Liebes Manndel, wo ist's Bandel?

"Liebes Manndel, wo ist's Bandel?" ("Dearest husband, where's my hatband?"), otherwise known as "Das Bandel" is a terzet (song for three voices) with string accompaniment composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, K. 441, with lyrics in the Viennese dialect. The vocal parts are designated as Constanze (soprano), Mozart (tenor) and Jacquin (bass).

The piece is humorous and light-hearted and owes its existence to an incident in which Constanze lost the ribbon for her hat. Gottfried von Jacquin, a friend, arrives and finds it. All three celebrate together.^[1] It was long believed to have been written in 1783, however Alan Tyson determined that the autograph is copied on a very rare type of paper that was used by Mozart only in the year 1786.^[2] Tyson noted that a number of small-scale pieces not included in Mozart's own catalog of compositions (begun in February 1784) were believed to have been written before it was started, whereas they may simply have been considered too inconsequential for Mozart to record. In a letter from Prague of 15 January 1787, Mozart mentioned a performance of the terzet with some of his friends at the palace in which he was staying.^[3] Naturally, it makes more sense to imagine it being performed in Prague as a piece recently composed rather than a piece that was nearly four years old.

References

^ Cowdery, William; Zaslaw, Neal, eds. (1990). The Compleat Mozart: A Guide to the Musical Works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1st ed.). New York: Mozart Bicentennial at Lincoln Center. p. 96. ISBN 0-393-02886-0.
^ Alan Tyson, Mozart: Studies of the Autograph Scores (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 33 and 140.
^ See Daniel E. Freeman, Mozart in Prague (Minneapolis, 2021), p. 117.

External links

"Liebes Manndel, wo ist's Bandel?" Terzett für Sopran, Tenor und Baß mit Begleitung von zwei Violinen, Viola und Baß, KV 441: Score and critical report (in German) in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe
Das Bandel, K. 441: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
"Liebes Manndel, wo ist's Bandel?" on YouTube, arranged for 2 boy sopranos, bass, 2 clarinets and basset horn
Staged performance on YouTube, Zürcher Sängerknaben

[1] Cowdery, William; Zaslaw, Neal, eds. (1990). The Compleat Mozart: A Guide to the Musical Works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1st ed.). New York: Mozart Bicentennial at Lincoln Center. p. 96. ISBN 0-393-02886-0.

[2] Alan Tyson, Mozart: Studies of the Autograph Scores (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 33 and 140.

[3] See Daniel E. Freeman, Mozart in Prague (Minneapolis, 2021), p. 117.

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