"IN MOZART'S WORDS": PERSPECTIVES ON A NEW, ONLINE EDITION OF THE MOZART FAMILY LETTERS FROM ITALY, 1770-1773

A new database of Mozart's Italian letters promises both research and pedagogical benefits. With respect to research, it not only represents a updating of the now-obsolete commentary upon which much traditional Mozart research is based but also the possibility to draw connections between and among letters that until now have been difficult to grasp in their entirety. These connections can give rise to new or refined ideas concerning performance and social context, among others. And because the annotations require a consideration of aspects of Mozart not traditionally thought to be of much importance, such as physical objects, they may also promote new critical paradigms, such as material culture. Accordingly, this article explores the philosophical rationale behind the edition and its annotations. As for pedagogical benefits, the resource not only permits easy access to the material - now available for the first time, complete, in four major languages - hence facilitating student research, but the very act of learning to use the database effectively by nature teaches research skills by asking students to confront how, and how accurately, the project has been executed. It also benefits students, and for that matter researchers as well, by representing an infinitely-expandable pilot project in the more general field of digital humanities