painting, and the Mozarteum had never X-rayed the portrait. The restoration, of course, has rendered the visible distinction between the original minature and the enlargement almost imperceptible. Not only was the gaping horizontal crack, which is visible on old photographs, filled with putty, the edge of the brown paint at the lower end of the painted area on Mozart's chest was also horizontally adjusted, as if to hide the tilted original miniature.

Lange's portrait of Mozart before and after the restoration (which, according to a personal communication by Dr. Ramsauer, was done in 1963).

Given the current state of the painting, the different canvas of the small original portrait is only discernible as a slightly lower rectangular area, when looked upon in a very flat angle in backlight. Therefore I concluded that in the course of the enlargement the small painting was mounted from behind to the larger canvas. The Mozart portrait by Joseph Lange is not an unfinished painting of "Mozart at the Piano", but an unfinished enlargement of an original miniature of Mozart's head.

What are the implications of this discovery? The original miniature portraits of Mozart and his wife, painted by Lange, both of which were later enlarged, could well be the two small paintings that Mozart sent to his father in April 1783. The Mozart miniature portrait from 1782/83 is "lost", because for over 200 years, it has been hidden in plain sight in the supposedly unfinished painting of Mozart at the piano. Constanze's small portrait was successfully resized, while the enlargement of Mozart's portrait – at some time sent back to Vienna – was never completed. That Lange had not finished the work by 1812 may well have been caused by the fact that at this time he had long separated from Constanze's sister and had started a third family with a woman 30 years his junior. The enlargement with the addition of the piano could have been the work Mozart was referring to in his 1789 letter from Dresden ("an den Portrait fortgearbeitet"). Recently, some pseudo-scholars tried to cast doubt on the authenticity of the Lange portrait. Their aim was twofold: first, to boost the credibility of the so-called Hagenauer Mozart which simply does not resemble the man on Lange's painting. And second, to add probability to the absurd idea that "the man in the red frock" could have been the small portrait that Mozart sent to Salzburg in 1783. One proponent of this crude hypothesis even went so far as to visualize Mozart wearing a pigtail on the Lange portrait, which (original quote) "can't be seen because of the chiaroscuro[sic!]".

An engraving by Carl Pfeiffer after a self-portrait by Lange from around 1820

As a portraitist Joseph Lange was one of the best eighteenth-century amateur painters I have come across. He enjoyed a first rate education at the Vienna Academy of Arts and his technique, his shading, his mixture of skin tones was (considering his amateur status) highly professional. I have never seen any reproduction of the Salzburg Mozart portrait that really does justice to the artistry of color and glazing technique of the original. Contrary to a wide-spread misconception, caused by an entry in Joachim Daniel Preisler's diary, Lange did not give up painting in 1788, but diligently pursued this activity into his old age. Many of Lange's paintings, such as the group portrait of his mistress Therese Koch (1780–1851) and her three daughters, are still extant in the possession of Lange's descendants. Among the many amazing portraits by Lange, the following is my favorite. P. Maurus (Franz Borgius) Stützinger (b. 6 January 1775, in Gmunden, d. 7 August 1842, in Salzburg) was elected abbot of Lambach Abbey in 1812. In 1820, he was deposed owing to the abbey's complete bankruptcy. Joseph Lange's life-sized portrait of Pater Maurus Stützinger was painted in 1815:

Joseph Lange's official seal and signature

Joseph Lange's private seal

© Dr. Michael Lorenz 2012. All rights reserved.

Updated: 20 July 2019

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Postscript (January 2013)

In January 2013, the Mozarteum issued a press release regarding "sensational discoveries" in Mozart portraiture which is fraught with misinformation and grossly false statements. 1) The "Boy with the Bird's Nest" (attributed to Zoffany) "does not show Mozart and is a fake". The truth is: that it does not show Mozart had been known to art historians for ages. The painting is not a fake, but a misattribution by wishful "experts" who already existed at the Mozarteum back in 1925. 2) "The 'Unfinished Lange portrait' had been already finished before it was enlarged which has been proven by X-ray analysis." The truth is: this fact was uncovered by me back in March 2009, without the use of X-ray, and the analysis was done following my suggestion to Dr. Ramsauer on 30 June 2010. To nobody's surprise, my name and my breakthrough discovery is now being ignored by the Mozarteum. 3) "The miniature on ivory on a tobacco box definitely shows Mozart" (quote: "Nun ist es sicher!"). The truth is: this miniature has already been dealt with by the Munich historian Dr. Richard Bauer in 2008, in his excellent book Das rekonstruierte Antlitz. Scrutinizing the sources, Bauer came to the conclusion that the portrait is posthumous and "is meant to show Mozart". Of course, Bauer's prior achievement is not mentioned by the Mozarteum experts, and half of their comments on the genesis of this portrait is simply inaccurate. And finally, 4) "Boßler's silhouette of 'Signor Mozart' was done in Mozart's lifetime." Yes, but we knew that already.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, engraving by Heinrich Philipp Boßler after an own silhouette (Beethoven-Haus Bonn, B 2275)

An Unknown Mozart Work

In November 1828, Carl Mozart, "Translator beÿ der Maÿländer Central-Staats-Buchhaltung" in Milan, received a fee of 170 gulden from the I. & R. Court Chamber in Vienna for his translation of Joseph von Szarka's Lehrbuch der Comptabilitäts=Wissenschaft into Italian.

