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Mozart's C minor Fantasy, K.475: An Editorial 'Problem' and its Analytical and
Critical Consequences

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Mozart's C Minor Fantasy, K.475: An Editorial 'Problem' and Its Analytical and Critical
Consequences
Author(s): Cliff Eisen and Christopher Wintle
Source: Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Vol. 124, No. 1 (1999), pp. 26-52
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Musical Association
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Journalof theRoyalMusicalAssociation,124 (1999) ? Royal Musical Association

Mozart's C minor Fantasy, K.475: An

Editorial 'Problem' and its Analytical and
Critical Consequences
CLIFF EISEN and CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

THErecent publication of Heinrich Schenker's Das Meisterwerkin der

Musik (1925-30) in a translation by Ian Bent, William Drabkin and
others reminds us that in the highest modern traditions textual criti-
cism and exegesis - editing and analysis - are inseparable.1 Much of
Schenker's commentary on Mozart's Symphony in G minor, K.550, is
devoted to isolating discrepancies between manuscript and edition,
and some of his most fascinating analytical suggestions grow out of just
this. Conversely, analytical strategies may have editorial consequences,
and decisions taken by editors of the Neue MozartAusgabehave been
challenged justly on stylistic grounds.2 If a passage occurs twice in a
composition, for instance, does it have to be articulated in the same
way on both occasions? And if there are differences in the articulations,
what exactly do they tell us? Given the intricacy of the modern analyti-
cal debate over Mozart, such questions may not be answered by editors
alone. Nor can editions be undertaken without reference to changing
social circumstances: for composers in general have shown themselves
more than ready to provide their own variants for different perform-
ing situations (again, Mozart's re-orchestration of the Symphony in
G minor is a case in point). Indeed, in another field, scholars have
asked that cultural issues should also influence editorial practice; these
issues similarly require learning and sensitivity, and again deserve
attention.3
Turn-of-the-century scholarship, however, faces a dilemma. On the

1 Heinrich Schenker, The Masterworkin Music, ed. William Drabkin, trans. Ian Bent, William
Drabkin et al, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1994-7). The essay on Mozart's G minor Symphony, K.550, is
in vol. ii, 59-96. See also Cliff Eisen, 'Another Look at the "CorruptPassage"in Mozart's G minor
Symphony K.550: Its Sources, "Solution" and Implications for the Composition of the Final
Trilogy', EarlyMusic, 25 (1997), 373-81.
2 See Christopher Wintle, 'Generic Interaction in the Andante from Mozart's G minor
Symphony, K.550: A Commentary on Schenker's Analysis', A Compositionas a Problem,ii, ed. Mart
Humal (Tallinn, forthcoming).
3 See
John Deathridge, 'Vollzugsbeamte oder Interpreten? Zur Kritik der Quellenforschung
bei Byron und Wagner', Der Textim musikalischenWerk:Editionsprobleme aus musikwissenschaftlicher
und literaturwissenschaftlicher Sicht,ed. Walter Durr, Helga Lfihning, Norbert Oellers and Hartmut
Steinecke, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift ffir deutsche Philologie, 8 (Berlin, 1998), 263-74. Deathridge
supports the view of Hans Zeller andJerome J. McGabb, who ask that 'in the context of editions
of works written since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the relation between the produc-
tive work of an author and the institutions dedicated to its reproduction be taken into account.'
MOZART'S C MINOR FANTASY,K.475 27

one hand, division of labour has necessarily created an ever-higher

degree of specialization in each musicological field; on the other hand,
each field, by virtue of this specialization, stands in need of other fields
to furnish an appropriate range of approaches and to help resolve its
problems responsibly. Collaborations, therefore, are the inevitable
order of the day. Receding are the times when an enterprise like
Schenker's could claim to discern the masterpieces of music from the
times of Hassler to the present and still claim sole authority at textual,
analytical and cultural levels. Rather, in each new field, there are sep-
arate traditions of critical debate with their own problems seeking their
own resolutions. These traditions, moreover, seem here to stay.
It is in recognition of this dilemma that the present collaboration on
Mozart's C minor Fantasy,K.475 (1785), has been undertaken between
an editor (Cliff Eisen) and an analyst and critic (Christopher Wintle).
It begins by returning to a facsimile edition of 1991 by Wolfgang Plath
and Wolfgang Rehm, and continues to an article from 1992 by Eugene
Wolf. From this it defines a particular editorial 'problem' which it goes
on to explore analytically. But this exploration does not limit itself to
the currently fashionable approach to K.475 initiated by Leonard
Ratner, which drawsgood but simple generic distinctions within a tonal
scheme mapped out by a relatively undifferentiated bass.4 (As is well
known, these distinctions are rooted in contemporaneous theoretical
traditions which it has been Ratner's triumph to reclaim.) Rather, it
integrates an amplification of these traditions with more recent ('Vien-
nese') attitudes to phrase-building, register, dynamics, articulations
and tonality, as well as to variation, developing variation, voice-leading
and control of energy. To be coherent, all such approaches must
inevitably lead to speculation about Mozart's creative character and its
musical intentions. Hence the final section proposes a character
'model' based partly on preliminary work undertaken by earlier critics
and partly on a more ramified conception of style than appears else-
where; it then reviews the entire fantasy in this light before offering a
final reaction to the opening 'problem'. In this way the interpretation
of editorial details is shown to be crucially dependent not just on analy-
sis, but on criticism too. The discussion takes as its starting-point the
text of the Fantasy printed in the Neue MozartAusgabe.5

4 Leonard G. Ratner, ClassicMusic:

Expression,Form,and Style(London, 1980), 60, 312-13, 326.
5
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Neue AusgabesdmtlicherWerke,ix/25/2, ed. Wolfgang Plath and
Wolfgang Rehm (Kassel and Basle, 1986), 70-9. The work is described as 'Fantasie in c KV 475'.
The texts of the examples in this article are based on readings common to the autograph and first
edition, many of which differ from previous editions. In the case of dynamics and portato
markings, however, many of which are lacking in the autograph, we have generally followed the
readings of the corrected state of the Artaria edition, without additional comment; there is good
reason to believe that these represent additions by Mozart - or authorized by him - to a source
intended for broad, public circulation, unlike the autograph. In a few instances, two readings are
given, reflecting significant differences between the sources. See also the facsimile edition of the
autograph, with a foreword by Wolfgang Plath and Wolfgang Rehm (Salzburg, 1991); the facsimile
of the first edition, ed. Norbert Kaltz (Courlay, 1991); and the sole modem edition based on both
the autograph and first edition, ed. Yoshio Watanabe (Tokyo, 1995).
28 CLIFFEISENAND CHRISTOPHER
WINTLE

I. AN EDITORIAL 'PROBLEM'

Until recently, editions of Mozart's Fantasy and Sonata in C minor,

K475 and 457, were based on two textual traditions: one deriving from
Andre's autograph-based edition of 1802 (including a more difficult
version of the cross-hand passage in the third movement of the sonata
at bars 92-101 and 290-310), the other from Artaria's first edition of
1785 (presumably made under the composer's direction and including
additional dynamic marks as well as an easier version of the cross-hand
passage);6 other differences between the sources include pitches,
rhythms, the positioning of dynamics and a variety of articulations. In
the absence of the composer's autograph, however, it was difficult, if
not impossible, to decide which of them derived from Mozart and
which represented arbitraryeditorial interventions - or perhaps merely
typographical corruptions - introduced in the various printings.
The recovery in 1990 of Mozart's score of both Fantasy and Sonata -
unquestionably the most significant Mozart 'find' of recent years7 -

Example 1. Editorial problems 'resolved' by the autograph.

