Abstract
The Liedersammlung für Kinder und Kinderfreunde am Clavier (Vienna: Ignaz Alberti, 1791) is the first collection of children’s songs published in Vienna, and is the publication for which Mozart composed his final three lieder (K. 596-8).2 At least ten other composers participated in this large-scale project, comprising four volumes, each representing a season of the year.3 The composers included Viennese musicians of distinction in 1791: Mozart, Wenzel Müller (Kapellmeister at the Theater in der Leopoldstadt), Johann Wanhal, and probably Leopold Hofmann, Kapellmeister at the Cathedral of St. Stephan. Each of the two surviving volumes, devoted to spring and winter, contains exactly thirty songs, suggesting that the entire set would have included some 120 songs.
Author Biography
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David J. Buch
David Joseph Buch studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. He received his PhD in Music History from Northwestern University. He had been Professor of Music at Wayne State University and Professor of Music History at the University of Northern Iowa, where he is now Professor Emeritus. Buch was also a visiting professor at the University of Chicago (2008-11). He has published numerous scholarly studies on a range of topics, having explored archives and libraries in major European cities. His research has received international attention owing to the discovery of new attributions to Mozart in Emanuel Schikaneder's collaborative opera Der Stein der Weisen oder Die Zauberinsel (Vienna, 1790). In 1998 he was named UNI Distinguished Scholar and received the Donald N. McKay Research Award. Buch plays the lute, viola da gamba and guitar. He has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Claudio Abbado, and as guest soloist with the Eckstein String Quartet (principals, CSO).