The entry in the Court chamber's 1828 protocol, concerning Carl Mozart's fee for the translation of Szarka's text book (OESTA, FHKA, NHK, Kamerale Ö Bücher 211)

The order from the I. & R. Court Chamber, dated 6 November 1828, to pay Carl Mozart a remuneration of 170 gulden for his translation (OeStA, FHKA, NHK, Kamerale Fasz. 10 – 70/Dez. 1828)

Vol. 2 of the 1823 edition of Szarka's text book

The title page of vol. 1 of Carl Mozart's translation which was published in 1831 in Milan

In his official Tavola di qualificazione (table of qualification), which he wrote on 30 April 1839, Carl Mozart listed his translation of Szarka's book among his professional activities.

A page from Carl Mozart's 1839 autograph Tavola di qualificazione in the holdings of the archive of the Austrian ministry of finance (OeStA, FHKA SuS Pers ORH 7081)

Avendo in seguito coadjuvato alla traduzione dal tedesco in italiano dell' Opera del Professore Szarka intitolata "La Scienza dei Conti", gli fù accordata nel 1828 dall' eccelso Direttorio aul.[ico] dei Conti la rimunerazione di fiorini 170

Having subsequently assisted with the translation from German into Italian of the work of Professor Szarka titled "La Scienza dei Conti", in 1828, I was granted by the high directorate of the chamber a remuneration of 170 florins.

From this table of qualification we also learn that in 1815 Carl Mozart was commissioned to translate the regulations of the Austrian military from German to Italian. In 1839, he submitted a written statement to the I. R. Contabilità centrale dello stato in Milano that the documents concerning his civil service career had been verified by the same accounting department.

Carl Mozart's autograph statement concerning the documents that in 1833 he had submitted to his superiors (OeStA, FHKA SuS Pers ORH 7081)

The documents proving the exhibitions were presented in 1833 by the writer, together with the resigned qualification table, and were verified by this I. & R. Directorate.
                                                                    C. Mozart

© Dr. Michael Lorenz 2012.

Updated: 22 March 2025

Johann Mayrhofer's Real Date of Birth

Opinions concerning the quality of the work of the Austrian poet Johann Baptist Mayrhofer (1787–1836) may be divided, but one thing is a fact: among all the poems Franz Schubert set to music, Mayrhofer's rank second only to Goethe in numbers and some of the results of this particular cooperation, such as "Nachtstück" or "Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren", belong to the greatest achievements in the art of Lieder. Mayrhofer's fascinating and somewhat tragic life has repeatedly been the object of scholarly studies, and I have delved into this particular topic myself in an article titled "Dokumente zur Biographie Johann Mayrhofers", in: Schubert durch die Brille 25, (Tutzing: Schneider, 2000), 21-50.

With the exception of Josef Bindtner, all authors who have written on Mayrhofer agree on 3 November 1787 as Mayrhofer's date of birth: from Ernst von Feuchtersleben in his 1843 edition of Mayrhofer's poems to Constant Wurzbach von Tannenberg in his Lexikon; from Anton Schlossar in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Valerie Hanus in the Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon, and Walburga Litschauer in Neue Deutsche Biographie, to Gerrit Waidelich in Bärenreiter's 2012 Schubert Liedlexikon. The source that is curiously at odds with this long-held information is a commemorative plaque on Mayrhofer's birthplace in the Upper Austrian town of Steyr.

What is the reason for this odd discrepancy of almost two weeks? It turns out that Mayrhofer's baptismal entry in the records of the Stadtpfarre Steyr was never consulted by any of the above-mentioned authors, and that the date 22 October given on the plaque on the house Pfarrgasse 12 is correct. The false date "3 November 1787" was put into existence by Mayrhofer's friend Ernst von Feuchtersleben in his "Biografische Skizze" in the Beilage zu den Sonntags-Blättern of 15 October 1843.

Feuchtersleben had obviously received flawed information from somebody in Steyr. This anonymous researcher (or Feuchtersleben himself) only checked a separate index (begun in 1785) and not the Taufbuch itself. In this index he came across the following wrong entry (which in the meantime has been corrected with pencil).

The original entry in the baptismal register is of course very clear, and it shows that Mayrhofer was indeed born on 22 October 1787, at 9 p.m., son of the court procurator Mathias Remigius Mayrhofer and his wife Magdalena, née Heitzinger.

The entry concerning the baptism of Johann Baptist Mayrhofer (Stadtpfarre Steyr, Tom. 8, 16). Susan Youens's claim that the confusion about the poet's birthday "was apparently caused by two different baptismal registers" is false.

