UMIVERSHV OF LALIFOBNIA PflESS American Musicological Society Newly Identified Manuscripts of Operas and Related Works from Mannheim Author(s): Paul Corneilson and Eugene K. Wolf Source: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Summer, 1994), pp. 244-274 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3128879 Accessed: 12/11/2010 05:08 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucal. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. 9 STOR University of California Press and American Musicological Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the American Musicological Society. http://www.jstor.org Newly Identified Manuscripts of Operas and Related Works from Mannheim By PAUL CORNEILSON and EUGENE K. WOLF riE electoral court of Mannheim, long recognized for its instrumental music and the quality of its orchestra, merits equal attention for its opera.1 In the third quarter of the eighteenth century, Mannheim was fully the peer of such courts as Dresden, Munich, Stuttgart, Berlin, and Vienna in both serious and comic opera. Important works by Niccolö Jommelli, Tommaso Traetta, Gian Francesco de Majo, and Johann Christian Bach, along with those of the Mannheim Kapellmeister Ignaz Holzbauer, were commissioned by the court during this period. Likewise, the most recent operas of popular composers like Baidassare Galuppi, Niccolö Piccinni, and Antonio Salieri were standard fare at the magnificent theater of the Mannheim palace or at the smaller opera house of the summer residence at Schwetzingen. The Elector Palatine Carl Theodor (who reigned in Mannheim 1742-78 and in Munich 1778-99), his consort Elisabeth Auguste, and his deputies remained constantly alert to the latest operatic styles and trends. Commissions were often generated, and scores obtained, through the intervention of Carl Theodor's network of envoys in various European centers. This process is well documented for Jommelli's important opera Artaserse (Rome, 1749, produced at Mannheim in 1751), a copy of which was procured for the court by the 1 For recent discussions of opera at Mannheim see Paul E. Corneilson, "Opera at Mannheim, 1770-1778" (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1992), which includes a catalogue of all known opera libretti from Mannheim, with transcriptions of titles, full cast lists, and other relevant information; idem, "Die Oper am kurfürstlichen Hof zu Mannheim," in Die Mannheimer Hofkapelle im Zeitalter Carl Theodors, ed. Ludwig Finscher (Mannheim: Palatium Verlag im J und J Verlag, 1992), 113-29; Sabine Henze, "Opera seria am kurpfälzischen Hofe," in Mannheim und Italien: Zur Vorgeschichte der Mannheimer, Beiträge zur mittelrheinischen Musikgeschichte, vol. 25, ed. Roland Würtz (Mainz: Schott, 1984), 78-96; Marita McCly-monds, "Mattia Verazi and the Opera at Mannheim, Stuttgart, and Ludwigsburg," Studies in Music from the University of Western Ontario 7 (1982): 99-136. The foundation for study of opera at Mannheim was laid by Friedrich Walter, Geschichte des Theaters und der Musik am kurpßlziscben Hofe (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1898). newly identified manuscripts from mannheim 245 palatine envoy in Rome.2 A similar procedure doubtless produced the score referred to in the sardonic anecdote related by Karl August von Hardenberg, who passed through Mannheim in October and November 1772: "We have received an excellent opera from Italy," [General Pagnozzi, the court intendant] said once to [Christian] Cannabich [director of instrumental music at Mannheim]. — "How so, Herr General? Have you already heard it?" — "No," [Pagnozzi replied,] "but [it is on] beautiful paper and the notes are quite black and well written, and for piano and forte!"3 Given the level and quality of operatic activity at Mannheim, the destruction of the elector's large collection of opera scores represents an incalculable loss to scholars. When the electoral court transferred from Mannheim to Munich in fall of 1778 as part of the union of the Palatinate and Bavaria, most of the music was left behind, only to be destroyed in the Austrian bombardment of Mannheim in 1795.4 A few other manuscripts from the court probably remained in Mannheim as part of the collection of the Nationaltheater there, but they were burned in World War II.5 The study of opera at Mannheim has thus always lacked the kind of solid basis for research that survival of the music collection of a court ordinarily provides. Yet modern bibliographical resources and methods of documentary study afford at least a partial way out of this dilemma, on the one 3 See Adolf Sandberger, "Aus der Korrespondenz des pfalzbayerischen Kurfürsten Karl Theodor mit seinem römischen Ministerresidenten," in Adolf Sandberger: Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Musikgeschichte, vol. 1 (Munich: Drei Masken Verlag, 1921), 218-20 (originally published in the Kretzschmar festschrift, 1918). 3 "Wir haben eine herrliche Oper aus Italien bekommen, sagt [General Pagnozzi] einmahl zu Cannabich. — Wie so, H. General? haben Sie sie schon gehört? — Nein aber schön Papier und die Noten recht schwarz und gut geschrieben, u. fürs Piano und forte!" (printed in Karl Obser, "Aufzeichnungen des Staatskanzlers Fürsten von Hardenberg über seinen Aufenthalt am Oberrhein im Jahre 1772," Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, Neue Folge, 22 [1007]: 166). Hardenberg prefaces the anecdote by saying that "General Pagnozzi, Directeur des spectacles, n'y entend pas goute" (to which one is tempted to reply, "Plus ?a change . . ."). 4 Destruction of the court's music collection, long suspected, was finally documented in Eugene K. Wolf and Jean K. Wolf, "A Newly Identified Complex of Manuscripts from Mannheim," this Journal 27 (1974): 379-437, at 395-98. 5 These manuscripts are among those listed in Friedrich Walter, Archiv und Bibliothek des Grossh. Hof- und Nationaltheaters in Mannheim, ijyg-iSjg, vol. 2, Die Theater-Bibliothek (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1899). The library of the Nationaltheater was destroyed in World War II. The appendix to the present article provides a list of these and other manuscripts of operas associated with Mannheim that were burned during the war, many of which undoubtedly stemmed from the electoral court. 