Overview
- France’s National Library announced Friday that a previously anonymous 44-page music notebook in its holdings has been authenticated as a manuscript by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
- BnF conservator François-Pierre Goy said he recognized Mozart’s handwriting and the French marbled paper after finding the book during a February review of Mozart teaching materials.
- The notebook contains composition exercises and seven short pieces for harp and flute, with the seven pieces adding about 20 minutes of new music and the final exercises left unfinished.
- The Mozarteum in Salzburg confirmed the attribution and its scholarly director Ulrich Leisinger said the corrections in the book suggest Mozart gradually took over the writing from his student Marie-Louise-Philippine de Guînes.
- The pieces were recorded and will receive a public premiere at the BnF Music Festival on June 21 with a France Musique broadcast, and researchers are now studying the manuscript’s provenance and what it reveals about Mozart’s teaching methods.