Two Works Attributed to Mozart, Age 7 or 8

[Kodiak]

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Since the 1760s the fragmentary works sat scrawled at the back of a music book used by Mozart’s sister to study keyboard. They were in the hand of their father, Leopold, but no composer’s name was attached.

The International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg now says the two pieces were probably composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart himself, as a young boy.

The music consists of 35 measures of a piano prelude and the solo part, 75 measures long, of a complete movement of a keyboard concerto, said Ulrich Leisinger, director of the Mozarteum’s research department, who is credited with the discovery. The results were announced at a news conference on Sunday in Salzburg. Florian Birsak, an Austrian keyboard player, performed the two pieces at a Mozart residence on Mozart’s own fortepiano.

Mr. Leisinger said in a telephone interview that the pieces were probably composed in 1763 or 1764, when Mozart was 7 or 8. If truly by him, they would serve as an important link between his simple earliest compositions and his first major works, Mr. Leisinger said.

Neal Zaslaw, a Cornell University music professor and Mozart expert who was not involved in the discovery, said the attribution to young Wolfgang was “highly plausible,” although it was not likely that it could be proved “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Called “Nannerl’s Music Book,” the manuscript volume containing the pieces has long been known and studied. It has been in the Mozarteum since 1864. Mr. Leisinger said that preparation of a facsimile edition by the Mozarteum prompted him to examine the pieces more closely and ultimately led to his deduction. He said that the concerto part and the prelude were musically and technically related.

Leopold used the music notebook to give Nannerl, as his daughter Maria Anna was called, keyboard lessons. It contains some 60 pieces, many by contemporary composers and 18 recognized as by Mozart. Most of those are in Leopold’s handwriting, composed before Wolfgang had a firm grasp of writing out music, Mr. Leisinger said. After Mozart’s death, Nannerl ripped out pages with his handwriting and gave them away to friends and Mozart admirers.

The two newly examined pieces were written hastily, with corrections, evidence that Leopold was not copying out somebody else’s work. At the same time the nature of the music departs from the compositions Leopold himself was producing. Instead the concerto movement, labeled Molto Allegro, contains a multitude of notes and technically demanding, sometimes awkward, passages.

“This is nothing you would use to teach your children,” Mr. Leisinger said. It was composed by “someone with high ambitions” but lacking the expertise to write out the music, he added.

Mr. Leisinger said that an anecdote from a Mozart family friend shortly after Mozart’s death, provides circumstantial evidence to support his theory. The friend, a trumpet player named Johann Andreas Schachtner, said he and Leopold were looking at a blotchy effort by the young Wolfgang to write down music.

“At first we laughed at what seemed such pure gibberish, but his father then began to observe the most important matter, the notes and music,” Schachtner recounted. “He stared long at the sheet, and then tears, tears of joy and wonder, fell from his eyes. ‘It is so very difficult that no one could play it,’ Leopold said. And Wolfgang replied: ‘That’s why it’s a concerto. You must practice it till you can get it right.’ ”

Mr. Leisinger said the anecdote supports the idea that Mozart was writing keyboard concertos at around the time his father was using the Nannerl music book to write out his son’s pieces.

Robert Levin, a Harvard University musicologist and pianist, said the ambitious technical writing and its awkwardness in the Molto Allegro movement fit “rather touchingly with the Schachtner anecdote.”

Mr. Levin has written an orchestral accompaniment to the concerto movement.

The music book facsimile is scheduled to appear in the fall, but facsimiles of the two piano pieces are to be made available immediately, for 12 euros, about $17.

I find it amazing that after 250 years we're still finding snippets written by a musical genius who has already contributed so much to the wealth of musical literature of the world. The link has a recording of the new music, and though it's nothing spectacular it's still cool to find new stuff from a great Master.

[Darth Yoshi]

Man, Enlightenment era clothing seems like such a pain to put on.

Seriously, that's nifty. I'll try to listen when my comp isn't spazzing out on me. As an aside, I find it funny that the International Mozarteum Foundation is in English, German, and Japanese of all things.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Man, Enlightenment era clothing seems like such a pain to put on.

Seriously, that's nifty. I'll try to listen when my comp isn't spazzing out on me. As an aside, I find it funny that the International Mozarteum Foundation is in English, German, and Japanese of all things.

Classic music is BIG in Japan. They love the stuff . (and it's a big market).