Mozart and the Keyboard Culture of His Time

From Print to CD
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The preservation and interpretation of music that is more than two hundred years old and its transmission through several generations is by no means straightforward—even in the case of a work like K. 450, whose sources are well preserved. Even the best sources do not contain "the music" but rather only an incomplete set of instructions for realizing "the music"—a process that is far from transparent. As musical styles, pianos and piano playing changed, Mozart's style was no longer the prevailing one and needed to be explained in textbooks and pedagogical editions. Eventually there was a rebellion against the overlay of opinions found in most editions and with that rebellion there arose a demand for Urtext ("original text") editions. The following items illuminate some of the steps in the transmission of K. 450 from Mozart's time to ours.

continue to How did Mozart Compose?
Introduction
From Sketch to Completed Work
From Print to CD
How did Mozart Compose?
The Mozart Myth: Tales of a Forgery
Mozart's Images
Mozart's Images Imagined
What the Score Doesn't Tell Us
The Piano Lesson
The Cult of Mozart
Commodification & Kitsch
Credits
Cornell University Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections Cornell University Library

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