Alan Tyson

Alan Walker Tyson (born October 27, 1926 in Glasgow ; † November 10, 2000 ) was an English musicologist who dealt specifically with Mozart and Beethoven .

Life

Tyson studied from 1953 to 1957 at the Institute for Psychoanalysis in London and was involved in the complete edition of the works of Sigmund Freud (24 volumes, 1953-1974). From 1960 to 1967 he studied medicine at the University College Hospital Medical School. From 1968 to 1970 he was a lecturer in psychopathology and psychology at Oxford.

Tyson later became a musicologist and became a Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College , Oxford and a Fellow of the British Academy . He made a name for himself in particular with his studies of the transmission of the works of Haydn , Mozart and Beethoven .

In a study of Mozart's autographs, he examined in detail the watermarks in the papers used by Mozart and was thus able to identify the exact dates of some works. The book also contains several other of Tyson's discoveries, including the authentic ending to the A major rondo for piano and orchestra, K. 386, previously known only in a completed version for solo piano by Cipriani Potter and published in 1837. Tyson also made it known that the usual version of the second movement of Mozart's Horn Concerto in D major KV 412/514 was only completed after Mozart's death by his student Franz Xaver Süssmayr .

Together with HC Robbins Landon , he demonstrated in 1964 that the six string quartets printed as Haydn's Opus 3 were only slipped on, and made Roman Hofstetter's authorship probable for two of the quartets . (For details see the list of Haydn's string quartets .)

Tyson also published a series entitled Beethoven Studies . Similar to Mozart, his main interest was the watermarks and the examination of the paper of Beethoven's autographs. His sketch research is also of great importance.

In 1978 he was elected a member of the British Academy . In 1989 he became Commander of the Order of the British Empire and an honorary doctorate from the University of St Andrews .

Books

• The Authentic English Editions of Beethoven. London 1963.
• Thematic Catalog of the Works of Muzio Clementi . Publisher Hans Schneider , Tutzing 1967.
• Beethoven Studies. London 1973ff.
• Mozart: Studies of the Autograph Scores. Cambridge 1987.
• Watermark Catalog. 2 vols. Bärenreiter, Kassel 1992 (new edition of all works / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Ser. 10, group of works 33, section 2).

literature

• Oliver Neighbor: Alan Walker Tyson, 1926-2000 . In: Proceedings of the British Academy . tape 115 , 2002, pp. 367-382 ( thebritishacademy.ac.uk [PDF]).

Web links

• Literature by and about Alan Tyson in the catalog of the German National Library