(a)

p1 H
fi

f P f v
10

^ $b<rrr 4 ^?Tf t' -

$ \
a

f autograph/~
12

f a rp h etc.

autograph- i

6 The textual history of the Fantasy and Sonata is described in ibid., xiii-xv; both versions of
the cross-hand passage are reproduced in the score.
7 The
history of the autograph's discovery and sale, as well as numerous details concerning its
physical make-up and readings, is given in Eugene K. Wolf, 'The Rediscovered Autograph of
Mozart's Fantasy and Sonata in C minor, K475/457', Journal of Musicology,10 (1992), 3-47. See
also the facsimile edition of the autograph referred to in note 5 above.
MOZART'SC MINORFANTASY,
K.475 29

therefore promised to resolve at least some editorial problems: the slurs

for the left hand in bars 11-15, for example, almost certainly run from
the second to the sixth notes (not the third to the sixth, although it
should be noted that the left-hand slur in bar 10 unequivocally extends
over the entire bar in both the autograph and the Artaria edition; see
Example la); and the forte (followed by the piano) in bars 19, 169 and
172 belongs in both hands to the second semiquaver of each group, not
to the first, while the piano belongs in the right hand to the third semi-
quaver, not the second, as in all previous editions (see Example lb).8

Example lb.
(b)
18 ,
IY

autograph
f P f P
. A20 _ __ I 11 -
r IaI
I, L- I -1
v . . -
[7rr
nr_ r--- r r- I aN 00
M==
7TTl QN
or
rr-f7 I I I n

fP fP cresc.

P P
f p f p <-autograph

f1 -r
^ r_
p4tW ^^ Y ,a
f P

8 Wolf, 'The Rediscovered

Autograph', 32-3.
30 WINTLE
CLIFFEISENAND CHRISTOPHER

More surprising, perhaps, is the reading of the Fantasy's penultimate

bar (175): Mozart's autograph, like the Artaria edition, gives the dis-
junctive thirds g/eb-d/B1;9 the reading eb/c-d/B1 transmitted by many
editions, including Breitkopf & Hartel's Oeuvrescomplettes of 1799, has
no basis in any source deriving from the composer (see Example Ic).
Other problems, however, are not so easily resolved: at 35c, the
second bar of the second ending to the D major episode, Mozart's
autograph has d' as the topmost note of the left hand; the Artaria
edition, however, has cW',resolving the c#' of bar 35b, but at the same
time anticipating the cd"in the right hand (see Example 2a). And at
bar 51 Mozart's autograph, like the Artaria print, gives the g' for the
right hand as a crotchet; at bar 42, however, the inner-voice a' is a
quaver in both sources (see Example 2b).
Given that Mozart reworked the score on at least one occasion - as
the appearance in the autograph of both the 'easier' and the 'more diffi-
cult' versions of the cross-hand passage shows - it would be convenient
to suppose that the Artaria version of bar 35c, or for that matter the
additional notes in the right hand at bar 172 (see Example 2c), derive
from the composer. However, the source situation is not so straight-
forward. The Artariaedition, which went through multiple revisions and
printings, was, in its earliest incarnation at least, full of obvious

Example Ic.
(c) later edns

ossia: 1w
first edn and autograph
174 ~ ~
A I\ C ~~

f|P cresc. f p

I J. a, I
p
f
7
p
176 1 ;;-
4: '-- I

9 Wolf, ibid., 35,

incorrectly asserts that the e,/c to d/Bq thirds are transmitted by the first
edition.
 f

MOZART'S C MINOR FANTASY,K.475 31

mistakes:10at bar 2 the f#' in the left hand does not resolve to g' but
remains on f#'; at bar 16 the first note in the right hand is given as c#',
not d#'; at bar 21 the last note in the right hand is given as g', not b';at
bar 54 the upper voice in the left hand is d', not c'; and at bar 74 the
octave on the downbeat in the left hand is c/C instead of e/E. All of these
errors were corrected in later issues.11 But considering that, at some
point, there was unknown editorial intervention at bar 175, it may be

Example 2. 'Unresolved' editorial problems.

(a)

I--- [t]
12.
35b 35c

cres_
:_z_u-
cresc.
first edn: ct'
autograph: d'

bars 35b, 35c, articulation: autograph: _Sj

Artaria edn:
|J
\ I

(b)

40 [D]
A -~I: At t A
f' I-, i, ' I l] k . I I _ I. .

.r.. -.Y --1 LJI

Jy.
I,Jy

1.9i @ I
t ? - tj '^ IV-0 --
j .
-w J -0
I
I
51
410%
C---- D l/

v bp
I~~~~~/
rF

g: J in autograph
J in first edn

10 The various states of the editions are described in Gertraut

Haberkamp, Die Erstdruckeder
Werkevon WolfgangAmadeusMozart(Tutzing, 1986).
1 The facsimile of the first edition referred to in note 5 above
reproduces an example of the
sixth issue, now in the library of the University of Basle; this source was compared with a copy of
the first state, now at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan.
32 CLIFF EISEN AND CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

Example 2c.
(c)
first edn as printed; autograph
without two lower inner voices
172 AC;;li !f

af p f p
autograph: ipf
fo p f P

L
ij
f p
L L
f
1J
p f
172 b L b f cresc.

pi: ~r^ ocresc.

p cresc.

bars 172-3, slurring:Artariaas printed; autograph: 1J J ^J m

that the revisions for which there is no clear proof of Mozart's inter-
vention - such as those at bars 35c and 172 - were not sanctioned by the
composer, or that they represent sloppy proof-reading on Artaria's part.
Perhaps the most perplexing - and compelling - reading of the auto-
graph concerns the inner voice in the Bb major Andantino section: in
Mozart's score this is a minim (f or fin bars 86, 87, 94, 95 and 114, but
F, G and A respectively in bars 118, 120 and 122 as part of a rising
sequence; see Example 3); in all modern editions it is given as a
crotchet tied to a quaver, followed by a quaver rest. According to Wolf,
the effect of the reading of the autograph
is slightly to stress the fifth of the chord ... and to furnish greater conti-
nuity and connectedness.... If it was Mozart who made this series of
changes in the first edition, he may have decided that he preferred the
more articulated, less fussy effect of having all three voices end simul-
taneously, as they do in measure 89 of the autograph, for example.12
Contrary to Wolf's assertion, however, the Artaria edition does not
give the revised reading but - exactly as prescribed in Mozart's auto-
graph - a minim. In fact, the crotchet tied to a quaver reading not only
lacks authorial sanction, it appears to be a nineteenth-century inven-
tion: apparently the earliest source to give this rendering is Simrock's
edition of 1803.13 There is, accordingly, no 'intention' on Mozart's part
to be read into the revision.
12
Wolf, 'The Rediscovered Autograph', 34-5.
13 The same
reading is given in Steiner's Viennese edition of the late 1810s, SaemmtlicheWerke
fur das Clavier,Heft 6, and most editions thereafter. Eighteenth-century editions, on the other
hand, consistently give the minim reading, including not only that of Artaria but also those of
Gotz (c. 1786), Longman & Broderip (c. 1790), the Magazin de Musique in Brunswick (1798) and
cahier VI (1799).
Breitkopf & Hartel as part of the Oeuvrescomplettes,
MOZART'S C MINOR FANTASY,K.475 33

Example 3. Andantino, with extended inner-voice F.

Andantino
86
A I L k :`~
r~^ 7:
auto-
\e p4I ,
P \ -
I ' '/ --f
I
D
r 7 f
graph; I p Ifr1 p
P I
,
r*
I
Art Dri-AI.
t

+
(yji_^7 j^
v y nr- rj
89 t+ ;

tLai
ld-
. r~'
cresc.
f
93 _

rf 9 <r~~~~o [r I'If

100

103 .....