As can be seen in the above document, the wrong date "3ten November" belongs to the following entry referring to Maria Josepha Widal whose name in the index analogously stands beside the date of Mayrhofer's birth: 

Mayrhofer's godfather was Johann Baptist Göppel (1763–1827), apothecary and owner of the renowned Löwenapotheke in Steyr. This may be seen as a kind of omen, since in his later life Mayrhofer was known as a notorious hypochondriac. On 8 September 1818, Franz Schubert wrote: "Lieber Mayrhofer [...] Höre auf zu Kränkeln, wenigstens zu mediciniren, so gibt sich das andere von selbst." ("Dear Mayrhofer [...] stop ailing, at least medicating, then the other will be resolved by itself".)

Seal and signature of Mayrhofer ("k.k. B.[ücher] R.[evisor] als erbet.[ener] Zeuge.") as witness in the 1815 marriage papers of his friend Heinrich Joseph Hölzl (A-Wsa, Mag. ZG, A3, 365/1815)

© Dr. Michael Lorenz 2012

Updated: 22 April 2025

Mozart Documents "transcribed" (follow-up)

I recently pointed out that money is being spent in Salzburg on the copying of flawed 50-year-old transcriptions of Mozart documents. It turns out that the web-based project "Mit MOZARTs Worten", which in the future is supposed to present the complete Mozart family correspondence on the Internet, is also using copy work from the old Bauer/Deutsch edition of the Mozart letters. Because the experts involved in this edition obviously lack the necessary palaeographical expertise and experience, they are unaware of the eighteenth-century use of what was called "Fahnen-h", i.e. a letter resembling a Kurrent "h" that was used to double the following consonant, if it was an l, m, n, r, or s (except where the known elongation of the preceding vowel indicated otherwise). For sheer lack of archival practice, Bauer and Deutsch never became aware of this custom which slowly fell into oblivion in the second half of the nineteenth century, and still survives in Austrian family names such as "Weihs", "Lahner" and "Muhm" (and especially exemplary in the name of the Lower Austrian town of Gföhl which was once a "Gföll", i.e. a customs station). The same goes for the special "f" which was often used at the end of words, especially after diphtongs. Since it resembles a regular double-f, it is still repeatedly being mistranscribed, even by renowned historians. The stubborn dragging along of old flaws in Bauer's and Deutsch's edition of the Mozart letters results in digital publications being fraught with countless embarrassing mistranscriptions, such as "genohmen" and "gefahlen". And I am completely sure that Nannerl Mozart's entry in her diary from 10 April 1764 will forever be transcribed with "[...] wie das mer ablaufet und wieder Zunihmt[sic!]".

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© Dr. Michael Lorenz 2012. All rights reserved.

Updated: 6 November 2021

The Haydn Hamburger

On 26 November 1760, in the Eligius Chapel of Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral, Joseph Haydn married Maria Anna  Keller, third daughter of the wigmaker Johann Peter Keller.

The entry concerning Joseph Haydn's and Maria Anna Keller's wedding on 26 November 1760, at St. Stephen's Cathedral (A-Wd, Tom. 59, fol. 417v)

As a craftsman Keller was "hofbefreit", which means he had the permission to receive commissions as a master wigmaker directly from the Imperial Court. This special status lead to Keller's relative wealth which enabled him to purchase a house in the Viennese suburb Landstraße. As I already pointed out two years ago in my short essay "Einige Korrekturen und Ergänzungen zu Klaus Martin Kopitz' Aufsatz 'Anmerkungen und Korrekturen zu Haydns Wiener Wohnungen'", the Haydn literature is wrong as to where Johann Peter Keller's house was located, an error that was created by Albert Christoph Dies and Carl Ferdinand Pohl. This building, Landstraße No. 51 ("one half an acre of vinyard in front of the Stubentor on the Joÿsen", as it is described in the Domkapitel land register), was not located in the Ungargasse, as stated by Pohl, but in the Raaben Gasse (today Beatrixgasse 21). Keller and his wife owned this house from 10 September 1734 until 1766. It can be seen on the following clip from Joseph Daniel von Huber's 1778 map of Vienna.

Johann Peter Keller's house Landstraße No. 51 in the Raaben Gasse on Huber's map (W-Waw, Sammlung Woldan)

Keller's house also appears on Joseph Anton Nagel's 1773 map of Vienna.

The house Landstraße 51, circled in red, on Joseph Anton Nagel's map of Vienna. The street at the bottom is the Landstraße, the diagonal street leading to the upper left is the Ungargasse. On the right is the glacis towards the Inner City (A-Wn, Kartensammlung, K I 111937)

The first two pages of the entry in a Domkapitel land register concerning the purchase of the house Landstraße 51 on 10 September 1734, by Johann Peter Keller and his wife Maria Elisabeth (A-Wsa, Patrimonialherrschaften B2.9, fol. 222v and 223r).

