The historical editing of Mozart’s keyboard sonatas: History, Context and Practice
This thesis investigates the editing and publishing of music from the late-eighteenth century until present day, with particular reference to W. A. Mozart’s sonatas for solo keyboard. The Introduction provides a concise description of the topic and, through a literature review, illustrates the purpose of this thesis and its place within relevant research. Chapter One consists of a historiographical study of terms which are vital to the further investigation of editing and interpretation, such as ‘work’, ‘text’, ‘intention’ and ‘Werktreue’, also addressing relevant issues of musical ontology and eventually establishing a working definition for this study. A description of the late eighteenth-century context within which Mozart’s Keyboard Sonatas were composed and published is provided in Chapter Two, exploring the musical culture, the place of keyboard music within contemporaneous repertory and the printing and publishing practices of that time. Chapter Three investigates Mozart’s relationship with publishers and the extent of his involvement in the publishing process, going on to examine the relationship between his autograph manuscripts and the first editions of the sonatas in the eighteenth-century Case Study. The nineteenth-century context within which Mozart’s works were reproduced is analyzed in Chapter Four, through a discussion of the rise of musical literacy and of the evolution of printing and publishing in Europe, and especially in Germany. Chapter Five investigates the formation of editorial practices in the nineteenth century, underlining their theoretical framework and desired outcomes. Posthumous historical editions of Mozart’s Keyboard Sonatas are presented in Chapter Six and are juxtaposed with the primary sources in its nineteenth-century Case Study. Chapter Seven sets the twentieth century scene, featuring the evolution of musicology and technology, as well as the growth of the urtext ideal and its relevance to the rise of Urtext Editions during the second half of the century. Modern Mozart scholarship and its impact on editions is the subject of Chapter Eight, which features a Case Study comparison of selected twentieth-century historical editions with their nineteenth-century counterparts and the primary sources. Chapter Nine addresses the digital transformation of music publishing during the first decade of the twenty-first century, featuring comparisons of a twenty-first century edition with preceding editions in the Case Study, while the Epilogue that follows, elaborates on the future perspectives of editing and publishing.
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