Lk~
~?~ ~~.........
..i~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1
 __, f

34 CLIFF EISEN AND CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

Example 3 continued
P. -,, CII-Z
106
A I L -07P . -10-
le-' ig-p-"
-10-'
-op-
dp- a t P- 1 - ----
I

,S?i^ < ^ J. r9 ,y -

109 ." '

"

1' f -i^ :'--',I':' I4 7

-

Irbb X rr r Y

122

Ai
5 - -
'\3

bars 119, 121, 123, 124, slurring: autograph: as printed

Artaria edn:
MOZART'S C MINOR FANTASY,K.475 35

It hardly suffices, however, to note that both Mozart's score and the
first edition agree on the minim reading. The passage is problematic
at best, a moment of (possibly) unresolved instability of both notation
and performance: even a quick glance at the autograph shows that the
original notation of the upper voice in bar 86 was a crotchet followed
by a quaver rest and a dotted semiquaver rest, with both upper voices
sounding in tandem to the end of the second crotchet of the bar. The
lower voice, too, was originally conceived to last two crotchets; when he
changed the right hand, Mozart added flags to the c' and e' of the left
hand, making quavers out of what originally had been crotchets and
interpolating a quaver rest before the crotchet rest at the end of the
bar. Yet Mozart did not make one other apparently necessary (and
typical) change: where he writes polyphonically, each voice has its own
rests. Here, however, the rests are construed as if each hand repre-
sented only one voice, lasting a crotchet and a half; by all rights, the
minim should be followed by a crotchet rest alone, not the quaver and
crotchet rests demanded by the outer voices.
It seems unlikely, but, given these inconsistencies and apparently
'partial' changes, could Mozart have intended, yet failed, to correct the
inner-voice f as well as the rests? Or does the fact that the reading
appears in both authentic sources mean that it is 'correct'? Further-
more, what is to be made of bars 90 and 106, where the inner voice is
not held? Both Wolf and the NeueMozartAusgabesuggest that all occur-
rences of the figure should be rhythmically identical. This, however,
overlooks the fact that their contexts are different: in bars 86-7 and
94-5, where the theme is given a (relatively stable) bar-and-a-halfstate-
ment in two complementary parts (or at the rising sequence at the end
of the section, which has the appearance of a fractured stability, rising
by step but still retaining the sense of complementarity), the minim
appears; but in other passages, with their rhythmic diminutions, har-
monic instability and forward thrust, Mozart writes a crotchet tied to a
quaver.14It is a distinction that is consistently applied throughout the
Andantino. The problem, then, is not simply editorial: above all it is a
question of meaning and performance. And in choosing a reading to
reproduce in an edition, the decision must be based in no small part
on perceptions of Mozart's style in general and the role of this par-
ticular passage within the context of the Fantasy as a whole.
At times - such as the slow movements of the G minor and D major
Quintets, K516 and 593, or the slow introduction to the 'Prague' and
late Eb Symphonies - Mozart's manipulation of texture and textural
contrast threatens temporarily (or even fatally) to overwhelm other
aspects of a piece, including both harmony and melody. The rhythmi-
cally extended F in the Andantino of the C minor Fantasy may be just
such an example: the inner-voice pedal sounds through the notated
14 One
possible inconsistency occurs between the nearly identical bars 106 and 114, but even
here the contexts are different: 114 represents a tonal 'return' to Bb after an extended pedal,
eventually introducing the rising sequence with which the section ends. Bar 106, in any case, repre-
sented a moment of indecision for Mozart, as a now indecipherable correction in the autograph
shows.
36 CLIFFEISENAND CHRISTOPHER
WINTLE

silence of the remaining parts, penetrating the otherwise spare textures

and drawing the ear to the literal 'heart' of the passage. At the same
time, it forces upon the performer two decisions. One of them con-
cerns tempo: for the F to sound sufficiently after the other voices, the
tempo of the Andantino must be taken fairly quickly - otherwise the
note will already have expired, especially on a fortepiano. The other
concerns the re-entry of the uppermost voice with an upbeat demisemi-
quaver: does it follow in strict tempo, or is some period of silence or
hesitation necessary after the fading of the inner voice? If the latter,
then the beginning of the bar must be taken quickly but the ending
distended, threatening the metrical stability of the passage. Seen (or
performed) in this way, the Andantino can be understood to function
ambiguously within the context of the Fantasy as a whole: for all its
tonal solidity - surely its most important attribute - it nevertheless lacks
metrical and rhythmic stability. Accordingly, it too becomes fantasy-
like, vaguely reminiscent of the metrical and rhythmic irregularities
that characterize the tonally unstable opening of the work with its ten-
tative, metrically flexible and registrally displaced resolutions of the
repeated unison gestures.
Perhaps there is no editorial problem after all - perhaps the problem
is our unwillingness to accept Mozart as something other than a pur-
veyor of 'classical' regularity, both technically and affectively.15The
chief fault with many modern Mozart editions, after all, is not that they
sometimes fail to take seriously the composer's notes; on the contrary,
many of them scrupulously reproduce the autograph pitch readings.
Rather, it is that they arbitrarily misread or falsify other notational
details, including dynamics and articulation,16or fail - on the basis of
anachronistic stylistic assumptions - to confront the possible impli-
cations of that notation and to explicate in detail the numerous pas-
sages requiring special comment. There is, accordingly, every reason
to retain the notation of the original sources and not, as in the case of
the C minor Fantasy, unilaterally to impose a 'solution' to a 'problem'
that may not exist. Editorial intervention, well-meaning as it may be,
serves in this instance only to shackle, not to liberate, the creative imag-
ination of both performer and listener.

II. SOME ANALYTICALCONSEQUENCESOF THE EDITORIAL 'PROBLEM'

Let us return to what we said about the original beginning of the
Andantino (bars 86ff.; see above, Example 3), namely that 'the inner-
voice pedal [F] sounds through the notated silence of the remaining
parts, penetrating the otherwise spare textures and drawing the ear to
the literal "heart"of the passage'. This brings together two apparently
contradictory aspects of the passage. On the one hand the sustained f
15 For an
original interpretation of the extent to which Mozart is in essence both technically
and aesthetically disjunctive, see Daniel Chua, 'Haydn as Romantic: A Chemical Experiment with
Instrumental Music', Haydn Studies,ed. W. Dean Sutcliffe (Cambridge, 1998), 120-51.
16 See in particular Cliff Eisen, 'The Old and New Mozart Editions', Early Music, 19 (1991),
513-32.
MOZART'S C MINOR FANTASY,K.475 37

strikes us as maverick; and on the other it seems to offer the key to

something vital. The maverick aspect is self-evident. In the little 'wood-
wind quartet' with which the Andantino opens, the extended f lingers
on as an inner part clumsily attenuated by an inattentive horn player.
This confounding of the quartet's unity of purpose shows a wryly
subversive wit, all the more subtle for its understatement - the dynamic
is piano - and no less astonishing for the forthright cadenza that pre-
cedes it. Thereafter, the abrupt shift of tone in bar 87 as the dynamic
turns to forte (in fact a return to the manner of the cadenza) and the
precipitous introduction of the bar 88 material 'a crotchet early' at the
end of bar 87 seem corrective: the music acknowledges its own delin-
quency even as it tries to eradicate it. Thus in bars 88-9 the three, four
or five parts are punctiliously coordinated, and throughout the rest of
the period (to bar 93) there is no repetition of the opening disarray.
On the contrary, the little piano plaintes in bar 88 and the feminine
ending in bar 89 put on a display of tenderness. In the Andantino,
therefore, what Mozart stages is an intricate little drama of ensemble.17
This much is obvious. But why does the extended f also appear to
take us to the 'heart' of the passage? And what is the vital understand-
ing to which it holds the key? These questions are harder to answer,
and raise three preliminary analytical issues - of proportion, local form
and large-scale tonality - which we may take in turn.

