(Ger.: ‘final music’).
Term given to divertimentos, serenades, cassations and other similar compositions performed as part of the annual graduation ceremonies, usually in August, at the Salzburg Benedictine University. According to H.C. Koch it could be used to conclude an outdoor concert. At the end of the summer semester in Salzburg it was customary to honour a favourite professor with a serenade-like composition given under the name ‘Finalmusik’. For such occasions Mozart composed his k100/62a, 185/167a, 204/213a and 251, and perhaps k203/189b and 320, all works of the serenade type. Like the term ‘cassation’, the title ‘Finalmusik’ does not appear in the autographs of the works concerned, but it is found in correspondence between Mozart and his father in 1773 (21 July, 12 August), 1777 (2–3 October) and 1778 (23 November), in the diaries of several students and notables of Salzburg and in Salzburg civic records, always in reference to works having the character of a serenade. Similar festivities with processions, laudatory speeches, cheers and the performance of music were presented in honour of the reigning prince-archbishop of Salzburg.
See also Divertimento, Serenade, Cassation.
G. Hausswald: Mozarts Serenaden (Leipzig, 1951/R)
G. Hausswald: Prefaces to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, IV:11/vii (Kassel, 1959); IV:12/ii (Kassel, 1961)
C. Bär: ‘Zur Andretter-Serenade KV.185’, MISM, x/1–2 (1960), 7–9
O.E. Deutsch: Mozart: die Dokumente seines Lebens (Kassel, 1961; suppl., 1978, ed. J.H. Eibl; Eng. trans., 1965/R)
G. Hausswald: Die Orchesterserenade, Mw, xxxiv (1970; Eng. trans., 1970)
HUBERT UNVERRICHT/CLIFF EISEN