MOZART COMPOSES VIOLIN SONATA IN LESS THAN 7 DAYS, PERFORMS KEYBOARD SECTION WITHOUT A SCORE BEFORE VIENNESE EMPEROR; EMPEROR NOT IMPRESSED

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, c. 1786

A most charming piece of Mozart history occurred on this day in April at Vienna’s Theater am Kärntnertor in 1784 with the premiere of the composer’s Violin Sonata No. 32 (K. 454).

Mozart penned the composition on extremely short notice: the 19-year old Italian virtuoso violinist Regina Strinasacchi had been called upon by Emperor and frequent Mozart patron Joseph II of Austria to perform before him for an upcoming soirée, and, wishing only to impress the Monarch, Strinasacchi sought out Europe’s leading composer (Herr Mozart) to pen for her an all-new, original piece which she could debut for the occasion.

Mozart agreed, and hastily set to work penning a 3-movement sonata for the virtuoso. April of 1784 was an incredibly busy time for the composer – having just finished a series of 17 subscription concerts for the Lenten Season, Mozart scarcely had time to breathe let alone write out a full length work on parchment: with the April 29th soirée deadline rapidly approaching and running short on time, Mozart penned only the parts for violin, and committed the piano section wholly to memory alone.

By the evening of the premiere, things seemed to be going off without a hitch: another astounding, jovial composition from Austria’s foremost maestro, and Strinasachhi dazzling the crowd with her musicians' elite aesthetics – that is, until the emperor raised his gilded opera glasses to his face, and noticed, to his horror, that Herr Mozart was performing on the piano from a blank sheet of parchment! A feat that would have surely astonished most did not sit well at all with the perfecting Joseph. According to Mozart’s widow Constanze, the testy Emperor at once halted the performance, and demanded Mozart bring the blank manuscript before his eyes so that he could inspect it’s pages up close – at which point an embarrassed Mozart was forced to explain himself!

Listen to the sonata that landed Mozart in hot water below:


-Rose.

BACK TO HOME PAGE

MAYHEM BEHIND THE MUSIC X: TRIVIA & HUMOR - (LITERALLY) 'DECONSTRUCTING' MOZART & OTHER SALACIOUS SCANDALS feat. Did You Know?

It’s time for another installment of TRIVIA & HUMOR!

Today’s much overdue feature combines a veritable cornucopia of mystery, scandal and intrigue as Unraveling Musical Myths meanders through the murky mire of the macabre, resting every now and then to regale the reader with tales of mercurial madness – a frequently occurring trait we have come to know and love in our beloved maestros of yore.

“LOWLY” MUSICIAN STATUS SAVES COMPOSER’S NECK

Alleged likeness of Taverner

We begin in the mid-16th century in Tudor England, just prior to the Reformation with the composer and organist John Taverner. Considered to be one of the most important musical figures of his era, Taverner would be appointed First Organist and Master of the Choristers at Cardinal College* (named after it’s ecclesiastical founder and then-Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey).

Taverner, like many an Englishman living under the notoriously volatile monarch’s reign, would find himself in a heap of trouble for allegedly possessing ‘heretical’ manuscripts – books by German theologian Martin Luther - on his person (and possibly stashed in the ‘song school,’ with the intent of teaching them to his pupils in the choir) for which the musician was promptly holed up in the college’s fish cellar (which then served as a makeshift prison until which time further punishment would be executed – pun intended). The word “allegedly” is important here – this was, after all, the most tumultuous period of Henry’s reign, during which time the King sought to have his marriage to his first wife, the Spanish Katherine of Aragon annulled in order to place future consort Queen Anne Boleyn in her stead – a notoriously rocky road for the monarch that saw a highly contested battle of power between the determined English king and Pope Clement VII, and, failing permission by the Holy See to divorce, an eventual break with Rome.

Cardinal Wolsey being counseled by King Henry VIII

Alongside his abrupt shift in power over religious matters of the State, the autocratic ruler installed himself as the Supreme Head of the Church of England, setting forth a tidal wave of reformist activity across the nation.

Accusations of heresy ran wild – whether the party was in fact guilty or an innocent offender (labeling another as a heretic was a quick and convenient way to rid oneself of their enemies in an age where one was considered guilty until proven.. well, guilty).

As it turns out, Taverner himself was a noted reformist. Perhaps armed with this knowledge, or simply having been all-too-aware of the further punishment that his appointee would have undoubtedly suffered if left to rot in the fish cellar, Wolsey neither confirmed nor denied the accusation lobbed on the imprisoned musician, and instead, appealed quite convincingly, to the jailors’ egos by diminishing Taverner’s influence over even the meekest of students, calling him “but a musician” (then equivalent to a servant). 

Apparently, it worked. Taverner would be promptly pardoned by the Cardinal.

Listen below to a gorgeous rendition of Taverner's Dum Tansisset Sabbatum (And When The Sabbath Was Past), Performed by Alamire choir under David Skinner:


*Note: now Christ Church College at Oxford

 

GUNPOWDER, FIRE…ATTEMPTED MURDER?

Talk about a premiere from hell: from the blazing inferno ravaging a large portion of a specially constructed structure funded out-of-pocket by the reigning British King (some £8000 - worth about 1 million in today’s money) and which claimed two lives, to the attempted murder of the Duke of Montagu by an enraged architect (and the latter’s unsurprising - yet highly mortifying - imprisonment), Composer of the Chapel Royal George Frederic Handel’s debut performance of his suite “Music for the Royal Fireworks” would go off with anything but a hitch.