Mozart and Kraus: Collaborators ?
Essay by Gary Smith, taken from www.mozartforum.com
In its continuing series "The 18th Century Symphony," Naxos recently released Volume 4 of music of the Swedish composer Joseph Martin Kraus. The listing number is 8.555305. In and of itself, this is a very good addition to your Classical collection, but there is a highly interesting work on this disc that deserves a closer look. Which is what this posting is about.
That work would be VB154, the "Riksdagsmarsch." It's a very good, triumph-tinged march; how can it not be, as it's originally by Mozart! Kraus reworked the piece and added another movement (VB146, also included on this CD) to make a two-movement symphony. The liner notes give the background as:
"The Riksdagmusiken?consists of an extended Sinfonia?and a March?composed as part of the incidental music for the convening of the Swedish parliament in March 1789. Gustav III had embarked on a controversial war with Denmark and Russia a year earlier, and despite some early victories, the conflict had stagnated. The King was in dire need of further finances to continue the war but was keenly aware that opposition to his plans had developed among the restive landed nobility and clergy. In order to further his aims, he intended to secure parliamentary approval of the Act of Union and Security that would give him broad powers over the administration of the government, the exchequer, official appointments and legislative initiative. "[Sounds similar to what President Bush has worked for this past year. Too bad he didn't have a Mozart to commission for the proper music to advance his programs with!] "The war was popular with the Swedish public, whose support he sought to rally by a display of power and spectacle. Kraus was commissioned to compose music for the opening ceremonies in St Nicolai Church on 9th March 1789, consisting of a grand procession followed by an extensive church symphony. The Riksdagsmarsch is a revision of a march composed in 1781 by Mozart, his [Kraus] near neighbor in Vienna in 1783, for his opera Idomeneo. In the opera, King Idomeneo returns triumphantly to Crete after a long and ultimately victorious war with Troy, to the jubilation of his people. Gustav's own propaganda about his military victories over Russia, his support from the local population, and the patriotic paternalistic sentiment fit the march well."
"Kraus's reworking strengthens the powers of the piece, with a more powerful emphasis upon the French dotted rhythms and the extended fanfare-style coda. In his revision, Kraus has not only altered substantial portions of the work, but has extended it by over 20 bars and provided for a larger orchestra through the addition of an extra pair of horns."
These notes provide the "what" background here, but the more obvious intriguing points are "how" and "why?" These are the facts that one must remember with regards to this march:
1) There is no proof that Mozart and Kraus ever met.
2) Idomeneo was not published until 1792; three years after this enhanced march appeared.
In the systematic thematic catalogue of Kraus's works. edited by Bertil Van Boer, these points are taken up on pages 215-216. He puts forth two possibilities on how Kraus obtained this march. First, he acquired it from Mozart himself, since he lived literally around the corner from him on the Kohlmarkt in 1783, when Kraus was on his study tour in Europe. He was in Vienna for several months, so the opportunity had to present itself for a meeting. We have no correspondence from either man to show that they met, but we do know that Kraus certainly knew and appreciated Mozart's work. His tour was designed with the intention that he could study the current state of music in Europe and meet the parties responsible for it. Certainly we know he met Gluck and Haydn, for example.
Another suggestion on how this section of Idomeneo reached Sweden by 1789 is that Gustav III and his traveling retinue made an official state visit to Munich in 1783, and somehow he or one of his staff were allowed to examine a copy of the opera there. Obviously taken by the work, they had a copy made and took it back to Sweden, where Kraus later had an opportunity to review it. Or, perhaps they sent it to Vienna at that point so that he could review it immediately. There is no documentary evidence for any search of the Munich archives by his entourage however. Being a non-repertoire work, one would have to believe that they either stumbled over it quite by accident or that someone pulled it out of the archives to show them as opposed to hundreds of other works to be found in there. I think it's highly unlikely that Idomeneo ended up in Sweden via this path, but of course it's not impossible. No copy of Idomemeo survives in Stockholm from this time however, and if Gustav and his people WERE impressed by this opera, why just forward a single march, which is all we can be sure of that made it there?
Given these two choices, one is led to believe that Kraus must have met Mozart and obtained (at least) the march. Several points should be made in that regards. Kraus was on this tour precisely to extend his knowledge of music to the benefit of the Swedish court. He would undoubtedly (as Mozart did on his tours) arrange to meet the major musical personalities of whatever city he stayed in. Further, he met Haydn in Vienna, and one can't help but believe that the name Mozart would have come up in any discussions Kraus had with him. Finally, one suspects that Kraus would have made the rounds of the fashionable salon parties in Vienna, and certainly Mozart's name would have come up there as well.
