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28-540: One of the guiding lights of the AMA was Ludwig Ritter von Köchel , compiler of the still-standard Köchel-Verzeichnis (thematic catalog) of Mozart's works. From behind the scenes, Köchel worked to have the edition completed, lending valuable scores to the publisher and editors for their work. Among those involved in the actual editing were Johannes Brahms , Joseph Joachim , Carl Reinecke , Julius Rietz , and Philipp Spitta (the noted biographer of Johann Sebastian Bach ). While

56-453: A composition, Prokofiev occasionally assigned a new opus number to the revision; thus Symphony No. 4 is two thematically related but discrete works: Symphony No. 4, Op. 47, written in 1929; and Symphony No. 4, Op. 112, a large-scale revision written in 1947. Likewise, depending upon the edition, the original version of Piano Sonata No. 5 in C major, is cataloged both as Op. 38 and as Op. 135. Despite being used in more or less normal fashion by

84-406: A notable achievement for its time, the AMA suffered from serious limitations. Frederick Neumann remarks that it "varies greatly in dependability, with some volumes remarkably trustworthy, others far less so". Alfred Einstein expressed dissatisfaction with its presentation of Mozart's "Coronation" Concerto and Marriage of Figaro , and Friedrich Blume was particularly severe on what he called

112-553: A number of important early-twentieth-century composers, including Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) and Anton Webern (1883–1945), opus numbers became less common in the later part of the twentieth century. To manage inconsistent opus-number usages – especially by composers of the Baroque (1600–1750) and of the Classical (1720–1830) music eras – musicologists have developed comprehensive and unambiguous catalogue number-systems for

140-407: A venture partly funded by Köchel. He also catalogued the works of Johann Fux . Opus number In music , the opus number is the "work number" that is assigned to a musical composition , or to a set of compositions, to indicate the chronological order of the composer 's publication of that work. Opus numbers are used to distinguish among compositions with similar titles; the word

168-636: A work or set of works upon publication. After approximately 1900, they tended to assign an opus number to a composition whether published or not. However, practices were not always perfectly consistent or logical. For example, early in his career, Beethoven selectively numbered his compositions (some published without opus numbers), yet in later years, he published early works with high opus numbers. Likewise, some posthumously published works were given high opus numbers by publishers, even though some of them were written early in Beethoven's career. Since his death in 1827,

196-417: Is abbreviated as "Op." for a single work, or "Opp." when referring to more than one work. Opus numbers do not necessarily indicate chronological order of composition. For example, posthumous publications of a composer's juvenilia are often numbered after other works, even though they may be some of the composer's first completed works. To indicate the specific place of a given work within a music catalogue ,

224-713: The Köchel-Verzeichnis (K- and KV-numbers), which enumerate the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , respectively. In the classical period , the Latin word opus ("work", "labour"), plural opera , was used to identify, list, and catalogue a work of art. By the 15th and 16th centuries, the word opus was used by Italian composers to denote a specific musical composition, and by German composers for collections of music. In compositional practice, numbering musical works in chronological order dates from 17th-century Italy, especially Venice . In common usage,

252-509: The Neue Mozart-Ausgabe for serious study of the composer's output. However, reprints of portions of the AMA remain widely available from Dover Publications and other firms that specialize in republishing older editions. Parts of this edition are also sometimes encountered in electronic format from various websites that offer online sheet music . Archival materials of the AMA belong to the fonds 21081 Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig, in

280-474: The Köchel catalogue , a chronological and thematic register of the works of Mozart. This catalogue was the first on such a scale and with such a level of scholarship behind it; it has since undergone revisions. Mozart's works are often referred to by their KV-numbers ( cf. opus number ); for example, the "Jupiter" symphony, Symphony No. 41 , KV. 551. At the same time that Köchel was writing his catalogue Otto Jahn

308-606: The Piano Sonata, Op. 27 No. 2, in C-sharp minor is also catalogued as "Sonata No. 14", because it is the fourteenth sonata composed by Ludwig van Beethoven. Given composers' inconsistent or non-existent assignment of opus numbers, especially during the Baroque (1600–1750) and the Classical (1750–1827) eras, musicologists have developed other catalogue-number systems; among them the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV-number) and

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336-481: The Symphony in F, K. 19a , rediscovered in 1981), as well as a number of works once incorrectly attributed to Mozart which are now known to be doubtful or spurious (for instance, the piece published in AMA as Mozart's Symphony No. 2 in B flat, K. 17 , now considered to be by Leopold Mozart ). Therefore, the AMA is no longer regarded as the definitive edition of Mozart's works, and it has been supplanted in this regard by

364-620: The "astonishing frivolity and often complete irresponsibility" of the editors of this edition (specifically with regard to the handling of Mozart's piano concertos ), asserting that "the Collected Edition [i.e., the AMA] of Mozart's works and the practical editions based on it offer no more than the skeleton of his compositions." There are also certain authentic works of Mozart that were never published in this edition, some because they were not discovered until well after its completion (for instance,

392-964: The Mendelssohn heirs published (and cataloged) them as the Italian Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90 , and as the Reformation Symphony No. 5 in D major and D minor, Op. 107 . While many of the works of Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) were given opus numbers, these did not always bear a logical relationship to the order in which the works were written or published. To achieve better sales, some publishers, such as N. Simrock , preferred to present less experienced composers as being well established, by giving some relatively early works much higher opus numbers than their chronological order would merit. In other cases, Dvořák gave lower opus numbers to new works to be able to sell them to other publishers outside his contract obligations. This way it could happen that