(1) Proportion
Let us imagine that Mozart wrote the melody at the opening of the
Andantino differently (see Example 4). The regularity of this 'back-
ground' version, which is not so very dissimilar to - say - the Menuetto
from the Eb major Serenade for Wind Instruments, K.375 (1781), has
the merit of emphasizing the one-bar proportion of Mozart's basic
melodic idea. The idea is made up of three beats (in crotchets): the
first is an anacrusis and the remaining two fall in the next bar. In such
a simple scenario, the inner-voice minim f assumes its place, unsub-
versively, within the ensemble.
Now let us see what Mozart did 'instead' (see Example 5a). There is
no anacrusis to the basic melodic idea as it is first heard in bar 86, nor

Example 4. Andantino: antecedent 'background' melody.

3 II

17 The two sides of the

expression in the Andantino recall the antithetical nature of the opening
of Mozart's String Quartet in D minor, K.421, as emphasized in the celebrated texted analysis by
Jerome-Joseph de Momigny, in his Courscompletd'harmonieet de composition(1803-6), iii, 109ff.
This is quoted in Ian Bent, 'Analysis', TheNew GroveDictionaryof Music and Musicians (London,
1980), i, 340-88 (p. 349). In both cases, the duality forms the source of the thematic working of
the entire section or movement.
38 CLIFF EISEN AND CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

is there one when the idea is heard again in bars 94, 106, 114 or 118;
and the second of its two remaining beats is reduced from a crotchet
to a quaver. Mozart's idea, in other words, is considerably curtailed in
comparison with the 'background' version (Example 4). In particular,
when we hear at bar 94 the repeat of the opening eight-bar period (see
Example 5b), we are aware that at its start the melody is 'too sparse',
that it is offset by 'too much' silence. Indeed, this basic melodic idea of
Mozart's is an elegant, self-denying exhalation that compels our atten-
tion as much by what it does not say as by what it does.
As if to confirm this, the 'missing features' are replaced as the
antecedent progresses (see Example 5c). In bars 86-7 the anacrusis is
'restored', if only as a demisemiquaver; and in bar 88 the final feature
- the quaver - is expanded to two quavers, c" and g". Moreover, bars
88-9 represent a further expansion of the duration of the melodic idea,
so that it now lasts four crotchets rather than three; this compensates
for the peremptory metrical displacement at the end of bar 87, and
serves to dissolve the accumulated energy of the entire antecedent. It
is also an astonishing transformation (as the asterisks in Example 5c
show). For if things had continued as before, the next version of the
melodic idea would have come in a single breath:
melody: (ebl")-g"-f"-eb"-d"(-c ")
bass: eb -f
But as Mozart writes it, the forte attack (on g") is now isolated from the
more extended piano exhalation that follows, and enters so precipi-
tously on a weak beat that it 'causes' a break in texture, which then
releases the new figuration.

Example 5. Andantino: basic idea.

(a) (b)

b -( c
(c)"' 1 tY 11

1 2 3 4~ ? ?$

(d)

1 2 3 4
(e) 2

1-- 2-- 3
MOZART'SC MINORFANTASY,
K.475 39

We may draw two conclusions from this. First, the music proceeds
'backwards'.Rather than moving from a 'regular' basic melodic idea to
variant forms as the melody unfolds, it moves from an extreme variant
form back towards a 'regular' form, or at least towards a regular pro-
portion. The aesthetic effect is disconcerting: right from the outset lis-
teners feel something is 'wrong'. The basic melodic idea strikes them as
too short for its context. They wait for the point at which it finds its
justification; and this point comes in the consequent (bars 90-3), where
this same melodic figure is used for impulsive liquidations and climax-
building (see Example 5d). Significantly, these bars are now introduced
by an anacrusis of five rising semiquavers (matching the falling ones in
bar 88) and progress by units of two (not three) crotchets' length. In
the supporting harmony, therefore, the maverick f can no longer be
extended: rather, our attention is turned to a new play of mirror images
between melody and bass, simultaneously falling and rising.
Second, in bars 86-7 the extended f, far from being maverick, is
closer to the 'background regularity' (see Example 5e). By clarifying the
underlying three-beat model, it acts more 'normally' than the melody it
accompanies. In other words, the f anchors our 'background' under-
standing, and throws into relief the subversive 'foreground'.

(2) Localform
We may now consider the relation of the extended F to the local form
(Example 3). Like the earlier D major interlude (from bar 26), the
Andantino is clearly a 'rounded binary' dance movement. Yet, unlike
it, it has written-out repeats which include developing variation: in the
first part, bars 86-93 return an octave lower in bars 94-101 with sig-
nificant changes and a drop of a further octave in the consequent. Simi-
larly in the second part, bars 102-9 return in bars 110-17, partly in
transposition down an octave, partly with decorative variation, and
partly with developing variation. The second part also balances the first
part's eight bars with its four plus four bars, in which the first four are
a trio on the dominant, and the second four a foreshortened version
of the entire first part: now there is a consequent but no antecedent.
As in the D major interlude, the ending is interrupted to allow for an
extension (bars 118-24). This incorporates the further drop of an
octave found in the first part's consequent, and acts as a bridge to the
following Piuiallegro.
Earlier it was shown how the maverick F appears at two registral
levels: immediately above middle C in the opening period (in bars
86-7), and immediately below it in the (varied) reprise (bars 94-5).18
Of course, there is nothing privileged about this arrangement: other
notes behave similarly. Yet it is striking how in the second part of this
18 In the bass in bar 97, there is a beautiful
splitting of the two notes F, with the second sounding
an octave lower than expected. This is to prepare for the downward octave transposition of the
entire consequent starting in the following bar. There is a reciprocal, though unexpected, rein-
forcement of this very low F' in bar 100. The only other point in the Fantasy at which this note
appears (it is the lowest in the piece) is in the cadenza immediately preceding the Andantino.
40 CLIFFEISENAND CHRISTOPHER
WINTLE

Andantino the F appears at the same two levels: above middle C in bars
102-3, and below it in bars 104-5. More than this, it is highlighted as
a repeated-note dominant pedal in a scrupulously wrought 'woodwind
trio'. We are compelled to ask: is this drop in register at bar 104 just a
convenience, allowing the upper parts space in which to invert them-
selves and move in sixths rather than thirds? Or is the registral
'coupling' also part of a larger process of developing variation? To
answer this, we must first digress.
Initially, this reedy trio sounds like an amorous pastoral far removed
in tone from the wrong-footing comedy of the Andantino's opening:
the upper lines move in harmonious parallel thirds in triple time like
the enamoured woodland pairs described in Figaroso enviously by Mar-
cellina in her 'I1capro e la capretta'.19They glide smoothly from c"up
to g" in an unbroken diatonic slur, and then retrace their flight in
coquettishly chromatic slurred staccatos; their varied repeat, in which
the upper creature becomes the lower, and the lower the upper, flir-
tatiously completes a pair of two-bar phrases in the self-satisfied know-
ledge that nothing so simple has yet been heard in the Andantino.
Nevertheless, the lines show an unbroken transformation from the
beginning. The melodic compass of the trio (a'-g") is identical to that
of the antecedent in the first part (bars 86-9) and the movement in
thirds - even falling through g to c (on the way to B6) - has been skil-
fully foreshadowed at the end of the consequent's repeat (bars 100-1).
Indeed the piano dynamic and slurred articulation also dominated the
last three bars of the consequent, eradicating the earlier unstable
piano/forte and introducing a slurred, embellished, aria-like style which
eased the course of the music while enriching both line and harmony
with chromatics. This general mollifying of the discourse responds
directly to the tone of the tender contrasting phrase which dissolved
energy in the antecedent at bars 88-9, and ensures that the new texture
of the trio seems not merely fresh but inevitable. Within this scenario,
the registral 'coupling' of the repeated Fs in the trio manifestly paral-
lels the 'coupling' of the Fs in the first part.20
Beyond this, registral coupling itself becomes an even more promi-
nent feature of the return of the consequent at bars 106 and again at
bars 118-19. Here there is no longer a crescendo, but a dramatic upward
leap of an octave, so that by bar 107 the highest of all notes, f", is
reached. There is no further progression to g'" (and on Mozart's forte-
piano cannot be); rather the music falls expansively to the lower f" in
bar 108 in the slurred aria-styleof bars 99-101. Following the close in

