Interactive Mozart

Abstract

The rediscovery in 1990 of the autograph manuscript of Mozart's Fantasy and Sonata in C minor, K475/457, in a Baptist college in Philadelphia was a moment of great excitement among Mozart scholars. It is a particularly fascinating manuscript, showing many significant differences from the published edition as well as a number of interesting alterations and erasures. None of the later piano sonatas survives in autograph, so this manuscript of what many would consider Mozart's greatest works for solo piano gives us much new information about the way in which he composed for the instrument in his final years. When the manuscript was sold at auction it fetched one of the highest prices of the 20th century for a music manuscript, and is now one of the most prized possessions of the Mozarteum in Salzburg. The new owners produced a colour facsimile of the manuscript in 1991, and since then at least three editions have been published to take account of the new material presented in the manuscript. As a result, the modern performer is presented with choices at many points, but does not always have a ready means of assessing the arguments in favour of one variant reading over another. Eugene K. Wolf published a detailed analysis of the manuscript in the Journal of musicology in 1992, but a pressing need remained for a more general introduction to the unique textual problems presented by this new source.