246 journal of the american musicological society hand by facilitating the search for additional sources, on the other by offering a variety of specialized research techniques that permit the scholar to distinguish between central and peripheral sources. Utilizing these lines of attack, we have in fact been able to identify a significant new corpus of manuscripts from Mannheim containing operas and related secular dramatic works, thus offsetting to some extent the loss of the original collection. These sources comprise twenty-eight manuscripts (mostly full scores) of twenty separate works, dispersed among eight different European and American collections. The purposes of the present article are to provide a listing and analysis of these manuscripts, to lay out the evidence establishing their provenance, and to discuss certain of the—sometimes surprising—ramifications of this discovery. A brief review of the research that led to the identification of these manuscripts will be helpful in understanding the basis for our assignment of them to Mannheim. Some twenty years ago this Journal published an article by Eugene K. and Jean Kessler Wolf marshaling evidence that over 125 manuscripts in various collections in Europe and the United States stemmed from the electoral court of Mannheim.6 The majority of these sources had once formed a part of the performance library of the Mannheim Kapelk, while others had been written by court copyists for other courts or individuals, presumably at their behest or as gifts from the elector. The value of such a discovery was to establish for the first time a body of sources of unquestioned authenticity that could be traced back to a Mannheim "school." The manuscripts in question fall into three groups based on the strength of their ties with Mannheim. The first group consists of fifteen manuscripts that either were still extant there or had colophons or other indisputable evidence establishing their provenance. The second and largest group consists of sacred music of Ignaz Holzbauer and instrumental music of Christian Cannabich now housed at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, to which the court moved in 1778. These manuscripts, previously assumed to have been copied in Munich after arrival of the court there, were shown to have been brought from Mannheim based on detailed comparative study of their paper (including watermarks) and handwriting together with certain other evidence. A final category of manuscripts consists of thirty sources in other collections with similar links to Mannheim, supported in some cases by supplementary evidence of various kinds. 6 Wolf and Wolf, "Manuscripts from Mannheim." newly identified manuscripts from mannheim 247 The years since publication of the 1974 JAMS article have brought both significant refinement in its methods and conclusions and a large number of additions to its catalogue of Mannheim manuscripts. Study of the handwriting and watermarks of these sources has been carried out in far more detail and with greater methodological sophistication.7 Still more important has been the development and application of rastrology, the study of musical staving.8 Coupled with the identification of many new Mannheim manuscripts, these refinements have made possible a hitherto unattainable precision in the determination of provenance and date for these manuscripts. Some of the results of this research include the removal of several manuscripts from the original list of Mannheim sources;9 the ability to distinguish and date multiple layers of additions to the Holzbauer and Cannabich manuscripts in Munich, including a clearer sense of which copyists were active in Mannheim and which in Munich (or both) and when;10 and the determination of the probable point within the numbered series of Cannabich symphonies at which the move to Munich took place." Less tangibly, the entire notion that an extensive corpus of Mannheim manuscripts still existed, though it seems never seriously to have been questioned, had admittedly depended upon a complex web of primarily circumstantial evidence; it can now, we believe, be treated as simple fact. Likewise, the corpus itself has been augmented by the identification of several important new groups of manuscripts that were copied at Mannheim. One of these is the substantial collection of works by Abbé Georg Joseph Vogler left in Darmstadt after his death there in 7 Particularly valuable has been consistent application of Alan Tyson's principle of always distinguishing carefully between the two molds of a watermark (its so-called twins). See, e.g., the appendix to his article "The Problem of Beethoven's 'First' Leonore Overture," this Journal 28 (1975): 332-34; idem, Mozart: Studies of the Autograph Scores (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 1-5. See Jean K. Wolf and Eugene K. Wolf, "Rastrology and Its Use in Eighteenth-Century Manuscript Studies," in Studies in Musical Sources and Styk: Essays in Honor of Jan LaRue, ed. Eugene K. Wolf and Edward H. Roesner (Madison, Wise: A-R Editions, 1990), 237-91 (with further citations). 9 Most notably the manuscripts App. A/II/15 and A/III/28-29, which are almost certainly from Munich. In addition, App. A/II/66-73 were not "possibly" but "very probably" copied in Munich; see Wolf and Wolf, "Rastrology," 269-71 • 10 For example, some of the parts for the Cannabich symphonies in Munich by the copyists labeled in the JAMS article as Munich (ex-Mannheim) C and D (which we now designate as Mannheim 3 and 4) can now be shown to have been written in Munich; these copyists were active in both centers, traveling with the court to Munich in 1778. 11 Wolf and Wolf, "Rastrology," 260-71. 248 journal of the american musicological society 1814. Another is the series of over eighty opera arias, overtures, and other vocal works, principally from the 1750s and 1760s, in the Pretlack collection of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin — Preussischer Kulturbesitz.12 A third consists of nineteen manuscripts of sacred music, including an oratorio and five masses, by the tragically short-lived Mannheim composer Johannes Ritschel (1730-66) in the Sächsische Landesbibliothek in Dresden. And a final one, the subject of the present article, is made up of twenty-two widely scattered manuscripts of operas and related secular vocal works, plus six other opera scores which, though they were not copied at the electoral court, were used there or were in its possession at one time. Of these twenty-eight manuscripts, all are complete scores but three: one is a set of parts (no. 7 in the list of manuscripts below), while the other two (nos. 12 b and 13) are collections of arias and other numbers from the opera in question, generally without recitatives. Because many of these sources are unica or rare copies, and because in many cases the works they preserve were commissioned by Carl Theodor and received their premieres at Mannheim, the evidence that they were copied at or used by the electoral court is of fundamental importance.13 The 1974 JAMS article identified only one opera score, merely reflecting the fact that our research until that time had focused primarily on composers associated with the Mannheim court. Even that score, to Niccolö Jommelli's Cap Fabrizio (no. 11a below), was found not in a search for Mannheim manuscripts but fortuitously, as part of a long-term study of opera overtures. It was of unusual interest, however, in that it contained an undated supper invitation to the envoy of the Palatinate in Paris, a further indication—in addition to the clear evidence of the source itself—that the manuscript 11 See Joachim Jaenecke, Die Musikbibliothek des Ludwig Freiherrn von Pretlack (iji6-ij8i). Neue musikgeschichtliche Forschungen, vol. 8 (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1973). Jaenecke's lists of the watermarks and handwriting found in this collection were very helpful in determining which manuscripts might be from Mannheim. One manuscript from the Pretlack collection, the autograph score to Ignaz Holzbauer's dramatic cantata Adulatrice, will be treated in the present article. 