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

conclusion is not perfectly in accord with the rest of the fugue, it does render playable
a piece that, while not from the core of Mozart’s oeuvre, is still worth listening to on
its own rather ambiguous terms.
We have no clear idea of what exactly in 1773 Salzburg gave the impulse for
this very deliberate essay in fugal writing, although it should be pointed out that the
string quartet fugues K.168 and 173 were also written about this time. We do know
what inspired the next group of fugal compositions because he wrote to his father
about it. The most crucial transition of Mozart’s life occurred during 1781 and 1782.
During these years he left Salzburg for Vienna, quit what was to be his last regular
post with the Archbishop Colloredo, married Constanze Weber, set himself up as a
musical freelance, and (on account of these actions) became estranged from his father.
In Vienna, one of the most important people he met was Baron van Swieten.
VAN SWIETEN, CONSTANZE, AND J. S. BACH
Patronage is as old as musical history; but Baron van Swieten was a new kind
of patron. Of course there had always been musically literate and active patrons:
Prince Leopold of Cöthen, Nicholas of Esterházy, Frederick II of Prussia, to mention
only the best known. Noblesse oblige, and music was a official part of court life just
as much as hunting, say, or court ceremonial. Some lords, like Frederick I of Prussia,
were enthusiastic hunters; others, like his son, were enthusiastic musicians. But
Swieten is the first patron we can really call a musical philanthropist, the first to
consciously exercise his patronage for the benefit of music itself. When, in
commissioning the symphonies H.657–62 (Wq.182), he instructed C. P. E. Bach to
‘give himself free rein without regard to the difficulties of execution which were
bound to arise’, he was treating the composer as an autonomous agent rather than than
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