New Book by Music Prof ‘Mr. Mozart’ Fully Catalogs the Maestro’s Work

The 1,300-page tome was released in September with a celebration in Salzburg, Austria—the famed composer’s birthplace

By David Nutt

Mozart was a musical prodigy, brilliant performer, and tireless, prolific composer.

If only he had been as disciplined about collecting and cataloging his work.

In the years following Mozart’s early death at the age of 35, people began working in earnest to put together a comprehensive chronology of Mozart’s 600-plus compositions. The sleuthing, uncertainty, guesswork, and revision continued for nearly two centuries.

Professor Neal Zaslaw took three decades to research and put together what might be the final comprehensive
catalog of Mozart’s works. (Photo: Ryan Young)

Neal Zaslaw, the Herbert Gussman Professor of Music Emeritus in the College of Arts and Sciences, is the latest—and potentially the last—to assemble a so-called “Köchel Catalog,” named for Ludwig Ritter von Köchel, who created the first systematic inventory of Mozart’s works, published in 1862.

Zaslaw’s newly released Köchel-Verzeichnis 2024 (“verzeichnis” is German for list, catalog, or directory) has been more than three decades in the making. The book’s release was celebrated in September in Salzburg, Austria - Mozart’s birthplace.

It’s a fitting capstone to the 85-year-old Zaslaw’s career as one of the world’s leading Mozart authorities, one who was once dubbed “Mr. Mozart” by the New York Times.

“My goal was to finish it before I died,” he said. “And I faked everybody out and did it.”

“My goal was to finish it before I died. And I faked everybody out and did it.”

As the son of a professional musician, Mozart began performing, touring, and composing at an age when most children are learning the alphabet and basic arithmetic.

Mozart as depicted in a 1781 portrait by Austrian painter Johann Nepomuk della Croce.
(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

He wrote steadily and abundantly, and over the years had many patrons, commissions, tours, publishers, and score copyists.

When he died in Vienna in 1791 during a flu epidemic, he’d left behind “a maze of manuscripts and editions scattered across Western Europe,” according to Zaslaw.

“He became a sort of a cultural hero, and people were fighting over his legacy and trying to get their hands on his music,” Zaslaw said.

“Some of his music had been published in two or three cities because there were no international copyright laws then, but plenty of his other music had never been published. A lot of works had gone missing.”

So how does one become “Mr. Mozart”? Like a dramatic symphony, Zaslaw’s life in music has had a number of movements. He began his career as a professionally trained flutist, studying at the Juilliard School and performing with the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski’s direction from 1962–65. He also earned a B.A. from Harvard and, later, graduate degrees from Columbia University.

When Zaslaw arrived at Cornell in 1970 and the department asked him what kind of research seminar he wanted to run, his mind went straight to Mozart. He soon discovered that “all hell was breaking loose” in the realm of Mozart studies.

A new edition of the composer’s works was being created by scholars in Salzburg—preparations for which were turning up fresh sources of information—and new techniques had been devised for re-evaluating the dating, circumstances, and authenticity of Mozart’s compositions.

There was plenty to write about—and Zaslaw’s background in performance and academia made him well-qualified to write it.

Zaslaw has written and edited numerous books and more than 75 articles on baroque and classical music, historical performance practices, the history of the orchestra, and Mozart. In 1991, he was knighted by the Austrian government for his contributions to Mozart performance and research.

“As someone who went all the way up through professional training as a performer and as a scholar, a lot of my life has been spent trying to bridge that gap and pull the two things together,” Zaslaw said. “And that is how, for 50 years, I trained my students at Cornell: the performers I made into scholars, and the musicologists I made into performers.

“Otherwise, each would be missing crucial elements that would bear on any ideas they had and conclusions they reached.”

In 1992, Zaslaw was giving a talk in Basel, Switzerland, when he received a call from the world’s oldest music publisher, headquartered in the German city of Wiesbaden, asking if one of its editors could come down and meet with him.

“Their editor took me to lunch and asked if I wanted to make a new edition of the catalog,” Zaslaw said. “And, like a fool, I grinned and said, ‘It sounds like fun.’”

“Their editor asked if I wanted to make a new edition of the catalog. And, like a fool, I grinned and said, ‘It sounds like fun.’”

When the contract for the new Köchel catalog was signed in 1993, Zaslaw and the publisher agreed to a reasonable deadline.

“The contract said that I would finish it in seven years,” Zaslaw said. “As the years grew into decades, I was still finding it ‘fun,’ but I began to wonder whether I would finish it before I died.”

Zaslaw examines an original Mozart composition. (Photo: Ryan Young)

Zaslaw was able to tap many new resources that previous Köchel editors lacked: the Internet, a rising generation of scholars willing to communicate and cooperate, and international projects that were inventorying libraries and archives that had never been fully cataloged.

But there was another vestige of tradition that stymied Zaslaw. The legacy of the Köchel itself.

“I consulted a lot of performers and librarians and archivists and scholars and publishers,” he said, “and they were basically saying, ‘You can’t change the numbers by which we know all of Mozart’s works. Mozart’s G minor symphony is Köchel listing 550. Do not assign a new number to that. It will create chaos.’”

Zaslaw came up with a crafty, albeit time-consuming, solution. The previous numbering system has been retained, but “chronological” has disappeared from the book’s title and Zaslaw devised an elaborate new index system for crediting sources.

Now, 24 years after it was initially promised, Zaslaw’s Köchel has arrived, and it is an “astounding relief,” he said.

Ludwig Ritter von Köchel created the first systematic inventory of Mozart’s works.
(Photo courtesy AEIOU Encyclopedia)

It’s a hefty tome, roughly 1,300 pages. It is the fifth official Köchel, and it looks to be the final one. Eventually the catalog will move online, where any additions, annotations, and corrections can be made with a click of a button.

“It’s characteristic of Neal’s inspiring reputation as a teacher that generations of doctoral students in musicology were given the opportunity to chip away at the project with him in seminars over the years,” said Benjamin Piekut, professor of music and chair of the department in the College of Arts and Sciences.

“Neal may have experienced this publication as an astounding relief—but to the rest of us, it’s just astounding,” Piekut said. “Few projects actually require 30 years. This one did.”

First published at Cornell University, November 19, 2024