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Rare Books in the Press - A Mozart Mystery: Sonata Manuscript Surfaces in Budapest

02 octobre 2014
"For Balazs Mikusi, a young Hungarian musicologist, it was the find of a lifetime. Leafing through folders of unidentified manuscripts at the National Szechenyi Library in Budapest recently, he came across four pages of what looked to him like Mozart's handwriting. As he read through the music, he told Agence France-Presse, he realized that he had stumbled onto Mozart's own score of the Piano Sonata in A, K.331 – one of the best-known Mozart sonatas because of its "Rondo alla Turca" finale. To verify his impression Mr. Mikusi showed a copy of the score to Ulrich Leisinger, the director of the Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, and Neal Zaslaw, the editor of the new Köchel catalog of Mozart's works. Both agreed that the writing was Mozart's …" Most spectacular finds of rare books and manuscripts nowadays happen by chance. A Hungarian scholar had such a lucky moment, when he worked in the National Szechenyi Library in Budapest and discovered - a Mozart manuscript.
Articles 1458 image1 mozart by croce wikipedia

“For Balazs Mikusi, a young Hungarian musicologist, it was the find of a lifetime. Leafing through folders of unidentified manuscripts at the National Szechenyi Library in Budapest recently, he came across four pages of what looked to him like Mozart’s handwriting. As he read through the music, he told Agence France-Presse, he realized that he had stumbled onto Mozart’s own score of the Piano Sonata in A, K.331 – one of the best-known Mozart sonatas because of its “Rondo alla Turca” finale. To verify his impression Mr. Mikusi showed a copy of the score to Ulrich Leisinger, the director of the Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, and Neal Zaslaw, the editor of the new Köchel catalog of Mozart’s works. Both agreed that the writing was Mozart’s …”

Most spectacular finds of rare books and manuscripts nowadays happen by chance. A Hungarian scholar had such a lucky moment, when he worked in the National Szechenyi Library in Budapest and discovered - a Mozart manuscript.

A Mozart Mystery: Sonata Manuscript Surfaces in Budapest


>>> Read the whole story by Alan Kozinn in The Arts Beat Blog (September 2014)

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Picture: Wikipedia