A thorough commentary, as provided in this edition by Camille Delaforge (she wrote the introduction) and Hervé Audéon, once again confirms its importance and especially in the case of a little-known work, such as Mozart's Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots KV 35. I have enjoyed drawing from it.
The first part of this oratorio experienced its premiere on 12 March 1767 in one of the elegant rooms of the palace (the 'Residenz') of the patron, Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo in Salzburg. The other two parts, not composed by Mozart, followed on 19 March and 26 March respectively, thus each exactly one week later.
Musicologists have debated the precise year of completion for quite some time, prompted by what father Leopold Mozart had noted by hand on his son's manuscript: 'Oratorium di Wolfgango Mozart composto nel Messe di Marzo 1766'. This year being incorrect may be connected to Wolfgang's age as mentioned on the title page of the libretto, which was published in Salzburg in 1767 by Johann Joseph Mayr Erben: 'Erster Theil in Musik gebracht von Herrn Wolfgang Mozard, alt 10. Jahr'. Mozart was, however, eleven years old at the time.
A letter from Leopold has been preserved, dated 12 December 1765, sent from The Hague to his friend Lorenz Hagenauer in Salzburg. It mentions 'Poesie' which is described as 'sehr gut ausgefahlen'. The author of that 'Poesi' was the textile merchant and successively 'Ratsherr' and mayor of Salzburg, Ignaz Anton von Weiser (1701-1785), the man who had written the libretto of the oratorio. If this was indeed this text (there is now little doubt about it), it is more than likely that son Wolfgang worked on his contribution to the three-part work in or around March 1766 during his stay in The Hague (the family made a long journey between 1763 and 1766 that took them to France, England and the Netherlands).
That the oratorio premiered a year later, in March 1767, in Salzburg can be explained by the fact that during Lent (the period ending with Easter), with all theaters closed, it was customary to perform an oratorio or 'heiliges Singspiel' in the German language every Sunday. The latter is also reflected in the 104-page manuscript and the original score comprising twice that number of pages, arranged as 'oratio' for five vocalists and orchestra. The manuscript came into the hands of music publisher Johann Anton André, until it came into the possession of the British royal library in 1841.
The manuscript of the first part does not provide a clear answer to the question of who wrote what precisely. However, it shows that Wolfgang noted down the first part almost entirely himself (which is, of course, something different from composing it). The second part and third part are by Michael Haydn and Anton Cajetan Adlgasser respectively, two renowned composers.
The title of the 'oratio' refers back to the preface of the libretto:
'For the hoped-for spiritual benefit, the various reminders contained therein will provide occasion to consider, among other things, chiefly that for the improvement of lukewarmness and for the faster recognition of the so pernicious heresy of the spirit of the world, above all, along with the always necessary divine grace, there is required a humble spirit, and thus an sincere fulfilment of the indispensable duty: to love God, according to the first and foremost commandment, with all one's heart, mind, soul, and all one's strength.'
The influence of Leopold on this first oratorio of his son is thus not reliably traceable (although his handwriting can be recognized in a number of places), but others may well have contributed to it. That Leopold certainly had a role to play in the oratorio is obvious, for he was known not only as a violinist and composer of some reputation, but also as the author of the still-consulted textbook Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule, which was completed in 1756.
Such speculations do not, of course, detract from Wolfgang's musical talent, about which Friedrich Melchior Baron von Grimm, a well-known German writer who also made a name for himself in the field of encyclopedias, remarked in his Correspondance littéraire of 15 July 1766 (when the Mozart family was in Paris) that Wolfgang 'est une des plus aimables créatures qu'on puisse voir, mettant à tout ce qu'il dit et ce qu'il fait de l'esprit et de l'âme avec la grâce et la gentillesse de son âge. Il rassure même par sa gaieté contre la crainte qu'on a qu'un fruit si précoce ne tombe avant sa maturité.' And subsequently about the father: 'Le père est non-seulement habile musicie, mais homme de sens et d'un bon esprit, et je n'ai jamais vu un homme de sa profession réunir à son talent tant de mérite.'
