Musical questions and answers thread

[cloughie]

Supplementary:
Why do composers (and others ) not always (or often) get the courtesy of their First name, or a title. ?

Bach is an interesting case. If it is just Bach then it is probably JS. Otherwise it is prefixed with JC, CPE, WF, PDQ or Offen!
The composers that do get a forename are those for whom it is needed to identify them eg Wood, Butterworth or modern, still alive composers.
With Jazzers I think it's just the smart-ass, just include the cognoscenti thing!

[teamsaint]

...and while we wait for that, there are, of course, exceptions such as "Berkeley"...

Got to love old gnarls...
Anyway. It seems An Inspector Calls had your name correct all along, AH.

[Don Petter]

Supplementary:
Why do composers (and others ) not always (or often) get the courtesy of their First name, or a title. ?

The courtesy is alive and well on nearly all the American radio stations, where you rarely hear a 'Mozart' with out a preceding 'Wolfgang Amadeus'. It's what gives them some of their old-world naive charm.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Does The term Allegro refer primarily to speed or mood ?

Depends when the term is used. In Baroque and Classical Music, it's to be taken as a measure of both - remembering that "Allegro" means "quick" (as in the sense of "lively" as in "the quick and the dead") rather than "fast". (This is Milton's meaning in Il Allegro, too). In his Treatise on ... Playing the Violin (published in 1756, on the cusp between the Baroque and Classical periods) Leopold Mozart describes Allegro as "a cheerful, though not too hurried a tempo", incorporating speed and mood in the one term.

[gurnemanz]

Supplementary:
Why do composers (and others ) not always (or often) get the courtesy of their First name, or a title. ?

Supplementary to supplementary question. Why do we call him just Mendelssohn when his name, as in normal usage in Germany, was Mendelssohn-Bartholdy? Berlin even has an Underground station named "Mendelssohn-Bartholdy-Park".

[ahinton]

It seems An Inspector Calls had your name correct all along, AH.

Pardon? Je ne comprends pas! Please explain (either here or in a PM if you prefer)...

[EdgeleyRob]

Mozart K numbers.

Currently listening to all things Mozart concertoish.

In the contents page of the booklet in the Violin & Wind Concerto box we have for example -

Sinfonia Concertante K364/320d.
Concerto for Violin and Piano K App.56/315f.
Horn Concerto K386b (K412 &514) and so on.

There's probably a straightforward answer,but how does the Kochel catalogue system actually work ?

[teamsaint]

Pardon? Je ne comprends pas! Please explain (either here or in a PM if you prefer)...

IIRC he insists on referring to you as Hinton, and RB as Barrett.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There's probably a straightforward answer,but how does the Kochel catalogue system actually work ?

Mozart published little in his lifetime - this gave him control over the performance and revenue from his Music, but means that there aren't "Opus Numbers" to help identify when a work was written. Herr* Köchel, in the Nineteenth Century, gathered together all the known works by Mozart and attempted to put them in chronological order of composition. He did sterling work, and his original catalogue is still the basis of our chronology today, but since his death, pieces have been rediscovered and the dates of some of the works re-assigned in the light of more recent scholarship - as a result, the original catalogue numbers have had to be reassigned. As many of these works had already become well-known under their original catalogue number, they are often presented with the old and new catalogue numbers, side-by-side.

EDIT: * = beg his pardon, "Sir Ludwig" is probably a more equivalent title:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Ritter_von_K%C3%B6chel

[makropulos]

Mozart K numbers.

Currently listening to all things Mozart concertoish.

In the contents page of the booklet in the Violin & Wind Concerto box we have for example -

Sinfonia Concertante K364/320d.
Concerto for Violin and Piano K App.56/315f.
Horn Concerto K386b (K412 &514) and so on.

There's probably a straightforward answer,but how does the Kochel catalogue system actually work ?

Well... the quick (slightly over-simplified) answer is that the alternative Köchel numbers came along as new editions of the catalogue appeared over time - to try and refine the chronology.

[David-G]

Supplementary to supplementary question. Why do we call him just Mendelssohn when his name, as in normal usage in Germany, was Mendelssohn-Bartholdy? Berlin even has an Underground station named "Mendelssohn-Bartholdy-Park".

