Noverre's Anonymous Composers: Mozart and Les Petits Riens

When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart arrived in Paris in 1778 with his mother, he was a twenty-two year-old composer trying to establish his name in one of the most critical musical cities of Europe. In this paper, through Mozart's ballet Les Petits Riens, I will explore the situation of the anonymous ballet composer, one that is usually argued as having come to be in the nineteenth century, but which applies perfectly to Mozart. The choreography of Jean-Georges Noverre, the well-known maître de danse at the Académie Royale de Musique who arranged Mozart's commission for the ballet, was lost long ago, while in a reversal of celebrity it is now Mozart's name that makes this story particularly noteworthy. The question I will be exploring, the problematic status of the ballet composer, is one often taken up by music historians, but always begins with the nineteenth century. Eighteenth-century ballet composers, however, were frequently forced into anonymity, not having been credited for their work. In this paper I will argue that these disposable, now anonymous, composers, typical during the era when ballet was fighting to break away from opera, paved the way for the establishment of the working conditions described in the nineteenth century by music historians.

The Enlightenment brought both turmoil and reform to theatrical stages across Europe. At a time when intellectual and artistic circles existed in close contact with one another, these reforms and the numerous treatises that inspired them reverberated throughout the international artistic community. Prominent players in the theatrical world such as David Garrick called for less emphasis on symbols of court etiquette as well as for a clearer division between spectator and performer. The ballet was no exception to these reforms, and during this era the ballet d'action was first performed. As Jennifer Homans explains, "The notion that pantomime, music, and dance could tell a story without the help of words had been around for some time: in the commedia dell'arte and in the fairgrounds, in the ballets between the acts of Italian operas, and in Jesuit plays."¹ The ballet d'action, however, brought this type of performance to the official theaters, such as the Académie Royale de Musique, or the Opéra de Paris, where I will situate this study. How then does the ballet d'action relate to anonymity at the Opéra? The implementation of this new dance form gave ballet the power to tell a story, and in doing so indelibly changed the artistic process involved in its creation. As ballet was stripped of its traditional and subordinate relationship to opera, a new relationship between ballet master and composer developed.

When Mozart arrived in Paris, he already had several contacts in the city, notably Baron Grimm and Noverre, who had recently acquired his post at the Académie Royale de Musique and whom Mozart had met in Vienna. These well-connected men helped the composer find enough work to survive while trying to establish himself in a new city. In Paris, Mozart took on students in addition to composing works for the Concert Spirituel and taking private commissions. His mother Maria Anna Mozart describes their hardships at length:

[Mozart] has to write two concertos, one for the flute and one for the harp, and in addition an act for an opera for the French theatre. Besides all this he has a pupil, who pays his six livres a lesson, that is, three louis d'or for twelve, though we shan't get the money until they are all finished. Thus we shan't pocket a kreuzer before Easter. Meanwhile our capital has become very small and won't go very far, for we shall have to move into other rooms, as it is too far off here to walk and we have already spent a lot of money on drives.²

Parisian life was very expensive, and, aside from finding a position as a Kappellmeister, Mozart's other principal preoccupation while in Paris was to compose an opera, which he frequently presented to his father...