Leopold had every interest in presenting not only his son but also his five-year-older daughter Maria Anna (nickname Nannerl), who played piano and violin excellently, as a child prodigy at the European courts and in the most diverse aristocratic circles. That was the main purpose of their 'family journeys'.
In September 1766 they were in Lausanne. A certain docteur Tissot wrote on that occasion among other things that '[…] il (Wolfgang, AvdW) serait fort à souhaiter, que les pères dont les enfants ont des talents distingués, imitassent M. Mozard, qui loin de presser son fils, a toujours été attentif à modérer son feu, et à l'empêcher de s'y livrer; une conduite opposée étouffe tous les jours les plus beaux génies, et peut faire avorter les talents le plus supérieurs.' An observation that is also highly revealing with regard to the father!
Does Leopold's (possible) involvement also say something about the conceptual characteristics of the oratorio? The introductory Sinfonia is in any case full of youthful spirit and of genuine 'Sturm und Drang'; and in its most directly appealing form. The underlying theme, however, seems rather heavy material for an eleven-year-old. That of the first Commandment: 'Thou shalt have no other gods before My face.' In Matthew 22:27-40 we read: 'And Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.'
The concept of 'Schuldigkeit' was part of the long struggle between the Jansenists and Jesuits, until the former had to give way in 1773 and were driven out of Austria.
When in March 1767 the (first) performance of Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots took place in Salzburg, in that same year the breach between the (Viennese) Archbishop Christoph Migazzi and Empress Maria Theresia had become an accomplished fact. The main cause was the unbridgeable gap between the Empress's tolerant attitude towards the Jansenists and their condemnation by the Pope, as expressed in among others Cum occassione (1653), Vineam Domini (1705) and Unigenitus (1713). Not only in and around the episcopal palace in Vienna and thus throughout Austria was a fierce struggle waged against Jansenism: in the Southern Netherlands too, the movement against Jansenism supported by (arch)bishops and other church ministers had become a force to be reckoned with.
Under the episcopal rule of Migazzi, the strong emotional faith experience of the Jesuits, the most important missionaries of the Habsburgs, was firmly curtailed. The restrictive activities were led by Ignaz Parhamer, the former confessor of Emperor Franz I. He succeeded with flying colours in his task, for already in 1768 all Jesuit schools were officially banned.
What influence could the resulting complications have had on Mozart's oratorio? The real prelude to this lay, of course, with the librettist, Anton von Weiser, who in his oratorio text had made the connection from this perspective between divine grace indispensable to man and the equally indispensable will of the same man to make this grace a reality.
The eleven-year-old Wolfgang could not have seen through all this, quite apart from the fact that the far-reaching implications and the decidedly uncommon subject matter bore little relation to any musical rhetoric whatsoever. This makes the involvement of at least father Leopold all the more likely. A question which, though in a completely different context, also arises with another substantial work from around the same period, the opera Apollo und Hyacintus KV 38 (mistakenly listed as KV 37 in the cd booklet), which on 13 May 1767, thus two months after Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots, was also performed for the first time in Salzburg, in the university hall of the Benedictines. We simply do not know. What we do know is that Wolfgang at that time must still have been quite far removed from his independence as a human being and thus also as an artist.
Apollo und Hyacintus does bring us closer to the possible orchestration of the oratorio, for we know with certainty what it consisted of in 1767: two oboes, bassoon, two horns, twelve violins, two violas, cello and two double basses (violoni), making a total of twenty-two musicians. Although a considerably more expanded version has been handed down, including eight woodwinds (two flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns). The number of musicians on this album is twenty-four: nine violins, three violas, four cellos, double bass, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns and harpsichord.
