Commentary

The first performances of Le nozze di Figaro in Prague took place in late autumn 1786. The precise date of the Prague premiere is unknown, but the first report on the opera in the Prager Oberpostamtzeitung on 12 Dec 1786 states that it had already been given a number of times (“einigemal”) by that point:

Kein Stück (so gehet hier die allgemeine Sage) hat je so viel Aufsehen gemacht als die italienische Oper: Die Hochzeit des Figaro, welche von der hiesigen Bondinischen Gesellschaft der Opernvirtuosen schon einigemal mit dem vollsten Beyfalle gegeben wurde. [Dokumente, 246]

No piece (so goes the general wisdom here) has ever made so much of a stir as the Italian opera Le nozze di Figaro, which has already been given a number of times with the greatest acclaim by the resident Bondini company of opera virtuosi.

That same report cites a rumor that Mozart himself might come to Prague to see the production:

Kenner, die diese Oper in Wien gesehen haben, wollen behaupten, daß sie hier weit besser ausfalle; und sehr wahrscheinlich, weil die blasenden Instrumenten, worinn die Böhmen bekanntlich entschiedene Meister sind, in dem ganzen Stück viel zu thun haben; besonders gefallen die Duetten der Trompete und des Waldhorn. Unserem Großen Mozart muß dieses selbst zu Ohren gekommen seyn, weil seit dem das Gerücht gehet, er würde selbst hieher kommen das Stück zu sehen [...] [Dokumente, 246]

Connoisseurs who have seen this opera in Vienna claim that it comes off far better here; and very likely so, because the wind instruments, on which the Bohemians are famously decided masters, have much to do throughout the piece; the duets of trumpet and horn are especially pleasing. Our Great Mozart must himself have heard this, because since then the rumor has circulated that he will come here himself to see the piece [...]

The new document transcribed here, from the Salzburg newspaper Oberdeutsche Staatszeitung, states that Mozart had been sent a poem and two letters, one signed by the entire Prague orchestra, inviting him to come to Prague to see the production. The content of the report closely mirrors Leopold Mozart’s letter to his daughter of 12 Jan 1787, six days earlier:

Dein Bruder wird itzt mit seiner Frau bereits in Prag seyn, denn er schrieb mir daß er verflossenen Montag [8 Jan] dahin abreisen werde. seine opera Le Nozze di Figaro sind mit so grossen Beyfahl alda aufgeführt worden, daß das Orchester, und eine Gesellschaft grosser kenner und Liebhaber im [sic; recte ihm] Einladungs Briefe zu geschrieben, und eine Poesie die über ihn gemacht worden zugeschickt haben. Ich habs von deinem Bruder und Gr: Starmberg hat es von Prag bekommen. mit nächstem Bothentag werde es euch schicken. Md:me Duscheck gehet nach Berlin, und die Rede, daß dein Bruder nach Engelland reisen wird, bestättigt sich noch immer von Wienn, von Prag und von München aus. [Briefe iv:7, lines 17–26]

Your brother will now be in Prague with his wife, for he wrote me that he would depart for there this past Monday [8 Jan]. His opera Le nozze di Figaro has been performed with such acclaim there, that the orchestra and a group of great connoisseurs and amateurs wrote him a letter of invitation, and sent a poem that had been written about him. I have it from your brother, and Count Starhemberg has received it from Prague. I will send it to you on the next post day. Mme. Duschek is going to Berlin, and the story that your brother will travel to England is repeatedly confirmed from Vienna, from Prague, and from Munich.

The similarity between Leopold’s letter and the report in the Oberdeutsche Staatszeitung suggests that the paper might have received the information from him directly. However, his statement that Count Starhemberg (canon of the Salzburg cathedral, Franz Joseph Count Starhemberg) “received it from Prague” (“hat es von Prag bekommen”) leaves open the possibility that the count might have been the conduit, or perhaps Lorenz Hübner, the editor of the Oberdeutsche Staatszeitung, had it from both of them.

