Les Influences étrangères dans l'oeuvre de W. A. Mozart by André VerchalyReview by: Jan LaRueNotes, Second Series, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Jun., 1959), pp. 388-389Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/892940 .

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describes the structure of the liturgy, especially as found in the Liber Usualis and modern liturgical books, will be of great service to the music student. A warning is needed here concerning the division of the psalter as found on page 20 and again on page 88. This arrange- ment for Vespers is but fifty years old and differs greatly from any medieval source. Since the development of the Chant is so closely related to the devel- opment of the great monastic centers, and since so many of the best manu- scripts are of monastic origin, some ex- planation of the differences between the secular and monastic Office would have been most useful to the scholar.

In reading these chapters on the li- turgy, one cannot help but raise a serious question concerning the author's ap- proach. All the intricate data about the rubrical aspects of the liturgy into which the chants fit are explained in detail, but at no time is either the liturgy or the music approached from the cultural or sociological point of view. The ideas, the theology, the culture and its centers-all these elements that gave birth to and fostered the music are almost totally ignored. Surely we have progressed far enough in musical scholarship to demand that the music we are studying be inte- grated into the period in which it had its origin and grew. Since Dr. Apel eschews all discussion concerning the cultural and esthetic aspects of the music and liturgy, it never seems to come to life. In this re- spect only, the book is a backward, not a forward, step.

The general outlines of Chant notation are presented in a more summary fashion than in Peter Wagner's second volume. One wishes that Dr. Apel had mentioned explicitly, however, exactly what frag- ments in his opinion come from the eighth century. In summarizing the theories on Chant rhythm, Dr. Apel has rightly de- cried the fact that this problem has been given too much space in Chant scholar- ship. He can be sure that even more space will be given to refuting his per- sonal views in this chapter.

It is in the chapter on tonality and in the third section on stylistic analysis that the great wealth of the book is shown. One still feels uneasy about Dr. Apel's position on the tonic accent and the cursus and would wish that this section had been approached, not only from a stylistic, but also from a historical point of view. If the theories he presents in the conclusion concerning the origins of Gregorian Chant are valid, then the prob- lem of the tonic accent and the cursus must be studied in the light of these later findings. One feels at the end of this sec- tion containing as it does the added chapters on Ambrosian Chant by Roy Jesson and on the Old-Roman Chant by Robert J. Snow-that the work has just begun. For this reason, Dr. Apel has rightly called the concluding section of his comprehensive study "Prolegomena to a History of Gregorian Style." In work- ing out all the details of this history, scholars will have Dr. Apel's book as their prime source.

REMBERT WEAKLAND, 0. S. B.

Les Influences etrangeres dans l'oeuvre de W. A. Mozart. Etudes reunies et presentees par Andre Verchaly. (Colloques Internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique: Sciences Humaines.) Paris: Editions du C.N.R.S.. r19]8. rvii. 273 p.. music., facsims., 8vol

To judge from the series title above, French musicology is forced to adopt scientific disguises to achieve respect- ability or perhaps more accurately, pub- lishability-in the postwar world. The opportunistic camouflage of "Humane Science" should not blind us to the no- table contribution of the various musico- logical colloquia held under the sponsor- ship of the C.N.R.S. in recent years.

Among the best of these was the Mozart conference (1956), which in two respects deserves to be copied by future planners of colloquia: first, the general topic was sharply focussed; second, the schedule of fourteen papers in four days allowed a tempo more appropriate to scholarly ex- position than the breathless presto char- acteristic of most international con- gresses.

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The question of foreign influences on Mozart was assigned to a distinguished international company of scholars. At the outset Stig Walin outlines the "conditions generales" of Mozart's internationalism. Various Austrian aspects receive atten- tion from Erich Schenk, H. C. Robbins Landon, and Helmut Wirth, while con- nections with Swabia, Mannheim, and the sons of Bach are explored by E. F. Schmid, K. G. Fellerer, and the Abbe Carl de Nys. Representing Italian in- fluences we find essays by Cesare Vala- brega and Luigi-Fernando Tagliavini, fol- lowed by studies of central European re- lationships by Denes Bartha, Vaclav Dobias, and Antonin Sychra. Two final essays of Pierre Fortassier and Ernst Hess discuss Mozart's instrumental re- citative and the disputed authenticity of K. 311a. With such wide representation it may be carping to call attention to the total absence of British and Soviet scholars.

Among the many valuable essays there are no startling discoveries or epoch- making new approaches. What impresses one most is the generally high level to which Mozart research has now attained, notably in the three aspects of broad comparative scope, intensive documentary investigation, and concrete stylistic ana- lysis. Robbins Landon's hypothesis of a romantic crisis in Austrian music about 1770 shows new breadth of comparison resulting from the increasing knowledge of the Mozart background. In the op- posite, intensive direction we observe the extraordinary historical perseverance of E. F. Schmid in tracking down the

actual buildings and sculptures created by Wolfgang's ancestors. (Several photo- graphic plates illustrate these findings.) Finally, in the penetrating study of L.-F. Tagliavini on Mozart's early operas an admirable solidity of stylistic comment results from the frequent musical ex- amples and other direct evidence. Against these achievements of the colloquium one inust note that the book nowhere attacks directly the central problems of its sub- ject: how can we distinguish between in- fluence and coincidence?

The discussions of the colloquium took place in two forms. After each paper there was a short discussion dealing with the immediate area of the paper. The compiler has supplied concise digests of these exchanges. At the end of the con- ference, longer general discussions sum- marized the national impact of Austria, Germany, Italy, France, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, England, and Spain (Figaro's fandango). As is the case with all such proceedings (cf. the Royal Musical As- sociation) the remarks rarely justify full stenographic transcription. For example, Erich Schenk is credited with what may well be the most graceless pronouncement ever made about Mozart: ". . . c'est a Paris que Mozart est devenu composi- teur. II est parti de Salzbourg n'etant qu'un singe savant qui jouait du clavier

The book ends with a competent index, a feature all too rare in French publica- tions. Here the discussions and references to Mozart's works are conveniently listed by Kochel numbers under his name.

JAN LARUE

Bizet and His World. By Mina Curtiss. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1958; [London: Secker & Warburg, 1959]. [xvi, 477, xvii p., illus., 8vo; $7.50, 50/-]

The publishers candidly admit that this is "not primarily a book about music." It is primarily a biography, i.e., a book about the life of an individual, who in this case happened to be a musician. The author, therefore, has approached her task as a biographer, not as a musicologist. This approach is perfectly legitimate, as long as one is warned what to expect- and what not to expect. One must not,

for example, look to these pages for new light on the Spanish sources of the music for Carmen, or for a systematic analysis of the various versions of the score of that opera. One will, however, find here the most thorough extant account, not only of all the circumstances (mainly obstacles and difficulties of every kind) attending the ill-starred production of Carmen at the Op6ra-Comique (whose

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