"Prima la musica, o le parole?": A web of words to surround Mozart's music.

"Mein herz ist volig entzucket, aus lauter vergnugen, weil mir auf dieser reise so lustig ist ..." Wolfgang's first letter from his first Italian journey 14 December 1769 (2)

Questions at the Outset

A paraphrase on the famous title of Salieri's "divertimento teatrale" (3) from 1786 provides the starting point for a reflection on this monumental project concerning Mozart's correspondence. What arguments can justify an international project that concentrates such energies on the words of a composer, as opposed to his sounds, especially where everywhere in the cultural world resources for primary aims are scant, and becoming scantier, almost by the day?

Of course, it seems unnecessary to convince musicologically-aware readers of the fact that the preservation, updating, and enrichment of sources is an indisputably legitimate concern; but when precedence implies the exclusion of other options for a significant amount of time, is it appropriate to prioritize an in-depth commitment to a relatively small body of correspondence over the bulk availability of other, perhaps more broad-ranging, reference materials? That is, to place relatively expensive quality above more affordable quantity?

The European Mozart Ways: studying, updating, promoting Mozart's travels

Supporting such an ambitious venture with rare and new features is the choice of the European Mozart Ways (EMW), an international network with over 50 diverse members in the 10 countries (4) visited by Mozart during the travels that spanned over half of his concentrated life. The activities of the EMW are presented in the web portal www.mozartways.com, currently in English and German, and soon to be extended to the other two official languages (Italian and French) within the framework of the EU-funded project "Mozart and Italy--Modern Reflections of Intercultural Dialogue in the 18th Century" (June 2009-2011).

The Statutes of the EMW identify these aims: increasing the availability of authentic documentation on Mozart's travels, expanding related knowledge through research, fostering cooperation between Member cities and institutions on selected touristic, performance and education projects, and disseminating all relevant information and results to the (general and/or specialized) public. (5)

The EMW's mission is officially sanctioned by their recognition as a "Major Cultural Route" in the Council of Europe's dedicated program (6) (to which no financial support is attached, alas), and their certification, awarded early on and recently confirmed, is a further encouragement towards the realization of projects in the selected areas of touristic enhancement, artistic performance, and academic research, as well as the education of young musicians and children.

Within this compass of eclectic tasks, "In Mozart's Words" meets the challenges outlined above. The role of the EMW in the project, which we wish to present as a springboard for further developments, is that of pioneer and catalyst for the acquisition of resources. If priority was bestowed on this venture rather than on other no less worthy endeavours, it is because several partial interests were able uniquely to focus on several promising possibilities and multiply their outcomes. Our hope is that such concentration of energies can and will bring the complete project to fruition.

Weaving a Web of Basic Support

"You must keep all the letters", wrote wise Leopold to his wife (7) in a letter shortly after the one quoted in exergo: keep them as documentation, as sources, as nutshells for the further sharing of detailed information when constraints of space and time are overcome by the freedom of narrating in person, once returned home. Keeping the letters, and adding to them, is the sense and the aim of this work in progress, as described in the papers above by Cliff Eisen and Patrizia Rebulla.

The weaving of the web started, not surprisingly, with the 2006 Jubilee, as the Italian Ministry of Culture decided to endow a "National Committee" for the celebrations: "Le Vie italiane di Mozart"--the Italian Mozart Ways--had the purpose of highlighting the "places, music, musicians, personalities, and cultures encountered by the composer in his Italian journeys". (8) Along with events and printed publications, the Comitato Nazionale supported the first indexing of the electronic texts, thereby initiating the pilot project, for obvious reasons, with the Italian journeys.

The successful presentations of the model to the musicological community elicited the alliance of another protagonist, the municipality of Milan: the city's cultural department has first-hand experience with long-term musical projects (such as the complete performance of Bach's sacred and secular cantatas) and has been from the early 2000s the leading force of the Italian contingent of the Mozart Ways. The financing from the Comune di Milano covered software development and other start-up measures.

Then the EMW association itself, notwithstanding the limited availability of funds (coming only from membership fees), committed to providing a matching grant, which concretely secured the permanent issues of text availability: the acquisition of copyrights for an online publication of the Italian and French translations, as well as the new English version commissioned from Stewart Spencer, whose contribution to Mozart. A Life in Letters (the extensive selection of letters published by Penguin under the editorship of Cliff Eisen in the anniversary year 2006) guaranteed the delivery of a fluent, humorous, and readable text.

The Added Scope of "Mozart and Italy" Within the EU Culture program: The Co-Organizers as Co-Funders

Thanks to the persistent motivation of the main coordinator, the European Mozart Ways, recently acquired funding from the EU program "Culture 2007-2013" has brought new wind into the sails of this daunting enterprise. (9)

As in all projects admitted to the "Culture 2007-13" program of the EU, funding is provided under the strict precondition of co-financing: coordinator and co-organizers together must commit the same amount of resources as those allocated by the EU grant. In practical terms, such a criterion implies that the "main players" already have means and are willing to earmark them for the project, while they count on the EU grant as additional resources to expand and enrich the joint venture.

