--- MU S I C -� -------------------

A Schiller Setting for the Mozart Year We publish here, for the first

time since 1 820, a solo song by the composer-son of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Franz Xaver Mo­zart was born two hundred years ago on July 29, 1 79 1 , six months before the untimely death of his fa­ther on Dec. 5, 1 79 1 . (For purposes of more closely following the Ger­man, we print here a literal English version.)

Besides marking the "Mozart Year ," another good reason to print this song is to testify to the powerful extension of Classical German cul­ture throughout Central Europe. In particular, it is a fitting way to cele­brate the independence of Ukraine, where the younger Mozart spent some 28 years of his musical career.

Franz Xaver Mozart, the sixth child of Wolfgang Amadeus and Constanze Mozart, and the younger of their two surviving sons, started to study piano in 1 796. Among his teachers were Beethoven's pupil Hummel and Antonio Salieri. His first compositions, including a piano quartet, appeared in 1 802. In 1 807 he went to Lemberg, now Lvov , in western Ukraine, where he worked first as a tutor, then as a music teacher, and became a freelance mu­sician in 1 8 1 3 . I t was during his ex­tended concert tour throughout Western Europe in 1 8 1 9-2 1 , that he publ ished "An Emma" in Hamburg. Afterward, he stayed in Lemberg (Lvov) until 1 838, when he settled in Vienna. He died in 1 844.

The more famous setting of this poem was composed by Franz Schu­bert in 1 8 1 4, but not published until the 1 820's . I t is unlikely that either composer knew the other's version. The similarities are striking: Both used duple meter, and the key ofF-

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Schubert chose F major with a brief modulation into F minor and its rel­ative major, A� ; F.x. Mozart chose F minor, modulating into F major to end in the same key as Schubert. Both composers began the song with a repeated low F in a dotted rhythm for the words, Weit in. Yet the ver­sions are very different.

Schubert repeated the sad decla­ration that ends the second stanza ("Thou livest not of my love") and ended, as Schiller did, with the query, "does i t die l ike an earthly thing ? " The voice's last note hovers on the third, and the piano completes the piece wordlessly with the tonic, F, expressed as a long pedal-point in the bass, as if to imply that the an­swer is only in the depths of the soul. The song was printed as part of Op. 58 with "Hektors Abschied" and "Des Madchens Klage," settings of

An Emma Weit in nebelgrauer Ferne Liegt mir das vergangne Gluck, Nur an einem schonen Sterne Weilt mit Liebe noch der Blick. Aber, wie des Sternes Pracht, 1st es nur ein Schein der Nacht.

Deckte dir der lange Schlummer, Dir der Tod die Augen zu, Dich besaBe doch mein Kummer, Meinem Herzen lebtest duo Aber ach ! du lebst im Licht, Meiner Liebe lebst du nicht.

Kann der Liebe suB Verlangen, Emma, kann's verganglich sein ? Was dahin ist und vergangen, Emma, kann's die Liebe sein ? Ihrer Flamme Himmelsglut, Stirbt sie wie ein irdisch Gut?

two other Schiller poems. Franz Xaver Mozart's version,

while not as brilliant as Schubert's, has a rich, haunting quality. I t is quite "operatic," modulating through rapid key changes and mood changes (like the remarkable enharmonic shift to B on the word Pracht-splendor), to declaim the final words of the poem, "does it die like an earthly thing ? " with a rising fifth-the inflection of a question. But Mozart adds a coda in a new key (F major), a new meter (triple), and a new tempo (allegretto moderato). The coda brings back the words of the second stanza, to end with the hope, " thou wouldst be alive in my heart." The tenor soloist closes on the F of the top of the middle regis­ter, after a bravura cadenza up to a high � .

-Nora Hamerman

To Emma Far in the misty-grey distance Lies my past happiness; Only on a beautiful star Does my eye lovingly dwell ; But, just l ike the star's splendor It is but an apparition of the night.

If the long slumber of death Ever covered thine eyes, My cares would yet possess thee, Thou wouldst be alive to my heart. But oh ! thou livest in the l ight, Thou livest not of my love.

Can love's sweet yearning, Emma, Can it ever die ? What is gone and dead, Emma, Can it really be love ? Its flame's divine glow, Does it die like an earthly thing?

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An Emma Friedrich Schiller

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Franz Xaver Mozart (c. 1 820)

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