One of the joys of musicological research is the discovery of a number
of small, if not insubstantial mysteries that crop up during the slow,
exacting, sometimes even tedious tracking down and evaluation of both
biographical and source material. For those who have undertaken this
painstaking work, the long road with its manifold blind alleys and dead
ends needs not be dwelt upon at any length, but for those who have yet
to tread this path, the twists and turns begin a journey that is of
immense duration, often years. It invariably probes the private life
and works of a composer in such intimate detail that subtlety and
nuance often bring to light fascinating, minute bits of information
that bring the human behind the music to life and into focus in a
manner rarely conceived by the world around us. The object of scrutiny
becomes a friend, sometimes an antagonist, but always a multi-faceted
personality, whose life and music are filled with that immensity we
call human creativity.
For Dr. Bertil van Boer, Professor of Musicology and Dean of the
College of Fine and Performing Arts at Western Washington University,
the over two decades spent on German-Swedish composer Joseph Martin
Kraus (1756-1792) has resulted in not one, but two editions of a
thematic catalogue, published a decade apart. "The latest
manifestation," said van Boer, "conforms to Otto Erich Deutsch's maxim
that every thematic catalogue ought to be published first in its second
edition."
Via a paper recently presented at the Northwest Chapter meeting of the
American Musicological Society, held in Bellingham, Washington on April
3, 2000, van Boer focused upon a minor mystery regarding Kraus and
Mozart: a possible but undocumented meeting between the two men in
Vienna sometime between April and July of 1783. It is only the first of
several mysteries, but according to van Boer, "It represents one of
those serendipitous discoveries that, while not earth-shaking,
nonetheless has elements that conform closely to what one might imagine
in a detective story, i.e., pieces of circumstantial evidence strung
together to create a case that might hold up in a musicologial and
mythical court of law." Van Boer's theory represents an unfolding of
hidden or overlooked facts. "The logical deduction of the circumstances
will point to a conclusion that, while not entirely provable by
incontrovertible fact, nonetheless dares the mind to prove otherwise,"
stated van Boer with confidence.
"Let us first examine the two suspects," began van Boer. "Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart needs no introduction. A prominent citizen of the
musicological pantheon, his life has been exhaustively researched, with
in-depth studies extending back two centuries, if one counts
Niemetschek's biography of 1798 as the first of these. His works, while
still confined to the limitations of Köchel 626, number over 2,000, and
the continual efforts of a huge cadre of scholars insure that no stone,
no archive, no obscure reference will be left unnoted in the quest for
even more information."
In this instance, however, only a brief biographical introduction is
necessary. Mozart was born in Salzburg in 1756, the son of a court
musician. His youth as a prodigy led to a vast experience as a musician
in the musical world of Europe, bringing him into contact with some of
the leading composers of the day, including Johann Christian Bach.
Appointed early on to a post at the court of the Prince-Archbishop of
Salzburg, he nonetheless had opportunity to travel, accepting
commissions during his teen years in Italy. In 1776, Mozart, fed up
with the Archbishop's authority, rebelled and sought more lucrative
opportunities in Mannheim and Paris, where he hoped a patron would
recognize and reward his talents. "Mozart's freedom was curtailed by
failure, and almost four more years were spent in servitude to the
Salzburg court before he finally was able to free himself and achieve a
measure of success in Vienna," added van Boer. Mozart's career, spotty
yet not unadorned, ended all too soon in 1791 with an early death, the
cause of which became a topic of some considerable discussion.
The second suspect is Joseph Martin Kraus. "Like Mozart," van Boer
noted, "he was born in 1756, but into a family of some stature. His
father was a state bureaucrat and his mother the granddaughter of a
prominent architect. Kraus' talent in music -- like Mozart's -- was
evidenced early on, but unlike Mozart he received a formal education,
first at a Jesuit School in Mannheim, where literary talents were also
evidenced, and subsequently at universities in Mainz, Erfurt, and
Göttingen." After publishing an emotional play entitled Tolon, and a
rather satirical treatise on music -- not to mention writing a
considerable amount of music -- Kraus decided or was persuaded to give
up the lucrative career of a state civil servant to become a composer
at the court of Gustav III of Sweden, who just happened to be on the
look out for talented people for his new operatic establishment. "In
1778, about the time Mozart was returning home from Paris with his
figurative tail between his legs, Kraus set out on a journey
northwards, a journey into uncertainty and chaos," said van Boer. "For
three years he lived a marginal existence before an opera, Proserpin,
won him the post of assistant kapellmäestre at the Swedish court. From
November of 1782 to December of 1786, Kraus was sent by Gustav III on a
grand tour that took him to much of Europe. By 1788 he had become not
only Hovkapellmäestre in ordinary, he had also been named to the post
of educational director at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. This
provided Kraus with the ability to move fluidly through the best of
Gustavian polite society," said van Boer. But Kraus also died early,
succumbing to tuberculosis in 1792, barely a year after Mozart's death
and not too long after the assassination of Kraus' beloved monarch,
Gustav III.
