The ''Neue Mozart-Ausgabe'' (''NMA''; English: ''New Mozart Edition'') is the second complete works edition of the music of

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...

. A longer and more formal title for the edition is ''Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791): Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke'' olfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791): New Edition of the Complete Works

Publication

Published between 1956 and 2007 by Bärenreiter-Verlag, the ''NMA'' is a scholarly

critical edition Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in da ...

of all of Mozart's compositions. It consists of 132 volumes containing 25,000 pages of music, organised in 35 work groups, arranged in ten series. Each music volume is accompanied by a separate critical commentary, totalling 8,000 pages. The ten series are:

Strengths

The ''Neue Mozart-Ausgabe'' is an advance over the previous complete works edition of Mozart published by

Breitkopf & Härtel Breitkopf & Härtel is the world's oldest music publishing house. The firm was founded in 1719 in Leipzig by Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf. The catalogue currently contains over 1,000 composers, 8,000 works and 15,000 music editions or books on ...

from 1877 to 1883 (with supplements until 1910), which is sometimes referred to today as the ''

Alte Mozart-Ausgabe The ''Alte Mozart-Ausgabe'' is the name by which the first complete edition of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, is known nowadays, published by Breitkopf & Härtel from January 1877 to December 1883, with supplements published until 1910. Th ...

'' (or "Old Mozart Edition"). One of the editorial directors,

Wolfgang Rehm Wolfgang Rehm (3 September 1929 – 6 April 2017) was a German musicologist active mostly in music publishing, especially the '' Neue Mozart-Ausgabe''. He was on the board of its editorial team for decades, and personally edited operas and piano m ...

, writes that "The ''NMA'' aims to be a historical-critical edition and to offer as such the latest state of philological-musicological procedure as well as practical knowledge (particularly with regard to performance) of Mozart's creative production." Highly regarded and frequently used by performers of Mozart's music and musical scholars, the ''Neue Mozart-Ausgabe'' is an indispensable reference for anyone seriously interested in the output of this composer. H. C. Robbins Landon has called it "an absolute necessity if we are to perform Mozart correctly," and on one occasion had to insist that the

Vienna Philharmonic The Vienna Philharmonic (VPO; german: Wiener Philharmoniker, links=no) is an orchestra that was founded in 1842 and is considered to be one of the finest in the world. The Vienna Philharmonic is based at the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria. It ...

use the ''NMA'' for a series of recordings of Mozart's symphonies rather than the less accurate Breitkopf & Härtel edition mentioned above.

Unavailable source materials

Stanley Sadie remarks that the work of the ''NMA'' was "hampered by the removal in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

and the unavailability until 1980 of most of the largest single collection of Mozart autographs, that of the

Berlin State Library The Berlin State Library (german: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; officially abbreviated as ''SBB'', colloquially ''Stabi'') is a universal library in Berlin, Germany and a property of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. It is one of the ...

, Berlin." Consequently, the editors of the ''NMA'' had to manage with this state of affairs as well as possible. In editing '' The Marriage of Figaro'' for the ''NMA'', which appeared in 1973,

Ludwig Finscher Ludwig Finscher (14 March 193030 June 2020) was a German musicologist. He was a professor of music history at the University of Heidelberg from 1981 to 1995 and editor of the encyclopedia ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart''. He is respecte ...

was only able to access the first two acts of the

autograph An autograph is a person's own handwriting or signature. The word ''autograph'' comes from Ancient Greek (, ''autós'', "self" and , ''gráphō'', "write"), and can mean more specifically: Gove, Philip B. (ed.), 1981. ''Webster's Third New Inter ...

score. In editing the Piano Concerto No. 27, K. 595, Wolfgang Rehm actually had to make use of a photographic reproduction of the autograph made before the war, which was provided by the pianist

Rudolf Serkin Rudolf Serkin (28 March 1903 – 8 May 1991) was a Bohemian-born Austrian-American pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Beethoven interpreters of the 20th century. Early life, childhood debut, and education Serkin was born in ...

, since the autograph itself was not accessible in 1960 when the ''NMA'' volume containing the concerto was published. Along similar lines, Landon comments that "recently discovered manuscript sources have rendered even the ''NMA''s edition of the ''Linz'' symphony obsolete." It is perhaps inevitable that new finds will in time render some aspects of the ''NMA'' open to reconsideration, since research and discovery regarding Mozart's work remain an ongoing process.

Criticisms of ornamentation

Some detailed criticism of the ornamentation suggested by the ''NMA'' can be found in Frederick Neumann's book ''Ornamentation and Improvisation in Mozart''. Neumann finds some of the ornamentation, particularly regarding vocal cadenzas, helpful, while some of it is in his view misjudged. However, Neumann's strictures do not seem particularly severe, and in his "Preface" he writes that, although he attempted where possible to view primary sources of Mozart's music, where this was not possible, the ''NMA'' "offered an indispensable supplement".

Availability

The ''Neue Mozart-Ausgabe'' has been most accessible in large hardbound volumes found in music libraries, though its publisher, Bärenreiter, has more recently been publishing portions of the ''NMA'' in a paperback format. Starting December 12, 2006, scans of most of the ''Neue Mozart-Ausgabe'' are also available online as the ''DME'' (''Digital Mozart Edition'') in JPEG and PDF format, a service provided by the

International Mozarteum Foundation The International Mozarteum Foundation (Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum) was founded in 1880 in Salzburg with its primary concern being the life and work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Closely affiliated with the Mozarteum University Salzburg, it w ...

in cooperation with the Packard Humanities Institute."''Digital Mozart-Edition"
International Mozarteum Foundation

References

Sources * * * *

External links

''NMA'' Online
Digital Mozart Edition (DME) *
Opera libretti

diplomatic edition Diplomatics (in American English, and in most anglophone countries), or diplomatic (in British English), is a scholarly discipline centred on the critical analysis of documents: especially, historical documents. It focuses on the conventions, p ...

s, source evaluation (German only), links to online DME recordings; Digital Mozart Edition {{Authority control Mozart Mozart scholars