15 An unfortunately typical example of what can happen in the absence of such knowledge is the decision in the facsimile edition of J. C. Bach's Temistocle, vol. 7 of The Collected Works of Johann Christian Bach, ed. Ernest Warburton (New York: Garland, 1988), to reproduce act 2 from a local Darmstadt copy (Darmstadt, Hessische Landes- und Hochschulbibliothek, Mus. ms. 62) rather than from one of the extant Mannheim copies (nos. ia-b in the list of Mannheim manuscripts below). newly identified manuscripts from mannheim 249 stemmed from Mannheim.'4 It also suggested that one component of the next phase of research should be a systematic search for additional operas and other vocal works that might have been copied at Mannheim. Taking as its starting point operas known to have been performed at Mannheim, this search eventually turned up seventeen new manuscripts, encompassing eleven operas (two in multiple copies), one serenata, and two dramatic cantatas.'5 Of these, thirteen manuscripts were actually copied at Mannheim, while the remaining four (including an autograph score by Piccinni), though they were clearly prepared elsewhere, contained corrections and additions by known Mannheimers—especially Ignaz Holzbauer, the Kapellmeister für das Theater at Mannheim, who would have been responsible for preparation of the performance—showing that the score was known and used there. One other manuscript (no. 18 below) bore evidence of a connection with Mannheim, though not one as clear-cut as the others. At the same time, in the course of research for a dissertation on opera at Mannheim in the 1770s,'6 Paul Corneilson was able to add a substantial number of new manuscripts to the list. These included both new sources for previously listed operas (nos. 14b, 15b, 16b, 17b) and several entirely new works: Holzbauer's important German opera Günther von Schwarzburg and his "azione dramatica" La morte di Didone (nos. 8-9), as well as Vogler's Der Kaufmann von Smyrna (no. 20). A penultimate addition to our list is a second score to Jommelli's Cap Fabrizio (no. 1 ib), and a final one, again with less explicit links to Mannheim, is a score to Traetta's Tintaride (see the discussion of no. 19, below).'7 A provisional listing of these manuscripts appears below—provisional in that it is obviously impossible for us to have examined more than a relatively small percentage of the extant opera scores of the 14 See Wolf and Wolf, "Manuscripts from Mannheim," 402. Further discussion of this document, including an identification of its recipient, appears below. 15 The initial basis for this research was provided by the list of opera performances at the electoral court printed in Walter, Geschichte, 362-^8. This research was generously supported by fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies and by grants-in-aid from the American Philosophical Society and the University of Pennsylvania. 16 Corneilson, "Opera at Mannheim." This research was made possible by a fellowship from the Graduate School of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 17 These manuscripts were kindly reported to us by Paul Cauthen of the University of Cincinnati and Dr. Joachim Jaenecke of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin — Preussischer Kulturbesitz, respectively. 250 journal of the american musicological society period. In addition to fifteen operas, the list includes one "azione dramatica" (no. 9), one serenata (no. 3), and three dramatic cantatas (nos. 2, 6-7), the first of which is known to have been staged at Schwetzingen, summer residence of the elector, in 1774."8 Unless otherwise indicated, all dates are those of the first performance at Mannheim. All these works originate from the period before departure of the court for Munich in 1778 except number 9, Holzbauer's La morte di Didone (July 1779), which nonetheless still clearly represents the traditions of court opera at Mannheim (and the score to which is by a prominent Mannheim copyist who remained there after 1778). The phrase " 'Mannheim' binding" in the list below refers to the similar leather bindings with gilt lettering and decoration shared by eight magnificent one-volume scores that were probably bound in Mannheim (see the discussion of the third group of manuscripts, below). We might also note that this list corrects a great deal of misinformation in the secondary literature regarding such matters as dates, library locations, and call numbers for these works.19 Operas and Other Secular Dramatic Works Extant in Manuscripts from Mannheim (to 1780) Library sigla: B-Bc Brussels, Bibliotheque du Conservatoire royal de musique D-B Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin — Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung (incorporating collections of the former Deutsche Staatsbibliothek) D-Dlb Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek, Musikabteilung D-DS Darmstadt, Hessische Landes- und Hochschulbibliothek, Musikabteilung D-Mbs Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Musikabteilung GB-Lbl London, British Library, The Manuscript Collections 18 The event, at which Gluck was present, is described in Johann Christian von Mannlich, Rokoko und Revolution: Lebenserinnerungen, new ed. by Friedrich Matthaesius (Stuttgart: K. F. Koehler, 1966), 187-88. 19 Errors common in the work-lists of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, for example, include the continued listing of works destroyed in World War II (see the Appendix to the present article) and the confusion of works in the former Deutsche Staatsbibliothek and Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz— the latter errors now happily without consequence, as the collections have been reunited. newly identified manuscripts from mannheim US-Rs Rochester, N.Y., Eastman School of Music, Sibley Music Library US-Wc Washington, D.C., Library of Congress, Music Division 1. Bach, Johann Christian. Temistocle (5 November 1772; premiere). (a) D-B, Mus. ms. Bach P 388. "Mannheim" binding. (*) D-Dlb, Mus. 3374-F-i.JO 2. Bach, Johann Christian. Amor vincitore (cantata, "azione teatrale"; Schwetzingen, August 1774). D-DS, Mus. ms. 82. 3. Bach, Johann Christian. Endimione (serenata, 1774t?]).21 D-DS, Mus. ms. 57. 4. Bach, Johann Christian. Lucio Silla (5 November 1775;" premiere). D-DS, Mus. ms. 60. Facsimile in The Collected Works of Johann Christian Bach, vol. 8, ed. Ernest Warburton (New York: Garland, 1986). 5. Gassmann, Florian Leopold. L'amore artigiano (Schwetzingen, May 1772). D-B, Mus. ms. 7130. "Mannheim" binding; see Fig. i. 6. Holzbauer, Ignaz. Adulatrice (cantata; undated, but probably JO We do not consider the manuscript of Temistocle at Yale (New Haven, Conn., Yale University, Beinecke Library, Music Library Collection, Misc. Ms. 140) to be from Mannheim; it is on French paper, and none of the copyists is familiar to us. Nor is either of the Darmstadt manuscripts of this opera (Mus. ms. 62-63) a Mannheim copy (cf. n. 13, above). 