Piping time: Mozart and the organ

Katalin Komlós traces the extent of Mozart’s involvement with the ‘king of instruments’

Mozart was a master of improvisation, and some wonderful stories, connected with the organ, show him at his most spontaneous in this special art. Here is his own account of a Sunday Mass in the Court Chapel of Mannheim, in November 1777: ‘I came in during the Kyrie and played the end of it, and, when the priest had finished intoning the Gloria, I played a cadenza. As my performance was so different from what they are accustomed to here, they all looked round, especially [Kapellmeister] Holzbauer. [...] Instead of a Benedictus the organist has to play here the whole time. So I took the theme of the Sanctus and developed it as a fugue. Whereupon they all stood gaping. Finally, after the Ite missa est, I played a fugue.’

The old distinction between strict (gebundene), and free (freie) manner of improvisation was valid throughout the eighteenth century. Mozart called the former orglmässig, or fugirte playing, regardless of the instrument used. It seems, nevertheless, that his ‘organ-like’ extemporisations were called forth by the clavichord, if not actually the organ. The authentic description of one such occasion gives us a concrete idea of his procedures. Mozart relates the events of a musical evening at the Holy Cross Monastery in Augsburg (October 1777) as follows:

‘They brought in a small clavichord and I improvised and then played a sonata and the Fischer variations. Then the others whispered to the Dean that he should just hear me play something in the organ style [orglmässig]. I asked him to give me a theme. He declined, but one of the monks gave me one. I put it through its paces and in the middle (the fugue was in G minor) I started off in the major key and played something quite lively, though in the same tempo; and after that the theme over again, but this time arseways. Finally it occurred to me, could I not use my lively tune as the theme for a fugue? I did not waste much time in asking, but did so at once.’

Particularly interesting is Mozart’s information about the unchanging pulse of the successive sections, in the manner of the old proportio.

The transcription and commentary of an organ improvisation of Mozart survives, albeit post factum, and in a suspect form. The event took place in Prague 1787, in the Strahov Monastery, which Mozart visited in the company of Josepha Duschek. FX Niemetschek, Mozart’s first biographer, must have known about it, for several years later he requested details from Norbert Ignaz Loehmann, who had been assistant organist, and Mozart’s guide in the church at the time. Loehmann sent his report to Niemetschek in 1818, thirty-one years after the notable visit. He enclosed an alleged transcription of Mozart’s improvisation as well (K.528a=K6 Anh.C27.03), the authenticity of which is doubtful.10 The long narrative, on the other hand, imparts particulars that could hardly be invented, even if recollected after a long period of time.