The work: --------- Die Entführung aus dem Serail (KV 384) Deutsches Singspiel in drei Akten (Vienna, 16(or 12)-Jul-1782 (The Abduction from the Seraglio) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (*27-Jan-1756 Salzburg, +5-Dec-1791 Vienna) Libretto by Johann Gottlieb Stephanie Jr. (1741-1800) based on the Singspiel by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner (1748-1807) "Belmonte und Konstanze oder Die Verführung aus dem Serail" (1781 Berlin) composed by Johann André (1741-1799) which was based on the English play "The Captive" which was made into a Singspiel "Die befreite Sklavin" by Joseph Schuster (1748-1812). Transcribed from Könemann Music "Favourite Opera Classics for piano I" Selected and piano score by Mihály Száry, Budapest 1995, K147, by Michael Bednarek http://www.geocities.com/mcmbednarek/ Background: ----------- Könemann's edition shows all the drawbacks of most piano editions of opera works; in fact, as it doesn't have separate voice parts, it's probably worse than most. It is certainly vastly inferior to Ricordi's edition of Le nozze di Figaro, which I also transcribed in large parts. I bought Könemann's edition volumes I and II cheaply in Germany (DM 9.90 each); I guess you get what you pay for. The piece: ---------- No.2 Lied (Osmin) "Wer ein Liebchen hat gefunden" Osmin sings a little ditty, interrupted by Belmonte who asks for directions to the Basse Selim's house. Osmin's part of the song is a simple repetion for three verses, interrupted between each verse in the opera by Belmonte's queries. The orchestra, however, varies in texture for each verse, sublimely characterising Osmin as a bit of a dill. Not so sublime is this characterisation by Osmin himself: he takes a a wonderful Gmin melody, structured A-A'-B-B'-C-C', and gets it horribly wrong in the coda: the emphases and syllable distribution is all wrong. Not much of this survives in Könemann's edition. The accompaniment to the second and third verse is not very different from the first, and it has an annoying habit of joining eighths (quavers) which fall on different syllables - faithfully reproduced here. It is also inconsistent in the use of dynamic marks, but its wrong spelling of Wein (with a lower case w, not reproduced here) is consistent. Also, this edition violates musical convention which demands that the anacrucis of the first bar and the length of the last bar add up to one complete measure. I am grateful for notification of any mistakes I may have made, or just for a brief email from anyone who used this file.