Another major important point to consider: Mozart thought very highly of Idomeneo and made some efforts to generate interest in Vienna for it so that a performance could be arranged. However, Joseph II was not warm to opera seria and the best Mozart could achieve was a concert version, staged in 1786 in Prince Johann Adam Auersperg's private theater, with some changes and additions made. As mentioned before, it was not until after Mozart's death that Constanze brought Idomemeo out for publication. Given Mozart's high regard for this work, I think there is a likely scenario regarding Kraus. Remember, he was deputy Kapellmeister in Stockholm, having a responsibility for selecting music for performance there. Did Mozart, once he met him, press Idomeneo on Kraus for performing in Stockholm? Certainly Mozart had no other opera he considered as good as that in the 1783 timeframe we are concerned with.
There are problems with this approach, however. One would suspect that Mozart would have mentioned such a path to Leopold. We have no letter that even mentions Kraus, let alone one offering works to him. That could mean that such a letter is lost, but we also have no copy of Idomeneo or any part of it in Stockholm previous to 1792, which shows that Kraus either never got one to send, or that it has become lost as well. Another approach might be that Mozart offered Kraus just the march as a sample/souvenir in order to spur interest in a performance. Obviously Kraus had to have that at least in order to modify it for his own use. But, wouldn't you suspect that Mozart would supply Kraus with say the overture, or a selection of the arias/ensemble pieces to try and generate interest? Why a march? Perhaps it's really a case where Kraus had an opportunity to read through this opera, was attracted to the march in particular, and obtained a copy of it for his use. It may be no more complicated a story than that.
A variant here might be that Haydn had a copy of portions (or all) of Idomeneo, and Kraus obtained that march from him. Certainly the Esterhazy establishment performed opera serias; could Mozart have been trying to interest Haydn in performing the work and supplied him with a copy, which Kraus saw? This is a rather extreme reach, but Haydn would be a path leading to Mozart, and we do know for sure that Haydn and Kraus met. We do not, however, have a known copy of Idomeneo at the Esterhazy theater.
There is one other potential path here we should review. Is it not possible that Mozart and Kraus had some correspondence between them once Kraus returned to Stockholm? Perhaps Mozart was still offering works for use at the Court there? The possibility presents itself that Kraus might have told of Gustav's upcoming convening of Parliament and his need to supply music for his monarch. Did Mozart remind Kraus of this march? Or suggest it as an example and send it to him then? Consider the background mentioned in the liner notes and how the march seems to fit the occasion and background. Did Kraus, not noted for his operas, see this match-up, or did Mozart, who WAS noted for his musical stagecraft, see it instead and offer suggestions and/or a concrete example, or mention that march Kraus took back with him as a starting point?
The autograph of this march movement by Kraus is simply entitled "Marche/af/Kraus." One of the first copies made (1804) has written on it: "This march, set and used for the procession in the St. Nicolai Church in Stockholm at the Parliament of 1789, is an arrangement of Mozart's march in the first act of Idomeneo, but has been altered both thematically and developed in another manner by Kraus. It is also twenty bars longer than the march from which the subject was taken." Was this note added as the result of a discovery made by someone as to the similarity of it to Mozart's work, or is it rather the "official" explanation known in the Court musical circles as related by Kraus? The fact that Mozart gets no mention on the autograph seems to show that Kraus wasn't going to advertise the starting point for that work, in any event. In the end, who can say?
To finish, all we can really say is that the odds are very high that Kraus and Mozart crossed paths in order for that march to end up in his hands in Stockholm. The odds are very good that they met in Vienna in 1783, though nothing solid, except this march, points to it. It's possible that letters passed between them, though nothing is preserved at either end to show this occurred. All we can truly say is that the adaptation of this march by Kraus shows a very perceptive consideration to account for it use. Which is something I would associate with Mozart.
A Circumstantial Meeting
Essay by Michael Carter, taken from http://www.wual.ua.edu/carter_page_05.asp
One of the joys of musicological research is the discovery of a number of small, if not insubstantial mysteries that crop up during the slow, exacting, sometimes even tedious tracking down and evaluation of both biographical and source material. For those who have undertaken this painstaking work, the long road with its manifold blind alleys and dead ends needs not be dwelt upon at any length, but for those who have yet to tread this path, the twists and turns begin a journey that is of immense duration, often years. It invariably probes the private life and works of a composer in such intimate detail that subtlety and nuance often bring to light fascinating, minute bits of information that bring the human behind the music to life and into focus in a manner rarely conceived by the world around us. The object of scrutiny becomes a friend, sometimes an antagonist, but always a multi-faceted personality, whose life and music are filled with that immensity we call human creativity.
