W. A. Mozart. First edition of the parts of the Piano Concerto in B flat, K. 595, 1791

MOZART, WOLFGANG AMADEUS

Concerto Per il Clavicembalo O Forte-Piano Con l'accompagnamento Di due Violini Viola e Basso 2 Oboe 2 Corni 2 Fagotti e Flauto...opera 17 [parts], Vienna: Artaria, [1791]

FIRST EDITION OF THE PIANO CONCERTO IN B FLAT, K.595, the complete parts, 22, 6, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 4, 2, 2, 2 pages, oblong 4to (c.24.2 x 34.5cm), engraved throughout, plate number 346, price ('f. 2.45. Xr'), watermark of three moons with a countermark of 'GFA' over 'SOTO IPERIAL', old manuscript annotations to piano part, with loose presumably early 19th-century manuscript cadenzas and Eingänge for the outer movements in an unidentified hand (the music of one cadenza and one Eingang not by Mozart), stitching holes, unbound, leaves of outer bifolium of piano part detached, a few small stains [Haberkamp, pp.338-339; RISM M 5846 and MM 5846]

We have traced only one copy of this edition at auction during the last twenty-five years (sale in these rooms, 21 May 2004, lot 122). Of the 17 copies recorded in Haberkamp, only 11 are apparently complete.

K.595 is one of only six Mozart piano concertos published within the composer's lifetime and is, in fact, one of the last works of any kind by Mozart to be published before his death on 5 December 1791 (it was first advertised in the Wiener Zeitung on 10 August 1791). Alexander Weinmann has suggested that Artaria may have used for the edition plates taken over from another of Mozart's publishers, Franz Anton Hoffmeister, as appears to have been the case elsewhere: see, for instance, Artaria's first edition of the "Prussian" Quartets, K.575, 589 and 590, sold in these rooms on 17 May 2002 (lot 134). Mozart's cadenzas and Eingang for K.595 were first published by Artaria in 1801.