Picó el imperio: riñas y ritmos en Ararca

Heilbronn, Germany

53

ost bassoonists will agree that Mozart must have loved the sound of the bas- soon very much, and that he had an inti- mate knowledge of its various tone colours which he applied with unequalled mas- tery to express his musical ideas. The bassoon parts of his piano concerti and his later operas certainly belong to the best which have ever been written for the instrument. Therefore a bas- soonist would get excited if something new writ- ten by Mozart for the bassoon is announced. Exactly this happened to me at the end of 1996.

A large German newspaper reported about a per- formance of Mozart’s Coronation Mass (KV 317) in a church in Augsburg1_{which had used an up-to-date}

unknown contemporary copy of the work with a separate bassoon part, in particular a bassoon solo in the Agnus Dei. The article contained the name of a musicologist involved in the matter, Erich Gackowski, who told me that the copy was written by a Father Matthaeus Fischer for the monastery Holy Cross in Augsburg, but that the material is now in private possession and not available to the pub- lic as long as an argument between musicologists concerning its authenticity is going on. With the help of Professor Dr. G. Voelkl from the Amt für Kirchenmusik, I received a copy of an article in the local newspaper, the Augsburger Allgemeine, which is reprinted here with kind permission of the editor.

Considerable Doubts

About the discovery of the bassoon in the “Coronation Mass” of Holy Cross

By the member of our editorial staff Ruediger Heinze

The Mozart-City of Augsburg seems to have no luck with sensations regarding Mozart. When in 1990, organ- ist Wilhelm Krumbach offered a Mozart “first perfor- mance of”, an “unknown organ concerto” to the munici- pal theatre, the former general manager of music, Luig, blindly seized the opportunity and placed a piece on the program which turned out to be the well-known Piano

Concerto KV 175.

When in October 1996 the Augsburg musicologist Erich Gackowski and the “Musica Suevica” choir called the attention to themselves with an up-to-date unknown contemporary copy of Mozart’s Coronation Mass, one was not without reason inclined to believe that this copy contained also a hither-to unknown bassoon part by Mozart to the Coronation Mass.

Now there are considerable doubts, however,

whether this bassoon part really originates from Mozart. These doubts are expressed by Monika Holl (Music Department of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich) who has edited three volumes of masses for the New Mozart Edition and presently is working on a critical report for the Coronation Mass. Based on her knowledge of handwriting she confirms that the copy originates most probably from Matthaeus Fischer - as also declared Gackowski - but also points out that the bassoon part exhibits a different handwriting within the score.

At the upper margin of the paper

The bassoon part is located in a curious place with- in the score, i.e. on top of all other instruments and not below the oboe parts as usually found. Due to several indications, Monika Holl has concluded for the time being that the bassoon part was added subsequently by Fischer “or rather by the hand of somebody else” to the score where space was available, i.e. at the upper mar- gin of the paper. From this is follows that the source used by Fischer to compose his score did not contain a bassoon part, which is Holl’s most important argument. The words “for the time being” address the present problem of the whole story. The findings of Monika Holl are based on reproduction in our newspaper which showed only the beginning of the “Angus Dei” from the

Coronation Mass. She has not been allowed to inspect

the original handwriting, not allowed to see more of it by the owner, who prefers to remain anonymous, as states Franz Wallisch, conductor of the choir “Musica Suevica”. And it seems that this will continue, though Wallisch himself admits that it would be desirable to inspect the original copy thoroughly, so that the choir also can get to the bottom of the discovery of the score. As long as scientific investigations are fore- stalled by the owner, as long Gackowski and Wallisch, who have propagated the Augsburg Mozart event, have to present proofs, the myster will continue.