The City of Augsburg, with its established annual Mozartfest, provided the first impulse leading to a welcome success on the European cultural stage. The 58th Mozartfest (May 2009) already included a symposium, "Musicians on the Road," with eclectic presentations, giving rise to a dedicated publication. (10) But even more concretely, from the outset Augsburg's intention was to dedicate the 2010 festival to "Mozart and Italy", irrespective of the application's outcome in the EU cultural program, and was confident that such premise could represent a viable cornerstone for a self-standing program. This confidence turned out to be well placed, as the EU support rewarded the organizers with the possibility to put together an imaginative exploration of the theme with two additional attractions: the first modern performance of three rediscovered church works from the times of the Mozart travels in Italy (by Lorenzo Gibelli, Carlo Monza, and Pietro Gnocchi, respectively, with the assistance of Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna, Milan Conservatory and University of Cremona) and the commission of a new symphonic work by composer Alessandro Solbiati.

These multifaceted initiatives compounded in the project are based on a modular structure closely connecting the related aspects of heritage, awareness of European history and culture, archival exploration, theoretical and applied musicological research, high-level performance and opportunities for young artists, as well as dynamic educational contributions for music-lovers at all levels of competence.

The project was presented to the public at Palazzo Marino, Milan's Renaissance Town Hall, on 19 May 2009, with the opening of an exhibition at Museo Teatrale alla Scala focused on the Italian Letters and the Hagenauer collection (see Figure 1).

As ex-aequo co-organizers, the City of Milan and the UK partners, King's College London and the University of Sheffield, are in charge of two other main "actions" at the centre of the project (11): the Mozart letters database and scientific approach in didactics. These are explained below.

The Database

The Mozart online letters database, which is behind the promotion and improvement of the website "In Mozart's Words", contains the original texts, the translations and relevant information on people, places and works cited, in a searchable indexed format. It is aimed in particular at musicologists, a large number of Mozart-interested persons in research, education and culture, and up to 15,000 prospective direct users. This target also includes ongoing feedback from prospective users and the production of a web-based "user's manual".

Implementation will also be effected through the development and linking of mutually enriching contents (printed music scores in electronic version, clips of digital audio files, digital scans of originals where available, links with other historical databases of original texts and correspondence), stimulating both interest and access by other categories users involved.

Another essential aim is to promote the availability of the tool in music schools, universities, centers for the humanities, to historians and musicologists, and in libraries, as a primary source of information providing easy and immediate access to the original documents in a simple, stimulating and user-friendly form.

To this end, presentations at international conferences as well as targeted mailings will be undertaken.

The Educational Element

The second action, the scientific outcomes in didactics, is an innovative educational concept that allows presentation of Mozart's international dimensions with reference to intercultural dialogue in the European past. While the online database focuses on the materials themselves--the "what" of the presentation--this aspect is geared to an innovation of "how" it is presented.

Two specialised research departments of the UK co-organisers, the Department of Music at King's College London (under Cliff Eisen) and the Humanities Research Center at Sheffield University (under Michael Pidd), will build on the first part of the project to create a new didactic approach to the presentation of Mozart within a European context.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Recent activities include a symposium (held in Augsburg, Germany on 8 May 2010), that evaluated the new Mozart letters database, while the 12-month research deals with the following issues:

* a better understanding of the structures that made it possible, in the 18th century, to network while abroad through more or less formalized social mechanisms (such as the "Grand Tour")

* a revised consideration how journeys and residencies abroad were part of a systematic educational concept for young artists and members of the elite

* comparative research on Mozart's journeys (in relation to other composers of the period), to identify the specific features of the routes and social institution and/or individuals that particularly influenced the artist's future career and development

* the development of an in-depth web-based model to present Mozart's journeys within European and educational contexts to the general public

* the preparation of samples of web-based and multimedia teaching tools demonstrating an innovative approach to presenting the Mozart routes.

Partnerships As Alliances for the Multiplication of Resources

Flanking the forces from the initial phase as well as the team of the EU project, a number of partners, with similar or complementary interests and goals, have been performing work of exceptional quality to complement the sheer quantity of time and energy required to bring such a complicated machinery off the ground (and keep it flying).

Several of these allies have therefore earned the qualification of "Associate Partners" to the EU project- Their profiles and individual roles may be summarized as follows:

A. Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, Salzburg (Associated Partner): the Mozarteum Foundation appeared from the start as an unmissable interlocutor; not only has it since 1880 been the most dedicated and recognizable organization in Mozart-related activities on an international level, but it is also by far the richest in original documents: its collection comprises over one-half of all preserved Mozart letters. Furthermore, it has earned great merits for the scientific updating of musical materials and the facilitation of access to them: the gigantic venture of the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (basically concluded in 2006; www.nma.at) overlapped in a most significant way with the launch of the Digital Mozart Edition (dme.mozarteum.at) which made the printed edition available online at no charge (thanks to the resourcefulness of the institution and the exemplary munificence of the Packard Humanities Institute). An auspicious convergence of interests emerged in the Mozarteum's further intention to digitize the so-called "Briefe und Aufsatze". Thanks to this cooperative attitude, the internal planning of the Salzburg partners was adjusted to prioritize work on the Italian correspondence, including preparation of the original text in electronic format with the asset of a newly revised version (by Anja Morgenstern), "translation" into modern German, diplomatic transcription (preserving all characteristics of the original pages), links to the online Digital Mozart-Ausgabe, and (in the future) linking to digital reproductions of manuscripts' facsimiles.