19 Le nozzedi Figaro,K.492 (1786), Act 4.

20 In SonataForms(New York, 1980), 214, Charles Rosen makes a similar point about the lead-
in to the subsidiary (A major) theme of the first movement of the 'Prague' Symphony in D major,
K.504: 'The second theme begins three notes before the cadence is actually accomplished, and it
opens and continues with the simple formula used for the cadence. The break in texture is both
clearly set in relief and overridden by the entrance of the new theme: in fact we do not even know
that the theme has started until it is well into the next bar. Thematic and harmonic structure are,
therefore, very slightly out of phase, a sophisticated technique that achieves the continuity that
the eighteenth-century theorist (like Koch) thought necessary for the symphony, in contrast to
the solo sonata.'
MOZART'S C MINOR FANTASY,K.475 41

bar 109, the varied repeat of the trio music sounds as a natural continu-
ation: in bars 110-11 its f"-e"-eb "-d"-d>"-c" 'intensifies' a similar chro-
matic filling-out in bar 108. Similarly, the registral coupling of the bass
Fs in bars 110-13 'continues' the cascade of F through the octaves.
Yet even the Andantino's closing extension provides a final twist to
the extraordinary history of the Fs: the two-bar 'model of transition',
so conscientiously established and applied in bars 118-24, combines
the form of the antecedent from the opening period (including the
extended F) with that of the returning consequent from bars 106-7;
here, though, the model continues the leap from d to f with a further
leap to f". Thus the F bounces back irrepressibly into the space from
which it came so as to climb to the bb"which will open the Pituallegro.

(3) Tonality
We may learn still more about the F and the entire Fantasy by con-
sidering the note F# as well. Let us return to the opening period
(Example 3). In Schenkerian terms, the principal voice of the
antecedent charts an ascent from d" through e," and f" to g"; this g"
then falls to f" and on. In the consequent, there is a similar ascent,
though here the d "-eb"-f" passes through the long appoggiatura f# "
before reaching g".At the point of resolution, both the dynamic and the
character of the music change: piano music of limpid, aria-likesensibility
with tender palpitating syncopations counters the preceding single-
minded figures which have reached f# "by way of a crescendo to forte.
antecedent: d "-e "-f"- -g"-f"
consequent: d"-e'"-f"-f#"-g"-f"
Now, this appoggiatura f#" establishes a 'topic' of chromaticism
which Mozart explores in various ways. In the varied repeat of the con-
sequent (bars 98-101), the new melodic space from f up to bb is
enriched by a and ab as well as f# and g, and the bass chromatically
inflected. In bars 103 and 105 of the 'woodwind trio', the melodic space
from f" down to a' is also chromatically filled out. These passages com-
plement each other, and demonstrate how the introduction of f#" in
the consequent eventually releases all 12 notes.
No less fascinating is the return of the Andantino's opening material
at bars 106-9, now compressed from eight to four bars as we have seen.
At its first appearance the melody still retains a chromatic residue of
the 'woodwind trio' music, as noted earlier; when it returns in the lower
register at bars 114-17, it is free of chromaticism (in Schoenberg's
terms, the chromaticism has been neutralized). However, the final
melodic d' is supported by an interrupted cadence, with the bass
moving F-F#"-G. Of course, on the face of it this is a conventional
enough move; yet context may suggest otherwise. The extension in bars
118-24 is guided by a bass ascent cast here as a compound line:
118-19 120-1 122-3 124 125
inner voice: d eb f f# g
'keys': B6 C D G
42 CLIFF EISEN AND CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

The modulation from Bb major passes through the illusory key of C

minor to D minor, which then becomes the dominant of G minor: in
the inner voice f once again passes through f# to g. Thus the earlier
interrupted cadence has turned into a full modulation, andfhas been
replaced by the new leading-note f#.
In the context of the entire Fantasy, this play of F and F# is crucial in
representing rival tonal pulls to the flat and sharp sides. The tonal
scheme is summarized in Figure 1. The opening Adagio begins in
C minor, and famously creates instability without surrendering the
spectre of stability (this 'problem' is solved at the close when 'the same
music' promotes stability alone). This tonic C is flanked by its upper
and lower Neapolitans, Db major and B major/minor; within the B
major/minor music, G major sounds locally as VI, without relinquish-
ing its broader sense as V of C. The next section, the cantabile Adagio,
is in D major. To be sure, this is the relative of B minor; but, more
remotely, it is also Db'sNeapolitan (D is a semitone above DL,and DLa
semitone above C). Reciprocally, the BLmajor of the Andantino, which
is reached through a modulatory Sturmund Drang cum cantabile cum
brilliant Allegro (X), is tonally the inverted Neapolitan of the inverted
Neapolitan (BLis a semitone below B, and B a semitone below C). The
Piu allegro which follows the Andantino is in Bb'srelative, G minor (the
second move to a parallel tonality), which eventually turns into the
dominant of C minor, having modulated to its own Neapolitan, AL,and
back. After the return to primotempo,when the tonic C minor is stabil-
ized, prominence is given to the Neapolitan degrees of both tonic and
dominant, DLand Ab. Thus the overall tonal strategy for the most part
avoids conventional key relations (there is no section in the relative, Eb
major), and systematically explores remote ones instead.
There are two important features here. As momentum is dissolved at
the end of the opening C minor Adagio (see Example lb), the domi-
nant note of B minor, F#, is isolated melodically to become the third
of the subsequent D major: large-scale hearing will relate this note to
the diminished fifth - the diabolical tritone F# - in the very first bar.
By comparison, the close of the unstable brilliant section (X) preced-
ing the Andantino establishes F? as dominant of BL,yet does so by
mixing the notes F# and F in the bass: it thus alludes to the B and BL

Db D V/g
c V/c (x) g-Np-g-V/c-c
B/b V/b Bl
Adagio Adagio Allegro Andantino Piu allegro/adagio

(X) = a-g-F/f - Dl/eb/DL/c# - V of: b/a/g/F-e/d/C+dim7 on f#/Bb)

Figure 1. The tonal scheme of Mozart's C minor Fantasy, K475.

MOZART'S C MINOR FANTASY,K.475 43

tonalities in a kind of tonal mixture (see Example 6). Again, the tritone
relation is both engaged and extended: for the cantabile section in
which the B tonality appears begins within an incomplete antecedent/
consequent structure in F major/minor, which leads into a modulation
by descending whole tones (these are both upper melodic notes and
actual or implied tonalities): F-D--E--D--B and on through A and
G to F before dropping a semitone to E-D-C. As C is reached, the
F# is again heard in the bass. This slips to F, resolving diminished
seventh into dominant seventh and thereby preparing for the follow-
ing Andantino.
When in the first bar of the Andantino, therefore, the maverick F
sounds forth, it continues to stabilize Bbmajor after music in which F#
has again been the focus of extraordinary turbulence. From these pre-
liminary observations we may now move on to consider the final and
crucial generic aspect of this F.

Example 6. F becoming V of Bt, with F/F# bass mixture.

