How the new Köchel catalogue came in 24 years late
NewsCornell University has an enlightening interview with its emeritus professor Neal Zaslaw, 85, the man behind the updating of Mozart and his works…. only 24 years behind deadline.
When the contract for the new Köchel catalog was signed in 1993, Zaslaw and the publisher agreed to a reasonable deadline.
“The contract said that I would finish it in seven years,” Zaslaw said. “As the years grew into decades, I was still finding it ‘fun,’ but I began to wonder whether I would finish it before I died.”
Zaslaw was able to tap many new resources that previous Köchel editors lacked: the Internet, a rising generation of scholars willing to communicate and cooperate, and international projects that were inventorying libraries and archives that had never been fully cataloged.
But there was another vestige of tradition that stymied Zaslaw. The legacy of the Köchel itself.
“I consulted a lot of performers and librarians and archivists and scholars and publishers,” he said, “and they were basically saying, ‘You can’t change the numbers by which we know all of Mozart’s works. Mozart’s G minor symphony is Köchel listing 550. Do not assign a new number to that. It will create chaos.’”
Zaslaw came up with a crafty, albeit time-consuming, solution. The previous numbering system has been retained, but “chronological” has disappeared from the book’s title and Zaslaw devised an elaborate new index system for crediting sources.
Now, 24 years after it was initially promised, Zaslaw’s Köchel has arrived, and it is an “astounding relief,” he said….
More here.
“…Do not assign a new number to that. It will create chaos.”
Exactly. There is still confusion when it comes to Schubert symphony no. 7. Or is it 8? Versions of the symphony “From the New World” still are around with no.5 on them. Once a number becomes ensconced in the musical world, just leave it alone.
Generally I agree but … if we revere the “last three Mozart symphonies, Nos. 39, 40 and 41” [and we damn well should] then what of the Mozart Symphony Nos. 42 to 58? To me giving those pieces (very early works or orchestrated string quartets) numbers AFTER 41 — just for the sake of giving them numbers — was just as big a mistake as playing around with Kochel numbers.
As for Kochel numbers there are already some pieces with two Kochel numbers, such as the Concertone for Two Violins and Orchestra, which I always regarded as K. 190 but now seems to be regarded as K 186E, more frequently seen in print as K 186e, but that’s its own problem because K 186e is also the new number for the bassoon concerto!
It’s enough to make me want to settle down with a nice glass of wine and enjoy Mozart’s Symphony No. 37, K. 444. Now THAT’S music.
Indeed it is; one of Michael Haydn’s best!
It’s still disconcerting to note a newly discovered juvenile work having a later number than the K.626 Requiem mass.
I didn’t know that “catalog” was anything *other* than numbers.
While I have the upmost respect for Zaslaw, I think he made a mistake not blowing up the Köchel catalog numbers and starting over because it had become so convoluted through attempts to keep it chronological as new pieces were discovered.
While doing away with the familiar numbers would create some confusion for the current generation, it would also help create greater clarity for all future generations.
This could have also been an opportunity to eliminate the confusing numbering, like the numbered symphonies after 41.
Three problems with what you propose:
1. what if further additions or changes were to arise (can we be confident that there are absolutely no more undiscovered MSS, the chronology is absolutely settled, and there are no ambiguities about authorship &c.)?
2. even if we could be confident that it would be possible to settle matters for “all future generations” (as opposed to “until the next time contradictions arise to the extent of rendering the system too convoluted”… by the way, how “convoluted” does something have to be before it warrants a complete reset?), what about all the editions, sources, literature, &c. that rely on the existing numeration and will continue to be utilised by “future generations” (editions of Dvorak symphonies with the ‘wrong’ numeration are still very much in circulation, despite the numeration having been ‘corrected’ many decades ago)?
3. what about all the other composers and musical phenomena (e.g.: transposing instruments — Gordon Jacob argued that the notational conventions for transposition are maintained primarily for continuity’s sake, and would not have been devised that way if we had started with 20th-century clarinets &c.) which have accrued a nomenclature that is somewhat suboptimal in light of developments since it was codified?
Ultimately, the question of re-numbering depends heavily on balancing the value of a ‘correct’ sequence (according to a given set of criteria) against the disruption that changing the sequence would cause. For a canonical composer such as Mozart, the sequence has become so well known in its own right that any change would be enormously disruptive, with no guarantee that further changes would not be required in the future. A good analogy would be house numbers on a street — in general, it is almost unthinkable to renumber a house just because other houses have been split or merged or a new house built.
For some canonical composers, a moderately effective compromise is to initiate a new numeration sequence with a different prefix (Scarlatti, C.P.E. Bach, and Bartók are obvious examples of composers for whom this has been done, although it might be remarked that the different sequences are often guided by different priorities/criteria, rather than revisions to catalogues following the same criteria).