For Dr. Bertil van Boer, Professor of Musicology and Dean of the College of Fine and Performing Arts at Western Washington University, the over two decades spent on German-Swedish composer Joseph Martin Kraus (1756-1792) has resulted in not one, but two editions of a thematic catalogue, published a decade apart. "The latest manifestation," said van Boer, "conforms to Otto Erich Deutsch's maxim that every thematic catalogue ought to be published first in its second edition."
Via a paper recently presented at the Northwest Chapter meeting of the American Musicological Society, held in Bellingham, Washington on April 3, 2000, van Boer focused upon a minor mystery regarding Kraus and Mozart: a possible but undocumented meeting between the two men in Vienna sometime between April and July of 1783. It is only the first of several mysteries, but according to van Boer, "It represents one of those serendipitous discoveries that, while not earth-shaking, nonetheless has elements that conform closely to what one might imagine in a detective story, i.e., pieces of circumstantial evidence strung together to create a case that might hold up in a musicologial and mythical court of law." Van Boer's theory represents an unfolding of hidden or overlooked facts. "The logical deduction of the circumstances will point to a conclusion that, while not entirely provable by incontrovertible fact, nonetheless dares the mind to prove otherwise," stated van Boer with confidence.
"Let us first examine the two suspects," began van Boer. "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart needs no introduction. A prominent citizen of the musicological pantheon, his life has been exhaustively researched, with in-depth studies extending back two centuries, if one counts Niemetschek's biography of 1798 as the first of these. His works, while still confined to the limitations of Köchel 626, number over 2,000, and the continual efforts of a huge cadre of scholars insure that no stone, no archive, no obscure reference will be left unnoted in the quest for even more information." In this instance, however, only a brief biographical introduction is necessary. Mozart was born in Salzburg in 1756, the son of a court musician. His youth as a prodigy led to a vast experience as a musician in the musical world of Europe, bringing him into contact with some of the leading composers of the day, including Johann Christian Bach. Appointed early on to a post at the court of the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, he nonetheless had opportunity to travel, accepting commissions during his teen years in Italy. In 1776, Mozart, fed up with the Archbishop's authority, rebelled and sought more lucrative opportunities in Mannheim and Paris, where he hoped a patron would recognize and reward his talents. "Mozart's freedom was curtailed by failure, and almost four more years were spent in servitude to the Salzburg court before he finally was able to free himself and achieve a measure of success in Vienna," added van Boer. Mozart's career, spotty yet not unadorned, ended all too soon in 1791 with an early death, the cause of which became a topic of some considerable discussion.
The second suspect is Joseph Martin Kraus. "Like Mozart," van Boer noted, "he was born in 1756, but into a family of some stature. His father was a state bureaucrat and his mother the granddaughter of a prominent architect. Kraus' talent in music -- like Mozart's -- was evidenced early on, but unlike Mozart he received a formal education, first at a Jesuit School in Mannheim, where literary talents were also evidenced, and subsequently at universities in Mainz, Erfurt, and Göttingen." After publishing an emotional play entitled Tolon, and a rather satirical treatise on music -- not to mention writing a considerable amount of music -- Kraus decided or was persuaded to give up the lucrative career of a state civil servant to become a composer at the court of Gustav III of Sweden, who just happened to be on the look out for talented people for his new operatic establishment. "In 1778, about the time Mozart was returning home from Paris with his figurative tail between his legs, Kraus set out on a journey northwards, a journey into uncertainty and chaos," said van Boer. "For three years he lived a marginal existence before an opera, Proserpin, won him the post of assistant kapellmäestre at the Swedish court. From November of 1782 to December of 1786, Kraus was sent by Gustav III on a grand tour that took him to much of Europe. By 1788 he had become not only Hovkapellmäestre in ordinary, he had also been named to the post of educational director at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. This provided Kraus with the ability to move fluidly through the best of Gustavian polite society," said van Boer. But Kraus also died early, succumbing to tuberculosis in 1792, barely a year after Mozart's death and not too long after the assassination of Kraus' beloved monarch, Gustav III.
