‘cor “RARY | The Cambridge Companion to MOZART EDITED BY Simon P. Keefe SS CAMBRIDGE ©) UNrveRsrty PRESS17 Performance practice in the music of Mozart ROBERT D. LEVIN tury composers tended to work ent their music from having Until the second half of the nineteenth cer within a lingua franca, which did not pre a discernible individuality. Their personalities are evident both in matters of style and in peculiarities of notation and terminology. These tend to be ig Which dispenses general definitions overlooked in conservatory traini of terminology with presumed universal validity, The primary sources of performance practice information for Mozart and other eighteenth-century musicians are the treatises, particularly those of Mozart's father on violin playing and that of C. P. E, Bach on keyboard playing.' What follows is an attempt to cover the principal areas of idiomatic per- formance practice in Mozart. Given the constraints of space, emphasis will be placed upon the relationship between Mozart's notation and its execu- tion. The treatment of individual domains and instruments is drawn both from the treatises and the author's study of Mozart's notational practice. Society, tempo and character Morart’s music incarnates a cosmopolitan vernacular depictinga wide range of dramatic and emotional situations, which are intimately bound up with the social conventions of his day. There is scarcely a musical gesture, from the courtly and martial march to the sighing appoggiatura, that is not re lated to societal relationships and functions, physical gestures, or emotional archetypes. It is Mozart’ singular achievement to have enriched this univer- sally understood vocabulary with uncanny acuity of perception in matters of human motivation and character, supported by a sophisticated control of dramatic and structural events from the smallest detail to the largest arc. ‘Thisin turn is animated by an intense characterization of the individual keys and instruments, an unusually rich harmonic language, a rhythmic style of extraordinary fluidity, and a variety of textures and accompaniment figures that change at split-second speed to mirror the volatile flow of emotions There is scarcely a more crucial element to the depiction of a particu lar dramatic situation than tempo. Mozart uses a consistent hierarchy of ral speed and character will tempo indications and modifications. The g be clearly implied by the initial theme of a movement, but Mozart’s language228 Robert D. Levin is intrinsically mercurial, Frequent changes of accompaniment patterns and a rich palette of articulation, harmonic language and expressive gestures are used to delineate impulsive shifts from casual ease to anxiety and high drama; from ardour to charm; from childlike joy to mockery. The tendency of today’s instrumental performers to substitute notions of loveliness for Mozart's volatility of character would be unthinkable on the opera stage, as this would be fatal to the intrinsic drama, Musicians who immerse them- selvesin the stimulating study of Mozart's expressive vocabulary will become aware of his sophisticated rendering of character shifts and will exploit these viscerally in performances of dazzling theatricality in the best sense, Rubato and tempo flexibility The eighteenth-century treatises are uniform in emphasizing the impor- tance of a steady tempo. Nonetheless, there are sanctioned ways to un- derscore the musical rhetoric with discreet tempo inflections. Among the possibilities? are emphasis of critical rests to provide dramatic punctuation within a phrase or between two adjoining phrases, tasteful use of agog- ics (slight stretching of the longer notes of a melody), and tempo rubato, described by Mozart in an oft-quoted letter to his father: Everyone is amazed that I can always keep strict time, What these people cannot grasp is that in tempo rubato in an Adagio, the left hand should go oon playing in strict time. With them the left hand always follows suit Repeats If repeats are considered today as non-binding suggestions, there is strong evidence that Mozart expected performers to respect every repeat he wrote. His deletion of the exposition repeat of the ‘Haffner’ Symphony, K. 385, shows that there was nothing purely mechanical about such repeats. Those who believe that the occasional prescription ‘Menuetto da capo senza replica’ should apply universally might reflect that if the suppression of repeats at the da capo had been normative such indications would not ap- pear at all. Mozart's care in these matters is confirmed by the second minuet from the Divertimento for String Trio in E flat major, K. 563. Its first trio concludes with the indication ‘Menuetto da capo, le tepliche piano’: this tells the performers how to play the repeat, not that they must take it; and he calls for the omission of the repeats after the second trio. Beyond these documentary matters is the evidence of the music itself ‘The dramatic significance of the music that begins the development section