Forgotten Mozart Notebook Reveals How a Young Woman Learned to Compose
Trill News Briefing
The Story
A forgotten Mozart notebook at the national library of France shows how a young woman learned composition from him in 1778, recasting the pupil he dismissed.
Curator François-Pierre Goy recognized Mozart's handwriting in the unattributed 44 page notebook in February 2026, and Armin Brinzing of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana in Salzburg authenticated it.
It records near daily lessons from May to July 1778 for the harpist Marie-Louise-Philippine de Bonnières de Guînes, whose father commissioned the Concerto for Flute and Harp, K299.
Teacher and pupil write on the same pages, and several exercises are entirely in her hand, while six flute and harp pieces are complete, though each begins from Mozart's ideas.
Mozart told his father in a May 14, 1778 letter that she had no ideas, a verdict that shaped how history remembered her.
A seventh piece breaks off before six blank pages, perhaps because the lessons ended when she married on July 26, 1778.
Stacy Olive Jarvis, a musicology doctoral candidate at the University of Birmingham, argues the notebook belongs as much to the pupil as to the composer.
Curator François-Pierre Goy recognized Mozart's handwriting in the unattributed 44 page notebook in February 2026, and Armin Brinzing of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana in Salzburg authenticated it.
It records near daily lessons from May to July 1778 for the harpist Marie-Louise-Philippine de Bonnières de Guînes, whose father commissioned the Concerto for Flute and Harp, K299.
Teacher and pupil write on the same pages, and several exercises are entirely in her hand, while six flute and harp pieces are complete, though each begins from Mozart's ideas.
Mozart told his father in a May 14, 1778 letter that she had no ideas, a verdict that shaped how history remembered her.
A seventh piece breaks off before six blank pages, perhaps because the lessons ended when she married on July 26, 1778.
Stacy Olive Jarvis, a musicology doctoral candidate at the University of Birmingham, argues the notebook belongs as much to the pupil as to the composer.
Why It Matters
The library itself is less generous to the pupil. The Bibliothèque nationale de France says she seems to have been the first to admit her lack of musical invention and calls the notebook the earliest evidence of how Mozart taught. That leaves a disagreement about whose contribution deserves attention. The notebook entered the library in 1795, a year after revolutionaries confiscated music from her father's home. Six completed pieces expand the repertoire, but each starts from Mozart's ideas. The next test is a scholarly edition distinguishing the teacher's work from the pupil's on each page.
Go Deeper
Read the original reporting at The Conversation.
Read Full Story at The Conversation →