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Wholesome music

Charlotte Higgins

LONDON: A manuscript in the fleet, restless hand of the teenage Mozart, which was cut in two and sold off separately by his financially embarrassed widow after his death, has been brought back together by the British Library. The find comes just short of the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth on January 27.

The single sheet of music was produced by Mozart when he was 17. At the time he was visiting Vienna to be touted by his father, Leopold, for a job as a court musician — unsuccessfully, as it turned out.

One side of the manuscript are two piano cadenzas and, on the other, a minuet for string quartet.

In 1835, 44 years after her husband's death, Constanze carefully cut up the manuscript so that the two cadenzas ended up on separate sheets . She then sent them off to two separate people in return for favours or, potentially, cash.

Both halves remained in different private collections in continental Europe, until in the 1950s the lower half was bequeathed to the British Library. The upper half has just been acquired.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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