Music Possible "new" Mozart work identified in Graz

A work in the holdings of the Styrian Provincial Archives in Graz A has been examined in detail, which could be a "new" piece by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The "Milan Variations" are mentioned in the Köchelverzeichnis, the catalog of Mozart's compositions. However, they do not bear a number because they were considered "unmozartic". However, the German scholar Carsten Wollin has now attributed the work to Mozart.

The piano pieces "Milan Variations" were composed when Archduke Ferdinand Karl (fourth son of Empress Maria Theresa) married Maria Beatrice d'Este in Milan on October 15, 1771. The then 15-year-old Mozart wrote the opera "Ascanio in Alba" for the celebrations.

The "Milan Variations" were composed at the same time, but the authorship has so far remained a mystery, the Province of Styria announced on Sunday. The cycle has also only been mentioned three times in musicological literature and has never been published. The work, which has presumably not been performed for two and a half centuries, falls into a gap of at least seven years, from which no piano works by Mozart are known to date.

The manuscript of the "Milan Variations" is part of the so-called "Lannoy Collection" of the Styrian Provincial Archives. This is named after the collector Heinrich Eduard Josef von Lannoy, who died in 1853. The first publication of the "Milan Variations" and Carsten Wollin's academic work on the history of their creation were recently published by Ortus Musikverlag.

SDA