Halved Mozart work to be reunited

A Mozart manuscript which was cut into two pieces by his widow 170 years ago is to be joined together again.

The music was written by 17-year-old Mozart in Vienna in1773 as part of his father's attempt to gain a position for young Wolfgang at the imperial court.

The lower part of the manuscript has been in the British Library since 1953, and the other half was purchased from a private owner.

The library will put the work together to mark 250 years since Mozart's birth.

Chris Banks, head of music collections at the British Library, said the manuscript "sheds important light" on the composer's development.

"Mozart was trying to make his mark as a serious composer. He was well known as a child prodigy, but by 17 he couldn't really continue with that."

She said it was a "rare pleasure" to reunite the two halves of the work.

Collecting fashion

It is believed Mozart's widow Constanze, who outlivedher husband by more than 50 years, separated the manuscript in 1835 to boost its value.

Mozart was trying to get rid of the 'child prodigy' tag in 1773

His work was increasingly in demand with the dawn of a new fashion for collecting fragments of music manuscripts by the great composers.

The upper portion fell into the hands of a court musician, Julius Leidke.

Constanze sent the lower portion, later acquired by the British Library, to a local government official in Bavaria.

The manuscript contains two new cadenzas to existing piano concertos and a short minuet for string quartet.

The reunited manuscript will go on display in the John Ritblat Gallery at the British Library from Saturday.

They can be seen alongside an exhibition, Mozart's Musical Diary, charting the last eight years of Mozart's life, when he compiled his musical catalogue.

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Photo of Mozart's widow found

Constanze Weber, Mozart's widow is seen on the front left.

A print of the only photograph of Mozart's widow, Constanze Weber, has been found in Germany.

The photograph was taken in 1840 in the Bavarian town of Altoetting when she was 78. She died two years later.

The local authorities say detailed examination has proved the authenticity of the image, which is a copy of the original daguerreotype.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at the age of 35 in 1791, when Constanze was 29. She later married a Danish diplomat.

The print is one of the earliest examples of photography in Bavaria. It was found in the town archives.

The daguerreotype was taken at the home of the Swiss composer Max Keller, whom Constanze used to visit regularly.

Mozart and Constanze had six children in their nine-year marriage. Only two of them survived past childhood.

The daguerreotype shows Constanze at front left, next to Max Keller. His wife Josefa is on the right. Behind them are (from the right): their daughters Josefa and Luise, Max Keller's brother-in-law Philipp Lattner and the family's cook. They are outside the Keller family's house.

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Rare Mozart portrait discovered

The picture could be worth millions

A portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that lay unidentified for more than 200 years has been proved to be authentic, according to an expert on the composer.

Professor Cliff Eisen from London's King's College has spent more than a year trying to confirm that the picture was of Mozart, who died in1791.

He said: "This is arguably the most important Mozart portrait to be discovered since the composer's death." Its significance came to light after it was bought by a US collector in 2005.

The portrait of Mozart shows the composer in profile in a red jacket.

Prof Eisen said the coat was almost exactly the same as one Mozart described to his father in a letter on 28 September 1782, even down to the buttons.

Given that there are very few authentic pictures of Mozart from the last 10 years of his life, the discovery is an inherently significant one Professor Simon Keefe Sheffield University

The picture is thought to date from about 1783 and be the work of Austrian artist Joseph Hickel.

King's College said the portrait was previously owned by the family of Johann Lorenz Hagenauer, a close friend and one-time landlord of the Mozarts in Salzburg, Austria.

A family story suggested Hickel gave Mozart the portrait after Mozart composed the wind serenade K375 for a member of Hickel's family.

Prof Eisen said only three other authentic paintings exist of Mozart from his "Vienna years" between 1781 and 1791.

Professor Simon Keefe of the University of Sheffield said: "This is indeed an exciting discovery.

"Given that there are very few authentic pictures of Mozart fromthe last 10 years of his life, the discovery is an inherently significant one.

"Needless to say, it will encourage us to think afresh about Mozart's appearance."

Regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time, Mozart created some of the most celebrated and enduring pieces of classical music before he died at the age of 35.


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Lost Mozart score found in France

The score was authenticated last year

A previously unknown piece of music by Mozart has been discovered at a library in western France.

Ulrich Leisinger, head of research at the International Mozarteum Foundation in Austria, said the single sheet of music was"really important".

"His handwriting is absolutely clearly identifiable," he added." There's no doubt that this is an original piece handwritten by Mozart."

The sheet was found among the archives by staff at a library in Nantes.

Mr Leisinger said the municipal Mediatheque library contacted his foundation to ask for help authenticating the work.

It's a melody sketch so what's missing is the harmony and the instrumentation, but you can make sense out of it Ulrich Leisinger

The score appears to be for a "Credo in D major".

There is a second piece which looked like a "first draft, in parts illegible," said a library official.

It was part of the collection of Pierre-Antoine Laboucheroe, a 19th-century collector who donated his legacy to the city.

The score was catalogued as part of the library's collection, but was later "entirely forgotten" about.

It was rediscovered by the library as it re-catalogued its archives, and authenticated by a researcher from the Mozarteum Foundation last year.

Mr Leisinger said there had been just 10 Mozart finds of such importance over the past 50 years.

If sold, the single sheet would likely fetch around $100,000.

'Extremely rare'

Mr Leisinger said it was the "draft for a piece that Mozart did not work out, for whatever reason".

"It's a melody sketch so what's missing is the harmony and the instrumentation, but you can make sense out of it," he said.

"The tune is complete. It's only one part, and not the whole score with eight or twelve parts.

"One can really get a feeling of what Mozart meant, although we do not know how he would have orchestrated it."

He added: "The fact that an entirely new sheet shows up is extremely rare."

'Lost' Haydn documents recovered

Haydn's work has been performed around the world

A collection of opera works by Joseph Haydn have been uncovered more than 50 years after they were thought to have perished.

Hungary's National Library has been given 39 documents by the 18th Century composer that were presumed to have been destroyed in World War II.

It is believed the documents were discovered by chance in a second-hand book stall in Budapest, where they were bought by curators working on behalf of the government.

The amounts of money involved have not been revealed.

Joseph Haydn was born in Austria in 1732 and composed more than 750 works and arranged more than 330 songs.

The documents have now been handed over to the library where they will be kept "under lock and key" until they are digitally reproduced to allow research work to be conducted.

"Analyses by arts historians proved they are original," Agota Doba, a state curator said of the documents.

Influence

"We were very surprised that they surfaced at all. We thought they had been destroyed along with the full Budapest library of the Count Esterhazy, which burnt down during the war," she added.

The documents bear the seal of the noble Hungarian Esterhazy family which had political and military influence during the rule of the empress Maria Theresa.

"It is a mystery how they were spared in the war. It is likely that they were taken out of the collection before the bombing (of Budapest) because the books bear no trace of injury or fire," Ms Doba.

Prince Paul Esterhazy employed Haydn as the family's court musician.

The patronage of the family allowed Haydn to compose a vast amount of music.

Even after Prince Paul's death, Haydn continued to work for the family, dedicated much of his work to the prince's brother Miklos the Magnificent.

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Rare page sets Mozart sale record

The previous record for a single Mozart sheet was set at £89,500

One of just two surviving pages from a Mozart manuscript has been sold at an auction in London for £110,900.

The folio, from the composer's draft for the Sinfonia Concertante, has set a new record for a single page of his work, which has stood since 1998.

The item was purchased from Sotheby's by dealers based in London who were bidding on behalf of a private client.

The violin, viola and orchestral work was composed in 1779, securing Mozart's standing as a great composer aged 23.

'Greatest works'

The leaf had not been seen in public for decades before the auction and had not been available for scholars to scrutinise.

Dr Simon Maguire, a music specialist at Sotheby's, said: "We were glad to see this extraordinary survival attract such strong competition.

