The French National Library (BnF) has identified a previously unknown autograph manuscript by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, shedding new light on the composer’s stay in Paris in 1778 and revealing music that has remained hidden for more than two centuries.
The manuscript, consisting of 38 pages, was discovered among anonymous 18th-century documents preserved in the BnF’s collections. It contains composition exercises and seven pieces for flute and harp connected to lessons Mozart gave between May and July 1778 to Marie-Louise-Philippine de Guînes, daughter of Adrien-Louis de Bonnières, Duke of Guînes.
The Duke of Guînes is known to music historians as the patron who commissioned Mozart’s celebrated Concerto for Flute and Harp in C major, K. 299, one of the composer’s most frequently performed concertos.
According to the BnF, the manuscript was identified earlier this year by François-Pierre Goy, curator in the library’s Music Department. While examining a group of anonymous manuscripts before his retirement, Goy noticed similarities between the handwriting in the notebook and known pedagogical manuscripts by Mozart. Further analysis led specialists to conclude that portions of the manuscript were indeed written by the composer.
The attribution was subsequently confirmed by Mozart experts, including representatives of the Mozarteum in Salzburg.
The manuscript offers a rare glimpse into Mozart’s work as a teacher during his Parisian period. Alongside harmonic exercises, it preserves music written partly by Mozart and partly by his student, illustrating the educational relationship between the two musicians.
For Gilles Pécout, president of the BnF, the discovery is significant not only for scholars but also for the wider public. Mozart manuscripts rarely emerge, and autograph sources continue to attract intense interest from musicologists and performers alike.
The newly identified works are expected to receive their first modern performances on June 21 in the Oval Room of the BnF as part of France’s Fête de la Musique celebrations. The music will be performed by flautist Mathilde Caldérini and harpist Nicolas Tulliez, both principal players of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.
While discoveries related to Mozart remain exceptionally rare, this find is particularly noteworthy because it involves an autograph manuscript directly connected to one of the composer’s best-known Parisian commissions. It also provides fresh documentary evidence of his activities in France during a pivotal year marked by artistic ambitions, financial difficulties and the death of his mother, Anna Maria Mozart, who died in Paris in July 1778.
The manuscript will now become part of the growing body of primary sources available to Mozart scholars, offering new material for the study of the composer’s teaching methods, handwriting and creative process during his time in the French capital.
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