W. A. Mozart.
Proksch, Bryan
W. A. Mozart. By Hermann Abert. Edited by
Cliff Eisen, translated by Stewart Spencer.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
[xxvii, 1515 p. ISBN 0-300072-23-6; ISBN 978-03000-7223-5.$55]
At first glance there is little reason why anyone would translate
and edit an eighty-year-old 1,500-page biography of Mozart (itself a
revision of an 1855 biography by Otto Jahn). Yet it takes only a few
chapters to realize that Cliff Eisen and his translator Stewart Spencer
have done an immeasurable service to Mozart scholarship. On the one
hand, Abert's book offers a window into
turn-of-the-twentieth-century opinion on Mozart's music. On the
other, with Eisen's numerous revisions and greatly expanded and
updated footnotes, the book provides a definitive and comprehensive
overview of the composer's life and works.
Abert organizes his book into alternating bio--graphic and analytic
chapters, but frequently the lines between these approaches blur
significantly. This allows him to discuss the individual compositions
from different angles. Abert gives Mozart's operas preferential
treatment throughout. Each receives at least a full chapter of
discussion covering the genesis of the work, a detailed plot
description, analyses of crucial sections, and the critical reception of
the work's early performances. Nor does Abert neglect the
librettos; in fact, he takes a great deal of interest in their genesis
and Mozart's musical treatment of them. He examines the
instrumental works in much the same way as the operas, but frequently
treats only selective works in detail. These analyses take a consistent
interest in Mozart's stylistic development, treatment of thematic
material, and approach to form. He notes the growth of motives from
small germinal intervals and motivic cells, much like other organicists
such as Rudolph Reti. This leads him into a number of specious intertextual and unconvincing cyclic connections (e.g., pp. 851-53 on
K.387). However, many of his analyses are accurate and informative.
An added bonus to this text is Abert's willingness to examine
tangential topics in detail. He includes, for instance, chapters on the
history of opera seria prior to Mozart, the operatic tradition in Paris,
and Gluck's music dramas. In addition, his seemingly vast knowledge
of lesser-known composers and their works (e.g. Schobert, Salieri, J. C.
Bach, Michael Haydn, and Leopold Mozart) give the book a broader
perspective. They also help contextualize Mozart's music and his
contribution to the music of that era.
One peculiarity of this account of Mozart's life is that the
author's perspective changes significantly as the book progresses.
Abert uses reliable primary-source evidence to portray the young Mozart
as a gifted but inexperienced composer whose works are average at best.
This level-headed approach contrasts starkly with his nationalist view
of Mozart's early maturity (the German composer struggling to find
his German voice in a world dominated by an aristocracy with a taste for
Italian music) and-more distressingly-his strictly Romantic and
inaccurate view of the composer's final years. Eisen scrambles to
correct the gross errors generated by Abert's sudden reliance on
anecdotal evidence and hearsay in the chapters dealing with
Mozart's late works and death. Those interested in an accurate
portrayal of the last year of Mozart's life must look elsewhere.
As an editor, Eisen does a remarkable job cleaning up the text for
the twenty-first century. He painstakingly corrects the relatively few
errors made by Abert in dates and attributions. In those frequent
instances where more recent writings offer greater detail into a given
issue, Eisen provides a copious amount of footnote citation for further
reference. These footnotes enable the book to read like an encyclopedia
and single-handedly make it worth purchasing. However, Eisen leaves
Abert's original text in place even when larger errors occur (e.g.,
stylistic arguments about the dating of spurious works). While Eisen is
quick to offer corrections of these types of errors in the footnotes,
the readability of the book suffers quite a bit, as one must continually
examine each footnote to make sure of the facts.
The translator, Stewart Spencer, makes the text as clear, readable,
and interesting as it would have been if Abert himself wrote it in
English. One frustration is that he leaves a number of non-German
phrases un-translated (e.g., pg. 214, 758). If the audience's
German is not up to reading Abert's original, it is unreasonable to
expect that their Italian or French is any better. A few problems with
this text are neither Abert's nor Eisen's fault. At seven
pounds in weight, the book is exceedingly unwieldy to read. Furthermore,
although the book's binding held together commendably without
ripping, the later signatures were poorly sewn.
In summation, Abert's biography deserves at least as prominent
a place on one's bookshelf as comparable works on other composers
such as Thayer's Life of Beethoven and Robbins Landon's Haydn:
Chronicle and Works. It provides extensive primary-source citation and
quotation while at the same time providing the page-to-page readability
of a typical biography. More importantly, given the extensively updated
footnotes and the over-2,000 sources cited in the bibliography, it could
prove to be even more useful as a research tool than as a strict
biography.
Bryan Proksch
McNeese State University, Lake Charles, Louisiana
