The two premieres of "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" in Warsaw and 5 other new documents

An overlooked reference to Mozart in Charles Burney’s The Present State of Music in France and Italy. Although this reference has occasionally been cited in the secondary literature, it is not in Dokumente or its supplements.

Two references to Mozart in Daines Barrington’s article on the musical prodigies Charles and Samuel Wesley. In one anecdote, 8-year-old Samuel Wesley comments on compositions that Mozart wrote around the same age, saying they are “very well for one of his years.” The commentary takes the opportunity to delve a little more deeply into the background of Daines Barrington than has previously been done in the Mozart literature.

The date of the premiere of Die Entführung aus dem Serail in Warsaw has long been known, but the primary source for the date, the title page of the libretto from that performance, does not appear in Dokumente or its supplements. An extended commentary by DE and Anna Parkitna discusses the context of the premiere, the German theater in Warsaw at that time, and the cast.

The first performance of Die Entführung aus dem Serail in Polish took place in Warsaw on 25 Nov 1783. The date has long been known, but the primary source (a transcription of a lost poster) does not appear in Dokumente or its supplements. The transcription and translation for this entry are by Anna Parkitna, who co-authored the commentary with DE.

Carl Immanuel Engel’s advertisement of a subscription for a published collection of easy keyboard works, including 6 minuets by Mozart along with 3 polonaises and 15 German dances from Martín y Soler’s Una cosa rara.

A reference to “Mozart” (either Wolfgang or Leopold) in an announcement by Schubart of Jean Balthasar Triklir’s invention of a keyboard instrument that (allegedly) could not go out of tune.

Would-be polymath and (in his own estimation) distinguished composer Franz Friedrich Sigismund August Böcklin von Böcklinsau refers to Mozart several times in his Beyträge zur Geschichte der Musik (1790). Dokumente includes one of these references, and two others appear in Neue Folge. We add another previously overlooked reference that names Mozart in a short list of the “Amphions und Orpheuße” of his age.