The presentation of both of these suspects might seem unconnected since
on the surface, they share only a similarity in dates. "To refer to
Kraus as 'The Swedish Mozart' as has been common until the last several
years," warned van Boer, "is invidious, for it makes the Swedish
composer subject to a comparison that is unequal, at least in terms of
historical reputation." Similarly, referring to Mozart as the "Austrian
Kraus" would present even more difficulty, as one might well imagine.
"It would seem on face value," said van Boer, "that two composers, one
rather famous and the second more regional, had little in common, and
the case might ordinarily stop here, were it not for two rather
important factual links. First, Joseph Haydn. He stated to Swedish
diplomat Fredrik Silverstolpe in 1798, 'Kraus was the first great
composer of genius that I ever knew; pity about him and Mozart, both
were so young.'" Van Boer continued, "One might notice that Haydn does
not mention Pleyel, or Wanhal, or Dittersdorf, or anyone else he
clearly knew and liked in Vienna, even given that Silverstolpe's
question was a leading one. Haydn could well have said, for instance,
something to the effect that he entertained great hopes for both Kraus
and Pleyel, but didn't." Both Kraus and Mozart are placed in Haydn's
statement on the same plane; undoubtedly he viewed them as equals.
Second, van Boer says that after returning from his grand tour, Kraus
became -- in the words of Per Frigel, his student -- a "passionate
Mozartean", conducting a symphony by Mozart at the public concerts in
1789, and in early 1792 composing a song to a text by Carl Michael
Bellman that honored Mozart. "This is remarkable," noted van Boer, "in
that it was written apparently only a few weeks after Mozart's actual
death. Given that Mozart's reputation as a composer -- not as a child
prodigy -- spread relatively slowly after 1792, to have champions of
the stature of Kraus and Bellman while still alive seems anomalous."
There is a third link that forms the core of van Boer's theory. In 1789
Gustav III called a parliament to ratify sweeping authoritarian powers.
"While it would be too lengthy -- and perhaps somewhat out of context
-- to go into the political reasons for this," the respected Kraus
scholar noted, "suffice it to say that the normally restive Swedish
nobility and clergy, who usually formed a cohesive united block, were
cowed by what amounted to a display of political power that supported
this Act of Union and Security, as well as Gustav's ongoing war with
Russia. As part of the propaganda display calculated to sway the other
factions in the government, the King entered the Riddarhus Church for
the blessing of the parliament to a magnificent march and extraordinary
Sinfonia da chiesa by Kraus. This was music filled with pomp and
circumstance, accentuating the spectacle of a powerful, popular monarch
adhering to the will of his people."
Kraus' music was calculated to outline the spectacle, and while it
admirably served its purpose, the most unusual feature was that the
entrance march itself was an adaptation of a march from the first act
of Mozart's Idomeneo, re di Creta, an opera that according to Daniel
Heartz, represents the beginning of Mozart's mature style. "The point
at which it occurs in the opera, too has special significance," pointed
out van Boer. "The march is performed at that moment when Idomeneo,
absent for a decade during the Trojan War, disembarks on Cretan soil a
conquering hero. For those not versed in Swedish history, Gustav had
just returned home from a victory at Sveaborg castle over the Russian
army."
The case at hand is thus threefold: why Kraus became such a promoter of
this particular colleague, why Haydn seemed to rank both on the same
plane, and, perhaps most intriguingly, how did the Swedish composer get
his hands on a work that was, by all accounts, extant in only two
sources at that time: the authentic score and parts at the Electoral
opera house in Munich where Idomeneo was premiered in 1781, and an
autograph copy that Mozart himself owned and intended to present in
Vienna were the only extant copies. And why this particular work? How
did the march, so significant in its own right, get chosen from an
opera filled with significant moments, any one of which musically could
have been appropriate? Van Boer answered this string of queries thusly:
"Clearly, the most logical solution is that Kraus received the music
directly from Mozart, either in person or through an intermediary. One
would have to assume any such putative intermediary would know exactly
what to look for some six years in advance of the parliament. Such a
solution might seem reasonable were it not for the fact that there is
no concrete evidence of any direct contact between the two composers.
The biographers of Kraus, including Karl Schrieber and Irmgard
Leux-Henschen state rather definitively that the two did not meet,
although both seemed to have been acquainted with the gregarious
Haydn." In the Mozart biographical canon, Kraus is not mentioned at
all, though to be sure the collected correspondence from the period
1782-1784 is not entirely complete. In his article on the march from
Idomeneo, Swedish musicologist Gunnar Larsson suggested an alternative,
postulating that it was Gustav himself who picked out the march during
his visit to the Bavarian Elector's court in December of 1783.