Wikipedia says helpfully: "Abraham Mendelssohn (Felix's father) renounced the Jewish religion; he and his wife deliberately decided not to have Felix circumcised, in contravention of the Jewish tradition.^[6] Felix and his siblings were first brought up without religious education, and were baptised by a Reformed Church minister in 1816,^[7] at which time Felix was given the additional names Jakob Ludwig. Abraham and his wife Lea were themselves baptised in 1822, formally adopting the surname Mendelssohn Bartholdy (which they had used since 1812) for themselves and their children.^[8] The name Bartholdy was added at the suggestion of Lea's brother, Jakob Salomon Bartholdy, who had inherited a property of this name in Luisenstadt and adopted it as his own surname.^[9] Abraham later explained this decision in a letter to Felix as a means of showing a decisive break with the traditions of his father Moses: "There can no more be a Christian Mendelssohn than there can be a Jewish Confucius".^[10] On embarking on his musical career, Felix did not entirely drop the name Mendelssohn as Abraham requested, but in deference to his father signed his letters and had his visiting cards printed using the form 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'.^[11] In 1829, his sister Fanny wrote to him of "Bartholdy [...] this name that we all dislike".^[12]"

It must be remembered that Felix's grandfather Moses was a leading Jewish philosopher and cultural figure. It should not be surprising that Felix and Fanny would not want to abandon the name Mendelssohn.

[Roehre]

Mozart K numbers.

Currently listening to all things Mozart concertoish.

In the contents page of the booklet in the Violin & Wind Concerto box we have for example -

Sinfonia Concertante K364/320d.
Concerto for Violin and Piano K App.56/315f.
Horn Concerto K386b (K412 &514) and so no.

There's probably a straightforward answer,but how does the Kochel catalogue system actually work ?

It was in the 1850s designed by Ritter Ludwig von Köchel as a strictly chronological catalogue of all the works by Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, published 1862.
Given the time which lapsed between Mozart's death as well as the -in our view- very poor travel and research conditions (only telegraph, an expanding but still quite rudimentary railway network, no photocopying, no typewriters) it is an astonishing piece of work he actually produced. He catalogued 626 works, beginning with a Menuet in G KV1 and ending with the Requiem KV626, based on both his own research as well as existing catalogues (of publishers but also Mozart's own) and the sparsely published letters by Mozart and the early biographies. Where a work's date of composition was unknown, stylistic arguments were taken in account to date it.

As we now possess more than 900 works of -or with a high degree of certainty attributed to- Mozart (apart from some 200-odd ones also attributed to him, but most likely by others), with the chronological structure of the KV these had to be put in place between already numbered works.
This process started immediately after the publication of the KV.

It was the third edition (edited by Einstein, 1936) in which the problem was solved as follows (and used ever since upto and including the 8th edition):
The structure KV1-KV626 has been kept, and accepted as the chronological structure in which every Mozart-composition must get a number allocated.
Also fragments and doubtful works were to be given a number, as near as possbile to the chonologically correct place in Köchel's original chronology. This is the main problem with that catalogue.
As a consequence: where in earlier editions a work was given a chronologically incorrect number (based on an assumed date of composition), a new chronologically correct number should be given to the work.
Such a new KV-number is most of the time given in brackets following the original number - most of the time it's the number of the 6th Edition of the KV which is used, abbreviated as K6 (all reprints since are unaltered reprints of this 6th edition)

A couple of examples:

Die Entführung aus dem Serail is KV384, the date of composition is undisputed, hence KV384 (K6: 384)
Symphony [no.35] in D KV385 "Haffner", ditto KV385 (K6:384)
However, a March in B-flat emerged, of which the date of composition must be between KV384 and 385.
In the mean time it also emerged that the Wind Serenade ("Parthia") in c KV388 was written immediately following Die Entführung.
As according to the methodology KV388 was given the number KV385a, the completed March was allocated KV385b.
As the suffix "b" cannot be Köchel's original, it must be from the third reprint or later, and most of the time a number between brackets will not be given.
Hence:

Die Entführung aus dem Serail KV 384 (K6:384)
Serrenade in c KV 388 (K6:384a)
March in B-flat KV 384b
Symphony in D "Haffner" KV 385 (K6:385)

K6 therefore gives the –at that moment- accepted chronology

=======

Fragments were also integrated into the main chronology:
Concerto for Violin and Piano K App.56/315f is a good example.
That it is a fragment becomes clear by mentioning that it is part of the Anhang/Appendix: KV Anh.56 or K.App.56
In the grand chronological scheme it neighbours the originally allocated numbers for the Andante for flute and orchestra KV315 (now K6:285e) and ditto of the concertaria Popoli di Tessaglia... KV316 (now K6:300b) though these neighbouring works in the mean time have been allocated another KV-number in order to position these chronologically correctly.

