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Thomas Attwood's Lessons in Composition with Mozart
Abstract
The Attwood papers recently entered the public domain, having been acquired by the British Library. This is fitting, for they constitute a kind of national monument—a vital force that has made itself felt upon English musical thought and training for nearly two centuries. Ever since Attwood brought them back from his period of study with Mozart in Vienna in 1785–7 they have been used repeatedly for teaching purposes, and handed on with reverence from master to disciple (thus escaping total destruction, the usual fate of such documents). Upon Attwood's death in 1838 the papers passed to his pupil John Goss, who had already published the Minuet in C major, perhaps the best known of Attwood's pieces rewritten by Mozart, in his Introduction to Harmony and Thorough Bass (1833).
The paper covers the latest discoveries in the field of the 18th-century musical culture, in particular, the role of partimento in the development of the galant style. The established notions of the professional community about the phenomenon of galant music have changed significantly over the past few decades. The discoveries proposed by European and American researchers of musical culture enable rethinking the role and meaning of the galant style, and, accordingly, evaluating the work of composers of the 1720s–1780s. In particular, the newest concept of Robert O. Gjerdingen is based on the idea of cognitive schemes. The researcher proposes to view the methodological basis of music-making in the galant style through a special practice of improvisation—partimento. This practice was the basis of the process of musical training during the period: it was the work on partimento that guaranteed the improvement of compositional and performing techniques, the possibility of integrating a broad arsenal of current compositional idioms into one’s performing practice and, ultimately, understanding the specifics of musical creativity as such. Hence, the practice of partimento music may be considered a key factor in the development of the specifics of galant music.
Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909) is typically assigned a peripheral position in Western music historiography, and described as one of the nationalist composers of the late nineteenth century, emphasizing his use of Spanish folklore as a source of compositional inspiration. This dissertation, on the contrary, studies the persistence of eighteenth-century conventions in the music of Albéniz and their interaction with well-known “Spanish-style” elements of his music. These conventions range from aspects of the reception of Albéniz’s music whose intellectual foundations were laid in the French Enlightenment, to melodic, harmonic, and contrapuntal patterns associated with the Galant style and Classical patterns of phrase structure and formal organization: specific theme types (the sentence and the period), techniques of development like the pre-core/core, and sonata form. In other words, this dissertation addresses questions about the reception of Albéniz’s music, and, more fundamentally, studies compositional techniques, formal and tonal characteristics of his music, his relationship to the classical tradition, and sheds light on slippery concepts like innovation and originality in Albéniz’s music. In so doing, this thesis presents the very first comprehensive analytical study of Albéniz’s oeuvre, and emphasises the fundamental role of eighteenth-century formulas in the conformation of his musical language, studying it as well as their interaction with stereotypical notions of Albéniz’s españolismo.
The evolving relationship between the solo and the tutti over the course of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 in BL major, op. 19, contributes to its individuality as a piece of music and provides clues for understanding its significance for Beethoven's early career. A structural analysis of solo-tutti interaction reveals a double trajectory spanning the concerto, one leading from relative opposition between the protagonists to proximity or agreement, and the other from the leadership of the tutti to that of the soloist. The extant sources of the protracted genesis of the concerto provide evidence for how Beethoven may have contemplated alternative enactments of the solo-tutti relationship in the first movement and suggest reasons behind his decision to replace the early (if not in fact original) conclusion to the concerto, the Rondo in B major WoO6, with the definitive finale of op. 19. The essay concludes with some thoughts on the implications of the solo-tutti relationship in op. 19 for the ways that the young Beethoven positioned himself within Viennese society and its musical heritage.
Rhetorical studies of Mozart have assumed a rationalist conception of language, ignoring the empiricist model that actually dominated the Enlightenment. The two models, comparable structurally to the stile antico and style galant , collide in Mozart’s learned finales. A study of three finales, from the Mass in C minor, the Concerto in E♭, K.449, and Die Entführung aus dem Serail , shows how Mozart negotiated irreducible contradictions within Enlightenment thought by switching between the two models.
The front cover of Cod. 17561a in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, bears the following inscription: ‘Dieses vollständige Requiem, bestehend aus Bl. 1–64, wurde im Jahre 1838 angekauft’ (‘This complete Requiem, consisting of ff. 1–64, was acquired in 1838’). Similarly, on Cod. 17561b we read: ‘Dieses unvollständige Requiem ist aus zwei Bruchstücken zusammengesetzt: (1) Bl. 65–86 (alt 11–32) wurden vom Abbé Stadler gekauft. (2) Bl. 87–99 (alt 33–45) wurden vom Hof-Kapellmeister Eybler geschenkt’ (‘This incomplete Requiem is assembled from two fragments: (1) ff. 65–86 ( olim 11–32) were bought from Abbé Stadler. (2) ff. 87–99 ( olim 33–45) were presented by Hof-Kapellmeister Eybler‘).
Haydn als Klassiker des Streichquartetts
- See Finscher Ludwig