11 The date of the first performance of Bach's Endimione at Mannheim is not clear. A copy of the libretto (Mannheim, n.d.) in the Theatersammlung of the Städtisches Reiss-Museum in Mannheim (Sign. T 222) has the handwritten notation "februar 1774t-] Vorher Oggersheim [summer residence of the electress] 1770." According to Richard Maunder, introduction to Endimione, vol. 14 of The Collected Works of Johann Christian Bach (New York: Garland, 1985), vii, when the work was first performed in London in April 1772 the Mannheim flutist Johann Baptist Wendling was a featured member of the orchestra. Maunder speculates that Wendling may have taken the score of Endimione back to Mannheim and arranged for a performance there before the premiere of Temistocle in November 1772, a theory for which no documentary evidence exists. To complicate matters, Count Andreas von Riaucour, Saxon envoy at the Mannheim court, reports on preparations for a gala performance of Endimione on 24 July 1775, but gives the composer as Jommelli (Staatsarchiv Dresden [formerly Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv], Geheimes Kabinett, Loc. 2627, Bd. 26, report of 20 July 1773; see Corneilson, "Opera at Mannheim," 381). As a matter of fact, Jommelli did add a new scene for the Mannheim performance of Bach's Endimione, the text for which was provided by the Mannheim librettist Mattia Verazi; hence, Riaucour either mistakenly neglected to mention Bach's name in addition to Jommelli's or (less plausibly) the Oggersheim performance was of Jommelli's own full setting of Endimione, which dates from 1759. In any event, the 1770 date for an Oggersheim performance of Bach's Endimione is an unlikely one. " On this date see Paul Corneilson, "The Case of J. C. Bach's Lucio Silla," Journal of Musicology 12 (1994): 208-20. 252 journal of the american musicological society from the mid 1750s).23 Autograph score. D-B, N. Mus. BP 467, «3- 7. Holzbauer, Ignaz. La tempesta (cantata; date unknown). Parts. D-B, Mus. ms. 10782. 8. Holzbauer, Ignaz. Günther von Schwarzburg (5 January 1777; premiere). D-B, Mus. ms. 10780. 9. Holzbauer, Ignaz. La morte di Didone ("azione dramatica"; Mannheim, Nationaltheater, 6 July 1779; premiere). D-B, Mus. ms. 10781.24 10. Jommelli, Niccolö. Artaserse (17 January 1751). D-B, Mus. ms. 11245. The score itself, dated 1750 (one year after the Rome premiere), is probably of Roman provenance, but in vols. 2 and 3 the title "L'Artaserse" has been added in the unmistakable hand of Ignaz Holzbauer. 11. Jommelli, Niccolö, with Giuseppe Colla. Cajo Fabrizio (5 November 1760; premiere), (a) US-Wc, M 1500.J72 C35. "Mannheim" binding; see Fig. 7b. (b) US-Rs, M 1500.J759 C; identified by Paul Cauthen. 12. Majo, Gian Francesco de. Ifigenia in Tauride (5 November 1764; premiere), (a) D-B, Mus. ms. 13396. "Mannheim" binding; see Fig. 2. (b) D-B, Mus. ms. 13396/1. Not a complete score but a selection of arias and other numbers, here in one volume (cf. next entry). 13. Majo, Gian Francesco de. Alessandro neWIndie (5 November 1766; premiere). D-B, Mus. ms. 13400. Like no. 12b, a selection of arias and other numbers, here bound by act into three volumes. 14. Piccinni, Niccolö. Catone in Utica (5 November 1770; premiere).25 (a) D-Mbs, Mus. Ms. 2426. Autograph score, but with numerous insertions and pasteovers by known Mannheim copyists on Mannheim papers.26 (b) GB-Lbl, Add. 30792-94. Facsimile in 23 Holzhauer only arrived at Mannheim in 1753, and the watermark of this score closely matches that of a mass bearing that date by the Mannheim Kapellmeister Carlo Pietro Grua (Munich, Bibliothek des Metropolitankapitels, musical holdings of the Frauenkirche [now D-Mbs], Mf 596). 24 A revised German version of this work dating from 1780, entitled Tod der Dido, is preserved in the manuscript US-Wc, M 1500.H77 T5. The score does not, however, stem from Mannheim; its most likely provenance would be Vienna. 25 Catone in Utica received its first performance at Mannheim, though it was evidently not commissioned originally by the court; see Reinhard Strohm, Die italienische Oper im 18. Jahrhundert (Wilhelmshaven: Heinrichshofen, 1979), 339-40; Corneilson, "Opera at Mannheim," 104-8. Cf. also n. 29, below. 26 Reinhard Strohm was the first to note that this score contained additions by Mannheim copyists; see the facsimile edition of the London manuscript of this opera newly identified manuscripts from mannheim 253 Brown, Italian Opera, vol. 50. 15. Salieri, Antonio. La fiera di Venezia (22 November 1772). (a) D-Mbs, Mus. Ms. 2524. Score probably Viennese, but with numerous corrections in the hand of Ignaz Holzbauer, (b) B-Bc, no. 2336. (c) D-Dlb, Mus. 3796-F-3. 16. Salieri, Antonio. La seccbia rapita (5 November 1774). (a) D-Mbs, Mus. Ms. 2525. Score probably Viennese, but with numerous corrections and additions by Holzbauer, including an insertion aria on Mannheim paper, (b) GB-Lbl, Add. 16119. "Mannheim" binding.27 17. Traetta, Tommaso. Sofonisba (5 November 1762; premiere), (a) D-B, Mus. ms. 22001. "Mannheim" binding; see Fig. 1. (b) US-Wc, M 1500.T76 S5. Slightly revised version with date of 1763 on title page. 18. Traetta, Tommaso. Ippolito ed Aricia (Parma, 9 May 1759). D-B, Mus. ms. 21995. Facsimile in Brown, Italian Opera, vol. 78, ed. Eric Weimer. Score very probably of Italian origin, but with "Mannheim" binding and flyleaves on a typical Mannheim paper. Also listed together with these manuscripts in a thematic catalogue associated with Mannheim to be discussed below. 19. Traetta, Tommaso. / Tindaridi (i.e., Tintaridi; Parma, April 1760). D-B, Mus. ms. 22003; identified by Dr. Joachim Jaenecke. Score very probably of Italian origin, but with "Mannheim" binding and flyleaves on a typical Mannheim paper. Also listed together with these manuscripts in a thematic catalogue associated with Mannheim to be discussed below. 20. Vogler, Georg Joseph. Der Kaufmann von Smyrna (rev. version, 1778; orig. 1771). D-DS, Mus. ms. 1090. Facsimile in Thomas Bauman, ed., German Opera, ijyo-1800 (New York: Garland, 1985-86), vol. 8. The twenty-eight manuscripts in the foregoing list fall into three fairly distinct groups. The first and largest consists of the more-or-less standard Mannheim manuscripts ib, 2-4, 6-9, 11b, 12b, 13, 14b, i5b-c, 17b, and 20. These have been copied for the most part on typical Mannheim papers by known court copyists, primarily those referred to in the 1974 article as Munich (ex-Mannheim) A and E and (no. 14b above) in Howard Mayer Brown, ed., Italian Opera, 1640-ijjo (New York: Garland, 1978-83), vol. 50, preface, n. 5. 27 We are grateful to Arthur Searle, Curator of Music Manuscripts of the British Library, for sending a detailed description of the binding of this manuscript, which allowed us to link it with the other seven manuscripts in this group. 254 journal of the american musicological society Mannheim A.2 The staving of these manuscripts is noteworthy in that small one- and two-stave rastra are more commonly used in them than in the "official" court copies now located in Munich and elsewhere, which mainly employ large rastra capable of drawing ten or twelve staves at a time; this fact probably indicates that the paper of the opera manuscripts was lined by the individual copyists. The obvious conclusion to be drawn from this is that in many cases the copyists were acting on their own in preparing the scores, whether with or without the knowledge of the elector. The next group of manuscripts, consisting of numbers 10, 14a, 15a, and 16a, was not actually copied in Mannheim. However, as already noted, each of these manuscripts contains additions showing that they were used at, or were at least at one time in the possession of, the electoral court. For example, the autograph score of Piccinni's Catone in Utica (no. 14a) has numerous paste-overs and insertions by Mannheim copyists, indicating that it was utilized in preparing the performance on 5 November 1770, as part of the elector's name-day celebrations.29 Similarly, the two copies, probably Viennese, of comic operas by Antonio Salieri (nos. 15a and 16a) were probably provided by the composer for the same purpose, as they have many corrections and additions (including in the latter opera an insertion aria) in the hand of Ignaz Holzbauer.30 For the fourth manuscript in this group, that to Jommelli's Artaserse, the disposition of evidence is a bit different. The score itself is probably of Roman provenance.3' But the second and third volumes of the manuscript each have the title written on page 1 in 28 Wolf and Wolf, "Manuscripts from Mannheim," 429-31. We now designate these copyists more simply as Mannheim 1, 5, and 6, respectively. Complete information on the copyists, paper, staving, and so forth of these manuscripts will appear in a forthcoming book on the entire complex of Mannheim manuscripts (Eugene K. Wolf in collaboration with Jean Kessler Wolf, Music from Mannheim: A Methodological Study of the Manuscripts [tentative title]). 