The above entry concerning the purchase of Keller's house in 1734 reads as follows: 

Herr Johann Peter Keller Kaÿl: Hofberfreÿter Peruquenmacher, und Maria Elisabeth desßen Fr: Ehe Consortin haben mit Eines WohlEdl Hochweißen Statt Raths über eingereichtes anbringen, und von dem Grundbuch erstatte[n] Bericht den 27t jüngst abgeruckhte[n] [fol. 223r] Monat Septembris ertheilt gegen Consens, zugleich Nuz und Gewöhr empfangen eines halben Joch Weingarttens vor dem Stubenthor auf der Joÿsen, worauf anjezo eine Behausung erbauet und das übrige zu einem Gartten zugerichtet worden ist, zwischen des Kaÿl: Seminarij, und Matthä Feigl Behausung und Gartten gelegen; darum dient man G[e]m[eine]r Statt Wienn Dombcapitl Grundbuch jährl: Michaelis Fünf Schilling, achtzehen Pfening zurechten Grunddienst und nicht mehr. Darumben hirvor in Lib: N° 1. fol: 180 Sebastian Glaßner, und Eva Maria desßen Ehewürthin zugleich an der Gewöhr beschriben gestanden, dise aber solches lauth eines den 10t Septemb: dis Jahrs gefertigten Kauf=Contracts anfangs ged:[achten] H: Johann Peter Keller, und dess[en] Fr: Ehe Consortin Maria Elisabeth umb eine gewisße Summam Gelds Käuflich [fol. 223v] hinumbgelasßen, und durch schriftl[iche] aufsandung aigenthuml: übergeben haben. Die mögen also darmit ihren nuz und frombe[n] schafen, und betrachten, wie gleicher Gewöhr und der Statt Wienn Grundbuchs Recht ist, jedoch des burgl: Mitleidens unvergrifen; Neben dißen Reservat und Vorbehalt, daß von solchen der burgl: Jurisdiction unterworfenen Grundstuckh alle burgl: onera willig getragen, die Steüer zu rechter Zeit entrichtet, und wann sich deßhalben Stritt oder jrrunge[n] eraignen solten, solche beÿ Einem löbl: Statt Magistrat angebracht, und beantwortet, auch beÿ einer Veralienirung dißes Keinem anderen als einem würckhl: burger oder burger Rechts: fähigen hinumbgelasßen werden solle, und wolle, wie es dann der ad off[ici]um des Grundbuchs erlegte Revers mit [fol. 224r] mit mehrern ausweißet. ohne Gevährde. Actum Wienn den 12t[en] Octob: 1734.
Nunc in Lib: N° 2. Fol: 74. Ihro Excell: H: Johann Michael FreÿH: v: Kleinholdt.

On 18 September 1766, Keller and his wife sold the house to Johann Wilhelm Baron von Kleinholt (A-Wsa, Patrimonialherrschaften B2.11, fol. 74).

Although we have absolutely no documentation as to how Haydn became acquainted with his father-in-law, Pohl assumed that Haydn was introduced to the wigmaker's family by Keller's alleged brother Georg Ignaz Keller, a musician at St. Stephen's, whom Haydn had supposedly known since his days as choirboy at the Cathedral. Georg Ignaz Keller was born around 1699 in the Bohemian town of Chlumec nad Cidlinou and came to Vienna before 1726, as an employee of the Bohemian Court Chancellor Leopold Count Kinsky for whom he served as chamberlain and violinist. Therefore Haydn scholars universally assumed that Haydn's father-in-law also hailed from Bohemia.

The entry concerning the wedding on 17 November 1726, of the (then) chamberlain Georg Ignatz Keller ("von Chlumetz aus Böhm[en]") and Barbara Antonia Scheiblauer (A-Wd, Tom. 45, 286). When on 7 January 1770, Keller married for the second time, he was already a "K:K: Hof Musicus" (A-Wd, Tom. 65, fol. 132v)

In his article "Joseph Haydns Jugendliebe" (Festschrift Wilhelm Fischer zum 70. Geburtstag, Innsbruck: Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar der Universität Innsbruck, 1956), Ernst Fritz Schmid vividly describes Georg Ignaz Keller's progress as a musician in Vienna, and how in 1731, he rose from a simple servant to a violinist at St. Stephen's Cathedral, and to court musician in 1765. In spite of complete lack of evidence, Schmid presents the kinship between the "Keller brothers" as a fact.

Der kaiserliche Hofmusikus Georg Ignaz Keller ist es nun gewesen, der Haydn die Bekanntschaft mit der Familie seiner Jugendliebe und damit auch seiner späteren Frau vermittelte. Kellers älterer Bruder, der "hofbefreite" Perückenmacher Johann Peter Keller, der um 1691 ebenfalls in Chlumetz in Böhmen geboren war, besaß zu Wien in der Vorstadt Landstraße in der Ungargasse ein eigenes Haus und einigen Wohlstand [...] Georg Ignaz Keller brachte Haydn in das Haus des Bruders, wo mehrere Kinder, darunter anmutige Töchter heranwuchsen, deren Klavierunterricht der junge Meister übernahm.

