Mullingar music historian finds original Mozart work

Mozart is still dropping new hits, it seems, and two previously undiscovered compositions were found this year alone. One of those was discovered by Mullingar man, Paul Duncan, a music historian in the Styrian Provincial Archives in Graz, Austria. The second was discovered in Germany in September.

“We got an enquiry from a guy in Germany, and he was asking about this piece, and did we have it, and what is it.

“So we sent him a copy of the piece, and then he got back to us, and he asked how I was able to determine that the year was 1791,” Paul told the Westmeath Examiner.

“I could tell him that it was 1791 because of the watermark, actually. And 1791 is significant, because Mozart was alive at that time. He died December 1791. And that makes it contemporary to Mozart’s time.”

The piece came from the workshop of Johannes Traeg, he added. “The question is, did Traeg work directly for Mozart, or did Traeg get the manuscript off Mozart’s widow? I mean, certainly, he was in contact with the widow.”

To the rest of the world, the discovery of a Mozart composition so long after his death is a big deal. But to Paul, it’s not unusual to come across something rare.

“There have been quite a few discoveries in that library. I’ve been working with that collection for about 20 years, and so we’ve had quite a few moments,” said Paul.

“Mahler’s Fourth Symphony – we have a printed edition of that work. It’s from, I think, about 1911. I know the signature off the top of my head.

“We have a printed edition of this Fourth Symphony, and Mahler himself actually corrected it, and so he scribbled all over every page. And that’s his handwriting, copying, correcting the printed version of the Fourth Symphony. And Renate Stark-Voigt, from the Mahler Gesellschaft, rewrote the Fourth Symphony. Well, I mean, she didn’t rewrite it, but she dramatically corrected it on hand these corrections that we have in our library.”

The recently-discovered Mozart piece, Paul thinks, was probably played in Milan in 1781 at the wedding of Maria Theresa, or possibly one of her nephews.

“So we had it performed in Graz. We had the director of the Johann Nussbuchs Conservatory come in and he played it for us,” said Paul.

“It does sound like Mozart, but it’s… I don’t know, it wouldn’t really be my taste. I wouldn’t really be too interested in it.

“I’m not really a Mozart fan. I prefer Bach, that would me more my line of interest,” Paul concluded.