‘Mozart dropped a new single’ – classical fans queue to hear newly discovered work in Leipzig

3 October 2024, 23:04 | Updated: 3 October 2024, 23:08

Band in Leipzig perform Mozart piece

By Kyle Macdonald

Long lines of music lovers formed to hear a piece of history, as a previously unknown Mozart trio received its first public performance. 

It‘s not often that you can hear new music from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. But that’s just what modern audiences enjoyed last weekend, with performances of a newly discovered string trio.

Last Thursday, Leipzig municipal libraries revealed their discovery of a previously unknown work by the great Austrian composer.

The music was found in the collection of the Leipzig Municipal Library while researchers were completing a new edition of the Köchel catalogue of Mozart’s works. 

Korina Kilian from the Leipzig Municipal Libraries, holds a music newly discovered manuscript. Picture: Alamy

Composed for string trio, the seven-movement piece is believed to have been written in the mid to late 1760s, when Mozart was a teenager. The manuscript features dark brown ink on off-white laid paper, with the title Serenate ex C.

The 12-minute piece has now been named Ganz kleine Nachtmusik. The first modern performance of it took place last week at the composer’s birthplace in Salzburg.

Mozart fans queue ahead of the previously unknown work’s premiere in Leipzig. Picture: Alamy

With huge excitement, Ganz kleine Nachtmusik received its German premiere at the Leipzig Opera. On Saturday, 400-metre-long queues formed in Augustusplatz outside the opera house with fans eager to hear the performance. It was played by graduates of the Johann Sebastian Bach Music School.

“Mozart dropped a new single,” commented one viewer on YouTube. Watch it being played above.

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

“We are convinced that we can now present a completely unknown, charming piece by the young Mozart,” Ulrich Leisinger, head of research at the Mozarteum Foundation, told the German Press Agency.

Leisinger said the piece displayed compositional characteristics which suggested Mozart would have been between 10 and 13 years old at the time of writing. Experts also suggested it was likely the piece was written for an outdoor performance, with the opening march intended to grab the audiences attention. Watch it in full below.

W.A. Mozart - Serenata ex C - Eine ganz kleine Nachtmusik (official release)

“Absolutely beautiful,” commented one Mozart fan, who made it to the Leipzig premiere.

“It’s an honour to be one of the first humans to hear this song in hundreds of years,” wrote another viewer on YouTube.

Later the musicians involved spoke to Classic FM and told of the ‘incredible honour’ of being selected to premiere the piece, but also the mysteriousness of the project, being handed the music without a title or explanation.

“Nobody could have ever imagined what it actually turned out to be,” Violinists David and Vincent Geer and cellist Elisabeth Zimmermann told Classic FM a week later.

“It didn't even occur to us that we might have been chosen for something this big,” Vincent told us. “We thought it would just be an ordinary little gig.”

LIttle did he or his musical partners know that they were going to be part of classical music history.

A close-up view of the manuscript discovered at Leipzig's municipal libraries. Picture: Alamy

The story of this rediscovered piece has gone viral and is surely now one of the biggest music stories of 2024.

In an era of streaming, international pop acts, and trending TikTok sounds, new music of a teenage Mozart still creates a moment like no other.

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Nena’s Nocturne: How I discovered my grandmother’s legacy

 Concert pianist Nena del Rosario Villanueva

Anita Villanueva - Philstar.com

Anita Villanueva is the grandchild of the late concert pianist Nena del Rosario Villanueva (1935-2021), the Philippines’ first piano prodigy. Nena, mentored by the famed Isabelle Vengerova, made her Carnegie Hall debut at age 12 in 1947 upon winning a New York Times competition. She was the first Filipino pianist accepted at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She went on to perform in the world’s most prestigious musical venues throughout her career.

Anita writes about a side of her grandma few people knew, how she slowly discovered her legacy in the music world, and her involvement in the Manila Symphony Orchestra’s campaign for Nena’s nomination for National Artist.

Upon hearing my grandmother’s name, a vivid image immediately comes to mind: she is in bed, her hair disheveled, donning one of her many white linen nightgowns. Her spindly fingers are grazing a box of half-eaten See’s Chocolates which she had likely received that same day.

This image is starkly different from the one staring back at me as I sift through photos of her grand performances as the Philippines’ own piano prodigy.

Growing up, my grandma and I shared a very special bond, one separate from her piano accolades. My frequent visits to her house were composed of a strict routine: first, she would mark my height and the date on her white closet doors. Next, I would take on the role of her makeup artist. As she sat at her vanity, I became the painter to her blank canvas of a face. I rummaged through dusty makeup bags and acrylic holders, gathering only the shiniest, most colorful of her expired products. 

I then began my work, rubbing shimmery green Chanel eyeshadow on one eyelid and lining her lips with bright red Guerlain lipstick, creating my masterpiece. Once I was finished, I held up a mirror for my grandma to relish her newfound beauty. Every time, without fail, she had lit up with laughter; tears swelling in her eyes as she examined the dance of colors on her face. 

Then came the third, most integral part of our routine: the McDonald’s drive-thru. With her make-up on, she and I, immensely proud of my work, would make our way down to her dark green Jaguar. We would drive to the nearest McDonald’s drive-thru, where I ordered a Big Mac with orange juice, and she ordered a caramel sundae with fries. I thought it was the most bizarre thing, watching her dip each fry in her ice cream; she was certainly the only person I had known to do it. 

Now, my childhood memories with my grandma, saturated with the smell of mothballs and the sound of her pearl bracelets, remain stowed away, only occasionally revisited. That is until I began to work on what I call the “Grandma Project.”