Franz Xaver Niemetschek, in his biography of Mozart, claims that the invitation came from Count Johann Joseph Anton Thun:

Die Bewunderung für den Verfasser dieser Musik gieng so weit, daß einer unserer edelsten Kavaliere und Kenner der Musik, Graf Johann Joseph Thun, der selbst eine vortreffiche Kapelle unterhielt, ihn nach Prag zu kommen einlud, und ihm Wohnung, Kost und alle Bequemlichkeiten in seinem Hause anboth. (Niemetschek 1808, 39)

The admiration for the author of this music went so far that one of our most noble cavaliers and connoisseurs of music, Count Johann Joseph Thun, who himself maintained a splendid kapelle, invited him to come to Prague, and offered him lodging, board, and every convenience in his house.

Mozart and Constanze left Vienna for Prague on 8 Jan 1787; their arrival there on 11 Jan was reported in the Prager Oberpostamtszeitung (13 Jan 1786, Dokumente 250). Mozart attended a performance of Figaro on 17 Jan (according to his letter of 15 Jan to Gottfried von Jacquin, Briefe, iv:12). On 19 Jan he gave a concert in the theater, likewise reported in the Prager Oberpostamtszeitung (Dokumente, 251), and on 22 Jan he directed a performance of Figaro. The Mozarts departed Prague on 8 Feb, returning to Vienna around the 12th.

The poem that accompanied the invitation to Prague was written by doctor and amateur actor Anton Daniel Breicha: “An Mozart bey Gelegenheit der Vorstellung der Oper le nozze di Figaro” (Dokumente, 248–49), first published as an individual sheet (a copy of which had been sent to Mozart and evidently also to Starhemberg), and subsequently printed in the anthology Blumen, Blümchen und Blätter edited by Johann Dionys John (John 1787, 15–17).

The Oberdeutsche Staatszeitung was edited by Lorenz Hübner (?1751–1807), an influential proponent of Enlightenment ideas in Catholic Germany and Austria. Born in Donauwörth in Bavaria, Hübner studied law and theology at Ingolstadt and was ordained in 1774 upon the completion of his doctorate in theology. Following a period teaching in the secondary school (Gymnasium) in Burghausen, he went to Munich in 1779 where he assumed the editorship of the daily Münchner Zeitung, which under his leadership became one of the leading newspapers in Germany (Wurzbach, 397). The change in style and tone are evident even in the paper’s new masthead for the issue of 9 May 1780, accompanied by a change of title from the plain vanilla Münchner Zeitung to the explicitly intellectual and cosmopolitan Münchner Staats=, gelehrte, und vermischte Nachrichten—or, as a cover page from one of the annual volumes more expansively describes it:  Münchner Stats=, gelehrte, und vermischte Nachrichten, aus Journalen, Zeitungen, und Correspondenzen, übersezt, und gesammelt, thus placing the newspaper on a world stage (or at least a European one). Beginning also with the issue of 9 May 1780, the paper expanded from four pages to eight, although it scaled back to four in 1781; gradually Hübner began to experiment with issues of differing lengths depending on need, with occasional if irregular additions of an “Anhang” or “Beilage.” In Jan 1783, Hübner added a monthly literary supplement to his roster, the Münchner gelehrte Zeitung, oder Anzeige der neuesten Bücher aus Baiern, und den angrenzenden Gegenden (the title of the first issue,which was subsequently simplified to Münchner gelehrte Zeitung; the daily paper reverted to the title Münchner Zeitung with the first issue of 1783, while retaining its longer title for the yearly volumes).

By 1783 Hübner’s enlightened ideas and his free expression of them ran afoul of Elector Karl Theodor. Hübner was invited to come to Salzburg by Prince Bishop Hieronymous Colloredo, who was decidedly more friendly to the Enlightenment. The Münchner gelehrte Zeitung disappeared after the issue of Dec 1783, and Hübner seems to have taken up editorship of the Salzburger Zeitung immediately at the beginning of 1784. In 1785 the paper was renamed the Oberdeutsche Staatszeitung, and it is under that title that the report transcribed here was published in 1787. Joseph Wißmayr, in a hagiography of Hübner written some years after his death, states that when Karl Theodor banned Hübner’s Oberdeutsche Staatszeitung in Munich, the result was a daily procession of readers to the nearby village of Vöhring (Föhring), where the ban did not hold (Wißmayr 1855, 14–15; the anecdote is repeated by Wurzbach).

