Mozart’s Arrangement of Händel’s *Acis und Galathea* (K. Anh.A 56)
av Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s arrangement of Handel’s Acis und Galathea (K. Anh.A 56; more commonly cited as K. 566) is a Viennese reworking from 1788, associated with Baron Gottfried van Swieten’s circle. Although the surviving documentation leaves some catalogue details uncertain, the score itself shows Mozart engaging Handel’s pastoral drama through late-18th-century German text and Classical orchestral color.
Background and Context
In Vienna in 1788, the 32-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart produced an arrangement of Handel’s pastoral work Acis and Galatea, transmitted in German as Acis und Galathea and linked to the programming interests of Baron Gottfried van Swieten, who fostered Handel (and Bach) performances in private Viennese circles.[1][2]
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The work appears in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe as a Handel arrangement (identified there as K. 566 / Anh.A 56), suggesting a practical performance text rather than a new composition: Mozart’s task was to make Handel’s piece viable for contemporary forces, language, and taste.[3]
Musical Character
What can be said with confidence is that the NMA’s table of contents preserves the German incipits of individual numbers (for example, “Strebst du nach der zarten Schönen”), indicating a sequence of self-contained vocal movements—arias and ensembles—rather than an independently conceived Mozartian song cycle.[3]
Musically, Mozart’s contribution is chiefly one of Klang (sonority) and rhetoric: Handel’s vocal writing is reframed through Classical orchestration and pacing, the kind of “updating” contemporaries expected when earlier repertory was revived.[4] Within Mozart’s 1788 output, the arrangement aligns with a broader preoccupation with contrapuntal models and with the art of re-composition—absorbing another master’s idiom, yet speaking it in an unmistakably Viennese accent.[1]
[1] Indiana Public Media (Harmonia) — discussion of Mozart’s 1788 arrangement for van Swieten, German translation, and adaptation practices
[2] Boston Baroque programme note — overview of Mozart being commissioned to arrange Handel works for later Viennese taste
[3] Digitale Mozart-Edition (Mozarteum) — Neue Mozart-Ausgabe table of contents for Handel Arrangements: *Acis and Galatea* (K. 566 / Anh.A 56), preserving German number incipits
[4] BBC Classical Music feature — general context on *Acis and Galatea* and later re-scorings, including Mozart’s updating of the scoring