[translation:]

It was the imperial court musician Georg Ignaz Keller who established Haydn's acquaintance with the family of his early love and also of his future wife. Keller's older brother, the wigmaker to the court Johann Peter Keller, who had been born around 1691, also in Chlumetz in Bohemia, was considerably wealthy and owned a house in Vienna in the suburb of Landstraße in the Ungargasse [...] Georg Ignaz Keller brought Haydn into his brother's house, where several children were growing up, among them lovely daughters whose piano lessons were taken over by Haydn.

Schmid did not let himself be distracted by the fact that archival sources do not support the presumption that the wigmaker Johann Peter and the violinist Georg Ignaz Keller were brothers or had any mutual family relation. Not once did both Kellers or their wives serve as godparents of each other's children: Johann Peter Keller chose (among others) the "Stiftsverwalter bei St. Joseph" Johann Heinrich Reischmann and his wife, a "k.k. Cammer-Fourier" Anton Joachim and the surgeon Johann Franz Schlegelhofer as godparents. Georg Ignaz Keller, on the other hand, relied (among others) on the services of his employer Count Kinsky, the merchant Leopold Wührer (Joseph Jenamy's best man at his wedding with Victoire Noverre in 1768), Maria Sophia Muffat (Georg Muffat's daughter-in-law) and the wealthy apothecary Georg Friedrich Eulenschenk and his wife (whose daughter in 1768 would marry Franz Anton Mesmer and in 1772 was still rich enough to eventually buy her husband his country estate on the Landstraße).

What do we know about Johann Peter Keller's origin? He was born around 1691, and on 12 November 1722, at St. Michael's in Vienna, got married to Maria Anna Seiller. As usual, the marriage records of this parish provide only meager information concerning the bridal couple, such as the date of the wedding, the names of the couple and their parents and the names of the witnesses. No places of birth of groom and bride are given.

The 1722 entry concerning the wedding of Haydn's parents-in-law: "Dominus Joannes Petrus Keller, Joannis Georgij, et Aloysiæ filius, cum Virg:[ine] Maria Elisabetha Seillerin, Georgij et Elisabethae filia, Tes:[tes] Do[min]us Ferdinandus Marher, et D:[ominus] Antonius Geissnhoff. 12. [November]" (A-Wstm, Tom. 4, 345).

This is the only known source on which Haydn scholarship in general, and Ernst Fritz Schmid in particular, always relied. But the sparseness of the entries in the marriage records of St. Michael's has a special reason: there is an – unfortunately not complete – series of "Verkündbücher" which contain the basic personal information that the parish priests wrote down, when the engaged couple first appeared and announced their intention of getting married, and the banns were to be published. The entry concerning Johann Peter Keller's wedding is (as was regularly the case with these first and only provisional entries that were to be crossed out later) much more detailed. Among other information – such as the date of the first announcement and the couple's address – this entry gives Johann Peter Keller as being of German origin, namely having been born in Hamburg.

The entry concerning the publication of the banns on 31 October 1722, for the wedding of Haydn's parents-in-law (A-Wstm, Verkündbuch 15, 475). From 1718 until his death, Keller's best man, the goldsmith Ferdinand Mahrer (1676–1742) owned the house Stadt 1030 (Bräunerstraße 6).

Den 31 October 1722 copulati sunt 12 9ber 1722 / Der Kunstreiche Herr Johann Peter Keller, ein Keÿ[serlich] Hofbefreiter Porakhenmacher, b in dem / 3 tauben in der unde[r]n Preinerstrasen wonhaft. / Zu Hamburg gebirtig, des H[errn] Johann Georg Keller, undt Frau Aloysiæ sel[ig] beder / ehlicher Sohnn. nimbt zur ehe die tugent / same Jungfrau Mariam Elisabetham / Seillerin, des H[errn] Georgij Seiller und Elisabethæ sel beeder eheliche tochtor / Zu Wacheram in Österreich gebürtig, / beÿ den 3 taube[n] in der under / Preinerstrass wonhaft. /     1 2 3     Ambo in parochia / per plures annos.

Tes[tes]:
H[err] Ferdinand Mahrer, bürgerlicher Golt / arbeiter in dem 3 taube[n] in eigener Be= / hausung wonhaft, H[err] Antonius Geisen= / hof, Keÿ[serlicher] Hof Golt schlager.

And there it is: a Haydn-trifle of world-shattering insignificance. Haydn's father-in-law, the wigmaker Johann Peter Keller and the musician Georg Ignaz Keller were not brothers, but came from very different regions in Europe. It remains to be investigated if Georg Ignaz Keller played any role at all in Haydn's life. Of course one could argue that in the above entry the priest actually referred to the Austrian town of Hainburg an der Donau. But the fact that the word definitely has an "m" and only Wagram bears the attribute "in Österreich" (as if to set it apart from the non-Austrian birthplace of the groom) makes it very clear that (apart from Brahms having written variations on a tune not written by Haydn) this Hansa City has finally gained a family relationship to the composer of the Deutschlandlied. (Since the baptismal register of the town of Hainburg from before 1700 is lost, the question whether Keller was born there cannot be answered).

