Image Sharpness versus Loss of the Frames. Readings of Textual Criticism in Mozart’s Church Music

Abstract

Already the first, only sparse editions of Mozart’s Church Music brought about considerable changes within musical notation. In some cases the works have even been reduced to vocal parts along with piano score. Remote from the original text habits of performance practice developed, started to circulate and to strengthen. Compared with this the volumes of the (Old) Mozart Edition could hardly stand their ground in the 1870s and 1880s, so that on the basis of a (with regard to textual criticism) corrupt notation an autonomous Mozart- tradition in Church Music revealed itself and has been maintained by a long way up to the 20th century. By means of some smaller works of Church Music (the offertorios Misericordias Domini and Venite, populi , the motet Ave verum Corpus ) it will be shown how a process of alienation and reapproaching took place and why aspects of later reception shall be of some importance when editing musical works of the classical era. (Italian translation by Adriana De Feo).