J. S. BACH Jonathan Berkahn - Victoria University - Victoria ...

(to us) the direct influence of J. S. Bach. Nevertheless, according to Wolfgang Plath,
the handwriting of the autograph dates quite clearly from around 1773 in Salzburg,
well before he came into the orbit of Baron van Swieten. 22 Who else, then, could have
inspired such a radical departure from his usual way of writing? Two possible models
come to mind.
In 1770-71, Leopold took the family on their first and longest journey to Italy.
Such a journey had been considered an essential part of the German composer’s
musical education since the sixteenth century (as the examples of Lassus, Schütz,
Heinichen, Quantz, Hasse, Handel, J. C. Bach, Gassmann, Holzbauer, Vanhal,
Gyrowetz, and Pleyel—to name only a few—show). The Mozarts’ journey was
unusual, however, both in the honours and adulation Wolfgang was given, and in the
breadth and thoroughness of the education he received. In particular, he spent part of
1770 in Bologna with Padre Giovanni Battista Martini. Then as now Martini’s
reputation as a superlatively erudite musical authority and teacher tended to
overshadow his reputation as a composer, most of his works remaining unpublished.
His best known works are his twelve Sonate d’intavolatura per l’organo e ’l cembalo
(Amsterdam, 1742), and what is remarkable about these pieces is the way in which
they resolutely turn their back upon the traditionally casual Italian attitude to
contrapuntal elaboration. In the more attractive movements (the Siciliano from the
sonata in F minor, for example, or the Corrente from that in D), suave Italianate
melody is enriched by sophisticated part-writing; 23 the result is not different, in
principle, from much of Handel’s or Bach’s mature style. Unfortunately, most of the
22 ‘Beiträge zur Mozart-Autographie II. Schriftchronologie 1770-1780’, Mozart-Jahrbuch (1977-78),
161. One is reminded of Stanley Sadie’s description of the finale to the string quartet K.173 (written
around the same time) as ‘arguably his most Bachian fugue, though probably he had never heard a
note of Bach when he wrote it’: ‘Mozart, Bach, and counterpoint’, Musical Times 105/1451 (January
1964), 24. Robert Marshall goes further, arguing that Mozart had already been exposed the
influence of J. S. Bach by this stage, probably through the agency of Padre Martini: ‘Bach and
Mozart’s artistic maturity, Bach perspectives III (1998): Creative responses to Bach from Mozart to
Hindemith, ed. M. Marissen, 47-79.
23 The canonic gavotte from his F major sonata became something of a pièce de célèbre during the
nineteenth century.
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