Amadeus? Amadeus!: Lost childhood manuscript of Mozart discovered in Germany

A 19th-century German illustration of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as a 10-year-old (Getty Images / DigitalVisionVectors)

Careful listeners of Mozart may notice an unfamiliar melody attributed to his childhood works landing in their streaming feeds soon.

A lost musical manuscript believed to be written by the legendary Austrian composer, said to date back at least as far as 1769, has surfaced at a library in Leipzig, Germany. The discovery has set the stage for 12 minutes of centuries-old, but newly recovered music from one of the classical world's most recognized figures, and fans have already seized upon the opportunity.

The piece, titled Serenade in C and arranged for a string trio featuring two violins and a bass, was happened upon during the monumental effort to re-compile, catalogue and publish a new edition of the Köchel, a 160-year-old compendium of Mozart's works, popularly viewed as the definitive collection and last updated in 1964.

According to information released by publisher Breitkopf & Härtel, as well as the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, Austria, the "previously ignored" Serenade is one of a number of discoveries in the new edition, but is set apart from the the majority for its completeness and near-total obscurity.

While some surfaced music was previously lost, but known to have existed, or had gone through years of prior debate as to its authenticity, these latest bars and measures are something of a mystery – one that may expand scholars' understanding of the artist's early years.

"Until now the young Mozart has been familiar to us chiefly as a composer of keyboard music and of arias and sinfonias," said Köchel editor and Mozarteum research lead Ulrich Leisinger, in the release.

"We know … that he wrote many other chamber works in his youth, all of them unfortunately lost. It looks as if – thanks to a series of favourable circumstances – a complete string trio has survived in Leipzig."

Compositional context clues

The archive's only surviving source, the Mozarteum release reads, attributes the work to "Wo[l]fgang Mozart" – a detail that offers a crucial clue to determining its origin.

Mozart began including various translations of "Amadeus," itself a translation of one of his three middle names, Theophilus, to his moniker some time around his first visit to Italy in 1769.

The middle name's omission, the Mozarteum contends, supports the interpretation that the manuscript pre-dates that reinvention of the young composer's brand. This is further supported by the music itself, which Köchel experts say resembles musical conventions and styles of the 1760s.

As for further clues about the piece's origin, Leisinger says that it's tempting to speculate on just how the piece has endured for so long in obscurity, and why it was composed in the first place.

"The source was evidently Mozart’s sister," he is quoted in the Mozarteum release to say.

"It is tempting to think that she preserved the work as a memento of her brother. Perhaps he wrote the Trio specially for her.”

Play it again, Wolfgang

You could imagine that the revelation of obscure, widely unheard sheet music said to be from the mind of Mozart himself would have string musicians excitedly reaching for their bows, and you'd be right.

At a recent open-air concert in the city of its discovery, a string trio from the Leipzig School of Music [JSO] performed the 12-minute serenade to a live audience, among the first times the arrangement has been heard in centuries.

The performers, including Elisabeth Zimmermann on cello and Vincent Geer and David Geer on violin, play on the school's youth symphony orchestra, according to the JSO.

The concert, held on the front steps of the Leipzig Opera and posted to YouTube Sunday, has since garnered more than 90,000 views on YouTube, and counting.

Since its discovery, Serenade has been inducted into the Kochel for all posterity, indexed as KV 648. It is now also know by the informal name of Eine ganz kleine Nachtmusik, or A Very Little Night Music.

The seventh edition of the Kochel is now available in print and online.