In Jan 1784 Hübner also established a four-page weekly, the Salzburger Intelligenzblatt—or as it later styled itself on the cover page of the volume for 1786, the Salzburger Intelligenzblatt, oder Wochentliche Nachrichten zum allgemeinen Nutzen und zur Erbauung. The Intelligenzblatt expanded to eight pages in 1785; it contained local and regional ordinances, notices, and advertisements, “Gelehrte Nachrichten und Bücheranzeigen,” notices of births, weddings, and deaths, and other local news, including (quite irregularly) notices of local theatrical performances. In 1788 Hübner began yet another monthly, the Oberdeutsche, allgemeine Litteraturzeitung. All three of these periodicals continued publication until 1799; following the death of Karl Theodor that year, Hübner was called back to Munich by his successor Maximilian IV.

All three of Hübner’s Salzburg periodicals contain Mozart documents, seven of which were already known to Mozart scholars. On 23 Mar 1786, the Oberdeutsche Staatszeitung published one riddle and seven proverbs from the Bruchstücke aus Zoroastens Fragmenten, the so-called “Zoroastrian Riddles,” which Mozart had distributed as a broadsheet at a masked ball in Vienna on 19 Feb 1786 (the extract published in the Oberdeutsche Staatszeitung is transcribed in Dokumente, 234–35, and Briefe, iii:506–7). Mozart sent a copy of the Bruchstücke to his father, as Leopold explains in a letter to his daughter that same day (Briefe, iii:521); it is usually assumed that Leopold himself provided the broadsheet or an extract of it to Hübner. No copy of the original broadsheet is known to survive, but a manuscript draft of the other seven riddles (although not the missing anecdotes) was rediscovered in 1970; the five that are legible (Nissen had rendered two illegible) are printed in Briefe (vi:713–15) and given in translation in NMD (43–44; see also the discussion and interpretation of the riddles in Solomon 1995, 337–52).

On 29 Dec 1785, the Oberdeutsche Staatszeitung reprinted a report from the Wiener Zeitung (24 Dec 1785, 2967) on Mozart’s performance of one of his piano concertos at the concert of the Viennese Tonkünstler-Societät on 23 Dec (Documente, 227–28); on 12 Dec 1791 it reprinted the notice of Mozart’s death from the Wiener Zeitung on 7 Dec (the reprint is noted in Neue Folge, 77); and on 28 Dec 1791, it printed a version of a report that had appeared in the Prager Oberpostamtszeitung on 17 Dec regarding a memorial service for Mozart in Prague on 14 Dec (the Prague report is transcribed in Addenda, 75; the version from the Oberdeutsche Staatszeitung is in Neue Folge, 76–77). We are able to add two more Mozart references from the Oberdeutsche Staatszeitung: the report on Figaro in Prague transcribed here; and a report of a concert in Prague on 30 Mar 1787 that included a Mozart piano concerto (see the entry for 3 May 1787).

Two documents relating to Mozart in Hübner’s Salzburger Intelligenzblatt were already known to Mozart scholars. On 15 Sep 1787, the paper announced the auction of Leopold Mozart’s estate (Dokumente, 261–62); and on 7 Jan 1792 it carried a story on the commissioning of Mozart’s Requiem (Neue Folge, 81). As we have shown, the story on the Requiem had already been printed in Der baierische Landbot on 27 Dec 1791, which may well have been the source for the reprint in the Intelligenzblatt. We are able to add another document from the Intelligenzblatt, a notice in the issue of 27 Jun 1787 of Leopold Mozart’s death on 28 May.

