Attributing Mozart (i): three accompanied recitatives

Abstract

In a recent issue of the Cambridge Opera Journal, Dorothea Link has proposed that Mozart may have been the author of an unattributed accompanied recitative that precedes the aria ‘‘Vado, ma dove?,” K. 583, in the Viennese court theatre’s original performing score of Martín y Soler's Il burbero di buon cuore. The present article re-examines the case for Mozart's authorship of this recitative in the wider context of Mozart studies as a whole, and through a detailed reconsideration of the source and stylistic evidence. The recitative preceding K. 583 is compared to two other accompanied recitatives with plausible connections to Mozart: an unattributed one that precedes a score of Mozart's aria ‘‘No, che non sei capace,” K. 419, in a Viennese manuscript of extracts from Paisiello’s Fedra; and one that is explicitly attributed to Mozart in the Viennese court theatre's original performing score of a pasticcio based on Guglielmi's La quacquera spirituosa.