29 The score may well have been brought to Mannheim by the tenor Anton Raaff, who returned there from Naples that summer. One of the insertions is an aria by Antonio Sacchini, favorite of the electress (fols. 79-88, copied by Mannheim 6 [olim Mannheim A]). On the circumstances surrounding the Mannheim premiere of this opera see Corneilson, "Opera at Mannheim," 104-8. Cf. also n. 25, above. 30 Interestingly, though, another insertion aria in no. 16a (vol. 1, fols. 82r-87v) is in the hand of Sixtus Hirsvogl, a Munich oboist and copyist who was never in Mannheim, showing that the score was used in Munich after 1778, as well. 31 Helmut Hell, Die neapolitanische Opernsinfonie in der ersten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts, Münchner Veröffentlichungen zur Musikgeschichte, vol. 19 (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1971), 433. There are actually a total of five copyists in the Jommelli and Pergolesi manuscripts mentioned by Hell, one of whom appears in both scores. newly identified manuscripts from mannheim 255 Holzbauer's hand, and the flyleaves are again on a typical Mannheim paper. The title page of the manuscript bears the date 1750, one year before the Mannheim performance of the work and one year after its premiere; as mentioned at the beginning of this article, it was in that year that the electoral court obtained a copy of the score, supposedly an autograph, from the composer in Rome.32 Certainly the most interesting of these sources from the methodological and historical standpoints are the eight manuscripts of our third group, consisting of numbers ia, 5, 11 a, 12a, 16b, 17a, 18, and 19. With the exceptions of number 11 a, the Washington manuscript of Jommelli's Cap Fabrizio, and number 16b, the London manuscript of Salieri's La secchia rapita, all these scores are now in Berlin. Six of these eight sources are strikingly similar—large one-volume scores copied by "Mannheim 5" (formerly labeled Munich [ex-Mannheim] E). Of these, the only real anomaly is the score to Cap Fabrizio. Whereas the other five manuscripts are copied straight through, without revisions or insertions, the Jommelli score presents a much more complicated picture: examination of the fascicle structure, staving, ink color, and the like shows that the manuscript was compiled over at least a somewhat extended period of time, with frequent additions and revisions.33 The score even includes an optional ending for the second act that is not present in either the libretto or the Eastman score (no. 11b), which follows the libretto closely.34 The two remaining works in this group, numbers 18-19, are by Tommaso Traetta. Judging by the copying style and paper of these 32 Sandberger, "Aus der Korrespondenz des pfalzbayerischen Kurfürsten Karl Theodor," 218-20. See also Cheryl R. Sprague, "A Comparison of Five Musical Settings of Metastasio's Artaserse" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1979), 185-95. We might note at this point that nos. 18-19 in the above list, which could logically belong to this second group because they were copied elsewhere (in this case probably Italy), will be discussed as part of our third and final group for reasons that will soon become obvious. 33 We thank Paul Cauthen for making available to us an essay of his on Cajo Fabrizio that includes a detailed study of the physical characteristics of the Washington score. The above comments are not intended to imply that, as is frequently the case, the manuscript has accrued revisions and additions over a period of years and from many different sources; the copyist and paper (though not the staving and ink color) are the same throughout. More likely would be a period of months, perhaps as Jommelli—and also Giuseppe Colla, who as indicated in the libretto composed five of the seven arias in act 1 and the first two in act 2—provided fresh material to the court. That Colla was involved at all implies that an element of haste may have been present. 34 Also present in the Washington score alone is an alternate setting of the aria "Quando awien" (act 1, scene 4), by Tommaso Traetta; the first, presumably original, version is by Colla. 256 journal of the american musicological society manuscripts, they are almost certainly Italian in origin, whereas the other work by Traetta on our list, number 17a, is definitely a Mannheim copy. They also differ from number 17a in that no performance of either is known to have taken place at Mannheim, and they contain no additions or annotations by known Mannheimers, as had the second group of manuscripts discussed above. What, then, is the nature of the connection linking these two manuscripts with the other six scores in this alleged grouping? The most obvious bond between these eight manuscripts will be immediately apparent to anyone making use of them: their sumptuous leather bindings, with splendid gilt lettering and decoration on their spines, discreetly highlighted in red (see Fig. 1). In addition, most of the scores have a decorative frame on both covers containing the abbreviation "N°," but with a blank where the number would go (see Fig. 2 and Fig. 7a, below); the intent on the part of the binder was no doubt to leave the actual numbering to the collector.35 Though the bindings do not all seem to have been done at the same time, they are quite similar in overall style and unquestionably come from the same workshop. As the majority of the scores were known to have been copied in Mannheim, it seemed reasonable to suppose that they might have been bound there as well. In order to test this hypothesis we took several tacks. One was to attempt to ascertain whether additional examples of this binding existed in Berlin; after all, it might be a normal binding from the Prussian court. We therefore asked Dr. Joachim Jaenecke of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, an authority on eighteenth-century manuscripts, whether he might be willing to scan the shelves of the manuscript collection there—one of the largest in the world, containing thousands of volumes—to see whether similar bindings might be present. He generously agreed to take on this task, and was able to discover one—but only one—additional source: that to Traetta's / Tintaridi (no. 19). This