Mozart Manuscript Reunited

Composer's early musical ideas reconstructed

On 12 January 2006, a Mozart manuscript cut in half over 170 years ago will be reunited for the first time at the British Library. The reunion of the manuscript brings to a close its long and convoluted history and marks the start of a series of events to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth.

Originally cut in half by Mozart’s widow Constanze in 1835, the upper portion of the manuscript was presented to Julius Leidke, a court musician from Darmstadt, and the lower portion was sent to a local government official in Bavaria. The two parts of the manuscript remained separate in private hands until the lower portion was acquired for the national collection in 1953 as part of a bequest from the writer Edward Meyerstein. Over 50 years later the dealer Albi Rosenthal enabled the British Library to acquire the other half of the leaf, bringing the two parts together after 170 years apart.

Written in 1773, during Mozart’s third trip to Vienna, the manuscript contains two new cadenzas to existing piano concertos, including one that he had compiled from music by other composers at the age of eleven. The reverse side of the manuscript contains the music to a short Minuet for string quartet, which was originally intended for a set of six string quartets composed in 1773. The quartets illustrate Mozart’s efforts to be taken seriously as a composer in his own right and shake off his reputation as a child prodigy, established after years of touring Europe under the wing of his ambitious father. The Minuet was finally discarded in favour of another version revealing Mozart’s maturing critical faculties and allowing scholars to reconstruct Mozart’s early musical ideas for the work.

Chris Banks, Head of Music Collections, commented: “It is a rare pleasure to be able to reunite the two halves of this manuscript in time for the celebrations for Mozart’s 250th birthday on 27 January 2006. Cut in half by his widow at a time when Mozart relics were increasingly in demand, the manuscript sheds important light on the 17-year-old composer’s development at a transitional phase in his life. The collectors of today are thankfully less likely to treat such a manuscript in this way, and it is particularly gratifying that both halves of the manuscript passed through the hands of the great music antiquarian Albi Rosenthal (1914-2004) on their way to the British Library.”

Chris Banks, Head of Music Collections and Nicolas Bell and Rupert Ridgewell, Music Collections Curators are available for interview on 12 January 2006. There is an ISDN line available for interviews.

Further information

For further information contact Victoria Main at the British Library Press Office: +44 (0)20 7412 7112 or Victoria.Main@bl.uk.

Notes to editors

The reunited manuscript will be on display in the Sir John Ritblat Gallery: Treasures of the British Library at the British Library alongside Mozart’s Musical Diary, an exhibition opening on 14 January 2006 and running until 10 April. Mozart’s Musical Diary charts the last eight years of Mozart’s life when he was compiling his musical catalogue, the Verzeichnüss aller meiner Werke (Catalogue of all my Works). The exhibition will also many original manuscripts of some of Mozart’s most famous works such as The Marriage of Figaro, La clemenza di Tito, the third horn concerto, and letters, first editions, engravings, librettos and a concert programme, drawn in large part from the rich collections of Mozart’s works assembled by Paul Hirsch and Stefan Zweig, acquired by the Library in 1946 and 1986 respectively. Spanning the entire gamut of Mozart’s creative output during the 1780s, the exhibits reveal the full extent of his versatility as a composer of opera, piano music, chamber music for strings, orchestral music, concertos, sacred cantatas, dance music and vocal canons, as well as his professional activities as a teacher and performer.