During the 1750s, Johann Peter Keller enjoyed some wealth. On the occasion of the entry of his daughter Theresia into the convent of Poor Clares at St. Nikolai in 1755, he raised the necessary costs of 1,000 gulden and in a contract appointed the convent co-heir of his and his wife's estate.

Seals and signatures of Johann Peter Keller and his wife on the contract, dated 14 May 1755, concerning the donation on the occasion of their daughter's entry into the convent of Poor Clares at St. Nikolai (A-Wsa, Staatliche Verwaltung, Klosterrat, 2.2.6.15.A1/2, 100). This document was published in 1956 by Schmid, albeit with several transcription errors. The shelfmark of this document given by Schmid is now out-of-date.

Twenty years later, Johann Peter Keller's wealth was gone. Approaching the end of his life, he suffered hard times which in a fascinating way may reflect the demise of the wig as a social and economic factor in eighteenth-century Vienna. Keller died on 9 August 1771 (Wiener Zeitung, 14 Aug 1771), absolutely destitute, in the "Klerfisches Haus" on the Hoher Markt and was buried on the following day in the new crypt of St. Stephen's. His relatively wealthy children (and maybe his son-in-law Joseph Haydn) made sure that his third-class obsequies cost 27 gulden 36 kreuzer and, for an expense of four additional gulden, included a "Music vors Miserere".

The entry concerning Johann Peter Keller's obsequies on 10 August 1771, at St. Stephen's (A-Wd, Bahrleihbuch 1771, fol. 227r). Keller was buried in the new crypt of St. Stephen's Cathedral.

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© Dr. Michael Lorenz 2012

Updated: 22 April 2025

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The information concerning Haydn's wife at the beginning of this post has been superseded by research which was published in September 2014 in a blogpost titled "Joseph Haydn's Real Wife".

Alfred Brendel's Final Program Note

On 17 and 18 December 2008, Alfred Brendel gave his two final public concerts at the Goldener Saal of the Vienna Musikverein. Since Brendel performed his favorite piano concerto, Mozart's concerto in E Flat Major, K. 271 (to which I happen to have a special relation), I was given the privilege to write the program note related to this part of the concerts. My text from 2008 is hereby published for the first time in English.

 

Mozart's Piano Concerto K. 271 "Jenamy" can be described as a miracle of musical originality. In the mastership of its orchestration, its stupendous innovative energy and its effect, despite limited instrumental means, this piece has absolutely no precedent. It is Mozart's first great composition, "his Eroica" as Alfred Einstein put it, "which he later would match, but never surpass". With a creative thrust beyond compare, a kind of musical fulguration (in the sense of the term as coined by Konrad Lorenz), Mozart broke all previous conventions and already in 1777, demonstrated the superior mastery that distinguishes his piano concertos of the Vienna years. Formal surprises are being combined with unbridled melodic exuberance: the absolutely unusual entry of the soloist in the second bar, as well as several themes that are developed in a dramatic tension, and in a balanced dialogue between piano and orchestra. Furthermore, operatic effects and a tendency of cantabile pervade every single movement: for example, the long trill on the second "real" entry of the piano as a sort of "messa voce," a side theme, the inversion of which will reappear years later as Cherubino’s Voi che sapete, and not least, the pseudo-recitative passages in the piano. The second movement, Andantino, with muted strings is Mozart's first concerto movement in a minor key. It culminates in a scene inspired by the opera seria, where Mozart puts the most exquisit vocal embellishments into the mouth of a tragic heroine, embodied by the piano. The rondo theme of the final movement – the melody in the left hand anticipates Monostatos' aria "Jeder fühlt der Liebe Freuden” – lets us imagine the virtuosity of the pianist for whom the concerto was written. Here, too, Mozart is not done yet with his surprising ideas. After a cadenza, a slow minuet begins in the subdominant A flat major, elegantly refining the cheerful mood of the finale. This very effective way of giving more musical weight to a final movement by a change of pace will turn up again in the piano concertos K. 415 and K. 482

