Mozarteum Foundation acquires Mozart letter
Thanks to the support of a patron, the Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg has acquired an important letter written by Mozart in 1791 to his friend Anton Stoll. It will be included in the Mozarteum Foundation's collection of original autographs, the Bibliotheca Mozartiana.
In a letter dated July 12, 1791, Mozart asks his friend and choir director Anton Stoll to send him the sheet music for two works that they had previously performed together in the church in Baden. He took great pains to embed the request in a typically Mozartian web of jokes.
Mozart had performed one of his masses together with Stoll in Baden on July 10, 1791 (presumably the Mass K. 275). Mozart left his original score to his friend, but asked him in this letter to send him the specially prepared parts so that he could also perform the work in Vienna. The fact that Mozart also performed a work by Michael Haydn in the last year of his life is evidence of his lasting esteem for his former Salzburg colleague.
On the second page is a letter from Mozart's pupil and assistant Franz Xaver Süssmayr, which also refers to the return of the aforementioned sheet music. However, Mozart also wrote this text himself, imitating Sussmayr's handwriting.
The Mozarteum Foundation is gradually making its historical holdings freely accessible online. The newly acquired letter will also be available digitally online via the Bibliotheca Mozartiana website (http://digibib.mozarteum.at).