Two references to Mozart appear in Hübner’s monthly, the Oberdeutsche, allgemeine Litteraturzeitung. On 16 Feb 1791 the Litteraturzeitung published a review of the Taschenbuch für Freunde und Freundinnen der Musik by Jacob Friedrich Marzius (or Martius). The review in the Litteraturzeitung lists its contents, which include arrangements of two arias from Die Entführung aus dem Serail, a “Contretanz” by “Muck” based on Osmin’s “O wie will ich triumphiren!,” and a march by Marzius based on the opera’s overture. Neue Folge transcribes the relevant passages from the review in its commentary regarding a shorter notice on the Taschenbuch in Cramer’s Magazin der Musik of 17 Dec 1786. However, an entire line was accidentally omitted from the transcription in Neue Folge (the omitted line is given here in blue):

                                                      [...]  die

niedlich Romanze mit Abkürzung des Ritornells:

Im Mohrenland gefangen ward &c., und Wer

ein Liebchen hat gefunden &c. aus Brezners

Entführung aus dem Serail vom Mozart; (bey

letzteren eine niedliche Vignette, Osmin auf dem

Baume. Belmonte steckt aber wahrscheinlich hin=

ter dem Hause!) [...]

[Neue Folge, 110–11; the reference to “Wer ein Liebchen hat gefunden” is also omitted from the translation in NMD, 104–5]

It is claimed in Neue Folge that no copy of the Taschenbuch is known to survive, but the Bodleian Library at Oxford holds a copy from the estate of Albi Rosenthal. An inscription on the flyleaf of this copy reads: “Dieses Taschenbuch zu schätzbaren Andenken erhalten von Herrn Professor Schubart, Herzogl. Würtembergischen Hofdichter, auch Musick u. Theater Direktor zu Studtgartt; beÿ meiner Anwesenheit daselbst den 3t[en]. October 1790. Friedericke Charlotte Zehler” (“This Taschenbuch received as a treasured memento from Herr Professor Schubart, poet to the ducal court of Württemberg, also director of music and theater in Stuttgart; on the occasion of my presence there on 3 October 1790”; the reference is to Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart). According to the contents list in the Bodleian’s catalog entry for the Taschenbuch, the Mozart arias in vol. 1 are not printed in succession; they are, respectively, the second and ninth items in the volume. The “Angloise” [sic] by “Muk” (perhaps Friedrich Johann Albrecht Muck) on “O wie will ich triumphiren!” is the sixth item in the first volume.

Later that same year, in its issue of 2 Nov, the Oberdeutsche, allgemeine Litterarturzeitung published a long review of Ignaz Walter’s keyboard score of Dittersdorf’s Die Liebe im Narrenhaus, recently published by Schott. The review (which is signed “F—K.” and is therefore probably not by Hübner) draws a comparison between Walter’s score of Die Liebe im Narrenhaus and Abbé Stark’s keyboard score of Entführung, also published by Schott (see Neue Folge, 72–73; the review appears in columns 823–30 of the Litteraturzeitung; the passage on the keyboard score of Entführung appears near the end, in cols. 829–30).

Leopold Mozart refers to Hübner in several letters to his daughter in 1785 and 1786, and from these it is clear that Leopold and Hübner knew one another. However, the relationship appears not to have been a close one: of the six unequivocal references to Hübner in the letters, Leopold refers to him as “H[err] Zeitungsschreiber” (3 Nov 1785), “H: Hübner” (18 Nov 1785), “der Zeitungsschreiber” (2-3 Dec 1785), “Zeitungsschreiber Hübner” (21 Jul and 11 Aug 1786), and “H: Hübner” (1 Sep 1786). Leopold’s repeated reference to Hübner as “Zeitungsschreiber” may in part reflect his habitual sardonic tone, but they also suggest that Leopold felt it necessary to remind Nannerl who Hübner was, suggesting in turn that his relationship with the Mozarts was not close.

As with many intellectuals of the Enlightenment, Hübner wrote prolifically on a wide variety of topics across a variety of genres. He led an amateur theater group in Salzburg (as mentioned by Leopold Mozart in letters to his daughter); two of Hübner’s own plays were performed in Salzburg in 1787 and again in 1789: Camma, die Heldin Bojoariens (Munich 1784) and Hainz von Stain der Wilde (Munich 1782; both carry the subtitle Ein vaterländisches Schauspiel). In 1782 Hübner provided a German translation of Antonio Salieri’s setting of Metastasio’s Semiramide, performed in Munich that year; Hübner is identified as the translator on page 8 of the bilingual libretto. Of Hübner’s other writings, perhaps the best known today are his “topographical and statistical” books on Salzburg and the surrounding region: Beschreibung der hochfürstlich=erzbschöflichen Haupt= und Residenzstadt Salzburg und ihrer Gegenden, verbunden mit ihrer ältesten Geschichte (vol. 1, Topographie, 1792; vol. 2, Statistik, 1793); and its sequel, Beschreibung des Erzstiftes und Reichsfürstenthums Salzburg in Hinsicht auf Topographie und Statistik (1796, vol. 1 and vol. 2).

