By David J. Buch
The research that resulted in A-R Editions’ publication of the Liedersammlung für Kinder und Kinderfreunde am Clavier (1791; C095), the collection for which Mozart wrote his last three songs (K. 596–98), was personally gratifying in several ways. What started in the late 1990s as an attempt to identify the eleven named composers of the sixty songs in these two volumes devoted to the spring and winter seasons (entitled Frühlingslieder and Winterlieder, respectively) led to the discovery of the identity of editor of the collection, Placidus Partsch. Composed by Mozart, Wenzel Müller, Johann Baptist Wanhal, and other Viennese composers of the late eighteenth century, the songs bring to mind the style characteristics of contemporary popular Viennese comic opera and cover a wide spectrum of technical abilities and ranges.
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