The end signifies the life to come.įather Primitivus Niemecz, librarian at Esterháza Palace, was a pupil and friend of Haydn's. Power is exhausted, human nature has died, and the soul escapes the body. The two mutually belligerent fugue subjects impart a striking, serious, powerful image of the battle of the passions. The repeat of the opening Allegro catapults us back into troubled human existence. The lovely, so tenderly expressed Adagio in A flat major is music of the spheres it elicits tears-salutary tears of longing for heaven. The listener is startled at the violent modulation to F sharp minor, and imagines the ground shaking beneath him. A thousand varying emotions were aroused by that (I might almost call it) terrifying Allegro, with its artful fugue subject in the strict style. I still recall from my youth the lively sensation that repeated-oft repeated-hearings of this ingenious production ineradicably impressed upon my memory. Mozart's Fantasy in F minor, composed here in Vienna for the late Father Primitiv, is (as far as I am aware) little known, and nevertheless deserves, I feel, one of the first places among the immortal's masterpieces. His letter contains the following remarks: 608, which was about to be published in Leipzig by Breitkopf & Härtel, whose publication the AmZ was. Seyfried had recently completed an orchestration of K. The identity of "the clockmaker" mentioned in Mozart's letter may have been clarified by Otto Biba, who discovered in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, of which he is the librarian, a letter dated January 18, 1813, from Ignaz von Seyfried to an unidentified "Hofrat" (privy councillor)-possibly Friedrich Rochlitz, editor of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung ( AmZ). We shall return to the question of which, if any, of these three works is the one with which Mozart was struggling in Frankfurt. "Andante for a cylinder in a small organ".In the chronological thematic catalog of his works which Mozart kept from 1784 until his death ( Verzeichnüß aller meiner Werke), he entered three relevant items, the second of which is the work preserved in the manuscript under consideration: But, as it is, the works consist solely of shrill little pipes, which sound too high-pitched and too childish for my taste. If it were for a large clock and would sound like an organ, then I might get some fun out of it. But I still hope that I shall be able to force myself gradually to finish it. And indeed I would give the whole thing up, if I had not such an important reason to go on with it. I compose a bit of it every day-but I have to break off now and then, as I get bored. And this I have done but as it is a kind of composition which I detest, I have unfortunately not been able to finish it. I have now made up my mind to compose at once the Adagio for the clockmaker and then to slip a few ducats into the hand of my dear wife. The earliest sign of Mozart's involvement with musical automata is found in his letter of October 3, 1790, written from Frankfurt to his wife, Constanze, in Vienna: Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven were among the composers who wrote for such instruments. The repertory usually comprised arrangements of popular songs and dances, although on larger instruments extended works were sometimes undertaken, and occasionally original compositions. Automata were "programmed" by pinning a rotating barrel in such a way that the pins struck the teeth of a comb (as in today's children's music boxes) or opened the valves of organ pipes at precisely the right moments. But their most common manifestations are in the form of large tabletop clocks that contain small pipe organs, and the best of them are serious instruments, which served those who could afford them, just as electronic means of reproduction serve us, with music on demand. These often exquisitely made creations range in size from costly toys that can be held in one hand to organs filling whole walls. 6o8Īnyone visiting Europe's palaces, stately homes and museums is likely to notice the musical automata. Listen to this page Wolfgang Amadè Mozart's Allegro and Andante ("Fantasy") in F Minor for Mechanical Organ, K.