There is little secondary literature on Lorenz Hübner; apart from scattered references in the Mozart literature, he seems to have received no significant scholarly attention in recent decades. We have not yet had the opportunity to see two dissertations listed in the bibliography of the article on Hübner in NDB: F. Steinbacher, Lorenz Hübner (1751–1807) und die bayerische Publizistik seiner Zeit (Munich, 1923); and H. Ruby, Lorenz Hübner (1751–1807). Leben und Werk als Publizist, Topograph und Historiker in Salzburg (Vienna, 1965). Some nineteenth-century biographical sources (Wißmayr, Wurzbach) give Hübner’s date of birth as 2 Aug 1753. Ersch & Gruber (1834) give 2 Aug 1752, and twentieth-century sources (e.g. NDB, de.wikipedia) seem uniformly to give 2 Aug 1751. There is confusion in the secondary literature over the starting date of Hübner’s editorship of the Oberdeutsche Staatszeitung, probably arising from the newspaper’s change in title. It is clear, in any case, that Hübner was editor of the daily newspaper in Salzburg from Jan 1784, and that the paper soon changed its name to Oberdeutsche Staatszeitung. The title of Hübner’s Munich monthly is given in some reference works (Wurzbach, NDB) as Münchner gelehrte Beiträge, but the title is actually Münchner gelehrte Zeitung.

Leopold Mozart’s unequivocal references to Lorenz Hübner cited above are in Briefe: 3 Nov 1785 (iii:439, line 56), 18 Nov 1785 (iii:452, line 13), 2–3 Dec 1785 (iii:464, line 88), 21 Jul 1786 (iii:556, line 66), 11 Aug 1786 (iii:569, line 61), 1 Sep 1786 (iii:580, line 42). Three further references to the name “Hübner” in Briefe are identified in the commentaries as referring to Lorenz Hübner, but these identifications seem uncertain or doubtful. Nannerl’s diary entries for 24 and 28 Sep 1780, written in Wolfgang’s hand, read:

den 24:ten in Domm. Ich Bestgeberin und Bestgewinnern. M:r schikaneder auch geschossen. M:r Hübner und Ceccarelli auch gekommen.

[...]

den 28:ten beym Lodron [...] Nachmittage mit meinem Bruder auf dem Marckt. schachtner Catherl, und Hibner bey uns. tarock gespiellt.

[Briefe, iii:11–12]

Lorenz Hübner was not living in Salzburg in 1780, and there is no indication that he visited Salzburg at the end of Sep 1780, nor is there corroborating evidence that the Mozarts knew him at that point. So the identification in the commentary to this letter in Briefe seems doubtful; if correct, it would be the only evidence that Wolfgang knew Lorenz Hübner personally.

In a letter to his daughter on 1 Dec 1786, Leopold Mozart writes:

Brunetti Lebt noch hat abwechselnde Täge zwischen Blutbrechen und scheinbarer Erleuchterung: der Regimentsfeldscherer Hübner will einige Hofnung nicht ganz aufgeben, —

[Briefe, iii:615]

The commentary also identifies this reference as being Lorenz Hübner. Hübner was a man of many talents and skills, but there is no reason to think that surgery was among them, so this identification should be regarded as doubtful, unless it is a strained version of Leopold’s sardonic humor. In a letter to his daughter on 23–24 Mar 1786, Leopold writes:

[...] und, Hilf Himmel! wie wirds Geläuffe angehen, wen den 24ten H: Hübner predigt. der hat aber auch eine gute Stimme.

[Briefe, iii:522]

Because Lorenz Hübner was apparently ordained as a priest, it is just possible that he preached in Salzburg, but we have found no other references to him preaching or functioning as a priest in any other context, so this identification should be regarded as uncertain.