"What might seem a relatively believable alternative, however, rests
upon pillars of evidence that are wobbly indeed," cautioned van Boer.
"They are far too coincidental to be logical, credible, or even
possible. This presupposes that Gustav had time enough to peruse the
Elector's musical library for suitable opera material regarding an
event that lay some six years in the future, a long stretch of the
imagination indeed. It also takes for granted that the King knew enough
about music in general, which he didn't. It also supposes that Idomeno
was immediately accessible and acknowledged as the most famous work of
recent times by all and sundry in Munich, and that it may even have
been on the boards as a performance in Gustav's honor. In truth, it had
faded from the repertory very quickly, was filed in the Electoral music
library, and, whatever one might think of Mozart today, no one should
be under the illusion that Idomeneo was considered by the
multi-talented musical establishment of Munich -- which began in
Mannheim -- as primus inter pares. Gluck, yes; Johann Christian Bach,
yes; Ignaz Holzbauer, yes; but the thought of Mozart, whose only other
work for Munich was the comic opera La finta giardiniera, stretches the
bounds of incredulity to the breaking point."
For this alternative to have worked during a visit of state, the King
himself -- or one of his retinue -- would have had to have the intent
and desire to delve into the court library for a work that was of no
great significance to the Bavarian repertory, come across it by design
or serendipitously, peruse the score, abstract from it a particular
minor march, and then carry it about for another two months before
Kraus -- who joined the King and his entourage in Rome in January --
would have had an opportunity to see it. "Also," added van Boer, "it
would have reposed in Kraus' own library for another half a decade. As
the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
In this musical inquest, the crux of the arguement, for better or for
worse, comes back to some sort of personal contact between the two
composers, and, despite the declarations of the biographers and lack of
direct evidence, one must examine both motive and opportunity.
As for motive, there is first and foremost the raison d'etre for Kraus'
grand tour: to meet the most influential artists of Europe and to
evaluate the various theatres. "His own letters and travel diary
describe more or less in detail visits to or meetings with composers
such as Haydn, Gluck, Wanhal, Albrechtsberger, Sacchini, Padre Martini,
and others. In a nutshell, if a composer was well-known, it was Kraus'
task to seek him out," said van Boer. "While Mozart may not have been
the most famous composer in Europe at the time, for him to have
remained unknown to Kraus during Kraus' visit to Vienna would be not
only illogical, but hardly credible given this task."
As for opportunity, Kraus arrived in Vienna on April 1, 1783, leaving
in October of that year. Mozart, newly married and enjoying the first
success of Die Entfhhrüng aus dem Serial, was in residence in the
Austrian capital until July, when he took his new bride, the former
Constanze Weber, back to Salzburg to meet his family. "Thus there was a
span of about four months," posited van Boer, "where, if nothing else,
an opportunity for contact existed from a strictly chronological
standpoint."
Given both motive and opportunity, the next step in the inquest is to
see if there does exist some evidence, even circumstantial, that would
provide at least an intimation that a meeting could have occurred,
though details would of course be lacking. "The evidence that would
support both motive and opportunity is curiously sparse, or in the case
of the biographical material, non-extistent," lamented van Boer. But he
also noted, "That is not to say that this period is a void in the lives
of either composer, or that everything that happened to them is
entirely known. During at least the first few weeks in Vienna Kraus
maintained a rather oddly comprehensive, if lacunar travel diary. He
describes his first meeting with his idol, Gluck, apparently in the
company of Gluck's protégé, Salieri - who, like Mozart, is not
mentioned by name -- in exhaustive detail." Kraus later amplified this
with letters to his parents and friend, composer Romanus Hoffstetter.
Kraus' view of Haydn, whose pecuniary tightness was noted, is equally
striking, and despite the somewhat uncharitable view of this habit,
Kraus nonetheless was clearly favorably impressed by the elder
composer, enough so that he wrote his parents on October 22 that he had
traveled to Esterhaza to "say farewell to Haydn."
"Kraus' visit caused a considerable stir that echoed in the memories of
Haydn and Salieri a decade and a half after the event via
Silverstolpe's own meetings," said van Boer, "and Reichardt, who also
visited Vienna during this time and is likewise not mentioned in Kraus'
diary or letters, published his recollections in the Allgemeine
musikalische Zeitung of 1804, noting that he, Kraus and Gluck sought to
hit the town to party, and only the feverish maneuvering of Gluck's
wife, who feared the worst for the elder composer, prevented this from
happening." Reichardt goes on to say that the three did have some
wonderful, if rather less effusive, interaction. So Kraus clearly was a
rather well-known and well-met traveller in Vienna. This is intimated
by his own diary entries, where daily walks, parties, musical soirees,
etc. form the bulk of the material.
