ABSTRACT
Robert Schumann was among the first to call attention to a corrupt passage in early editions and manuscript copies of the first version, without clarinets, of Mozart's G minor symphony, K550:
... strange to say, four entire bars have slipped into the Andante, which, according to my firm conviction, do not belong to it. From the 29th bar on (excepting the quaver upbeat) there occurs a period of four bars, leading from D♭ major to B♭ minor, which is repeated in the following four bars, with simplified instrumentation; it is not possible that Mozart intended this. The wholly un-Mozartean, unmasterful linking of the 32nd with the 33rd bars must often have struck musicians, even when they listened superficially. The question is, which of the two four-bar periods ought to be cut out, the first or the second. At first glance, it looks as if the first should be retained. The sudden entrance of the wind instruments, rising to a forte, is not without artistic meaning. But in the other version, the progression of the parts seems to me far more natural; clearer, simpler, yet similarly not without intensification; and according to this the 29th to the 32nd bars would be cut out so that all the instruments, after a clear crescendo, might unite in a forte. The same four superfluous bars are also to be found on the repetition in the second part where bars 48 to 51 of this part should be omitted. How these errors crept in can only be revealed, if at all, through the original, now in the possession of Councillor Andre. In our opinion, the most probable theory is that Mozart first wrote the passage in the form which to us appears to be the correct one; that he then introduced it into the score more fully instrumented; and that later, returning to his first idea, he forgot to strike out the earlier reading. 1