Hübner’s Salzburger Intelligenzblatt is available in digital form through Google Books and BSB (although not all volumes are complete), as is the Oberdeutsche, allgemeine Litteraturzeitung, apart from its issues for the first three months of 1788. In addition to the references cited above, the Intelligenzblatt for 11 Feb 1786 notes that Die Entführung aus dem Serail had been performed the preceding day:

Theater. [...]

                                                         Den

10. Die Entführung aus dem Serail, wieder=

hohlt.

Although the performance is described as a repetition, no prior performance is recorded in earlier issues of the Intelligenzblatt. A bookseller’s advertisement in the Intelligenzblatt for 7 Aug 1790 announces the availability of engraved music from Die Entführung aus dem Serail:

       In der Franz Xaver Duvleschen Buchhandlung

sind verschiedene Musikalien schön gestochen zu haben,

als die beliebtesten Arien aus Nina, aus Doktor und

Apotheker, aus der Entführung aus dem Serail, wie

auch verschiedene Lieder und Sonaten für das Clavier.

The Litteraturzeitung includes one further reference to Mozart in addition to those cited above: in the issue 7 Nov 1791 (col. 859) “Al desio, di chi t’adora” (one of Mozart’s replacement arias for Susanna in the revival of Le nozze di Figaro in 1789) and “Voi che sapete” are mentioned in a list of contents for vol. 6 of André’s Gesänge beym Clavier, but nothing further is said about them. Only the volume for the first half of 1787 of the Oberdeutsche Staatszeitung is currently available online; when other volumes become available, they should be checked for further Mozart references.

Of readily available resources on Hübner, the article on German Wikipedia currently has the best list of his writings, although it is not comprehensive. Many of Hübner’s published writings are available on Google Books; however, his Munich and Salzburg periodicals are not linked there to his name as author, nor is his name linked as author to his translation of the libretto of Semiramide. The libretto can be found on Google Books with a search on “semiramide hübner”.

Three key nineteenth-century studies of Mozart and Prague give the date of the performance of Figaro that Mozart conducted as 20 Jan 1787, rather than 22 Jan (see Freisauff 1877, 14; Teuber 1885, 212; and Procházka 1892, 38 and note 7). The dating of the performance is based on a report from the Prager Oberpostamtszeitung:

Freytags den 19ten gab Hr. Mozard auf dem Fortepiano im hiesigen Nazionaltheater Konzert. Alles was man von diesem großen Künstler erwarten könnte, hat er vollkommen erfüllt. Gestern wurde die Oper Figaro, dies Werk seines Genies, von ihm selbst dirigirt. [Dokumente, 251; the transcriptions in Freisauff, Teuber, and Procházka differ from that in Dokumente in several details.]

Friday the 19th, Herr Mozart gave a concert on the fortepiano in the Nationaltheater here. All that one could expect of this great artist he fulfilled completely. Yesterday he himself directed the opera Figaro, this work of his genius.

None of the three nineteenth-century sources explicitly gives the date of the issue of the Prager Oberpostamtszeitung that includes this report, but all three identify “yesterday” (“gestern”) as 20 Jan, thus implying that the report was published on 21 Jan. Deutsch (who cites Freisauff as his source, although his transcription differs from Freisauff’s in several details) points out that 21 Jan was Sunday. An examination of all items from the Oberpostamtszeitung cited in Dokumente or in Neue Folge show that it was ordinarily published on Tue and Sat, so it is unlikely that the issue with the report on Mozart appeared on Sun, 21 Jan; a date of 23 Jan 1787, as given by Deutsch, is more consistent, and 22 Jan is more likely the date for the performance of Figaro that Mozart conducted. (The Prager Oberpostamtszeitung is not currently available online, so it has not yet been possible to check the date directly.)

