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The collection includes two “mystery” pieces – the latest discovery this Mozart year!
During the short period between Mozart’s death and the end of the 18th century, it soon became apparent that the composer had not left enough short and technically undemanding keyboard works to satisfy the growing amateur market for his music. Many publishers attempted to remedy this by offering volumes of adaptations. Sometimes these purported to be “petites pièces … composées par W. A. Mozart” (two sets of twelve pieces from Thonus, Hoffmeister and others, and two sets of twenty pieces selected and fingered by A. E. Müller); others were described more transparently as “tirée des Oeuvres de W. A. Mozart” (four such volumes from Johann Traeg in 1798 alone) and a few that had no connection with the composer at all.
All the contents of the genuine collections have been identified in Mozart’s output, with the exception of two pieces included in these XII Petites Pièces originally issued as pour le Clavecin by Artaria and pour le PianoForte by various Leipzig publishers. This collection is presented here in the sequence adopted by Artaria, where the “mystery” pieces occur at the beginning.
Piece No. XII (Allegretto) is on the ABRSM piano syllabus 2017-2018, Grade 5.
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