manuscript turned out to be a pair with the manuscript of the same composer's Ippolito ed Aricia, number 18, sharing one of its copyists and one of its papers. Thereafter we were able to determine that the copies of Jommelli's Cap Fabrizio in Washington and Salieri's La secchia rapita in London also had the same 35 In the case of the Washington score the abbreviation "N°" has been obliterated and a coat of arms added within the frame, identification of which has allowed us to determine the owner of these manuscripts; see Fig. 7b and n. 53, below. The authors express their appreciation to Dr. Helmut Hell of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin — Preussischer Kulturbesitz for permission to reproduce Figs. i~7a and to Dr. James W. Pruett of the Library of Congress for permission to reproduce Fig. 7b. newly identified manuscripts from mannheim 257 binding, further evidence that we were not dealing with a collection originally assembled and bound in Berlin. The next step was obvious: to see whether we could determine what a binding from the court bindery in Mannheim actually looked like. Though most of the famous library of Carl Theodor has been dispersed or destroyed, enough volumes still exist in the library of the Städtisches Reiss-Museum in Mannheim36 to show a clear similarity between the volumes bound at court and those of this group of manuscripts, including both basic design and the use of decorative motifs such as flowers, foliage, circles, and stars. No precisely equivalent binding was found, however, and the overall similarity of much eighteenth-century gilt decoration and lettering makes it hazardous to draw absolute conclusions on this basis alone. It was thus fortunate for our hypothesis that an additional element of the binding supported the attribution to Mannheim: the flyleaves make use of the Swiss papers standard there, as well as of a similar marbleized paper as facing for the inside of the covers. Our initial thought was that the Berlin scores might have been copied at Mannheim as gifts for Frederick II, but again the existence in Washington and London of manuscripts that had obviously come from the same original collection (nos. na and 16b) seemed to rule this out.37 Then, while going through the old card catalogue at the former Deutsche Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, Paul Corneilson came upon a reference to an eighteenth-century thematic catalogue in that collection that listed several Mannheim operas.38 This catalogue, previously unknown in the scholarly literature, turned out to contain detailed listings, with extensive incipits, for two oratorios, one psalm setting,39 and fourteen operas,40 a majority of which had in fact 36 We are grateful to Liselotte Homering and Dr. Grit Arnscheidt of the Reiss-Museum and to Brigitte Höft of the Städtische Musikbücherei in Mannheim for facilitating our examination of these volumes and for many other kindnesses. 37 The London score was owned by Domenico Dragonetti, who left it to the British Museum upon his death in 1846. 38 Now Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin — Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Mus. ms. theor. Kat. 860. The catalogue is listed in Barry S. Brook, Thematic Catalogues in Music: An Annotated Bibliography (Hillsdale, N.Y.: Pendragon Press, 1972), p. 23, no. no. 39 The psalm setting is Jommelli's Salmo L, with Italian text by Saverio Mattei. It has been crossed out in the catalogue (p. 15) and will be disregarded in the remainder of this essay. 40 One of the operas, Gluck's Le feste d1 Apollo (Parma, 1769), consists of a prologue and three independent acts, the last a revised version of his Orfeo ed Euridice of 1762; see below. The page numbers given in the catalogue indicate that the four parts of the work were through-paginated, i.e., that the score containing them was probably in one volume, like the other extant manuscripts from the collection. 258 journal of the american musicological society received performances—often premieres—at Mannheim. From the physical standpoint, the Berlin catalogue has no title page, date, or indication of origin. The most likely provenance would perhaps be France, as the compiler of the catalogue uses the French page in various forms on pages 1-4 and frequently adds comments in French like "Parties Detaches" (sic; see Figs. 3-4).41 The watermark of the catalogue, D & C Blauw with a fleur-de-lis as countermark, is that of a Dutch firm whose papers are fairly common in France. The catalogue is paginated in the hand of the copyist and is evidently incomplete, breaking off with page 32 after the incipit for the first aria of act 2 of Gluck's Alceste.*2 As can be seen in the table of contents given below, the catalogue is organized by composer, with two oratorios and two operas by Ignaz Holzbauer first, followed by operas (and the one sacred work) by non-Mannheimers. Incipits, both textual and musical, are given for arias, ensembles, and obbligato recitatives, while choruses have only textual incipits (see, e.g., the middle of Figs. 4 and 6). Purely instrumental numbers as well as simple recitatives are not indicated in any way. Within each work, the copyist provides his own numbering of the various items to the left of the incipit and the page number of the score on which each item begins to the right. A table of contents for the Berlin catalogue appears below. We have retained the orthography of the titles in the catalogue, and unless otherwise specified, the dates supplied are those of the first performance at Mannheim. Contents of an Eighteenth-Century Thematic Catalogue (D-B, Mus. ms. theor. Kat. 860) 1. Holzbauer, Ignaz. //giudicio [giudizio] di Salomone (1765; p. 1). See Fig. 3. 2. Holzbauer, Ignaz. Bertulia [Betulia] liberata (1760, rev. 1774; pp. 1-2). See Fig. 3. 3. Holzbauer, Ignaz. La Nitetti [Nitteti] (1758; pp. 3-4). 4. Holzbauer, Ignaz. Adriano in Siria (1768; pp. 4-6). See Figs. 4- • r*r s fit/-- . Z, fmijm it mtr rAm. tttct 0AJ * Figure 5. Page 5 of Berlin thematic catalogue Figure 6. Page 6 of Berlin thematic catalogue newly identified manuscripts from mannheim 269 him (or, another alternative, Abbé Vogler).5° In any case, none of the foregoing possibilities squares well with the likely provenance of the Berlin thematic catalogue—possibly French, but certainly not Mannheim. A more intriguing candidate as owner of the collection is Count Carl Heinrich Joseph von Sickingen (1737-91), privy councillor to Carl Theodor and his envoy in Paris from the late 1760s until his death.51 First of all, Count von Sickingen—a great lover of music and theater as well as a noted chemist—would have had access to and interest in the works represented in this collection. Second, his presence in Paris provides a perfect explanation for the note to "Monsieur L'Envoyé de Palatin" from the (Parisian) "Duchesse de Cossé" inserted in the Washington score to Jommelli's Cajo Fabrizio. Third, his connection with Paris accords well with our tentative designation of the catalogue as French. Fourth, Sickingen was in fact the owner of a substantial collection of opera scores, as we learn from Mozart's letter to his father from Paris on 29 May 1778: Yesterday I went for the second time to see Count von Sickingen, the electoral palatine envoy (for I had already dined there once with Wendling and Raaff), who, I do not know if I have already written you this, is a charming man, a passionate amateur, and a true connoisseur of music. There I spent eight hours quite alone with him. We were at the clavier morning and afternoon until ten o'clock in the evening; all kinds 50 We might point out in this connection that neither of these composers' extant autograph scores have this type of binding. Vogler did own a copy of at least one of J. C. Bach's Mannheim operas, namely Lucio Silla—the one he loaned to Mozart in 1777, soon after the latter's arrival in Mannheim; see Mozart's letter of 13 November 1777 in Mozart, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen: Gesamtausgabe, ed. Wilhelm Bauer, Otto Erich Deutsch, and Joseph Heinz Eibl, vol. 2 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1962), 120. This is certainly the copy still present in Darmstadt (no. 4 in the list of Mannheim manuscripts above), where Vogler died and much of his Nachlaß remained. 