Music that remained unheard for nearly 250 years can now be heard online.
France Musique has released a recording of seven previously unknown works for flute and harp discovered in a Mozart manuscript recently identified by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF). The recording, performed by flautist Mathilde Caldérini and harpist Nicolas Tulliez of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, is available on the broadcaster’s website and follows the works’ first public performance in Paris on 21 June.
Readers can listen to the recording here: BnF
The music comes from a 44-page manuscript that documents composition lessons Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart gave in Paris in 1778 to Marie-Louise-Philippine de Guînes, daughter of the Duke of Guînes, a gifted harpist and one of the composer’s pupils.
The manuscript was identified earlier this year by François-Pierre Goy, a curator at the BnF’s Music Department, while examining a collection of anonymous eighteenth-century documents. After comparing the handwriting with known Mozart autographs, Goy consulted specialists including Armin Brinzing, director of the Mozart Library at the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, who helped authenticate the manuscript.
Brinzing described the find as “the most important Mozart discovery in decades.”
The notebook contains harmony exercises, compositional studies and seven pieces for flute and harp that emerged from Mozart’s lessons with the young aristocrat. Beyond the music itself, the manuscript offers a rare opportunity to observe Mozart’s teaching methods, preserving both the student’s work and the composer’s corrections and additions.
According to Goy, one of the most substantial movements may be between 75 and 80 percent Mozart’s own work. That assessment has generated particular interest among performers, especially because relatively little music by Mozart exists for the harp.
Tulliez, who took part in the premiere performance, suggested that one of the rediscovered works could become an important addition to the instrument’s repertoire. Aside from the Concerto for Flute and Harp in C major, K. 299 — composed during the same Paris period for the Duke of Guînes and his daughter — Mozart wrote very little music featuring the instrument.
The discovery also sheds new light on one of the most significant periods of Mozart’s life. During his stay in Paris in 1778, he sought professional opportunities in one of Europe’s leading musical centres, composed several important works and experienced the death of his mother, Anna Maria Mozart, in July of that year.
Nearly two and a half centuries later, the rediscovered notebook has not only provided scholars with valuable new material, but has also returned previously unheard music to the concert repertoire.
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