The presentation of both of these suspects might seem unconnected since on the surface, they share only a similarity in dates. "To refer to Kraus as 'The Swedish Mozart' as has been common until the last several years," warned van Boer, "is invidious, for it makes the Swedish composer subject to a comparison that is unequal, at least in terms of historical reputation." Similarly, referring to Mozart as the "Austrian Kraus" would present even more difficulty, as one might well imagine.
"It would seem on face value," said van Boer, "that two composers, one rather famous and the second more regional, had little in common, and the case might ordinarily stop here, were it not for two rather important factual links. First, Joseph Haydn. He stated to Swedish diplomat Fredrik Silverstolpe in 1798, 'Kraus was the first great composer of genius that I ever knew; pity about him and Mozart, both were so young.'" Van Boer continued, "One might notice that Haydn does not mention Pleyel, or Wanhal, or Dittersdorf, or anyone else he clearly knew and liked in Vienna, even given that Silverstolpe's question was a leading one. Haydn could well have said, for instance, something to the effect that he entertained great hopes for both Kraus and Pleyel, but didn't." Both Kraus and Mozart are placed in Haydn's statement on the same plane; undoubtedly he viewed them as equals. Second, van Boer says that after returning from his grand tour, Kraus became -- in the words of Per Frigel, his student -- a "passionate Mozartean", conducting a symphony by Mozart at the public concerts in 1789, and in early 1792 composing a song to a text by Carl Michael Bellman that honored Mozart. "This is remarkable," noted van Boer, "in that it was written apparently only a few weeks after Mozart's actual death. Given that Mozart's reputation as a composer -- not as a child prodigy -- spread relatively slowly after 1792, to have champions of the stature of Kraus and Bellman while still alive seems anomalous."
There is a third link that forms the core of van Boer's theory. In 1789 Gustav III called a parliament to ratify sweeping authoritarian powers. "While it would be too lengthy -- and perhaps somewhat out of context -- to go into the political reasons for this," the respected Kraus scholar noted, "suffice it to say that the normally restive Swedish nobility and clergy, who usually formed a cohesive united block, were cowed by what amounted to a display of political power that supported this Act of Union and Security, as well as Gustav's ongoing war with Russia. As part of the propaganda display calculated to sway the other factions in the government, the King entered the Riddarhus Church for the blessing of the parliament to a magnificent march and extraordinary Sinfonia da chiesa by Kraus. This was music filled with pomp and circumstance, accentuating the spectacle of a powerful, popular monarch adhering to the will of his people."
Kraus' music was calculated to outline the spectacle, and while it admirably served its purpose, the most unusual feature was that the entrance march itself was an adaptation of a march from the first act of Mozart's Idomeneo, re di Creta, an opera that according to Daniel Heartz, represents the beginning of Mozart's mature style. "The point at which it occurs in the opera, too has special significance," pointed out van Boer. "The march is performed at that moment when Idomeneo, absent for a decade during the Trojan War, disembarks on Cretan soil a conquering hero. For those not versed in Swedish history, Gustav had just returned home from a victory at Sveaborg castle over the Russian army."
The case at hand is thus threefold: why Kraus became such a promoter of this particular colleague, why Haydn seemed to rank both on the same plane, and, perhaps most intriguingly, how did the Swedish composer get his hands on a work that was, by all accounts, extant in only two sources at that time: the authentic score and parts at the Electoral opera house in Munich where Idomeneo was premiered in 1781, and an autograph copy that Mozart himself owned and intended to present in Vienna were the only extant copies. And why this particular work? How did the march, so significant in its own right, get chosen from an opera filled with significant moments, any one of which musically could have been appropriate? Van Boer answered this string of queries thusly: "Clearly, the most logical solution is that Kraus received the music directly from Mozart, either in person or through an intermediary. One would have to assume any such putative intermediary would know exactly what to look for some six years in advance of the parliament. Such a solution might seem reasonable were it not for the fact that there is no concrete evidence of any direct contact between the two composers. The biographers of Kraus, including Karl Schrieber and Irmgard Leux-Henschen state rather definitively that the two did not meet, although both seemed to have been acquainted with the gregarious Haydn." In the Mozart biographical canon, Kraus is not mentioned at all, though to be sure the collected correspondence from the period 1782-1784 is not entirely complete. In his article on the march from Idomeneo, Swedish musicologist Gunnar Larsson suggested an alternative, postulating that it was Gustav himself who picked out the march during his visit to the Bavarian Elector's court in December of 1783.