Despite better knowledge

Finally, the events around the performance of the “Augsburg version” of Mozart’s Coronation Mass have another more than unpleasing aspect. Erich Gackowski already came to know some days before the concert (October 27th) that there are good reasons to doubt the authenticity regarding the bassoon part: during a visit at Salzburg where he presented the script to the experts Ernst Hintermaier (Erzbischoefliches Konsistorialarchiv) and Father Petrus (Erzstift St. Peter) the same objections were uttered as later by

Monika Holl. This was confirmed by Hintermaier on the phone.

Despite these critical objections regarding the source, the responsible persons kept to the hoped-for Mozart-discovery still at the concert in Holy Cross, and the public was informed only in a biased manner. With this, the circle to organist Wilhelm Krumbach and the year 1991 is closed: The organizers have emphasized

the alleged importance of their finding to the end, despite their better knowledge.

As a happy ending: the whole story has brought new scientific knowledge nevertheless. For at least it was also proven that some material of the Coronation

Mass went from Salzburg to Augsburg after the death of

Leopold Mozart.

Figure 1. The beginning of the Agnus Dei in the Augsburg copy of Mozart’s Coronation Mass. The bassoon part is at the very top, in the first staff.

There is further proof that the bassoon part at the top was added later, which can be seen easi- ly: the staff is obviously written crossing the denotation “Andante sostenuto”, the heading “Agnus Dei”, and the instruction “Con sordini”.

As a summary of the article it can be stated that there exists another contemporary copy of Mozart’s Coronation Mass, with a bassoon part added probably not by Mozart, of which only the first six bars of the Agnus Dei are available at pre- sent.

To facilitate further discussion, the published page of the manuscript is written here in the order of a modern score, and with some slurs added as usually performed today:

(See Figure 2.)

Of course one can draw only very little and pre- liminary conclusions from six bars of which three and a half are rests. At least the passage seems to be written by the unknown composer in a Mozartean manner, for the following reasons: The first part of the phrase doubles the first violins in

IDRS JOURNAL 55 2Oboi Fagotto 2ComiinC Violin0 I Violin0 II Bassi Figure 2. Andante sostenuto

the lower octave, an instrumentation which is a trait knownfrom many Mozart works. See for example the beginning of the Figaro Overture. The second part, the descending scale of six notes is not very specific, but it can be found in other bassoon passages by Mozart, for example in the Quintet for piano and winds (KV 452) first movement, bars IO, 122 and 13, or in D o n

Giovanni (KV 527), finale of the first act, bar 270.

The scale in the manuscript discussed here is written without a slur, but it seems more ade- quate to me to slur all six notes, because the oboes also slur their parallel descending scales in the eighth bar immediately before the soprano enters.

As the next step I made contact with other musicologists who are well acquainted with the sources of Mozart’s works, Dr. Fay Ferguson from the management of the New Mozart Edition and D r . M o n i k a Ho11 f r o m t h e B a y e r e i s c h e Staatsbibliothek who is occupied with the edi- tion of Mozart’s masses (she is also mentioned in the newspaper article reprinted above). Both experts say that fundamentally there is no argu- ment between the musicologists concerning the authorship of the bassoon part: at present the author is simply unknown, but it is very unlikely

that it was Mozart. This does not preclude the hypothesis that the part was written using musi- cal material by Mozart. Both musicologists also agree that it is necessary to examine the whole manuscript to resolve the question of author- ship, and they regret that this is not possible at present.

This is the current status of the discovery of the bassoon part to Mozart’s Coronation Mass. I will continue to try to get access to the complete score which then could be examined by leading experts and published. Of course, the IDRS will also be informed.

ENDNOTES

Augsburg is located some 60 km west of Munich. The family of Mozart father Leopold lived in Augsburg. Even today the telephone directory of Augsburg counts seven private entries with the name Mozart

[The above cartoons are by Vancouver, B.C., oboist Lauris MacKenzie and sent in by Jesse Read, bas- soonist and conductor at the UBC. #1 was for an oboe-bassoon-piano trio recital on opera themes with oboist Beth Olson and pianist Terry Dawson, and #2 was for Lauris’ own oboe recital. — ED]

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