Arrangement of Händel’s *Alexander’s Feast* (K. Anh.A 58)
av Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s arrangement of George Frideric Händel’s Alexander’s Feast (K. Anh.A 58; also circulated as K. 591) belongs to his late Viennese engagement with Baroque choral repertory, prepared around July 1790. Associated with the private concerts promoted by Baron Gottfried van Swieten, the score survives chiefly as an adapted performing version rather than an original “new” composition.
Background and Context
In Vienna in 1790—Mozart’s thirty-fourth year—he was intermittently engaged in arranging Händel for the circle around Baron Gottfried van Swieten, whose private performances helped renew interest in older choral works in German translation [1]. The arrangement associated with Alexander’s Feast is transmitted as a practical performing score built on earlier printed material, with Mozart’s contributions concentrated in additional and revised parts rather than in wholesale recomposition [2].
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Because this entry appears in the Köchel Anhang as K. Anh.A 58, it is best understood as an arrangement whose precise status (extent of Mozart’s hand, completeness, and the documentary trail behind its commission) is not always as securely documented as Mozart’s autograph compositions. Even so, the surviving editorial evidence points to a coherent Viennese performing version of Händel’s two-part ode/cantata Alexander’s Feast, or The Power of Music [2].
Musical Character
What can be described with confidence is the kind of intervention Mozart made. The New Mozart Edition reports that a copyist prepared a “raw score” from an early Händel print; Mozart then added wind parts and, in places, altered the string writing—changes that are visible in the facsimiles and discussed in the preface [2].
At the outset, the Overtura is scored for strings with pairs of flutes, oboes, bassoons, and horns—an unmistakably Classical-era coloring laid over Händel’s framework [2]. Later numbers show Mozart tailoring the palette to the text and vocal writing in German (Ramler after Dryden), for example using pairs of flutes, clarinets, and bassoons in the tenor aria/chorus “Selig, selig, selig Paar!” [2]. In the final chorus, the preface describes winds reinforcing choral lines in unison and sustained horn octaves enriching the sonority—an arrangement strategy that clarifies diction and broadens resonance for a Viennese ensemble [2].
[1] Digital Mozart Edition (Mozarteum Salzburg), NMA X/28/1/3 table of contents for Handel arrangements: Alexander’s Feast (K. Anh. A 58 / K. 591).
[2] Neue Mozart-Ausgabe / New Mozart Edition, Series X, Workgroup 28, Volume 3: Handel: Alexander’s Feast — English preface and facsimile commentary (PDF).