LEIPZIG: On Thursday, researchers said that they had discovered a previously unidentified composition by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at a German library, perhaps created when the composer was in his early teens.
According to a statement from the Leipzig Municipal Libraries, the composition, which is composed of seven tiny movements for a string trio and dates to the mid- to late-1760s, lasts for about 12 minutes. Mozart, who was born in 1756, was a child prodigy who studied composition under his father from a very young age.
While assembling the most recent version of the so-called Koechel catalogue, the canonical collection of Mozart’s musical compositions, researchers came upon the piece at the city’s music library.
According to the scholars, the recently found document was not written by Mozart himself, but rather is thought to be a duplicate created somewhere around 1780. At the opening of the new Koechel catalog on Thursday in Salzburg, Austria, a string trio played the work. On Saturday, it will have its German premiere at the Leipzig Opera.
The Leipzig libraries state that the composition is known as “Ganz kleine Nachtmusik” in the new Koechel catalogue.
