Previously Unknown Piano Piece by Mozart Premiered in Salzburg

A previously unknown piece by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was performed for the first time on Friday, March 23. The piano piece was most likely composed in 1767 or 1768 when Mozart was just 11 years old. It was found in a 160 page handwritten notebook, thought to be written by Mozart’s father, in an attic in Tyrol, Austria.

The piece is entitled “Allegro molto” by “Del Signore Giovane Wolfgango Mozart” (Italian for “Mr. Wolfgang Mozart Jr.”.) Music expert Hildegard Herrmann-Schneider said only Leopold Mozart used this name when writing down his son’s name.

The four minute, 84-bar passage piece was performed at Mozart’s childhood home in Salzburg, Austria on his original piano by pianist Florian Birsak.

“It’s not just anyone’s piece, there is already a touch of the great Mozart he later became,” said Birsak to BBC. The newly found piece has “a series of components that are found repeatedly in other Mozart piano works,” said the Mozarteum Salzburg Foundation, who hosted the event, in a statement. “Judging by the current level of knowledge, it thus has to be a genuine sonata phrase from Mozart.” This isn’t the first Mozart piece to be discovered recently. In 2009 two pieces were found that are said to have been written by Mozart when he was seven or eight.

Piano score to download and print