The author of the poem dedicated to Mozart was apparently identified on the original separate sheet merely as “B---a” (see Dokumente, 249); however, the reprint of the poem in Blumen, Blümchen und Blätter is explicitly attributed to “A. D. Breicha” (John 1787, 17). The poem was printed in full in Nissen (1828, 184–85), where, oddly, it is divided into two parts with separate titles, with the parts separated by another poem: the fourth and fifth stanzas of Breicha’s poem are printed in Nissen under the title “An Mozart gesandt” and the first, second, and third stanzas are printed after an intervening poem under the separate title “An Mozart, Bey Vorstellung seiner Oper: Figaro, 1785 [sic]”. Deutsch gives the title of the poem as “An Mozart bey Gelegenheit der Vorstellung der Oper le nozze di Figaro,” but otherwise his transcription differs in only two minor details from that in Nissen (in stanza 2 Deutsch gives “gefräßigen” vs. “gefrässigen” in Nissen; stanza 3 line 3 ends with a comma in Dokumente vs. a full stop in Nissen). In Blume, Blümchen und Blätter the poem appears under the title “An Mozart bei Vorstellung der Oper le nozze di Figaro”; this printing differs in many details of spelling, punctuation, and layout from the version printed by Deutsch.

There is an evident error in the rendering of the Zoroastrian riddle in Dokumente (234): the letters of the solution are given there as “D. e. e. h. i. n. ë. r. r.”  But since the solution is “Die Hörner,” the seventh letter must be “ö”, not “ë”. The letters are given correctly in Briefe, iii:506–7. (This error is also noted in Addenda, 49.)

We would like to thank Michael Lorenz for his answers to particular queries regarding this commentary, and John Rice for his clarification of Hübner’s role in the translation of Semiramide and for tracking down the digital copy on Google Books. DE is especially grateful to DB for bringing to his attention the Bodleian copy of the Taschenbuch für Freunde und Freundinnen der Musik.

Bibliography

Dokumente, Briefe, NMD, Neue Folge, Wurzbach, NDB

Ersch, J. G., and J. G. Gruber, eds. 1834. Allgemeine Encyklopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste. Zweite Section, H–N, ed. A. G. Hoffmann, Elfter Theil. s.v. “Hübner, Lorenz,” attrib. “Baur,” 346-47. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus.

Freisauff, Rudolf von. 1887. Mozart’s Don Juan, 1787–1887. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte dieser Oper. Salzburg: Hermann Kerber.

John, Johann Dionys, ed. 1787. Blumen, Blümchen und Blätter. Stat [sic] eines Prager Musenalmanachs. Prague and Vienna: Schönfeld.

Niemetschek, Franz Xaver. 1808. Lebensbeschreibung des K. K. Kapellmeisters Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, aus Originalquellen. Prague: in der Herrlischen Buchhandlung.

Nissen, Georg Nikolaus von. 1828. Biographie W. A. Mozart’s. Nach Originalbriefen, Sammlungen alles über ihn Geschriebenen, mit vielen neuen Beylagen, Steindrücken, Musikblättern und einem Fac-simile. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel.

Nottebohm, Gustav. 1880. Mozartiana. Von Mozart herrührende und ihn betreffende, zum großen Theil noch nicht veröffentlichte Schriftstücke. Nach aufgefunden Handschriften herausgegeb von Gustav Nottebohm. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel.

Procházka, Rudolph Freiherr von. 1892. Mozart in Prag. Zum hundertjährigen Gedächtniß seines Todes. Prague: H. Dominicus (Th. Gruss).

Solomon, Maynard. 1995. Mozart: A Life. London: Hutchinson.

Teuber, Oscar. 1885. Geschichte des Prager Theaters. Von den Anfängen des Schauspielwesens bis auf die neueste Zeit. Zweiter Theil. Von der Brunian-Bergopzoom’schen Bühnen-Reform bis zum Tode Liebich’s des größten Prager Bühnenleiters. (1771–1817). Prague: Druck und Verlag der k. k. Hofbuchdruckerei A. Haase.

Wißmayr, Joseph. 1855. Dr. Lorenz Hübner’s k. geistl. Rathes und dirigirenden Mitgliedes der historischen Klasse der bayer. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Biographische Charakteristik, vorgetragen in der öffentlichen Sitzung der k. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu München am 15. Juni 1822, als Beitrag zu Geschichte der Nationalkultur Bayerns im gegenwärtigen Jahrhundert. Munich: Verlag der königlichen Akademie.

Credit: DE

Links: Google Books, BSB

Search Term: mozart

Source Library: BSB,  4 Eph.pol. 35-1787,1/6

Category: Documents

First Published: 13 May 2015

Updated: 2 Nov 2016

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