"What might seem a relatively believable alternative, however, rests upon pillars of evidence that are wobbly indeed," cautioned van Boer. "They are far too coincidental to be logical, credible, or even possible. This presupposes that Gustav had time enough to peruse the Elector's musical library for suitable opera material regarding an event that lay some six years in the future, a long stretch of the imagination indeed. It also takes for granted that the King knew enough about music in general, which he didn't. It also supposes that Idomeno was immediately accessible and acknowledged as the most famous work of recent times by all and sundry in Munich, and that it may even have been on the boards as a performance in Gustav's honor. In truth, it had faded from the repertory very quickly, was filed in the Electoral music library, and, whatever one might think of Mozart today, no one should be under the illusion that Idomeneo was considered by the multi-talented musical establishment of Munich -- which began in Mannheim -- as primus inter pares. Gluck, yes; Johann Christian Bach, yes; Ignaz Holzbauer, yes; but the thought of Mozart, whose only other work for Munich was the comic opera La finta giardiniera, stretches the bounds of incredulity to the breaking point."
For this alternative to have worked during a visit of state, the King himself -- or one of his retinue -- would have had to have the intent and desire to delve into the court library for a work that was of no great significance to the Bavarian repertory, come across it by design or serendipitously, peruse the score, abstract from it a particular minor march, and then carry it about for another two months before Kraus -- who joined the King and his entourage in Rome in January -- would have had an opportunity to see it. "Also," added van Boer, "it would have reposed in Kraus' own library for another half a decade. As the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
In this musical inquest, the crux of the arguement, for better or for worse, comes back to some sort of personal contact between the two composers, and, despite the declarations of the biographers and lack of direct evidence, one must examine both motive and opportunity.
As for motive, there is first and foremost the raison d'etre for Kraus' grand tour: to meet the most influential artists of Europe and to evaluate the various theatres. "His own letters and travel diary describe more or less in detail visits to or meetings with composers such as Haydn, Gluck, Wanhal, Albrechtsberger, Sacchini, Padre Martini, and others. In a nutshell, if a composer was well-known, it was Kraus' task to seek him out," said van Boer. "While Mozart may not have been the most famous composer in Europe at the time, for him to have remained unknown to Kraus during Kraus' visit to Vienna would be not only illogical, but hardly credible given this task."
As for opportunity, Kraus arrived in Vienna on April 1, 1783, leaving in October of that year. Mozart, newly married and enjoying the first success of Die Entfhhrüng aus dem Serial, was in residence in the Austrian capital until July, when he took his new bride, the former Constanze Weber, back to Salzburg to meet his family. "Thus there was a span of about four months," posited van Boer, "where, if nothing else, an opportunity for contact existed from a strictly chronological standpoint."
Given both motive and opportunity, the next step in the inquest is to see if there does exist some evidence, even circumstantial, that would provide at least an intimation that a meeting could have occurred, though details would of course be lacking. "The evidence that would support both motive and opportunity is curiously sparse, or in the case of the biographical material, non-extistent," lamented van Boer. But he also noted, "That is not to say that this period is a void in the lives of either composer, or that everything that happened to them is entirely known. During at least the first few weeks in Vienna Kraus maintained a rather oddly comprehensive, if lacunar travel diary. He describes his first meeting with his idol, Gluck, apparently in the company of Gluck's protégé, Salieri - who, like Mozart, is not mentioned by name -- in exhaustive detail." Kraus later amplified this with letters to his parents and friend, composer Romanus Hoffstetter. Kraus' view of Haydn, whose pecuniary tightness was noted, is equally striking, and despite the somewhat uncharitable view of this habit, Kraus nonetheless was clearly favorably impressed by the elder composer, enough so that he wrote his parents on October 22 that he had traveled to Esterhaza to "say farewell to Haydn."
"Kraus' visit caused a considerable stir that echoed in the memories of Haydn and Salieri a decade and a half after the event via Silverstolpe's own meetings," said van Boer, "and Reichardt, who also visited Vienna during this time and is likewise not mentioned in Kraus' diary or letters, published his recollections in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung of 1804, noting that he, Kraus and Gluck sought to hit the town to party, and only the feverish maneuvering of Gluck's wife, who feared the worst for the elder composer, prevented this from happening." Reichardt goes on to say that the three did have some wonderful, if rather less effusive, interaction. So Kraus clearly was a rather well-known and well-met traveller in Vienna. This is intimated by his own diary entries, where daily walks, parties, musical soirees, etc. form the bulk of the material.