When examining this evidence, van Boer illuminates some striking
coincidences that are well worth noting. "First, Kraus was a frequent
visitor to the public places of Vienna, parks like the Prater where the
citizens met and greeted each other. Mozart's life in Vienna also
included frequent similar sojourns, documented in the canon Gehn wir im
Prater, KV 558. Over a four month period, it would have been difficult
for them to miss each other, for Vienna was quite small, and according
to Count Zinzendorf, the weather was excellent in the spring and early
summer of 1783. Second, Kraus lived on the Kohlenmarkt across from St.
Michael's Church at No. 134 on the third floor, and during the same
period, Mozart lived just around the corner at Kohlgasse 12. It would
have taken almost a deliberate act of God for them not to have simply
run into each other in the street during this time. For either not to
have known that a composer of some repute was housed in this close
proximity strains the bounds of credulity. Third, recent scholarship by
Manfred Schuler has shown that Kraus wrote a masonic poem into the book
of Johann Georg Kronauer, a member of the Masonic Lodge Zur neugekr`nte
Hoffnung to which Mozart also belonged." According to Kraus' diary, the
Swedish ambassador Baron Lars von Engström became a member of the lodge
in March of 1784. "So did a close friend of Kraus', the Hungarian
merchant Johann Samuel Liedemann, with whom Kraus became acquainted
just a few days after his arrival in Vienna," van Boer added. "Kraus
was also friendly with Ignaz von Born, Master Mason at the lodge Zum
wahren Eintracht, which is also associated with Mozart. Because the
entry in Kronauer's book implies Kraus was a member of the Swedish
Noachite order of freemasonry, his participation as a guest in Vienna,
where Mozart may also have been in attendance, is extremely likely.
Fourth, both Mozart and Kraus dealt with Viennese publisher and
copyhouse owner Johann Traeg during these years. Since Traeg's
establishment was a social as well as commercial center, it would have
been ideal as either a meeting place or getting to know the chief
musicians of the city."
Van Boer noted that perhaps the most interesting and perhaps revealing
of these coincidences involves two statements that Kraus wrote to his
sister Marianne from Paris on 26 December 1785. "He states: 'Kennst du
Mozarts Entfhhrüng aus dem Serail? Er arbeitet nun an seinem Figaro,
eine Operette in 4 Aufzuhgen, worauf ich mich herzlich freue.' First,
one can assume from the language of the question that he was familiar
with the opera, and therefore also its composer. With respect to
Figaro, however, it is clear from the evidence that both DaPonte and
Mozart strove to keep the composition a secret. Although rumors began
to circulate in the fall of 1785 that he was working on piece, the
first mention of the work seems to have been on November 2." Details
apparently remained within Mozart's inner family circle until after the
successful premiere of Der Schauspieldirektor in early 1786. Mozart's
own catalogue notes the completion date of April 29, 1786. "The obvious
question now remains," said van Boer, "how would Kraus, sitting in
Paris, know that Mozart was hard at work on Figaro, be familiar with
the layout of the opera -- DaPonte originally seemed to think it might
be in two acts rather than four -- and most importantly, why would such
news 'please him (Kraus) immensely' unless he had some direct
connection to the Viennese composer or his music?"
Putting all of the circumstantial evidence that van Boer has assembled
together, it would seem that Kraus would have had to be completely
impaired not to have run into Mozart sometime during the four months of
their simultaneous Viennese coexistence in 1783. For Mozart not to have
heard of Kraus would have been equally impossible, for the Swedish
composer's visit was certainly no secret and Kraus was certainly quite
gregarious in his various social and official activities. "Perhaps the
final piece of circumstantial evidence is the appearance of the
aforementioned revision of the March from Idomeneo," concluded van
Boer. It is known that Kraus did obtain music from the various
composers during his travels. "The use of a fugue by Albrechtsberger in
Kraus' Sinfonia da chiesa is indicative of this," van Boer noted, "so
to have obtained a copy of the march would have been entirely in
character."
Given Kraus' admiration for Gluck, Idomeneo would have interested him
more than any other opera, for it is Mozart's most Gluckian work. As
noted earlier, the only score of Idomeneo other than the Munich copy
was held by Mozart; it enjoyed no circulation whatsoever since the
composer intended it to be produced in Vienna. Given this documented
fact, the only way Kraus could have become familiar at all with the
work is if he had actually seen it, and the only way to have done this
was through some sort of personal meeting with Mozart. Moreover, the
choice of the march from Idomeneo and its political implications --
certainly not considered initially -- could only have come to mind if
Kraus had been familiar enough with the work to precisely know the
context. However, it cannot be known whether this information was
actually shared with the King.
Noting this evidence, van Boer asked, "Do the circumstances, motive,
opportunity, and actual musical evidence remain convincing enough to
overcome a reluctance to speak of a meeting of two composers that Haydn
clearly set above all others of his knowledge?"
With that, the defense rested its case.
