Kyle Vanderburg Music in the Classical Period September 19, 2010 ARTICLE SUMMARY Erich Hertzmann, "Mozarts Creative

Process" in The Musical Quarterly 43, No. 2 (April, 1957): 187-200. Erich Hertzmann, in this article, describes the creative process of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as evidenced by the collection of autograph manuscripts that have survived to the present. Hertzmann starts out by explaining the events that occurred shortly after Mozarts death, namely the actions taken by Wolfgangs wife Constanze. Although she had been completely dependent on Wolfgang for support, Constanze quickly became a formidable manager, negotiating publication rights and ensuring that the Requiem was finished by the composers student, Franz Sssmayr. During this time Constanze collected all the known usable manuscripts. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was known for his fluency in music, and there appear to be an abundance of stories about his memory and inventiveness in music, and his manuscripts show this process. His manuscripts fall into three categories: sketches, unfinished fragments, and final drafts. Unlike the notebooks of Beethoven that show the gamut of the compositional process, from inspiration through refinement to the final draft, the unfinished fragments of Mozarts manuscripts show very little revision work, which appears to show that Mozart worked out most musical works in his mind, and then wrote them down upon finishing them. However, Constanze Mozart wrote in a letter that she destroyed the unusable autographs of her husband, which indicates there were many more unfinished fragments or working drafts. However, of the drafts that survive, there are a puzzling number of unfinished fragments which show Mozarts inventiveness, and yet these are puzzling as it makes one wonder why Mozart did not finish these fragments. In many instances, the unfinished fragments show modifications of other works, works that did not necessarily need much improvement. Mozarts fragments tend to be written similarly, starting out with the melody and a bass line, and these two parts continue until they trail off. They may have other instrumental accompaniment, but generally the score is empty except for these two lines. The exception to this rule appears to be complicated cases in which Mozart was required to write out by hand, such as fugues, canons, and extensive polyphony. In many cases this music is written out in a hurriedMozartean shorthand, which supports the fact Mozart often was composing faster than he could write.Additionally, the mistakes that are corrected in the final drafts are often editorial and minor details rather than corrections that would change the entire shape or layout of the work. As his style progressed and matured it became more complex, which required more time and energy to write his larger compositions. While his basic compositional process had not changed, this new, more complex style slowed the creative process for larger works and caused his later period to be less prolific. To quicken the process, Mozart often wrote out melodies and sketches in shorthand and had his student, Franz Sssmayr, write out the final copies. While Mozarts compositional process was largely similar to the process used by any other composer, it was his prolific output and ability to complete much of the process mentally that sets him apart from other composers of his day and since.