Hungarian Librarian Discovers Original Mozart Piano Sonata Score

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• published: 30 Sep 2014
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A Hungarian music specialist stumbles across heart-stopping discovery: an original Mozart score not seen for more than 200 years. Full Story: The head of the Hungarian National Szechenyi Library's music collection, Balazs Mikusi, has stumbled across a rare discovery. As he looked through a folder of unidentified music scores, among the many copies and unremarkable scores he suddenly noticed a page that made his heart jump. "I of course remember the heartbeat - you are turning the pages of hundreds of sources which are obviously written by copiers not the composer and suddenly you see something that is a composer's handwriting," Mikusi told Reuters a few days after the score was publicly presented. "There are very few composers whose handwriting would look similar to you. And so I said 'this looks like Mozart'." Mikusi quickly cross-checked his finding with Mozart experts around the world, and they confirmed his discovery. The four-page score was indeed the original Piano Sonata in A Major, K.331, one of the most well-known sonatas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart wrote it around 1783 and like most of his works it was copied down. This original score was believed to have been lost, only one page is preserved in Salzburg. It remains a mystery how the score got into the library's collection. Mozart never visited Hungary but many Hungarian aristocrats spent much time in Vienna, among them Count Ferenc Szechenyi who founded the library in 1802. "What makes it very interesting is that it's new, nobody has ever seen this or if not ever, in the past 200 years. Everybody is intrigued, all the pianists, even average music lovers, and of course Mozart scholars, of what is actually on this page, how should we re-interpret this sonata in the light of this discovery," Mikusi said. There are a few differences in the original score that were crucial for the scholar and musical world. "For Mozart scholars arguably the most intriguing will be to look at the minuetto. In the minuetto there are a couple of passages that have been much discussed and many people started to correct the first edition saying that Mozart's autograph could not possibly have said that. And now we have the autograph and it actually confirms the first edition. So I think Mozart scholars will have to re-think what we believe Mozart could have written down and what not. For example, the theme itself in the third bar there is a note that has always been corrected to C sharp and it seems now that A in the first edition is correct," Mikusi said. He added that there were several other differences between the original score and the copies that would provide plenty of debate and discussions for Mozart scholars worldwide. "There are actually several differences but we should recall that the first edition was probably authorized by Mozart so it is not always the case that the autograph should over-write the first edition, one has to think about that in which case this could be a printing mistake, or in other cases Mozart might have corrected something. So this is not to say that this autograph is the Bible and now we have to follow this, this makes the whole situation more complicated and it is one of the most important sources that we have to consider from now on." The Szechenyi Library held a public presentation of the score last Friday with leading Hungarian pianist and conductor Zoltan Kocsis playing the sonata on a copy of a Mozart contemporary fortepiano. On Sunday Mikusi will present the score in Salzburg to the Mozart scholar community. Then the score will return to Budapest and likely be put on public display for a few months in the library. For more news and videos visit ☛ http://ntd.tv Follow us on Twitter ☛ http://twitter.com/NTDTelevision Add us on Facebook ☛ http://on.fb.me/s5KV2C

Hungarian Librarian Discovers Original Mozart Piano Sonata Score

• Report rights infringement
• published: 30 Sep 2014
• views: 6528

A Hungarian music specialist stumbles across heart-stopping discovery: an original Mozart score not seen for more than 200 years. Full Story: The head of the Hungarian National Szechenyi Library's music collection, Balazs Mikusi, has stumbled across a rare discovery. As he looked through a folder of unidentified music scores, among the many copies and unremarkable scores he suddenly noticed a page that made his heart jump. "I of course remember the heartbeat - you are turning the pages of hundreds of sources which are obviously written by copiers not the composer and suddenly you see something that is a composer's handwriting," Mikusi told Reuters a few days after the score was publicly presented. "There are very few composers whose handwriting would look similar to you. And so I said 'this looks like Mozart'." Mikusi quickly cross-checked his finding with Mozart experts around the world, and they confirmed his discovery. The four-page score was indeed the original Piano Sonata in A Major, K.331, one of the most well-known sonatas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart wrote it around 1783 and like most of his works it was copied down. This original score was believed to have been lost, only one page is preserved in Salzburg. It remains a mystery how the score got into the library's collection. Mozart never visited Hungary but many Hungarian aristocrats spent much time in Vienna, among them Count Ferenc Szechenyi who founded the library in 1802. "What makes it very interesting is that it's new, nobody has ever seen this or if not ever, in the past 200 years. Everybody is intrigued, all the pianists, even average music lovers, and of course Mozart scholars, of what is actually on this page, how should we re-interpret this sonata in the light of this discovery," Mikusi said. There are a few differences in the original score that were crucial for the scholar and musical world. "For Mozart scholars arguably the most intriguing will be to look at the minuetto. In the minuetto there are a couple of passages that have been much discussed and many people started to correct the first edition saying that Mozart's autograph could not possibly have said that. And now we have the autograph and it actually confirms the first edition. So I think Mozart scholars will have to re-think what we believe Mozart could have written down and what not. For example, the theme itself in the third bar there is a note that has always been corrected to C sharp and it seems now that A in the first edition is correct," Mikusi said. He added that there were several other differences between the original score and the copies that would provide plenty of debate and discussions for Mozart scholars worldwide. "There are actually several differences but we should recall that the first edition was probably authorized by Mozart so it is not always the case that the autograph should over-write the first edition, one has to think about that in which case this could be a printing mistake, or in other cases Mozart might have corrected something. So this is not to say that this autograph is the Bible and now we have to follow this, this makes the whole situation more complicated and it is one of the most important sources that we have to consider from now on." The Szechenyi Library held a public presentation of the score last Friday with leading Hungarian pianist and conductor Zoltan Kocsis playing the sonata on a copy of a Mozart contemporary fortepiano. On Sunday Mikusi will present the score in Salzburg to the Mozart scholar community. Then the score will return to Budapest and likely be put on public display for a few months in the library. For more news and videos visit ☛ http://ntd.tv Follow us on Twitter ☛ http://twitter.com/NTDTelevision Add us on Facebook ☛ http://on.fb.me/s5KV2C