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Music

Discovery of an unpublished autograph manuscript by Mozart in the BnF Music Department

On air the 22nd of june, France Musique

Andante de Mozart (1er violon et basse) et Mlle de Guînes (2e violon) p. 10 du manuscrit - © Élie Ludwig / BnF

The Bibliothèque nationale de France has discovered and identified a previously unknown manuscript by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dating from his stay in Paris in 1778. The document takes the form of a 44-page manuscript notebook containing the composition lessons he gave to Marie-Louise-Philippine de Bonnières de Guînes (1759-1795), an accomplished harpist and daughter of the Duc de Guînes. It was discovered and identified in the BnF Music Department in February 2026 and is a valuable insight into the way Mozart conceived and delivered his composition lessons.

Gilles Pécout, President of the BnF: “In the view of specialists, this is one of the most important discoveries in recent decades, for two reasons. First, it sheds light on Mozart’s final stay in Paris, and second, it reveals the day-to-day activities of Mozart as a young teacher in dialogue with his pupil. I am delighted to reiterate that Mozart is very much at home in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, thanks to the donations and acquisitions that have made our Music Department the second largest repository of Mozart materials in the world, after Salzburg. The identification of this autograph manuscript confirms the universal scope of our collections and points to new and rewarding international scholarly and artistic collaborations, with Austria in particular.”

A major discovery

On 2 February 2026, François-Pierre Goy, the curator in charge of the Music Department’s pre-1800 collections at the Bibilothèque nationale de France, was examining an anonymous, untitled music notebook from the late 18th century. He was surprised when he recognised one of the hands as being that of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). He sought the opinion of his colleague Laurence Decobert, Head of the Iconography and Documentation section of the BnF’s Performing Arts Department and former Head of the Music Department’s Heritage Collections. Laurence Decobert, who curated the 2017 exhibition entitled Mozart, a French Passion at the Library and is a musicologist herself, is extremely familiar with the composer’s manuscripts and handwriting, and confirmed the attribution. In April 2026, the manuscript was authenticated by Armin Brinzing, Director of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, who also confirmed the attribution and stressed the importance of the document.

Composition lessons given to the Duchesse de Guînes

The use of French paper and the content of the manuscript - composition exercises and seven pieces for flute and harp - suggest that it is a record of the daily lessons Mozart gave to Marie-Louise-Philippine de Bonnières de Guînes, daughter of Adrien-Louis de Bonnières de Souastre, Duc de Guînes (1735–1806), a renowned flautist who commissioned the Concerto for Flute and Harp, KV 299, between May and July 1778 during his final stay in Paris.

Convinced that his daughter was a genius, the duke wanted her to learn how to compose grand sonatas for their two instruments. During his tenure as Ambassador to London from 1770 to 1776, he had acquired a flute capable of playing the low C, an instrument for which both the Concerto KV 299 and the pieces in this manuscript are written, and which was rare, if not unique, at that time in Paris, where flutes could only reach as low as D, borne out by Mozart’s other works for the instrument. The lessons were suspended when Mademoiselle de Guînes was married, on 26 July.

This seemingly modest notebook comprising 44 pages is a precious resource for learning about Mozart’s approach to teaching composition, and is the earliest evidence we have of this kind. It contains the type of exercises that Mozart describes minutely in a letter to his father dated 14 May 1778, in which he deplores his pupil’s lack of musical invention, a deficiency she herself, it seems, was the first to acknowledge.

The last exercise in the notebook, however, remains unfinished and the final six pages are blank, suggesting that it contains the last lessons Mozart ever taught. The manuscript bears the same stamps as a French copy of the Concerto for Flute and Harp from the same period, which had long gone unnoticed and was only brought to the attention of specialists in 2020. These two documents bear witness to the ‘two packets of...