Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Musical Diary - 2018

The last musical notebook of Mozart, entitled Verzeichnüss aller meiner Werke, or in English Catalogue of my works, is the living testimony of Mozart’s golden age, that is, the last ten years of his life. Mozart used this notebook to list and inventory all compositions considered completed during the seven years preceding his death, between 1784 and 1791. He noted with meticulousness and patience, keeping the notebook up to date – until a few weeks before his sudden and tragic death in 1791.

The correspondence of Mozart’s widow, Constanze, shows that she was perfectly aware of the importance of the musical notebook, which she carefully preserved for several years after his death and without sending it to one of Mozart’s publishers. She eventually agreed to have it delivered, along with other documents, to the son of Johann André, who had taken over his father’s publishing house, known to Mozart, at the turn of the 19th century. At the end of his life, André (the son) attempted to sell Mozart’s archives, including the musical notebook, without success. The documents were bequeathed to his children — six sons and a son-in-law. In 1935, the notebook was auctioned to the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, who rightly regarded it as one of his treasures. In 1956, Zweig’s heirs entrusted it to the British Museum, and it ultimately entered the British Library’s collections in 1986.

This edition is presented in a tri-lingual box set (English, French, German) and in two volumes. Volume 1: reproduction of the Musical Notebook. Volume 2: transcriptions of the manuscript and texts by two English specialists (Albi Rosenthal and Alan Tyson). “This facsimile edition gives us an immediate and enlightened idea of Mozart’s formidable prolificacy and, through the specifics of his handwriting, of the enigmatic facets of his personality.”

Handmade box
Carnelian red binding
1000 numbered copies, this one numbered 926
25 x 35 cm
2 volumes (80 pp. and 96 pp.)
Tri-lingual edition (French, English, German)
ISBN: 9791095457534