The traditional name "Jeunehomme Concerto" is a pure figment of imagination, an arbitrary invention, to which the public has grown accustomed. Mozart gives the commissioner’s name in his letter: "I shall give 3 concertos, the one for jenomy [K. 271], the Litzau [K. 246] and the one in B [K. 238], to the engraver, who did the sonatas for me, for cash". In the 19th Century, the name variants "jenomy", "jenomè" and "genomai", as used by Mozart and his father, posed no problem. In his 1856 Mozart biography, Otto Jahn described the work as "Piano Concerto for Jenomy". Fiction and fact only got mingled in the 1912 study W.-A. Mozart: Sa vie musicale et son oeuvre by Théodor Wyzewa and Georges de Saint-Foix. Based on the assumption that with "Jenomy" Mozart had italianised the original French name, the authors declared this unknown musician "one of the great virtuosos of her time", and since "jeune homme" (young man) was their favorite epithet for Mozart, they simply came up with the curious and inexplicable idea of naming the pianist "Jeunehomme". Thus, a legend was born and subsequently one author copied this invention from the other. The truth became known in 2003: Mozart's "Madame Jenomy" was the first child of dancer Jean Georges Noverre. She was born on 2 January 1749 in Strasbourg and baptized "Louise Victoire". In the summer of 1767, Victoire Noverre came to Vienna together with her father, who until 1774 was to work there as a ballet master. In 1768, at St. Stephen’s, she married Joseph Jenamy (1747–1819). A meeting between Mozart and Noverre and his daughter during Mozart’s stay in Vienna in 1768 has not been proved, but five years later Victoire Jenamy must have made Mozart’s acquaintance in Vienna. Her pianistic skills are documented: on 17 February 1773, on the occasion of a ball at the Kärntnertortheater for the benefit of her father, she performed as a pianist. Before 1778 already, Jenamy left her husband and moved to her father in Paris. We do not know if she ever visited Salzburg. It is also possible that she had Mozart send her the concerto. In light of the recent discoveries the slow third movement minuet of K. 271 can be seen as an actual allusion to the dancer Noverre. Jenamy never returned to Vienna, but moved to her relatives in Clermont-Ferrand, where she died on 5 September 1812.

We know that K. 271 is very important to Alfred Brendel. In his 1985 essay "Ermahnungen eines Mozartspielers an sich selbst" ("Admonitions of a Mozart performer to himself") he called this concerto “a wonder of the world". Its artistic significance for Brendel is comparable to Haydn's Variations in F Minor (Sonata un piccolo divertimento Hob. XVII: 6) which he performed at his final solo concert in Vienna. The performance of Mozart's "Jenamy Concerto" is a worthy ending to the career of a great pianist.

© Dr. Michael Lorenz 2008. All rights reserved.

For the first time ever in the history of this piece the golden poster of this very special concert prominently featured the correct title "KV 271 »Jenamy«".

When the recording of this concert was released the following year, however, DECCA's obstinate ignoramuses made sure that the CD cover bore the false name again.

© Dr. Michael Lorenz 2008.

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See also: The Continuing "Jeunehomme" Nonsense

Note to plagiarizers who regularly steal my material for their program notes: the above text is subject to copyright. If you plagiarize it, you should at least give my name, and, in any case, expect legal action to be taken.

Mozart Documents "transcribed"

The probate file of Mozart's estate, the so-called Sperrs=Relation, drawn up by the civil court of the Vienna Magistrate right after the composer's death, is one of the most important of all Mozart documents. It gives an exact list of the close relatives of the deceased, his possessions, and assets, together with his debts and receivables. It was legally obligatory to draw up the belongings of a deceased person to be able to put it under restraint (Sperr) to forstall any possible missappropriation of the estate. Every Sperrs=Relation had a two-folio cover sheet (the so-called Mantelbogen) with preprinted standard paragraphs that had to be filled out by the official of the court (the so-called Sperrskommissär). The first page of Mozart's probate file (A-Wsa, HA, Persönlichkeiten M14.1) looks as follows.

In 1961, Otto Erich Deutsch published his book Mozart. Die Dokumente seines Lebens, a voluminous 600-page collection of Mozart documents. The publication of this fundamental work was not just Deutsch's personal enterprise. The biggest collection of Mozart documents so far was published as Supplement, Werkgruppe 34 of Serie X of the "New Mozart Edition", i.e. a part of the project Mozart. Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke. Thus, on one of its title pages this book bears the following quality seal: "En coopération avec le Conseil international de la Musique. Editionsleitung: Wolfgang Plath Wolfgang Rehm". When we look at Deutsch's transcription of Mozart's probate file, however (and this is only one of countless examples in this collection), it soon becomes obvious that something is deeply amiss. Not only does Deutsch's edition not meet the basic standards of scholarship, because it fails to provide a description of the formal structure of the source and a usable shelf mark; we also realize that, having no palaeographic education at all, Deutsch (a university dropout without any academic training) was completely unfamiliar with the official terms in an eighteenth-century document of a Viennese court of law. His knowledge of the German vocabulary in legal documents of this kind was insufficient and his expertise in Latin and the frequently applied abbreviations of terms in this language was basically non-existent. Since Deutsch's transcription of the text on the cover sheet of the Sperrs=Relation alone contains about 25 mistakes, it is obvious that he never even saw the original document and blindly relied on the work of two archivists of the Vienna Municipal Archives, namely Rudolf Geyer and Hanns Jäger-Sunstenau, to whom he gives credit in a footnote "for their help with the transcription". Deutsch's aversion to all research for which he actually had to leave his apartment at Böcklinstraße 26 is legendary. In the course of his Mozart and Schubert research, he demonstrably never visited a Viennese parish archive or the Vienna City Archive which was then located at Vienna's city hall. Deutsch either ignores the abbreviation "mpia" (for manu propria) altogether, or mistranscribes it as "Mag.", and he actually mistakes the small title page of the twice-folded Mantelbogen on fol. 4v for a rubrum. Page two of Mozart's probate file contains the following preprinted paragraphs that were filled out by the Sperrskommissär.