B. Castaliamusic, Milan / Brussels (Associated Partner): it is only fair to state, in a nutshell, that there would be no idea and no project of this scope without Castalia. The far-sighted, future-oriented outlook of this well-established firm, specializing in the digital elaboration of music data and archives, is the basis for its competent and dynamic control of project design, coordination and management. Comprehensive details are provided in the section by Patrizia Rebulla (above)

C. Publishers: two publishing houses have welcomed the invitation to put their complete French and Italian translations at the disposal of the project on a noncommercial basis. For the French version published by Flammarion in Paris, a newly revised 1-volume edition is in preparation, edited again by Genevieve Geffray, while Il Saggiatore in Milan has the first complete Italian edition in progress, 2011-2014, edited by Giacomo Fornari; it should be also noted that both are, in different ways, connected to a cooperation with the Mozarteum. The lack of a complete and dependable English edition still represents a major stumbling block for the gathering of textual resources.

D. For several further Associated Partners, such as the Mozarthaus Vienna, Da Ponte Research Center / Vienna-Naples, and Fondation Royaumont-Ile de France, the form of collaboration is still being defined; it could orient itself towards the availability of additional materials and the dissemination of results, as well the search for further support on their respective national levels. (12)

We cannot stress enough that the dynamic motivation of both Castaliamusic and the Mozarteum Foundation alongside the main organizers, and the receptiveness of involved publishers, have been the sources of outstanding contributions, providing with their singular commitment an "added value" of hardly quantifiable extent. This steadfast approach has brought about, firstly, an effect of contagious multiplication of resources and resonance; and, secondly, an attitude of confidence in the hope that the extremely painstaking work on this pilot segment (114 letters within a total exceeding 1000) can be carried out with the same results of excellence, and with the necessary streamlining, on the much ampler body of letters remaining to be dealt with.

Such an investment--putting quality above quantity, with an exemplary result which far exceeds its costs but should be multiplied as efficiently as possible--can only be appropriate to the treasures residing in the unequalled trove of Mozart's world of words; we welcome the challenge and shall be grateful for any advice.

In the meantime, we invite readers of the Italian letters online and explorers of the website's contents to experience now and then the same enthusiasm, eclecticism, and amusement which Leopold and Wolfgang breathed into their words, as stable echo of Mozart's unrivalled life in music.

Maria Majno (1)

(1.) Maria Majno is president of European Mozart Ways (http://mozartways.com). This paper was presented at the 2010 IAML Conference in Moscow.

(2.) Wilhelm A. Bauer, Otto Erich Deutsch and Joseph Heinz Eibl, Mozart. Briefe und Aufzeichnungen (Kassel, 1962-1975), vo. I, p. 292.

(3.) The "divertimento teatrale" of Viennese court composer Salieri preceded Mozart's Schauspieldirektor in a sui generis competition spurred by Joseph II between Italian and German opera, which took place at Schonbrunn on 7 February 1786. The respective merits of contrasting national styles are a recurring subject in eighteenth-century European writings about music, are relevant to Mozart's correspondence, and represent a central theme in the widespread debate on musical theatre during the Age of Enlightenment.

(4.) Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovakia, and Switzerland, using their current names.

(5.) From the EMW Statutes:

1. To promote the understanding of W. A. Mozart as a European personality, to document his historically recorded stays in many music centres of his time and thus to rouse interest in Mozart and intensify knowledge about him. The routes travelled along by Mozart are to be activated and revealed as being of cultural and historical interest, and made accessible to a broad public.

2. Close cooperation is to be encouraged between the cities and regions in Europe where documentary evidence exists that Mozart visited ... as well as between their institutions in the artistic, cultural, educational and scientific sphere.... Joint projects by members are to be promoted in a generally informative way....

3. The cooperation as well as the promotion of joint projects by members. As far as possible this should be balanced between the regions, taking [into] account historical as well as contemporary aspects.

(6.) See http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/culture/Routes/default_en.asp.

(7.) Letter of 17 December 1769; Bauer, Deutsch and Eibl, Mozart. Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, i.295.

(8.) From the official decree of the Italian Ministry of Culture, Rome, 16 March 2005. http://www.comitatinazionali.it/genera.jsp?id=142

(9.) It should be noted that the EMW did not receive any help from the EU in relation to the program dedicated to "Support to Cultural Bodies Acting at a European Level," in spite of their obvious European dimension, but were able to obtain the maximum financing available in Culture 2007-2013 for this more focused and targeted project.

(10.) Musiker auf Reisen, ed. Christoph Hellmut Mahling (Augsburg: Wissner, 2010).

(11.) Adapted from the original project submitted to the EU in September 2008.

(12.) The supportive cooperation of Lufthansa's Italian offices should also be acknowledged in this context.