Previously Unknown Mozart Piece Discovered in German Library

Researchers in Leipzig recently unearthed a piece for string trio by Mozart, written possibly in the composer's teenage years

A child prodigy in the 18th century, W.A. Mozart composed more than 600 works, including symphonies, operas, sonatas, and concertos, many of which remain cornerstone works in today’s classical repertoire. 

Recently, researchers at the Leipzig Municipal Libraries uncovered a handwritten manuscript dating to around 1780 while compiling the new edition of Köchel — an extensive catalog of Mozart’s work that has been in circulation for 160 years, artnet reports. 

The manuscript is for a string trio written in C major for two violins and bass, and comprises seven miniature movements lasting around 12 minutes. Now deemed “Ganz kleine Nachtmusik,” the work has been cataloged in Köchel as KV 648.

The transcription is in dark brown ink on handmade paper — though not written in Mozart’s hand, it is thought to be a copy of his composition penned in the mid to late-1760s, ascribed to “Wolfgang Mozart.”

(PC: Sebastian Willnow/Getty Images)

According to The Guardian, “Ganz kleine Nachtmusik,” was recently performed at the unveiling of the new Köchel catalog in Salzburg, and received its German premiere at the Leipzig Opera.

The Köchel catalog describes the piece as “preserved in a single source, in which the attribution of the author suggests that the work was written before Mozart’s first trip to Italy.”

Artnet adds that according to Ulrich Leisinger, the International Mozarteum Foundation’s head of research and editor of the new Köchel, Mozart’s father Leopold kept a list of chamber works composed by his son.

While all of these have been lost, “it looks as if — thanks to a series of favorable circumstances — a complete string trio has survived in Leipzig,” Leisinger said. “Until now, the young Mozart has been familiar to us chiefly as a composer of keyboard music and of arias and sinfonias.”

Leisinger further indicated that the manuscript was “evidently” sourced from Mozart’s older sister, Maria Anna: “It is tempting to think that she preserved the work as a memento of her brother. Perhaps he wrote the Trio specially for her and for her name day.”

“Now we were lucky that my professional duties led me to Mozart,” he told MDR. “We simply have to be careful: there are many pieces that are attributed to Mozart. To then stand up and say: we are convinced that this is a piece by the young Mozart, it takes a lot of work.”