Florian Birsak sat down in Salzburg at Mozart’s fortepiano on Friday to play a piece marked “Allegro Molto” from a notebook found in an attic.
Although not written in either Wolfgang or father Leopold’s hand, the people at the Mozarteum in Salzburg say they are pretty sure the piece is by the young Mozart, probably from when he was 10 or 11.
It’s a fun little piece, which probably belongs in a larger context, such as a sonata. Perhaps it came from an improvisation by the little prodigy.
Either way, its a neat artifact, but not in itself a great piece of music. As Birsak said to his audience, “there is already a touch of the great Mozart he later became.”
For fun, following Birsak’s performance, I’m including two extras: a sonata movement with the same tempo instructions by Bohemian composer Jan Antonin Kozeluh (1738-1814), played by Christine Faron, followed by a very young and very poised Yuja Wang playing the opening movement of Joseph Haydn’s Sonata in C, Hob. XVI:50 (it’s from 1794):
John Terauds