51 On Sickingen see the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, vol. 34 (Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1892), 158-60; and Peter Clive, Mozart and His Circle: A Biographical Dictionary (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 140-41. Sickingen first appears in the personnel listings of the Cbur-Pfdltziscber Hoff- und Stoats-Calender (p. 64) and the Almanach electoral palatin (p. 49; both publ. Mannheim) in 1769; since these were prepared during the previous year, his appointment must date from 1768. (He is already mentioned as a privy councillor to the elector by Riaucour in summer of 1768; Staatsarchiv Dresden, Geheimes Kabinett, Loc. 2626, Bd. 21.) His position is given in the Calender and Almanachs as privy councillor and minister plenipotentiary in Paris. Through 1775 his title is "Freyherr" or "Baron," after which it becomes "Graf" or "Comte." Thanks are due to Brigitte Höft for kindly sending information on the 1769 Calender and Almanacb. 270 journal of the american musicological society of music [was] played—[and also] praised, admired, reviewed, discussed, and criticized. He has nearly thirty scores of operas.52 But the decisive bit of evidence linking this collection with Count von Sickingen is provided by the same score that contained the note to the palatine envoy, namely the Washington manuscript of Jommel-li's Cap Fabrizio: the coat of arms found on the front and back covers of that volume features the small shield with five balls or spheres forming a cross of St. Andrew (i.e., in the form of an X) that had been the Sickingen family's heraldic device since the tenth century (see Fig. 7b).53 Thus is established beyond any doubt not only the provenance of these manuscripts and the others listed in the Berlin catalogue but also a hitherto unsuspected link with Mozart. Mozart's relationship with Count von Sickingen was in fact one of the few bright spots of his four-month sojourn in Paris in 1778. On 24 March of that year, one day after his arrival in Paris, Mozart writes to his father that the next day he will call on "electoral palatine minister von Sickingen, who is a great connoisseur and passionate amateur of music."54 After the day-long visit of 28 May described above, Mozart spent increasingly more time with the count: on 12 June, Maria Anna mentions Wolfgang's frequent lunches with him and Anton Raaff, and 52 Mozart, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen 2:368: "Gestern war ich das 2:te mahl bey H: graf v: Sückingen khurf: Pfälzischen gesandten, denn ich hab schon einmahl mit H: Wendling und RaafF dort gespeist welcher, ich weis nicht ob ich es schon geschrieben habe, ein charmanter herr, Paßionirter liebhaber, und wahrer kenner der Musique ist. da habe ich, ganz allein bey ihm, 8 stunde zugebracht, da waren wir vormittag und nachmittag bis 10 uhr abends immer beym clavier; allerley Musique durchgemacht — belobet, bewundert, Recensirt, raisonirt und criticirt. er hat so beyläüfig gegen 30 Spartiti von opern." English translation after Emily Anderson, The Letters of Mozart and His Family, 2d ed. by A. Hyatt King and Monica Carolan (London: Macmillan, 1966), 544. 55 See, inter alia, 7. Siebmacber'sgrosses Wappenbuch, vol. 24, Die Wappen des Adels in Baden, Ekaß-Lotbringen und Luxemburg, reprint ed. (Neustadt an der Aisch: Bauer und Raspe, 1974; original ed., Nürnberg: Bauer und Raspe, 1878), 37-38 and plate 23; and Ernst Heinrich Kneschke, ed., Neues allgemeines deutsches Adels-Lexikon, vol. 8 (Leipzig: Friedrich Voigt, 1868), 485. On the covers of the Jommelli manuscript the shield with five balls appears as the breastplate of an imperial eagle holding a sword in one claw and a scepter in the other (see Fig. 7b); other versions of the family crest feature a swan. Though the entire coat of arms is in gilt here, in colored representations the five balls are silver. As illustrated in Fig. 7, the Sickingen coat of arms on the Jommelli score has been added within the pre-existent floral frame after erasure of the abbreviation "N°" (without a number thereafter) found in the other manuscripts of his collection; cf. n. 35, above. 54 Mozart, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen 2:326: "khur-Pfälzische[r] Minister H: v: Sückingen[,] welcher ein grosser kenner und Paßionirter liebhaber von der Musick ist." newly identified manuscripts from mannheim 2 Ji Figure 7. (a) Decorative gilt frame appearing on front and back covers of scores with "Mannheim" bindings. (?) Coat of arms of Count von Sickingen, from back cover of the score to Tommelli's Cap Fabrizio, Washington, D.C., Library of Congress, Music Division, M1500.J72 C35. on the same day Wolfgang reports that he has been to the count's house six times, staying from one o'clock until ten.55 Mozart also previewed his "Paris" Symphony for Sickingen and Raaff.56 Later, the count tried to find Mozart a position at Mannheim or at Mainz, where he had a brother.57 Finally, it was Sickingen who intervened when Baron von Grimm ordered Mozart to leave Paris. Mozart wanted to stay a few extra days in order to check the engraver's proofs of his six violin sonatas K. 301-6, and Sickingen offered him a place to stay; but when Mozart informed Grimm of his intentions, the proud baron apparently threatened to become Mozart's worst enemy if he left his house but did not leave Paris.58 In closing, we can only express the hope that discovery of the relationship between the eight manuscripts with "Mannheim" bindings, the thematic catalogue in Berlin, and Count von Sickingen in Paris will lead to the identification of additional manuscripts belonging to his collection; Mozart mentions "nearly thirty" scores, whereas 55 Ibid., 375. 56 Ibid., 378. 57 See Wolfgang's letters of 18, 29, and 31 July and Leopold's of 29 August, ibid., 407,419,426,452-53. 5 See letters of 3, 19, and 26 October, ibid., 490, 497, 503. 