New Mozart Piece Found in France

A French museum has found a previously unknown piece of music handwritten by Mozart. The melody sketch is missing the harmony and instrumentation but was described as an important find.

Ulrich Leisinger, head of research at the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, Austria, said there is no doubt that the single sheet was written by the composer. “His handwriting is absolutely clearly identifiable,” he added. Circumstantial evidence, including the type of paper, suggests Mozart did not write it before 1787 (he died in 1791).

The work, described as a preliminary draft of a composition, was found by a library in Nantes in western France as staff was going through its archives. The sheet was passed on to the library by an autograph collector in the 19th century and was catalogued back then as part of the library’s collection.

“It’s a melody sketch so what’s missing is the harmony and the instrumentation but you can make sense out of it,” Leisinger said. “The tune is complete. It’s only one part and not the whole score with eight or twelve parts.”

Evidently it is possible to get a feeling of what Mozart meant although we do not know how he would have orchestrated it.

There have been about 10 important Mozart finds over the past 50 years.
If sold, the single sheet would likely be worth around $ 100,000. In all, about 100 such examples of musical drafts by Mozart are known about. Many are notes for works that he went on to complete.