When examining this evidence, van Boer illuminates some striking coincidences that are well worth noting. "First, Kraus was a frequent visitor to the public places of Vienna, parks like the Prater where the citizens met and greeted each other. Mozart's life in Vienna also included frequent similar sojourns, documented in the canon Gehn wir im Prater, KV 558. Over a four month period, it would have been difficult for them to miss each other, for Vienna was quite small, and according to Count Zinzendorf, the weather was excellent in the spring and early summer of 1783. Second, Kraus lived on the Kohlenmarkt across from St. Michael's Church at No. 134 on the third floor, and during the same period, Mozart lived just around the corner at Kohlgasse 12. It would have taken almost a deliberate act of God for them not to have simply run into each other in the street during this time. For either not to have known that a composer of some repute was housed in this close proximity strains the bounds of credulity. Third, recent scholarship by Manfred Schuler has shown that Kraus wrote a masonic poem into the book of Johann Georg Kronauer, a member of the Masonic Lodge Zur neugekr`nte Hoffnung to which Mozart also belonged." According to Kraus' diary, the Swedish ambassador Baron Lars von Engström became a member of the lodge in March of 1784. "So did a close friend of Kraus', the Hungarian merchant Johann Samuel Liedemann, with whom Kraus became acquainted just a few days after his arrival in Vienna," van Boer added. "Kraus was also friendly with Ignaz von Born, Master Mason at the lodge Zum wahren Eintracht, which is also associated with Mozart. Because the entry in Kronauer's book implies Kraus was a member of the Swedish Noachite order of freemasonry, his participation as a guest in Vienna, where Mozart may also have been in attendance, is extremely likely. Fourth, both Mozart and Kraus dealt with Viennese publisher and copyhouse owner Johann Traeg during these years. Since Traeg's establishment was a social as well as commercial center, it would have been ideal as either a meeting place or getting to know the chief musicians of the city."
Van Boer noted that perhaps the most interesting and perhaps revealing of these coincidences involves two statements that Kraus wrote to his sister Marianne from Paris on 26 December 1785. "He states: 'Kennst du Mozarts Entfhhrüng aus dem Serail? Er arbeitet nun an seinem Figaro, eine Operette in 4 Aufzuhgen, worauf ich mich herzlich freue.' First, one can assume from the language of the question that he was familiar with the opera, and therefore also its composer. With respect to Figaro, however, it is clear from the evidence that both DaPonte and Mozart strove to keep the composition a secret. Although rumors began to circulate in the fall of 1785 that he was working on piece, the first mention of the work seems to have been on November 2." Details apparently remained within Mozart's inner family circle until after the successful premiere of Der Schauspieldirektor in early 1786. Mozart's own catalogue notes the completion date of April 29, 1786. "The obvious question now remains," said van Boer, "how would Kraus, sitting in Paris, know that Mozart was hard at work on Figaro, be familiar with the layout of the opera -- DaPonte originally seemed to think it might be in two acts rather than four -- and most importantly, why would such news 'please him (Kraus) immensely' unless he had some direct connection to the Viennese composer or his music?"
Putting all of the circumstantial evidence that van Boer has assembled together, it would seem that Kraus would have had to be completely impaired not to have run into Mozart sometime during the four months of their simultaneous Viennese coexistence in 1783. For Mozart not to have heard of Kraus would have been equally impossible, for the Swedish composer's visit was certainly no secret and Kraus was certainly quite gregarious in his various social and official activities. "Perhaps the final piece of circumstantial evidence is the appearance of the aforementioned revision of the March from Idomeneo," concluded van Boer. It is known that Kraus did obtain music from the various composers during his travels. "The use of a fugue by Albrechtsberger in Kraus' Sinfonia da chiesa is indicative of this," van Boer noted, "so to have obtained a copy of the march would have been entirely in character."
Given Kraus' admiration for Gluck, Idomeneo would have interested him more than any other opera, for it is Mozart's most Gluckian work. As noted earlier, the only score of Idomeneo other than the Munich copy was held by Mozart; it enjoyed no circulation whatsoever since the composer intended it to be produced in Vienna. Given this documented fact, the only way Kraus could have become familiar at all with the work is if he had actually seen it, and the only way to have done this was through some sort of personal meeting with Mozart. Moreover, the choice of the march from Idomeneo and its political implications -- certainly not considered initially -- could only have come to mind if Kraus had been familiar enough with the work to precisely know the context. However, it cannot be known whether this information was actually shared with the King.
Noting this evidence, van Boer asked, "Do the circumstances, motive, opportunity, and actual musical evidence remain convincing enough to overcome a reluctance to speak of a meeting of two composers that Haydn clearly set above all others of his knowledge?"
With that, the defense rested its case.