Mozart's compositional method

Scholars have long studied how Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart created his works. Nineteenth-century views on this topic were often based on a romantic, mythologizing conception of the process of composition. More recent scholarship addresses this issue by systematically examining authenticated letters and documents, and has arrived at different conclusions.

Mozart's approach to composition

A surviving letter of Mozart's to his father Leopold (31 July 1778) indicates that he considered composition an active process—the product of his intellect, carried out under conscious control:

Sketches

Mozart often wrote sketches, from small snippets to extensive drafts, for his compositions. Though many of these were destroyed by Mozart's widow Constanze, about 320 sketches and drafts survive, covering about 10 percent of the composer's work.

Ulrich Konrad, an expert on the sketches, describes a well-worked-out system of sketching that Mozart used, based on examination of the surviving documents. Typically the most "primitive" sketches are in casual handwriting, and give just snippets of music. More advanced sketches cover the most salient musical lines (the melody line, and often the bass), leaving other lines to fill in later. The so-called "draft score" was one in an advanced enough state for Mozart to consider it complete, and therefore enter it (after 1784) into the personal catalog that he called Verzeichnüss aller meiner Werke ("Catalog of all my works"). However, the draft score did not include all of the notes: it remained to flesh out the internal voices, filling out the harmony. These were added to create the completed score, which appeared in a highly legible hand.

Musical composition

Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.

Although today composition is considered to consist of the manipulation of each aspect of music (harmony, melody, form, rhythm, and timbre), according to Jean-Benjamin de Laborde (1780, 2:12):

Musical compositions

A piece of music exists in the form of a composition in musical notation or as a single acoustic event (a live performance or recorded track). If composed before being performed, music can be performed from memory, through written musical notation, or through a combination of both. Compositions comprise musical elements, which vary widely from person to person and between cultures. Improvisation is the act of composing musical elements spontaneously during the performance.

Piece is a "general, non-technical term [that began to be] applied mainly to instrumental compositions from the 17th century onwards....other than when they are taken individually 'piece' and its equivalents are rarely used of movements in sonatas or symphonies....composers have used all these terms [in their different languages] frequently in compound forms [e.g. Klavierstück]....In vocal music...the term is most frequently used for operatic ensembles..."