At first, I was tasked with the seemingly menial job of sorting through large plastic boxes filled with photos, newspaper clippings, and letters. However, the time spent simply sifting through these items became an incredibly transformative experience.

Only when I agreed to help organize her campaign did I discover the depth of this entirely different identity of hers. Growing up, I was always aware of her relationship with piano. Mentioning her name would often trigger the automated response of “the one with the piano right?” However, since she had never once mentioned it herself, I was completely oblivious to the impact she made on the Filipino and international music scenes. 

As I look through the various photos of her in huge auditoriums wearing ornate gowns, the letters from former presidents, and newspaper clippings of her at only fourteen, I am becoming acquainted with a different Nena, foreign from the one dipping fries in her caramel sundae.

Though this Nena is completely distinct from the one I so fondly remember, I carry with me the remnants of her identity as I strive to embody the light she sparked in the world.

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Heinrich von Herzogenberg - his music and his life

 

Born: June 10, 1843 - Graz, Austria

Died: October 9, 1900 - Wiesbaden

The Austrian composer, Heinrich von Herzogenberg, was the son of an Austrian Court official. He received his early education in the humanities at the Gymnasien in Feldkirch (Vorarlberg), Munich, Dresden, and Graz. In 1861, he enrolled at the University of Vienna and began a course of study in law and philosophy. This, however, was short-lived, as in 1862 he left the university to become a composition student of Felix Otto Dessoff, a professor at the Vienna Conservatory. Herzogenberg was to study with Dessoff for the next two years. It was at Dessoff's house that Heinrich first encountered Johannes Brahms. The two soon formed a lifelong friendship, with Herzogenberg devoting himself to the promotion of Brahms' music. Although he seems to have valued Herzogenberg's criticism of his own work, Brahms appears to have never found it in himself to take Herzogenberg seriously as a composer. In 1868, Herzogenberg married Elisabeth von Stockhausen (1847-1892), the daughter of a Hanoverian Court diplomat, and a pianist and composer in her own right. Von Stockhausen too shared a close friendship with Brahms, who seems to have valued von Stockhausen 's insights even more than those of Heinrich. It was through the family's interactions with Brahms that the Herzogenbergs came into contact with some of the most notable figures in German music at that time, including Robert and Clara Schumann.

For a period of four years, the Herzogenbergs lived in Graz, where Heinrich worked as a freelance composer. Then, in 1874, they moved to Leipzig where, with Philipp Spitta and several others, Heinrich was to found the Leipzig Bach-Verein (Bach Society). He became the director of the group in 1875, a position he held for the next ten years. In 1885, Herzogenberg was appointed professor of composition at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, succeeding Friedrich Kiel. From 1889, in addition to his other teaching duties, he also conducted a master class in composition at the Hochschule. It was also in 1889 that Herzogenberg was elected a member of the Akademie and when he began his tenure as director of the Meisterschule für Komposition in Berlin, a position he was to hold from 1889 to 1892 and again from 1897 to 1900. Elisabeth's death, in 1892, seems to have been a heavy blow to Heinrich, who subsequently buried himself in his work. Later that year, he returned to his position at the Hochschule after an absence due to ill heath, no doubt compounded by his grief over the death of his wife. Herzogenberg continued teaching until 1900 when further ill health forced him to retire; he died shortly afterwards.

As a contemporary of Johannes Brahms, Heinrich von Herzogenberg spent most of his compositional life living in the shadow of Brahms' gigantic stature. Herzogenberg's works represent a great divergence in styles and influences. His output is vast and takes the form of every musical genre with the exception of opera. He wrote many concert works with sacred texts, three oratorios; several choral orchestral works, including two psalms, a mass, a requiem, several motets, and a sacred cantata; two symphonies; chamber music including three string quartets; music for piano and organ; many secular part songs (with and without accompaniment for mixed, men's, and women's choirs); and despite being a lifelong Catholic, many short liturgical works for the Protestant liturgy. In general, his music can be said to exhibit a general Brahmsian surface. The piano works in particular, which were initially influenced by Schumann, as well as the chamber music, are clearly modeled on the music of Brahms. However, beneath these surface commonalties, Herzogenberg's music illustrates not only a variety of other influences, but also the hand of a master composer in his own right. In some of his early works, he was intent upon following the path of the "New German School." A later rejection of the "New German" compositional ideology led the young Herzogenberg to a course of study using as a model the music of J.S. Bach. This interest in early music (especially the music of Bach and Heinrich Schütz) was a trait that was greatly fostered by Spitta and took form in Herzogenberg's church music, especially that of the composer's later years.

Works

While Herzogenberg has tended to be characterized as a mere epigone of Brahms, many of his compositions show little or no overt Brahmsian influence, for example his two string trios Op.27 Nos. 1 & 2, while some early compositions pre-dating his acquaintance with Brahms have features in common with the older composer. He wrote much choral, orchestral, instrumental and chamber music, including eight symphonies (one being a programmatic symphony entitled Odysseus). His early Theme and Variations, op.13, for two pianos (1870) is a notable work in its genre. Important works choral include the cantata Todtenfeier, op.80 (1893) in memory of his wife; Mass in E minor, op.97 (1894) in memory of Spitta and the oratorio Die Geburt Christi, op.90 (1894) with a libretto by Spitta’s brother Friedrich. He wrote a great deal of chamber music: 2 string trios Opp.27 Nos 1 & 2, 5 string quartets Opp.18,42 Nos.1-3, & 63, a string quintet (2 violas) Op.17, 2 piano quartets Opp.75 & 95, 2 piano trios Opp.24 & 36, a trio for piano, oboe & horn, Op.61 and several sonatas for various instruments. Today, the general consensus of critics and scholars is that his contribution in this area is his most important.