Mozart in Prague: Essays on Performance, Patronage, and Reception ed. by Kathryn L. Libin

Abstract

Reviewed by: Mozart in Prague: Essays on Performance, Patronage, and Receptioned. by Kathryn L. Libin Erick Arenas Mozart in Prague: Essays on Performance, Patronage, and Reception. Proceedings of the Mozart Society of America / Society for Eighteenth-Century Music Conference in Prague, 9–1306 2009. Edited by Kathryn L. Libin. Prague: Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences [Etnologický ústav Akademie věd České republiky], 2016. [ 470 p. ISBN 9788088081067 (paperback), $50.] Music examples, illustrations, abstracts, author biographies, index of persons, index of Mozart's works. With the obvious exceptions of Salz - burg and Vienna, no city stands so significant in the biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as Prague, where the composer traveled on multiple occasions between 1787 and 1791, premiered some of his most important late works, and enjoyed exceptional popularity. His experience there, with its invigorating influence upon his work, has long provided scholars a captivating foil to the vicissitudes of his Viennese years. This association with Mozart has benefitted the city's cultural history as well [End Page 103]by casting light on the vibrant musical culture that existed there during this era of Austrian-Imperial domination, and by serving as a continual source of pride within its musical sphere. With the purpose of examining the music of Mozart and his contemporaries in the Prague context, the Mozart Society of America and the Society for Eighteenth-Century Music, with the support of the Czech Mozart Society, held a joint conference in 2009 in the Czech capital and its environs. The volume Mozart in Prague: Essays on Performance, Patronage, Sources, and Receptionpresents the proceedings of this event. The volume consists of twenty-one varied essays of moderate length written by scholars based in North America and Europe. The diversity of the collection strains the rather narrow purview indicated by the title. While the contributions do, for the most part, focus on matters of performance, patronage, sources, and reception, they also extend to subjects that are only slightly or tangentially related to either the composer or the city. Those that lie furthest from the Mozart–Prague nexus nevertheless offer eminently useful coverage of musicians and musical life in the broader late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Central European context. These include essays on Mozart contemporaries by R. Todd Rober ("A Paternal Patronage in Dresden: Count Heinrich von Brühl and Gottlob Harrer"), Jane Schatkin Hettrick ("Antonio Salieri's Requiem Mass: The Moravian Connection"), and Lucio Tufano ("The Italian Reception of Benda's Ariadne auf Naxosand Medea: Fascination and Compromise"). Other essays deal with historical figures more clearly linked to Mozart and Prague, or the wider Bohemian context—for example, that by John Rice ("A Bohemian Composer Meets a Mozart Singer: Koželuh's Rondò for Adriana Ferrarese"). Two essays concern the impresario Domenico Guardasoni: Pierluigi Petrobelli's "Italian Opera in Prague, Dresden, and Elsewhere: The Impresario Giuseppe Bustelli," and Anna Ryszka-Komarnicka's "From Venice to Warsaw: Zenobia di Palmiraby Sertor and Anfossi Performed by Guardasoni's Troupe (1791)." Aspects of Mozart's relationship with the Bohemian singer Josefa Dušek (1754–1824), who, along with her husband, František Xaver Dušek (1731–1799), was one of the most significant supporters of Mozart and his music in Prague, are considered in two notable essays. Paul Corneilson ("'aber nach geendigter Oper mit Vergnügen': Mozart's Arias for Mme Duschek") focuses on her role as a singer and benefactor, addressing questions of her vocal profile and the identification of arias composed for her by Mozart. The personal dimension of this composer–singer/patron relationship receives new scrutiny from Bruce Alan Brown, whose essay "In Defense of Josepha Duschek (and Mozart): Patronage, Friendship, and Evidence" argues convincingly against the hypothesis advanced by Maynard Solomon ( Mozart: A Life[New York: Harper Collins, 1995]) that the two were also romantically involved. Since Mozart's pursuits and success in Prague centered on opera, this genre is naturally the focus of many essays in these proceedings. Martin Nebdal's contribution, "Preaching (German) Morals in Vienna: The Case of Mozart and Umlauf," though centered on the Viennese context rather than that of Prague, offers important insights into didactic aspects...