[L]
60 I m\
-
I t P `~jl
cresc. f p
J- -IJJ
1 ~iT cresc. f
64
is.. "arff I;
tI
Fft
cresc. f w

cresc.
f p
44 CLIFF EISEN AND CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

Example 6 continued
72 # I [P]
tr, b, tr f ~. P- k
iA. iS f I$fl ^
.ITrr- l 1. III, r1. I
#_ -
rh
Ih_
-
I _ 1LJ
3
_I LJ _ LJL
3 3 3

f
75

1' fo I OF _ > ,`7 i1

1-';. - a
I 3n
ft/_ '-_ -

81

-
(:
I

bars 657, 69, 71, autograph: no staccato signs

III. K.475 AND MOZART'S CREATIVECHARACTER

An account of 'Mozart's creative character' useful to editors and ana-

lysts alike needs to build on what is offered by the aestheticism of the
early part of the twentieth century and the psychologically orientated
criticism of its later part. In the 1930s Donald Francis Tovey denied
Mozart the Beethovenian status of 'tragic artist', arguing instead that
he spoke 'throughout, the language of comic opera'.21 In the 1940s
Hans Keller drew on letters and biography in his attempt to relate char-
acter traits to music and thereby demonstrate a case of creative revenge

21 Donald Francis
Tovey, 'Mozart, Symphony No. 40' (1935-9), Essays in Musical Analysis:
Symphoniesand OtherOrchestralWorks(London, 1981), 439-43. Tovey wrote: 'Comedy uses the
language of real life; and people in real life often find the language of comedy the only dignified
expression for their deepest feelings.'
 K.475
MOZART'SC MINORFANTASY, 45

by Mozart against Boccherini; similarly, in the 1950s he suggested an

expression of unconscious ambivalence on Mozart's part by the com-
poser's use of Haydn's tragic key of F minor for mock tragedy in Bar-
barina's 'L'ho perduta' from Figaro.22 Keller also suggested a creative
typology which linked Mozart with Britten rather than with Handel or
Schubert: both men, he argued, showed a common love for virtuosity,
chose rebellious subjects for opera, and mingled instrumental and
theatrical genres.23 And in the 1960s Brigid Brophy cast Mozart as
guardian of the realms of unconscious fantasy in the face of Enlighten-
ment's determination to 'pierce illusion'.24 Something of these
approaches has persisted to the present day, so that in the 1990s
Maynard Solomon finds in Mozart's operas, and especially Figaro,
'unanticipated passions that threaten both psychological equilibrium
and the social order'.25
Many of these positions may be challenged without being altogether
dismissed. Mozart's 'human comedy' is at most an overarching stance
for a composer who worked in so many theatrical genres: opera seria,
tragedie lyrique, azione sacra, azione teatrale, festa teatrale, Singspiel, melo-
drama, dramma giocoso, opera buffa, opera comique, serenata and inter-
mezzo among them; in his ironization of Barbarina Mozart may notjust
have had Haydn 'in mind' (if at all), but rather the Gluck of, for
instance, the F minor 'Choeur des dieux infernaux' from Alceste; and
part of Mozart's comedy actually promoted the Enlightenment's
debunkings - witness the alternative titles such as II dissoluto punito (Don
Giovanni) or La scuola degli amanti (Cosi fan tutte). Both Keller and
Solomon, however, do make the contrast between the subversive
matter of the works and their commanding manner. Keller cites
Mozart's boast in a letter to his father of 7 February 1778 that he could
adopt almost 'any kind and any style';26 and Solomon sees the operatic
'fears of separation, betrayal, and silence' offset by the power of
Mozart's music to make 'unexceptionable utopian affirmations' of
'love, marriage, the good society, brotherhood, innocence, virtue,
[and] reconciliation'.27 These oppositions, indeed, open up a fresh
approach to the Fantasy K.475. By pitting Mozart's unprecedented
command of genre on the one hand against the impudent subversive
games he plays with subgenre, style and gesture on the other, we may
constitute an intra-musical dialectical field less directly dependent
upon psychological, cultural, social and other extra-musical models.

22 Hans Keller, 'Mozart and Boccherini', Music Review,8 (1947), 214-47; idem,
'Key Character-
istics', Tempo,40 (1956), 5-16 (repr. in Keller, Essayson Music,ed. Christopher Wintle, Cambridge,
1994, 158-68).
23 Hans Keller, 'The Musical Character', BenjaminBritten:A Commentary on his Works
froma Group
of Specialists,ed. Donald Mitchell and Hans Keller (London, 1952), 319-51 (see esp. pt I, 'The
Extra-Historical Aspect: Britten and Mozart: A Challenge in the Form of Variations on an Un-
familiar Theme', 319-34, originally written in 1946).
24 Brigid Brophy, MozarttheDramatist:The Valueof his Operasto Him, to his Age, and to Us (1964;
rev. edn, London, 1988), 274.
25
Maynard Solomon, Mozart(London, 1995), 507.
26 Keller, 'The Musical Character', 350.
27
Solomon, Mozart,519.
46 CLIFFEISENAND CHRISTOPHER
WINTLE

A 'composed' fantasy for solo keyboard is, of course, a contradiction

in terms: by definition, improvisations are best written in the air. Yet
contemporaneous theory seeks discipline for fantasy even while grant-
ing it licence to break down the barriers of conformity: for it is the disci-
pline that makes its 'composition' meaningful. From this point of view,
K.475 is a model of the handling of loose form in a free-standing piece
(Schoenberg's aneinanderReihung)in contrast to sonata, minuet, rondo
or other genres that proceed by developing variation within acknow-
ledged schemata.28On the other hand, as Leonard Ratner indicates, a
composed fantasy also amplifies principles governing subsidiary parts
of other genres - accompanied recitative in opera or introductions to
instrumental overtures, symphonies or sonatas.29 From this point of
view, it is entirely plausible to view K.475 as an introduction (exordium)
adopting an oblique approach to the following Sonata, K457.30
More particularly, K.475 can be understood as a pedagogic demon-
stration of a putative Mozartian 'Art of Fantasy'which builds on earlier
models such as those offered in the Essayof C. P. E. Bach.31 Mozart's
piece is not just immaculately achieved: it assimilates and surpasses
inherited precepts. The opening Adagio establishes the requisite tonal
frame, here C minor, and begins with part of a standard bass formula
- the descending chromatic scale treated in the minor (Bach's
Example 472 b/ii); it falls from C to G, though enriching the tonality
with the extraordinary digressions to upper and lower Neapolitans
described earlier and using diminished harmony for rapid modulation
in the way Bach recommends; and it stands on the dominant pedal (G)
before indulging the Bachian 'rational deception' of side-slipping to an
F# harmony at the close. However, this side-slip, forcefully signalled by
imitation in the keyboard texture, has been prepared in the bass:
earlier, the Gb was transformed into F# even before G was reached.
Thus Mozart foreshadows the goal of the progression and demon-
strates his own elegant handling of chromatics.
Unspecified by Bach, though, is the way Mozart draws the conse-
quences of 'rational deception'. In the penultimate section, Pitu
allegro, energy intensifies as the keys progress remorselessly through a
circle of fifths, from tonic G to 'diabolical' tritone DL,with a standing
on the dominant of D; for two bars. But, by a truly 'fantastic' sleight of
hand, this dominant turns into tonic as the dominant-seventh note GL