=======

Sometimes movements of works were filed separately by Köchel, the so-called first Horn concerto a prime example.
[I]Horn Concerto K412&514) (K386b) The two movements of the concerto were given two separate numbers, as Köchel did not know they were one and the same concerto. In the sixth edition of the KöchelsVerzeichnis it is assumed it was composed shortly after the Rondo for piano and orchestra in A KV386, of which the date of composition is fixed on the autograph.
[note: in the mean time research suggests that Köchel's original idea of 2 not linked movements might be correct after all]

Sonata/Fantasia KV457/475 is another example of a work which by Mozart was considered to be a unity but was split into two numbers because of the different dates on the autographs

=========

And then there are the attributed works.
All works attributed to Mozart with a high possibillity of his authorship are found in the main Appendix/Anhang.
In order of diminishing possibillity:
Anh.1-11: lost works
Anh.12-109f incomplete works
anh,110-184a arranged works
Anh.185-231 doubtful works and
Anh.232-294 spurious, but authorship cannot be excluded.

All works which are attributed and are doubtful or worse are listed in Appendix/Anhang C.
Contrary to the 1-626 list this Appendix is arranged according to type of composition, C1 e.g. is for Masses and Mass-movements, C11 for orchestral works, C14 for concertos, C20 for string quartets etc.

At this moment attributed works still can be found in the "incorrect" list, following results of recent research.

Examples:
Violin concerto in E-flat KV268 (K6:365b) is according to the latest research most likely spurious, and is now listed as
C.14.04.
the straighforward falsification by marius Casadesus of the Violin concerto in D "Adelaide", was originally given the number KV Anh.294a (spurious, but not impossible), but has now been relegated to C.14.05

================

I hope this rather boring summing up of the "rules" around the KöchelsVerzeichnis hasn't you put of yet.

Short: it is a mess. (There are works with 3 different KV-numbers, like the symphony KV110)
Remedy?
A constant headache now, as a 10th edition under preparation, but there are a couple of points to keep in mind.
The best solution were to completely renumber Mozarts works, short: abandoning the KV.
Not an option as the whole musical world from scholars/musicologists to publishers and listeners are using it and used to it.

The 10th edition most likely will get rid of the numbered fragments in the main list.
For example: The fragments for clarinet (bassethorn) and strings surrounding the clarinet quintet KV581 and now numbered KV580a, 580b and 581a, will be renumbered something like Fr.1790/1 (580a), Fr1790/2 (580b) and Fr.1790/3 (581a).
Also the spurious works will be removed completely from the main list, so there no further symphonies KV17 (Anh.223a) and KV18 (anh.109), but only C.11.02 (17) and C.11.03 (18) in the C-list of the Appendix.

At this moment the preparation is assessed to be half way, meaning the completely new Köchel should see the light of day before 2020.

Btw, a revision of Beethoven's KinskyVerzeichnis (1955) was announced for 1978. At the moment it looks like the publication -with very similar discussion points following the partially chronological listing of the WoO-numbers- will take place either in 2014 or 2015.

[Suffolkcoastal]

A very thorough and interesting summing up Roehre, I look forward to your paper on the subject Considering the resources Ritter Kochel had back in the mid 19th century he actually didn't do that bad a job.

[EdgeleyRob]

Posts 84,85 and 87.
Many thanks for taking the time and trouble ferney,makropolus and Roehre,I really appreciate that.
Roehre,what can I say,stonking post.
It's not rocket science,much more complicated than that.
I'll have to read your post a few times I think.
The chronological numbering of Mozart's works (and those of LVB too)is clearly a never ending process.

Thanks again.

[ahinton]

IIRC he insists on referring to you as Hinton, and RB as Barrett.

Ah, indeed - and neither out of politeness, I somehow suspect...