The Mozart Myth: Tales of a Forgery
An extraordinarily persistent myth about how Mozart composed delayed true estimates of his methods. That myth is based in large part upon a spurious letter which "Mozart" is said to have written to a "Baron von X." The letter—published in German in 1815 and then in French, Italian and English—has been widely quoted, paraphrased and alluded to ever since. Even though Otto Jahn had already identified the letter as a forgery in his groundbreaking Mozart biography of 1856-59, its influence lives on.
A Forged Letter
This letter apparently told readers what they wanted to hear: Mozart’s inspiration, genius, originality, creativity—all descended upon the entranced artist as if by lightning bolts from God. Arduous and intensive training, practice and hard work in a lucid state—these exertions were for mere mortals.
The tone of the forgery is markedly different from that of Mozart's actual descriptions of how he composed, such as in letters about Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio). Enough of the contextual details used by the forger to lend verisimilitude are incorrect that they have the opposite effect; for instance, Mozart's father-in-law was dead at the time the letter was purportedly written.
Tell-Tale Letters
The day after Mozart and his mother arrived in Paris in 1778, she wrote to her husband in Salzburg that "den wolfgang ist die zeit lang weill er noch kein Clavier hat..." (For the moment Wolfgang is bored because he still hasn't got a keyboard instrument). Twelve days later she reported of their rented room that "der eingang und die stiegen ist so öng das es ohnmöglich wehre ein Clavier hin auf zu bringen. der wolfgang mues also ausser haus bey Monsier le gro Componieren weill dorth ein Clavier ist..." (The entrance and the stairs are so narrow that it would be impossible to bring a clavier upstairs, so Wolfgang has to compose away from home at M. Le Gros' place, because there is a keyboard instrument there.) Three years later Mozart, in Vienna on his own, wrote to his father, "Mein zimmer wo ich hinziehe ist schon in Bereitschaft; —izt gehe ich ein Clavier zu entlehnen, denn, bevor das nicht in zimmer steht, kann ich nicht darinn wohen, dermalen weil ich eben zu schreiben habe, und keine Minute zu versäumen ist." (The room into which I'll be moving is already ready —I'm going now to rent a clavier, for if there isn't one in the room, I can't move in. Since I have much to compose right now, I don't want to waste a minute!) These passages strongly suggest that Mozart required his clavier to compose—perhaps to invent and develop ideas by improvising, perhaps also to experience physically what he had heard in his imagination.
Constanze Mozart's Romanticization
Nerina Medici and Rosemary Hughes (eds.), A Mozart Pilgrimage: The Travel Diaries of Vincent & Mary Novello in the Year 1829 (London, 1955).
Interviewed by Franz Xaver Niemetschek for his Leben des K. K. Kapellmeisters Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart nach Originalquellen beschreiben (Prague, 1798), Constanze had this to say: "Mozart ... never touched the piano while writing. When he received the libretto for a vocal composition, he went about for some time, concentrating on it until his imagination was fired. Then he proceeded to work out his ideas at the piano; and only then did he sit down and write." When, three decades later, the London music publisher Vincent Novello and his wife Mary visited and interviewed Constanze, she had idealized this to "He seldom went to the instrument when he composed....When some grand conception was working in his brain, he was purely abstracted, ... but when once arranged in his mind, he needed no pianoforte."
It is even possible that, having read the forged letter, Constanze believed it to be genuine.
The Forger's Message Lives On
The world-view expressed in the forged letter has become permanently installed in the thoughts of Western intellectuals in such a way that even those who know it to be a forgery go on believing its underlying ideology. Goethe, Pushkin, Heidegger and Peter Schaefer are only some of those taken in by this forgery. Here, perpetuating the myth, are a university-level textbook and two well-received popular books on music and science.