28 The
Schoenbergian musical terminology throughout this essay is drawn from Arnold
Schoenberg, TheMusicalIdea and theLogic,Techniqueand Art of its Presentation,ed., trans. and with
a commentary by Patricia Carpenter and Severine Neff (New York, 1995).
29 Ratner, ClassicMusic, ch. 18, 'Fantasia;Introduction; Recitative', 308-10.
30 Unlike the celebrated introduction to the C
major String Quartet, K465, however, this
minor-mode Fantasy does not introduce a major-mode sonata movement. Mozart knew, and may
even have had in mind, the Fantasie et sonata pour le clavecin ou piano-forteby Johann Wilhelm
Haiissler,oeuvre I, published by the author in Moscow (n.d.), in which the Fantasy is in C minor
and the Sonata in C major. The Fantasy is for the most part Allegro and Presto with a closing
cadential Andante; the Sonata has two movements, a Vivace and an Allegro ma non presto,
connected by an Adagio. There is no composed connection between the Fantasy and the Sonata.
31 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Essayon the TrueArt of Playing Keyboard Instruments(1753), trans.
and ed. William J. Mitchell (London, 1974), 430-45.
MOZART'S C MINOR FANTASY,K.475 47

yields to a G~ (see Example 7a): thereafter, as energy dissipates, the new

Ab major is handled as VI of C minor, leading to F minor (iv) and G
minor. The note G then becomes the dominant of C in preparation for
the return of the opening music. To clinch this lead-back, Ab-G is iso-
lated as a motif (see Example 7b). When the primotempofinally arrives,
the recapitulation is foreshortened and the bass leaps immediately
from C to ALand G without sinking by step. Once again the Ab is high-
lighted, and the implications of a chromatic event thereby continue to
be drawn 'long after the event'; indeed, the entire final section goes on

Example 7. Piu allegro (excerpts).

(a) sleight-of-hand modulation to Ab major

137 .

(b) connection to final Adagio, with prevalence of Ab-G

156

|i iRbl'^ b'!Quw f Y t' C a

sf p

sf P

^ Primo tempo
P

161 1 7r7 L

bar 161, autograph: no slurs 'y'

-^j
@.
^ p ---------
only slurred
Artaria edn: last 4 notes only
48 CLIFF EISEN AND CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

to review the opening material in light of the very harmonies VI, iv and
V established in the lead-back.32
The most potent manifestations of the art of fantasy, however, lie in
the role given to the performer. Written-down fantasy demands a com-
plicity between creator and executant. The music must give the illusion
that it has never been written, just as the performer must enact the role
of the spontaneous creator. To this end the composer must incorpo-
rate within the work an exaggerated theatre of spontaneous gesture.33
The music of K.475 thus begins with pathetic unisons which rally atten-
tion while signalling a stabilityand fullness to come through their spare
chromatic austerity.34It ends with a magnificent flourish, as scales span-
ning four octaves race upwards in hemidemisemiquavers. The connec-
tions between the sections are carefully signalled, with a variety of
meticulously contrived transformations, giving time for the fantasist to
convert liquidating repeated notes into a new melody, to think ahead
through a fermata, to establish authority with a flamboyant cadenza, to
work through a connecting modulation with a pedantically exact use
of a model and two sequential repetitions, and to dissolve sound and
texture into empty space prior to the resumption of the opening. The
various subgenres, moreover, give the player ample opportunity to
demonstrate most aspects of technique in alternating tempos: porten-
tous declamation offset by singing style in the Adagio, tremolandos,
arpeggiated figuration and bravurain the Allegro, rhythmic play in the
Andantino, brilliant figuration in the Piu allegro, and grandeur in the
closing Adagio.
On the other hand, Mozart's virtuosic integration of 'any kind and
any style' within the fantasia amounts to more than an assembly of
heterogeneous subgeneric shards. The framing Adagio sections estab-
lish a principal subgenre, which in itself is an amalgam. This is impor-
tant, for in different ways each section (including the Andantino)
blends opposites, and this blending is as integral to Mozart's notion of
fantasy as is the unorthodox tonal scheme. What is united in the Adagio
are the two sides of the conventionalized character of C minor, the

32 Composition theory might also pause over the variety of ways in which Mozart handles high-
points in the Andantino, and the deployment of all three diminished sevenths at the end of the
Piu allegro as part of the lead-back to the Adagio. The encircling of tonic and dominant notes by
upper and lower chromatic neighbours also pervades the Fantasy. Here, obviously, the AV-G of
the lead-back adumbrates the return of these notes in the melodic idea of the Adagio. But, less
obviously, the connection of the D major interlude to the Sturm und Drang section charts the
movement in the bass from D to D# and then on to E and F, thus encircling the dominant of A
minor.
33 Elaine Sisman cites
Johann Mattheson and Dene Barnett to support her view that the
gestures of actors and orators form an integral part of the musical oration and should be recog-
nized as 'an essential conveyor of meaning': see her 'Genre, Gesture, and Meaning in Mozart's
Prague Symphony', MozartStudies2, ed. Cliff Eisen (Oxford, 1997), 27-84 (pp. 64-5).
34 See
Janet M. Levy, 'Texture as a Sign in Classic and Early Romantic Music', Journal of the
AmericanMusicologicalSociety,35 (1982), 482-531, for a stimulating discussion of the textural
function of unisons. There are two other beautiful foreshadowings in the first five bars. In bar 3
the embellishment qualifies the austerity of the unisons by adumbrating the singing style of bar
6; and on the last quaver of bar 5, the unisons are abandoned in favour of a single quaver in the
right hand, which prefigures the single melodic line introduced in the next bar.
MOZART'SC MINORFANTASY,
K.475 49

heroic and the intimate:35according to Francesco Galeazzi (1796) the

key is 'tragic' and 'fit to express grand misadventures, deaths of heroes,
and grand but mournful, ominous and lugubrious actions'; whereas for
C. F. D. Schubart (1784) it serves 'the lament of unhappy love': 'All lan-
guishing, sighing of the love-sick soul lies in this key.' J.-P. Rameau
(1722),J.-J. Rousseau (1749 and 1768),J.J. H. Ribock (1783) andJ.J.
Heinse (1795) likewise hear 'tenderness' in its lamenting. In K.475
both sides are quickly in evidence. In the first two bars a galvanizing
stentorian unison (markedforte) announces the portentous and serious
flat-side C minor, and is answered eerily by a chromatic continuation
in octaves, and a spare numbed response that vanishes into space (dis-
tributiowith piano and pianissimodynamics). Thereafter (bar 6), as the
pathetic bass line sinks into the abyss (catabasis), the second side
emerges: a lyrical singing voice, supported by a tender Alberti
accompaniment, which transfigures the rhythm of the opening. Regis-
trally, its line is cast first for soprano and then for bass, and its song rises
in hope or falls in sorrow. In the Neapolitan 'keys' of Db or B, it sings
quietly in unimpeded hope; but whenever the brazen music returns
with its antithetical dynamics, it is unsettled and sorrowful. Moreover,
the inexorable stabbing unisons (as we must imagine them) sound
forth forbiddingly like the famous chorus of Gluckian furies, trans-
porting us and the singer to the portals of the underworld (ombra).36
Throughout bars 6-15, then, the heroic and intimate, masculine and
feminine, unfold concurrently.
But from bar 16 these two principles are first separated and then
shown to have consequence: two bars of quiet (voice-exchanging) song,
first devotional (B major, bar 16) then plangent (B minor, bar 17), yield
to the fresh-faced intimacy of the G major harmony (pianissimo). Out
of this attenuated state an insistent, disruptive swirling figure in
demisemiquavers now guides our attention from the depths into the
empyrean (anabasis;see Example lb). The music intensifies with flam-
boyant inner-voice imitations (forte) extending a chord of the aug-
mented sixth, and establishing V of B minor. Crucially, though, the E#
does not immediately resolve to F#, but leaps into an inner voice. In
bar 22, therefore, when the sombre, charged, pitiful exhalation that is
climax to both the pathos and the lament arrives piercingly (fortepiano)
on the second crotchet, it not merely establishes the tonic of B minor,
but completes the voice-leading (bars 21-2); in its subsequent fall the
melody retraces the course of the previous descent, though now
using characterful dotted figures with antithetical dynamics. It is as
if the expression of both the heroic and the intimate had been united