420-469: The Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Staatsarchiv Leipzig, first of all engraver's models and proof prints, partly correspondence with editors. Ludwig Ritter von K%C3%B6chel Ludwig Alois Friedrich Ritter von Köchel ( German: [ˈkœçəl] ; 14 January 1800 – 3 June 1877) was an Austrian musicologist , writer, composer, botanist , and publisher. He is best known for cataloguing

448-536: The case of Felix Mendelssohn (1809–47); after his death, the heirs published many compositions with opus numbers that Mendelssohn did not assign. In life, he published two symphonies ( Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 11 ; and Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 ), furthermore he published his symphony-cantata Lobgesang , Op. 52, which was posthumously counted as his Symphony No. 2; yet, he chronologically wrote symphonies between symphonies Nos. 1 and 2, which he withdrew for personal and compositional reasons; nevertheless,

476-466: The cases of César Franck (1822–1890), Béla Bartók (1881–1945), and Alban Berg (1885–1935), who initially numbered, but then stopped numbering their compositions. Carl Nielsen (1865–1931) and Paul Hindemith (1895–1963) were also inconsistent in their approaches. Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) was consistent and assigned an opus number to a composition before composing it; at his death, he left fragmentary and planned, but numbered, works. In revising

504-515: The dramatic musical genres of opera or ballet, which were developed in Italy. As a result, the plural opera of opus tends to be avoided in English. In other languages such as German, however, it remains common. In the arts, an opus number usually denotes a work of musical composition , a practice and usage established in the seventeenth century when composers identified their works with an opus number. In

532-417: The eighteenth century, publishers usually assigned opus numbers when publishing groups of like compositions, usually in sets of three, six or twelve compositions. Consequently, opus numbers are not usually in chronological order, unpublished compositions usually had no opus number, and numeration gaps and sequential duplications occurred when publishers issued contemporaneous editions of a composer's works, as in

560-415: The first four symphonies to be composed were published after the last five; and (c) the last five symphonies were not published in order of composition. The New World Symphony originally was published as No. 5, later was known as No. 8, and definitively was renumbered as No. 9 in the critical editions published in the 1950s. Other examples of composers' historically inconsistent opus-number usages include

588-508: The opus number is paired with a cardinal number ; for example, Beethoven 's Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor (1801, nicknamed Moonlight Sonata ) is "Opus 27, No. 2", whose work-number identifies it as a companion piece to "Opus 27, No. 1" ( Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-flat major , 1800–01), paired in same opus number, with both being subtitled Sonata quasi una Fantasia , the only two of the kind in all of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas. Furthermore,

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616-743: The rest of his life as a private scholar. Contemporary scientists were greatly impressed by his botanical researches in North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula , the United Kingdom, the North Cape , and Russia. In addition to botany, he was interested in geology and mineralogy , but also loved music, and was a member of the Mozarteum Salzburg . He died of cancer at age 77 in Vienna. In 1862 he published

644-475: The same opus number was given to more than one of his works. Opus number 12, for example, was assigned, successively, to five different works (an opera, a concert overture, a string quartet, and two unrelated piano works). In other cases, the same work was given as many as three different opus numbers by different publishers. The sequential numbering of his symphonies has also been confused: (a) they were initially numbered by order of publication, not composition; (b)

672-545: The sets of string quartets by Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) and Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827); Haydn's Op. 76, the Erdödy quartets (1796–97), comprises six discrete quartets consecutively numbered Op. 76 No. 1 – Op. 76 No. 6; whilst Beethoven's Op. 59, the Rasumovsky quartets (1805–06), comprises String Quartet No. 7, String Quartet No. 8, and String Quartet No. 9. From about 1800, composers usually assigned an opus number to

700-448: The un-numbered compositions have been cataloged and labeled with the German acronym WoO ( Werk ohne Opuszahl ), meaning "work without opus number"; the same has been done with other composers who used opus numbers. (There are also other catalogs of Beethoven's works – see Catalogues of Beethoven compositions .) The practice of enumerating a posthumous opus ("Op. posth.") is noteworthy in

728-449: The word opus is used to describe the best work of an artist with the term magnum opus . In Latin, the words opus (singular) and opera (plural) are related to the words opera (singular) and operae (plural), which gave rise to the Italian words opera (singular) and opere (plural), likewise meaning "work". In contemporary English, the word opera has specifically come to denote

756-453: The works of Mozart and originating the 'KV-numbers' by which they are known ( KV for Köchel-Verzeichnis ). Born in the town of Stein , Lower Austria , he studied law in Vienna and graduated with a PhD in 1827. For fifteen years, he was tutor to the four sons of Archduke Charles of Austria . Köchel was rewarded with a knighthood and a generous financial settlement, permitting him to spend

784-415: Was making a comprehensive collection of Mozart works and writing a scholarly biography of Mozart. When Jahn learned of Köchel's work he turned over his collection to him. Köchel dedicated his catalogue to Jahn. Moreover, Köchel arranged Mozart's works into twenty-four categories, which were used by Breitkopf & Härtel when they published the first complete edition of Mozart's works from 1877 to 1910,

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