"Its significance as the most important single leaf of Mozart to have appeared on the market for decades is reflected in the price it achieved.

"It is one of Mozart's greatest works, and we are thrilled to have handled a manuscript that takes us so close to its original inception," he added.

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Missing Beethoven score for sale

Grosse Fuge dates from the year before the composer died

An 80-page handwritten manuscript by Beethoven which was missing for 115 years has been put up for auction.

The score of Grosse Fuge, which has the composer's changes, was found by a librarian at a US religious school.

It is expected to fetch up to £1.5m when it goes on sale at Sotheby's auction house in London on 1 December.

Sotheby's says the score, which was last seen at an auction in Berlin in 1890, is "the most important Beethoven manuscript to appear in recent memory".

The buyer at the 1890 Berlin auction is now believed to have been an industrialist from Ohio who took the manuscript to the US.

The German composer wrote Grosse Fuge while contending with deafness.

The score dates from 1826, the year before he died.

Dr Stephen Roe, head of Sotheby's manuscript department, said the discovery was "an amazing find".

Chance find

"It has never before been seen or described by Beethoven scholars," he said.

"Its rediscovery will allow a complete reassessment of this extraordinary music."

It is not known how the manuscript was passed to the seminary

The score, which contains multiple deletions and corrections, was found by librarian Heather Carbo at the Palmer Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

Ms Carbo was conducting an inventory of the seminary's archives when she came across the manuscript in a basement cabinet.

Manuscripts by Mozart were discovered at the seminary in 1990.

President Dr Wallace Charles Smith said: "At the time, we called it 'the Mozart miracle'. It seems appropriate that this time we are thankful for the 'Beethoven blessing'."

The last missing Beethoven manuscript to be discovered was found in Cornwall in 1999 and sold by Sotheby's for £166,500.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4337858.stm

French debut for missing Mozart

A piece of music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, which had lain undiscovered in a French library for years, has had its first public performance.

The two minute-long piece was played by violinist Daniel Cuiller before a small audience in Nantes, western France.

The sheet music was found by staff at the city's library, and authenticated as an original work of the Austrian composer last September.

The score is on display at Nantes Castle until 22 February.

• Listen to the 'lost' Mozart score being performed by Daniel Cuiller:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/7845752.stm
  

Dr Ulrich Leisinger from the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, who authenticated the score, said it was an important discovery.

It is composed of two musical pieces with a missing portion at the top.

Whole piece

Dr Leisinger said: "We immediately saw that this was Mozart's writing. However, it took more time to realise that this something completely new. It was a great surprise and great joy.

"The first four lines constitute a whole piece, and that's what is interesting.

The second portion seems unfinished and rushed according to specialists.

"There are three lines of music missing," Dr Leisinger said. "You can see traces of it, but we don't know where the missing part is today."

Mozart left more than 600 known pieces of music before his death in 1791 at the age of 35.

Gallery discovers Mozart portrait

The portrait's subject was previously unknown

Art experts in Germany say a painting in a Berlin art gallery is probably the last portrait painted of the composer Wolfgang AmadeusMozart.

The picture was painted by the German artist Johann Georg Edlinger in 1790, a year before Mozart's death.

The picture was identified as a Mozart portrait when an expert on the composer used computer analysis to compare it with another painted 13 years earlier.

The Gemaeldegalerie says it will go on show on 27 January - Mozart's birthday.

The oil painting, measuring 80cm by 62cm (31.5 inches by24.5 inches) was acquired by the gallery in 1934 and was only recently restored.

It had been purchased from a Munich art dealer, as a portrait of an unknown subject.

The senior custodian of the art gallery, Dr Rainer Michaelis, recently commissioned extensive computer analysis of the painting and asked Mozart expert Wolfgang Seiller to investigate.

"Mr Seiller noticed there were strong similarities between the subject of the portrait and Mozart," he told Berlin's BZ newspaper.

It is thought the portrait was painted during Mozart'slast stay in Munich in 1790. He died of a mysterious illness in 1791 aged 35

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