Study day on the letter attributed to Mozart preserved in the Caccia di Romentino collection at the Novara Museum and concert by the La TerzaPrattica Ensemble
Direction and harpsichord Massimiliano Toni
Coccia Theatre 2006
COURIER OF NOVARA Thursday 26 October 2006
“YES IT'S BY MOZART, ACTUALLY NO": TWO HOURS OF DEBATION TO ATTRIBUTE AN AUTOGRAPHED LETTER TO AMADEUS
26 votes a 21. By a slim margin, the popular jury has, In the end, supported the reasons of the defense and considered Mozart, although he does not autograph, the letter T.1237 from the Caccia di Romentino collection.
It took two hours of public hearing and closing arguments to reach this conclusion, Sunday 22 October in an afternoon dedicated to the composer at Piccolo Coccia. The pretext was precisely a trial of the letter preserved in the Broletto Archives, trial conducted amiably by the "judge" Deda Cristina Colonna, of the La Terza Pratica association, by the “prosecutor” Angela Romagnoli, University of Pavia, from the "defense" Giacomo Fornari, Bolzano Conservatory, from the "witness" , architect Emanuele Cigliola.
Two Mozart scholars, an expert on the collection in question to resolve the dispute: is it or is it not Mozart? The "body of the crime" was visible in the foyer of the Coccia Theater, protected like a Shroud, and unfortunately not directly observable in its external aspects: the analysis of the paper and ink could at least provide information on dating and provenance. Lacking these objective data (it is hoped that the analysis can be conducted sooner or later), the defense and prosecution arguments still focused on philological aspects (tradition of the letter, handwriting analysis), antique dealers, to arrive at its Novaresity witnessed by Cigliola, scholar of the collection of Count Marco Caccia, collection already analyzed in many of its aspects, but still waiting for its more adequate arrangement and recomposition. Cigliola's testimony served to historically place the figure of the Count and his composite collection, and gave rise to new stimuli and doubts for the speakers. Going to the content of the letter, to the Italian text, to the cleanliness of the handwriting, the most plausible hypothesis is that it was sent from Vienna, il 15 October 1783 to Father Giovanni Battista Martini, died in his city, Bologna, the next year.
There has been much debate about "Mozartism", on the deformations and myths that have always accompanied Mozart, on the filters that have been placed, starting from his wife Constanze, to the study of his person and his music. Therefore a pretext to talk about Mozart in this anniversary year, to taste some of his particularities as a man and a musician, with competence and lightness. The defense won by a narrow margin, due to lack of evidence to the contrary; Count Caccia could tell us something: there are in his collection, it is said, rubbish, but there are also Beethoven autographs, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti etc.; known was his association with the greats of music of his time who, passing through Novara, they stopped in his backstage where he loved to surround himself with memorabilia, among which Mozart's letter to Padre Martini. A naive collector, lover of beauty for beauty's sake, or an attentive appreciator of what he was collecting? Already in the Corriere della Sera of 9 march 1931, the page 3, in an article on the Coccia Theater it was written: “There is a little letter written by Wolfango Mozart in 1783 to Padre Martini from Bologna". The letter is there, ready to be subjected to new trials. Mozart's music is not.
The “La Terza Prattica” Ensemble at the Coccia Theater, directed by Massimiliano Toni, proposed a series of his songs interspersed with the reciting voice of Deda Cristina Colonna to tell us a little about our. The usual Wolf Matthias Friedrich played and sang it for us, Giorgio Sasso, Fernando Caida Greco together with the strings of the Ensemble. There is no doubt about the music.
a.v.