Mozart's Grace

204 Pages·2012·7.337 MB·English

by  Scott Burnham

Mozart’s Grace
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Mozart’s Grace
S c o t t B u r n h a m
Pr in c e to n unive r s i t y Pre s s
Princeton and Oxford
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Copyright © 2013 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press,
41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
press.princeton.edu
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Burnham, Scott G.
Mozart’s grace / Scott Burnham.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-691-00910-0 (hardcover)
1. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756–1791—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.
ML410.M9B974 2013
780.92—dc23 2012030026
British Library Cataloging-i n- Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Sabon LT Std
Book designed by Marcella Engel Roberts
Printed on acid-f ree paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
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For my favorite Mozart- loving angels, here and elsewhere:
Evalyn Foote Burnham
Luisa Heyl Foote
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Contents
Acknowledgments  ix
Invitation 1
I Beauty and Grace 7
II Thresholds 37
III Grace and Renewal 117
Knowing Innocence 165
Notes  171
Bibliography  183
Index  187
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ACknowledgments
In some sense this project began about thirty years ago, in the com-
pany of my old friend Jeff West, as we marveled together at various
passages in Mozart’s music. One that stood out in particular for us was
the stunning return to the theme in the middle of the Adagio from the
String Quintet in D Major, K. 593. Some fifteen years later, I revisited
that passage in a paper called “Rehearing Mozart,” delivered in honor of
Edward T. Cone’s eightieth birthday, in which I pondered how it is that
we can rehear our favorite musics over and over again with enhanced
enjoyment. Next, in November of 2001, I participated in “Music and the
Aesthetics of Modernity,” a conference in honor of Reinhold Brinkmann
at Harvard University, where I presented “On the Beautiful in Mozart,” a
paper that became the prototype for this book.
On that occasion I was the grateful recipient of invaluable feedback
and encouragement from Karol Berger and Anthony Newcomb, who or-
ganized the conference and edited the proceedings in a Festschrift for
Reinhold (Music and the Aesthetics of Modernity, Harvard University
Press, 2005), and also from Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Robert Levin, David
Lewin, Lewis Lockwood, Charles Rosen, James Webster, and especially
Reinhold Brinkmann himself, who upon publication of the essays, and in
the midst of a debilitating illness, sent me a note of thanks with faltering
handwriting but unwavering generosity and warmth of spirit.
Since then, I have been fortunate enough to read several additional
papers related to this project for colleagues at a variety of institutions,
including Case Western Reserve University, Cornell University, Florida
State University, Indiana University, Ohio State University, Peabody Con-
servatory, Pennsylvania State University, Rider University, Stanford Uni-
versity, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Swarthmore
College, and the universities of Alabama, Iowa, Michigan, Oklahoma,
and Oslo. On these many occasions I was the beneficiary of the expertise
and enthusiasm of friends and colleagues too plentiful to enumerate here.
But I would like to single out a few special individuals: Joseph Kerman,
who shared with me an unpublished paper on K. 453; Leo Treitler, whose
genial public response to my talk “Supernatural Mozart” remains a high-
light of my academic career; and Charles Rosen, whose discussions and
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