In Mozart's chosen setup of this oratorio, what is particularly striking is the solo role of the alto trombone in the accompanied recitative 'Was Rechenschaft? Was Tod?' (track 12), but also in the aria 'Schildre einen Philosophen' (track 15). Mozart must have had Thomas Gschlatt in mind, the virtuoso trombonist who was part of the court chapel in Salzburg between 1756 and 1769 and as such was 'employed' by several composers, including Johann Ernst Eberlin in his church cantata Die gläubische Seele and in Leopold's Litaniae Lauretanae. On the recording made in Versailles, however, trombonist Lucas Perruchon inexplicably shines by his absence (though he was to be heard in a live performance by the same ensemble at the same location).
That trumpets and timpani found no place in the oratorio can easily be explained by what Pope Benedict XIV explicitly stipulated in his encyclical Annus qui (1749): that in ecclesiastical works there was no place for these instruments, as was also the case for flutes, oboes, horns, harps and other instruments that were considered part of the domain of 'theatrical' music. Here we see that Mozart, by employing oboes and horns, did not strictly adhere to this papal edict, apparently with the (fore)knowledge that it would not meet with criticism, let alone opposition in the bishop's palace.
The design of Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots is not remarkable, for Mozart followed the rules established by tradition, with or without his father's influence, neatly according to the framework of the 'dramma per musica' devised by Pietro Metastasio (arias in da capo form, A-B-A, as we also know from Apollo und Hyacintus). The arias are connected within the given narrative framework (the simply accompanied recitatives guide the listeners towards understanding the text). The second, central and modulating section of the aria, however, has a pronounced expressive dynamic, while the repetition (da capo) – and this applies to all arias – is conceived anew. Thanks to the inserted organ points, the singers have ample opportunity to improvise at their own discretion. Just as the instrumental ensemble should not hold back in its depiction, with one of many striking examples being the accompanied recitative that connects to the aria 'Ein ergrimmter Löwe brüllet' notated in E-flat major, where the violent crescendo gives additional relief to the resounding contribution of the two horns in depicting the raging, roaring lion searching for its prey, to the fright of all the animals in the forest (but not to the hunter who does not want to be disturbed in his nap …) Mozart became a fully mature master at this: driving drama to great heights with only modest means, culminating in Don Giovanni (about which even Wagner remarked that it was impossible to find a more perfect example).
Some will characterize Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots more as opera than oratorio, the former especially prompted by what indeed unmistakably emerges from the work and serves as a red thread running through it: the musically strongly contrasting, but also spiritual struggle of man against the unceasing temptation to turn away from God, with all the allegorical features that come with it. Virtue and vice, righteousness, charity, sin and repentance, these are still the familiar themes that lend themselves excellently to virtually all art forms.
It is unfortunate that the oratorio, as far as the performance of Mozart's oeuvre is concerned, hardly appears or does not appear at all on the ranking of current concert repertoire. It is possible that with regard to Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots, there is a second obstacle: that the piece was intended as part of a project in which several composers participated (Mozart composed only the first part). That many thereby lose sight of the early development of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as a composer in this domain and moreover the way in which he was already able to give form and content to what has become much more than merely a vague character sketch, should be clear.
This new album was created in the palace of Versailles, a location with which the Mozarts were also acquainted. Leopold arrived together with his then seven-year-old son and twelve-year-old daughter in Paris on 18 November 1763. Their ultimate destination was Versailles, to perform there at the court of Louis XV and his consort, Mme de Pompadour. The preparatory work required for this had already been done by the aforementioned baron von Grimm.
By mid-December it was time and the performance could take place. There is not much to report about it, but according to Leopold the marchioness was certainly not lacking in outward beauty, that she showed herself distinctly proud in their presence and moreover regarded herself as the empress. Wolfgang, on the other hand, thought she resembled Threzel, the housemaid. He wanted to kiss the marchioness on parting, but she did not allow it, which he took as an insult. For was it not the Austrian empress Maria Theresa whom he had kissed? The stiff French court life was certainly not well received by the Mozarts...
In this same palace, to be precise in the 'Salle des Croisades', four vocal soloists and the Ensemble Il Caravaggio gathered in June 2023 under the direction of Camille Delaforge for the recording of Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots (in French Le Devoir du premier Commandement).