News

New Mozart joint found in French library

11:50 a.m. · September 19, 2008 · by Andrew Winistorfer

In the 1700’s, Mozart was like Tupac, Joseph Haydn was like Suge Knight, and Beethoven was like Biggie. They wrote classical dis tracks against each other, Haydn’s goons hung Beethoven out of a window, and they did carriage drive-bys on each other outside of newspaper offices (there was no Hot 100 back then).

Mozart was mad prolific—he used to be rolling blunts and writing counter-melodies till the wee hours of the Salzburg–morning. After he died (it was Beethoven who killed him, as Wagner’s masterpiece, “Who Bust a Cap in Mozart?: Number 5” posits), it seemed like all his unfinished pieces would be lost to mold.

That was until a French museum found what they thought was a brand-new Mozart piece in their library of archives. The piece was authenticated as the real deal earlier this week by the International Mozarteum Foundation, as handwriting samples and aging confirmed it to be Mozart’s.

Don’t expect a performance of the piece any time soon—the piece only has a simple melody and its unclear what instrument it would really be for. But the city it was found in, Nantes, is expected to have a celebration and news conference next week. [AP]