Mozart Dropped New Single

Undiscovered Mozart Piece Discovered in German Library

Gavin J. Gardner, Editor-In-Chief • October 2, 2024

Portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Photo Courtesy of Biography.com.

The year is 2024, the automobile industry is booming, multi-billionaires and NASA are planning on putting men on Mars, many worry about rapidly evolving artificial intelligence, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart just dropped a new piece. You heard that right! It has been 233 years since the death of this German composer and he is still dropping new pieces.

Graduates of the Johann Sebastian Bach Music School play the previously unknown work by Mozart.

All kidding aside, on September 19, 2024, the municipal libraries of Leipzig, Germany revealed their discovery of previously unknown work by the world-renowned historic composer. The 12-minute-long piece was written by a young teenage Mozart and was performed for the first time on the weekend of September 21 in Leipzig by three graduates of the Johann Sebastian Bach Music School.

The piece dates back to the mid-to-late 1760s, it consists of seven miniature movements made for a string trio (Leipzig Municipal Library). It was discovered while workers were reorganizing a catalog of Mozart’s music, and according to Classic FM, “the piece displayed compositional characteristics which suggested Mozart would have been between 10 and 13 years old at the time of the writing.” Experts have also indicated that the piece was likely written for an outdoor performance, with the “opening march intended to grab the attention of the audience (Classic FM).

Employee of the Leipzig Municipal Library, Korina Kilian, holds the newly discovered manuscript of Mozart’s, Ganz kleine Nachtmusik.

The piece is entitled, Ganz kleine Nachtmusik, German for “Quite (or Very) Little Night Music,” it is also known as Serenade In C. The piece is written in C Major. German Musicologist, Ulrich Leisinger, speaking for the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, has stated that the piece is, “unique compared to other pieces produced by Mozart at the time, which were primarily arias, symphonies, and piano music.”

The Koechel Catalogue articulated that the piece was “preserved in a single source, in which the attribution of the author suggests that the work was written before Mozart’s first trip to Italy.” (Leipzig Municipal Library).

There you have it, the year is 2024 and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is still dropping new music for all to enjoy. The first live performance of the piece [and multiple performances of the piece] can already be found on streaming services like YouTube, Spotify, and more.

Photo Courtesy of Biography, Classic FM, and Alamy.

About the Contributor

Gavin J. Gardner, Editor-In-Chief

Gavin Gardner is a Senior at Roxbury High School and Editor-In-Chief of the Roxbury Review. He has aspirations of serving at West Point, The United States Military Academy, and becoming the fourth living generation in a row to serve in the U.S. Army. He is a man who loves many things, including his family, learning subjects like history and astronomy, exploring nature, writing, and much more. He has won multiple academic awards, receiving high honor roll, he is an experienced Track and Field Athlete, the Treasurer, Representative, and Secretary of Junior States of America, a lead debater of the Debate Club, a member of the Executive Board of the National Honor Society, a graduate of the National Student Leadership Conference, a graduate of the 78th Annual American Legion Jersey Boys State (ALJBS) class, has been awarded the 22nd Todd Eaton Award from ALJBS, a two-time graduate of online Harvard Academies, and has well over 80 hours of volunteer experience under his belt. Gavin has three younger sisters. His father and mother are both members of law enforcement and he is frequently spending time with his family. He has had a passion for writing ever since Middle School and is considering pursuing a career in journalism when he is older. Nevertheless, he will always love writing! You can contact Gavin at [email protected].