35 Rita Steblin, A
Historyof KeyCharacteristics
in theEighteenthand EarlyNineteenthCenturies(1981;
rev. edn, New York, 1996), 227-31.
36
Birgitte Moyer, 'Ombraand Fantasia in Late Eighteenth-Century Practice', Conventionin Eight-
eenth-Centuryand Nineteenth-Century Music:Essays in Honor of LeonardG. Ratner,ed. Wye J. Allan-
brook, Janet M. Levy and William P. Mahrt (New York, 1992), 283-306. Moyer refers to
descriptions of ombrascenes in the operas of Jomelli, Gluck (Orfeo and Alceste) and Mozart
(Mitridate,Lucio Silla and Idomeneo).
50 CLIFF EISEN AND CHRISTOPHER WINTLE

in a single epithet. Thereafter, the energy disperses in a classic liqui-

dation and the vision moves away, almost out of hearing (calando to
pianissimo).
Between the flanking Adagio sections are four interlinked 'scenes'.
The first, in D major, is again a hybrid. On the one hand, as a rounded
binary-form dance in decorously four-square proportions, it evokes the
high style and politesse of the court as if it were a minuet, especially in
its central part. On the other hand, it continues the common-time
singing style of the opening Adagio as a kind of cavatina, and achieves
a devotional tone by sinking harmonically through thirds (F# to D) at
its outset. Yet even this hybrid is consistently subverted by the demands
of fantasy. The sforzando on the third beat of both antecedent and con-
sequent continues the instability of the opening Adagio, and eventu-
ally leads to the dislocation of the 'scene'. For in its very last two bars,
this sforzando is replaced by a crescendo; and the ensuingforte causes
a rupture (abruptio),a dispersal of energy (distributio)and a turn to a
new topic (apostrophe).
But this new topic is astonishing. For the second 'scene' (Allegro)
takes us into the world of operaseria,and presents a turbulent encounter
between two high-born characters, a man and a woman, who are rep-
resented by two styles. The tremolandos and chromatic circling figures
recall something of the 'male' third-act aria 'Se il rigor d'ingrate sorte'
from Mozart's Mitridate,re di Ponto (1770). The anti-social force of this
Sturmund Drang passage sweeps away the four-square decorum of the
preceding 'scene' with an 'irrational' nine-bar phrase, introduced by
stark bass octaves and consisting of a number of interlinked figures
once again integrating antithetical dynamics. Even more than in the
opening Adagio, there is no tonal stability, only the statement of model
and sequence in a succession of tonalities which sink by whole tones,
A to G to F (with later passing allusions to El, Db and B before F
becomes V of Bb). Nor is there an actual 'singing line' here, merely an
accompaniment to a scene, a melodrama without words perhaps.
Even when the 'female' music enters quietly to a lyric accompani-
ment in a beautiful, embellished singing style in F major, unease soon
comes to the fore. The second phrase of the antecedent swells to a
high, stabbingforte, the consequent turns to F minor and uses thisforte
as a springboard for an unstable extension. The modulations appear to
spin out of tonal control at just the point the 'male' character returns:
his stark bass octaves stride semitonally into nether regions through an
octave f#'/f#, and the 'female' line dissolves its melodic character into
cascading triplet figuration of extreme agitation.
But the climax to this 'scene' shifts our focus back from subgenre to
genre. Sturmund Drang dissolves into bravura; improvisatory gestures
usurp attention; and 'the improviser' displays his command of the art
of fantasyby progressivelyintensifying the figuration in waysBach would
have approved: triplet arpeggios turn to broken chords first in quavers
then in triplets, to rising arpeggios in semiquavers, to falling scales also
in semiquavers (first in a single line, then doubled at the octave), and
finally, following a single fermata, to an ascending chromatic scale in
 K.475
MOZART'SC MINORFANTASY, 51

unmeasured time, whose energy is checked by a climactic falling arpeg-

gio in quavers with a resolution of the seventh checked by two fermatas.
It is a beautifully wrought passage, and the nearest Mozart comes to
answering Bach's recommendation for a single full close in the course
of an improvisation. Indeed, this cadenza roughly divides the Fantasyin
half, each with an operaseria/ tragedielyriquesection accompanied by two
'scenes', one stable and the other unstable.
The two remaining 'scenes' now enrich the categories of subgenre
by adducing the spirit of operabuffa,the habitat of Mozart's rebellious
instinct: the Andantino wryly subverts a graceful high-style sarabande -
a dance, and hence a social type - with the same antithetical dynamics
that pervade the Fantasy, and incorporates an amorous middle-style
central part. (To underline its contrast, this central part positively
avoids a defining sarabande accent on the second crotchet of the bar,
even though in the first part the accent was only weakly established.)
The Andantino is in the key of Bb,which significantly attracted contra-
dictory associations. According to Mattheson (1713), it was 'both mag-
nificent and dainty'; to Heinse (1795) it was invested with 'the dignity
of magistrates'; and to Galeazzi (1796) it was 'tender, soft, sweet, effem-
inate, fit to express transports of love, charm and grace'.37 The Piu
allegro is significantly in two parts. The first satirizes the dark energy of
operaseria while exploiting its bravura demands: the brilliant 'string
writing' and explosive coupsd'archetare led through the circle of fifths
with an inexorable 'mechanical wit':38this is a more fantastic lampoon
than any music for the Count in Figaroor, relatedly, than in the relo-
cation of operaseria sublimity in the buffa finale of the 'Prague' Sym-
phony, the other material of which invokes Cherubino and Susanna's
escape figuration. However, in its second part, after the sleight-of-hand
modulation to AS, the dissolution of energy is measured and equally
pedantic: here the (piano) arpeggios appear only as unvaried broken
chords, and the groups of four-quaver harmonies answer them with a
dogged (forte)persistence. In the last eight bars even the 'metric modu-
lation' could not prepare for the return of the ombramusic at primo
tempomore painstakingly: three groups of two ease into two groups of
three with the help of sforzandos, a rallentando, and the dispersal of
texture into sustained silence. This is not just a demonstration of the
art of fantasy, but an exaggeration of the attenuation of energy match-
ing the preceding exaggeration of its accumulation.
In the Fantasy no moment is more exposed than the opening of the
second half, the bar which begins the Andantino. It may not be for-
tuitous that its main melodic figure recalls the goal of the opening
Adagio at bar 22, which similarly falls through a fourth in dotted
rhythm (Example lb): for the demure sarabande shares with the
Adagio a background of high style. It would be misleading, however, to
invite comparisons with the opening ombramusic of the Don Giovanni

37 Steblin, A Historyof KeyCharacteristics,

296-300.
38
Janet M. Levy, "'Something Mechanical Encrusted on the Living":A Source of Musical Wit
and Humor', Conventionin Eighteenth-Century and Nineteenth-Century
Music, 225-56.
 52 CLIFFEISENAND CHRISTOPHER
WINTLE

overture: there harmony notes similarly extend beyond melodic ones

to provide an uncanny, inbuilt echo.39 For in this Fantasy, KR475,
Mozart simply relocates 'high' music (with seriatragic overtones) in a
comically subversive 'middle' (buffa) context. Alastair Fowler remarks
that 'irony provides strategic common ground between tragedy and
comedy';40 here, the extended F is one of many ironizing agents that
mediate between high and middle. According to this scenario, indeed,
it is no exaggeration to say that what the F represents takes us to the
heart of our understanding of Mozart's creative character.

King's College,London

39 Mozart entered this

opening differently in his thematic catalogue. The discrepancy, however,
might indicate two different performances of the overture without demanding resolution in
favour of one reading or the other. See Cliff Eisen, 'Text in Action' (forthcoming).
40 Alastair Fowler, Kinds of Literature:An Introductionto the Theoryof Genresand Modes(Oxford,
1982), 187. Fowler is presenting a view of Cyrus Hoy's.

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