New Mozart piece discovered after 233 years
German researchers have unveiled a “new” composition by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 233 years after his passing. The Leipzig Municipal Libraries announced this exciting find on Thursday. The piece, originally titled “Serenade in C,” dates back to around 1780 when Mozart was just 24.
This discovery was made by researchers compiling a new edition of the Köchel catalog, the official listing of Mozart’s works. The piece will be published under the title “Ganz kleine Nachtmusik,” which translates to “Quite Little Night Music,” paying homage to Mozart’s famous work “Eine kleine Nachtmusik.” According to a press release, the composition has been housed in the library for an unknown period but was only recently recognized as a Mozart work.
“The piece consists of seven miniature sets for string trio, which together only last about twelve minutes,” the library stated. It is believed that Mozart, renowned for his prodigious talent, wrote the piece as a teenager in the 1760s. The manuscript is a copy made more than a decade later.
“The manuscript … does not come from Mozart himself,” the library explained. “Dark brown ink and medium white handmade paper were used; the parts are individually bound, and the manuscript was not signed.” The library estimates that the composition dates from the mid to late 1760s, around the time Mozart was entering his teenage years.
On Saturday, the piece was performed at the Leipzig Opera by two violinists and a cellist. Ulrich Leisinger, head of research at the International Mozarteum Foundation, highlighted the piece’s importance in a recent statement.
Mozart Discovered Music
“Until now, the young Mozart has been familiar to us chiefly as a composer of keyboard music and of arias and sinfonias,” Leisinger noted. “But we know from a list drawn up by Leopold Mozart that he wrote many other chamber works in his youth, all of them unfortunately lost. It looks as if – thanks to a series of favorable circumstances – a complete string trio has survived in Leipzig.” He added, “The source was evidently Mozart’s sister, and so it is tempting to think that she preserved the work as a memento of her brother. Perhaps he wrote the Trio specially for her and for her name day.”
