An unknown project in Mozart’s last year
mainThe assiduous researcher Michael Lorenz has found evidence that Mozart was approached in 1791 by a playwright and the director of the Hofteather to write music for a new comedy, Er mengt sich in Alles.
This was Mozart’s most productive year – Magic Flute, last piano concerto, clarinet concerto, Ave verum corpus, Requiem. he was no longer desperate for money and had begun paying off debts.
The play premiered in August, apparently without Mozart’s involvement. In September he fell ill. In December he died.
Read the new evidence here.
Not to forget: La clemenza di Tito …
Let me state the following: it was the American Mozart scholar Dexter Edge who initially found the reference to a Mozart sonata in Johann Friedrich Jünger’s play “Er mengt sich in Alles”. It was Edge’s discovery which made me check Jünger’s letters in the Wienbibliothek which led to my discovery of Jünger’s request that Mozart write a short piano movement for the play. IMO Edge deserves more credit for this discovery than I do.
Ah yes, this explains why he wrote that famous ribald canon, in 6 parts, in B flat on the text Leck mich im Arsch K231 Have enjoyed singing it after a few pints of Stout.
I think the aforementioned play also included his 6 part canon in B flat on the words “Leck mich im Arsch” K231, a somewhat ribald work but great fun to sing after several beers! I have a copy in my manuscript collection made by his son Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart who ended up in Lemberg.