The “Notebooks” of Leopold Mozart (“Die Notenbücher der Geschwister Mozart”) As a Specimen of Instructive Compositions

Abstract

One of the interesting realms
of contemporary musicology is the issue
of study and evaluation of the historical
musical text of the early classical period,
remote from us in terms of time. No less
significant is the comprehension of its didactic
potential, as well as the adaptation of scholarly
results of research and their application
in pedagogical practice. More relevant
is the study of the techniques of interaction on
the part of the performer with this musical text.
The article acquaints the readers with
the unique album for clavier, absent in Russian
performing and instructive practice —
“Die Notenbücher der Geschwister Mozart”
in its original version. Its study presents
the possibility to immerse into the specificity
of the artistic content and pedagogical “secrets”
of one of the opuses of the instructive direction
reflecting the specificity of 18th century
instrumental music-making. Analytical immersion into
the musical text of the “Notebooks”
(such is the version of the translation
of the title of the analogous albums of J.S. Bach,
according to Russian publishers) as a historical
document of the epoch is aided by turning
to its “intonational-lexical vocabulary” stipulated by culturological context.
The album discloses the practical secrets
of adaptation of the musical score form
of notation in its transcription into two-lined
form and demonstrated signs of the reduction
of the musical text in correspondence with
the peculiarities of keyboard instruments.
For a present-day beginning performer,
the creative potential of the pieces
in the collection consists in the possibility
of reverse unfolding of two-line keyboard
music into an ensemble score the means
of which have been fixated into
the musical text.