Zweig MS 64-67

Published: In addition to the authoritative published texts in Wilhelm A. Bauer, Otto Erich Deutsch, Joseph Heinz Eibl, Mozart. Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, 7 vols. (Kassel, 1962-1975), cited below, the texts of all of Mozart’s letters to his cousin, together with an extensive commentary, are printed in J.H. Eibl, W. Senn, Mozarts Bäsle-Briefe (Kassel, 1978). English translations are printed in Emily Anderson, The Letters of Mozart and his Family; references are to the third edition, ed. A. Hyatt King and M. Carolan, rev. S. Sadie and F. Smart (London, 1985).

Bibliography: Stefan Zweig (ed.), Ein Brief von Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart an seine Augsburger Bäsle (Salzburg, 1931), Martin Bircher (ed.), Stefan Zweig’s Welt der Autographen (Zurich, 1996), p. 52.

Although Stefan Zweig acquired all four letters in 1931 he chose to publish only the first. He includes in the introduction his own explanation of Mozart’s childish and often scatological language in these letters. The privately printed edition was limited to 50 copies. The published record of Zweig’s friendship and collaboration with Richard Strauss begins with the presentation of a copy (W. Schuh, ed., Richard Strauss, Stefan Zweig. Briefwechsel, Frankfurt, 1957, p. 7); there is also a copy inscribed to Paul Hirsch in the Hirsch Collection in the British Library (Hirsch 3755), and a copy presented to Sigmund Freud is reproduced by Oliver Matuschek in Das Entsetzen aller seiner Biografen (Vienna, 2006).