On 31 Dec 2004 at 12:49, Urs Liska wrote: [quoting me:] > > And, of course, some autographs show evidence of substantial > > composition during the writing process (as opposed to simply writing > > down what's already planned out). The most famous examples are the > > Haydn quartets, which were clearly *not* written out in Mozart's > > typical method. > > For those who can read German: The Book "Mozarts Schaffensweise" > (Mozratr's working methods) by Ulrich Konrad covers this topic in > detail. In the first part of the book he also explores the historical > development of the idea/legend of Mozart inventing everything in his > head and then just "copying" onto paper.
Unfortunately, I don't think Konrad gets the division of types exactly correct. He classifies certain layers of discarded composition in the Haydn quartets MSS, for instance, as fragments and drafts, when they are clearly nothing of the sort. Konrad's classification scheme is both too detailed and too hazily defined, in my opinion. But we're stuck with it, as Konrad is one of the associate editors of Der Neue Köchel (along with Neal Zaslaw and my former dissertation advisor, Cliff Eisen). I don't want to seem to discard Konrad's work, though -- it's breathtaking in its detail. I just disagree with some of his classifications, and I do think he fundamentally misrepresents the relationship between the MSS and the compositional process as seen in examples like the Haydn quartets. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