Deutsch's transcription of the above text concerning Mozart's two minor children – note that Franz Xaver was already called "Wolfgang" as an infant – and the existence of a will or a comparable legal document (like a marriage contract) is a fine example of one of his countless palaeographical failures. Deutsch begins the transcription of the first handwritten passage as follows: "2[!] Bübl:[sic!]  als: Karl 7. Jahr". The word "Bübl" (boys), which was never used by a Sperrskommissär, is of course complete nonsense. The entry reads "Leibl:[iche] als:" (legitimate [children] the following). The next entry is garbled by Deutsch in the following way: "Keines,[!] doch ein Heuraths Brief Act = 3 = Aug: 782." This is a true highpoint of ignorance. One could accept the missing semicolon, but any serious scholar, who has ever worked with eighteenth-century Viennese administrative documents, can recognize and transcribe the abbreviation "dd°" (with the small superscript "o" being doubly underlined) which means de dato (i.e. dating from). And the second one of Deutsch's absurd double dashes is simply the double underscore of the superscript abbreviation "t[er]", belonging to the "3" which is the date of Mozart's marriage contract. Mistakes of such grotesque scale in a volume of the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, which is supposed to represent a final and authoritative edition of the sources, are simply breathtaking. And the situation becomes even more absurd, given the fact that this document had been published several times in a much less flawed (and "Bübl"-less) version, decades before Deutsch dealt with it. Arthur Schurig published part of the Sperrs=Relation in his book Constanze Mozart: Briefe, Aufzeichnungen, Dokumente 1782 bis 1842, (Dresden 1922), and published it a second time in the second edition of his book Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Sein Leben, seine Persönlichkeit, sein Werk, (Leipzig 1923). Albert Leitzmann also published much less flawed excerpts from this document in his collection Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Berichte der Zeitgenossen und Briefe, (Leipzig 1926). The funniest detail is that Deutsch was fully aware of these earlier publications. He refers to them in his commentary at the end of his own transcription where he proudly points out that "contrary to all the earlier editions this one is complete" – which of course it is not.

The story does not end here. For several years now, the Salzburg Mozarteum has been working on a project titled "Briefe und Aufzeichnungen zu W. A. Mozart und seiner Familie aus den Beständen der Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg". The goal of this project, which is being funded by the Packard Humanities Institute in Los Altos/California, is the online publication of all letters and documents related to the Mozart family, as well as related letters and documents spanning from 1740 (when Leopold Mozart arrived in Salzburg) to 1881 (when the International Mozarteum Foundation was established). The list of documents published so far provides a fascinating glimps into the blissfully complacent world of the Mozarteum. The online publication of the documents is marred by several problems and a literal ocean of mistranscriptions awaits the interested reader. Many of these hidden howlers are true gems and the fun they provide almost lets one forget that this kind of dilettantism is draining huge amounts of money away from scholarship that could  put generous funding to a much better use. Note, for instance, the poor "Frau Schupfer", appearing in this document, who was recklessly turned into a "Frau Söhupfer", because none of the people in charge know how a small "c" is written in Kurrentschrift.

Frau Schupfer, turned into "Frau Söhupfer", in the transcription of anonymous notes from after 1836 concerning Salzburg citizens who could possibly own Mozart autographs (Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, Bibliotheca Mozartiana)

The transcriptions that are shown beside the pictures apply a ridiculously unpractical set of "Kürzel" signs (the Mozarteum calls them "Abbreviatur-Schleifen") instead of bracketed completions of the words which sometimes turn the reading of these transcriptions (such as Mozart's letter of 27 March 1770 from Bologna) into a mind-boggling experience. The fact that some transcriptions contain the term "unleserlich" (illegible) is all the more frustrating, considering the small size and the weak resolution of the pictures that make it impossible for the reader to decipher the document on his own.

On 7 December 1787, Joseph II appointed Mozart k.k. Kammermusikus. The decree signed by Johann Thorwart (who in 1782 had been Constanze Weber's witness at her wedding) looks as follows.

Aktenstück, 1787-12-07 (Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, Bibliotheca Mozartiana)

What kind of transcription of this document does David Woodley Packard get for his money? It turns out that the text of this decree, as presented on the Mozarteum website, is neither new nor is it flawless. The money was new and flawless alright, but the transcription is an exact copy right out of Deutsch's flawed 1961 edition of the Mozart-Dokumente. All the typical symptoms of Deutschian perplexity are still there: the Mozarteum's transcriber (or rather copyist) does not resolve the abbreviations (not even in the print version). Just like Deutsch, he still mistakes the "p." at the end of the headline for an "etc.", and the meaning of "Pr." at the beginning of the closing formula is still a mystery. Needless to say that this document has already been published several times by Jahn, Schurig, Tenschert and Mueller von Asow. Sometimes even in better readings.

See also: Mozart Documents "transcribed" (follow-up) 

© Dr. Michael Lorenz 2012. All rights reserved.

Updated: 4 January 2022