272 journal of the american musicological society the catalogue contains little more than half that number.59 But whatever the exact extent of Sickingen's collection, we now have a far more concrete sense of precisely which operas Mozart may have come to know as a result of his friendship with the count. The presence in the Berlin catalogue (and thus in Sickingen's collection) of Gluck's Alceste is especially suggestive in this regard. First, it now appears highly probable that this score was the source (and perhaps also the model) for Mozart's setting of the scena from Gluck's Alceste, "Popoli di Tessaglia! / Io, non chiedo, eterni Dei" (K. 316/300D), written for Aloysia Weber while he was in Paris.60 And second, though many writers have noted similarities between Alceste and Mozart's Idomeneo, no one had previously been able to document Mozart's knowledge of either the Italian or the French version of Gluck's opera prior to 1781.61 A similar conclusion may be drawn about the influence of the Sickingen collection as a whole: for the knowledge that Mozart had the opportunity to familiarize himself with so many of the central 59 Mozart's account, though he may of course have exaggerated the number of scores in the count's collection, supports the view that the catalogue is incomplete as it stands. The works in the Berlin catalogue for which matching scores have not yet been identified are, again, Holzbauer's // giudizio di Salomone, Betulia liberate, Nitteti, and Adriano in Siria (nos. 1-4), Salieri's Fiera di Venezia (no. 10), Piccinni's Catone in Utica and Contadine bizzarre (nos. 14-15), the four parts of Gluck's Feste iTApollo (nos. i6a-d), and his Alceste (no. 17). Mannheim copies of the two Holzbauer oratorios, of Salieri's Fiera di Venezia, and of Piccinni's Catone in Utica are extant, but none has the characteristic "Mannheim" bindings, together with paginations matching those of the Berlin catalogue, that identify a manuscript as part of Count von Sickingen's collection. 60 Mozart refers to this aria in a letter from Paris to Aloysia, dated 30 July 1778, as follows: "E con quella occasione avra anche il Popoli di TeBaglia, ch'e gia mezzo Terminato — se lei ne sara si contenta — comme lo son io — potro chiamarmi felice; — intanto, sinche avro la sodisfazione di sapere di lei steBa l'incontro che avra avuta questa scena aprefio di lei s'intende, perche siccome l'ho fatta solamente per lei — cosi non desidero altra Lode che la sua; — intanto dunque non poBo dir altro, che, Tra le mie composizioni di questo genere — devo confeBare che questa scena e la megliore ch'ho fatto in vita mia" ("and at that time [completion of the engraving of his sonatas] you shall also have the [scena] Popoli di Tessaglia, which is already half finished—if you are as pleased with it as I am, I shall be delighted. Meanwhile, until I shall have the satisfaction of hearing from you yourself what you think of this scena [—you,] of course, because, as I have composed it only for you, I desire no other praise than yours—I can only say that of all my compositions of this kind, I must confess that this scena is the best I have ever composed"; Mozart, Briefe und Aufzeicbnungen 2:420; English translation after Anderson, Letters, 581). 61 John Platoff, "Writing about Influences: Idomeneo, a Case Study," in Explorations in Music, the Arts, and Ideas: Essays in Honor of Leonard B. Meyer, ed. Eugene Narmour and Ruth A. Solie (Stuyvesant, N.Y.: Pendragon Press, 1988), 43-65, provides a summary of the secondary literature. newly identified manuscripts from mannheim 273 works of the Mannheim tradition while in Paris, in addition to the performances he attended and scores he examined during his long stay at the electoral court in 1777/78, lends even greater weight to the importance of Mannheim in the genesis of Idomeneo.61 Clearly, if Mozart were to write an opera for a court, it would have been in his best interest, as Leopold frequently advised, to study its tastes as fully as possible and adapt his style accordingly so as to win a favorable reception. The broadening of a context for Mozart's music is thus one of the unexpected rewards of the reconstruction of an opera repertory at Mannheim. Madison, Wisconsin University of Pennsylvania Appendix Manuscripts of Mannheim Operas Lost in World War II The following is a list of scores to operas produced in Mannheim that were destroyed in World War II. Because the manuscripts are lost, it is impossible to know for certain whether they were actually copied at the court, though in the case of certain manuscripts formerly in the music library of the Mannheim Nationaltheater, that presumption would be strong (see the catalogue of the music collection of the Nationaltheater in Walter, Archiv und Bibliothek 2:161-96). Many of the sources in the library of the Nationaltheater evidently came originally from the Seyler troupe, which played periodically at Mannheim from 1777 and was resident company of the Nationaltheater in 1778/79; see the summary of the document "Verzeichnis der Seilerischen Theater Musikalien" in Walter, Archiv und Bibliothek 2.163, an^ cf. also pp. 260-63. Manuscripts formerly in Darmstadt (D-DS) have been identified through the prewar card catalogue there. Some or all of these were no doubt brought to Darmstadt by Abbé Vogler, who died there in 1814 (cf. n. 50, above). The dates given below are those of the first performance at Mannheim. Galuppi, Baldassare. J7 filosofo di campagna (1756, revived 1771). D-DS. Galuppi, Baldassare. Le nozze (1757). Mannheim, Nationaltheater (Walter, Archiv und Bibliothek 2:175). Gassmann, Florian Leopold. L'amoreartigiano (1772). D-DS; transcription in US-Wc, M 1500.G24 A5. Majo, Gian Francesco de. Alessandro [nelľlndie] (1766). Mannheim, Nationaltheater (acts 1-2 only; anon.; Walter, Archiv und Bibliothek 2:166, and see also his Geschichte, 136-37)- Piccinni, Niccolö. La buona figliuola (1769). Mannheim, Nationaltheater (Walter, Archiv und Bibliothek 2:168). Also German version, Das gute Mädchen (ibid., 173). Piccinni, Niccolö. Catone in Utica (1770). D-DS. Sacchini, Antonio. Visola damore (1772). D-DS (with annotation "Mannheim 1772"); 61 See Daniel Heartz, "The Genesis of Mozart's Idomeneo" The Musical Quarterly 55 (1969): 1-19; Corneilson, "Opera at Mannheim," chap. 8 et passim. Idomeneo was, of course, written for Carl Theodor's court, which had transferred to Munich in 1778, taking with it the majority of the Mannheim musicians. 274 journal of the american musicological society transcription in US-Wc, M 1500.S12 16. Schweitzer, Anton. Rosamunde (1780; originally scheduled for production in 1778). Mannheim, Nationaltheater (Walter, Archiv und Bibliotbek 2:176). Traetta, Tommaso. Sofonisba (1762). D-DS. Abstract Opera at the court of Elector Palatine Carl Theodor in Mannheim during the period 1742-78 attained a level of prestige fully equivalent to that of other leading courts of the day. Yet the loss of most of the performance materials in use at Mannheim has constantly hindered basic research in this area. The present article reports the existence of twenty-eight manuscripts (mainly full scores) of twenty separate operas and related secular dramatic works that were either copied at Mannheim or prepared for use there. Eight of these are revealed to have belonged to the personal collection of Count Carl Heinrich Joseph von Sickingen (1737-91), privy councillor to Carl Theodor and his envoy in Paris from 1768 until his death. Discovery of a thematic catalogue of Sickingen's collection allows the partial reconstruction of its contents; this has special relevance in that Mozart was a frequent guest of the count during his sojourn in Paris in 1777/78 and can be shown to have known and made use of his collection of opera scores.