This project of the Mozart Society of America aims to make available full texts of the early biographies of Mozart on the MSA web site. Our goal is to provide convenient access to the biographical literature that has shaped our view of Mozart's life and work.
The project will commence with the "core repertory" of early biographies by Friedrich Schlichtegroll (1793/94), Franz Xaver Niemetschek (1st ed. 1798; 2nd ed. 1808), and Georg Nikolaus von Nissen (1828), as well as shorter biographical documents by Daines Barrington, Ernst Ludwig Gerber, Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, and Felix Joseph Lipowsky. Ultimately, we will expand the selection to include other early nineteenth-century biographies in English, French, Italian, and German.
Although some of these works have been published in facsimile, many are out of print and difficult to find. Similarly, early biographical entries in dictionaries and encyclopedias (e.g., Gerber's Lexikon) have rarely been published or translated in secondary literature. With these biographies available in a digital electronic format, it should be easier to trace the trajectory of Mozart's biography.
We have begun to have the texts keyed by a professional service, and the texts need to be carefully proofread before being posted on the web site. We are seeking individuals in the Society to volunteer to proofread short sections of longer works. The texts will be posted as images (PDF) initially, and we eventually hope to convert them to hypertext (HTML), for greater ease of use and linking between files. The first biographies should be available on the MSA web site in early 2008, and we expect to finish the project by 2010. The advisory board includes Paul Corneilson, Ulrich Leisinger, and John A. Rice.
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