Mozart symphonies of spurious or doubtful authenticity

Reasons for misattribution#

There are numerous reasons why symphonic works have been misattributed to Mozart. For example: *A habit of the youthful Mozart was to copy parts of the music of other composers, for his own study purposes. The later discoveries of music scores, or fragments, in Mozart’s hand, sometimes led to the belief that the work was his. In particular this factor has led to confusion between the early symphonies of Wolfgang and those of his father Leopold, and also those of other composers in the Mozart circle such as Michael Haydn. *Mozart, when a mature composer and performer, would sometimes include the work of another—usually young and struggling—composer in one of his regular symphony concerts. Although he would present the true composer to the audience, the work’s tenuous association with Mozart would sometimes lead to a continuing belief that he was the composer. *Musical publishing and distribution methods were very lax in 18th century Europe, with manuscript versions of music being freely circulated. This could easily lead to confusion about authorship, and frequent misattribution. *Early inaccuracies in identifying Mozart’s works, for example by the Hamburg music dealer Johann Christoph Westphal, were carried forward into the later formal cataloguing by Breitkopf and Härtel and Köchel, and had a tendency to persist. *An unknown number of Mozart’s works are lost. Occasional “finds” of late 18th century music, particularly in places which have association with Mozart through personal visits or concert performances, have sometimes been rather hastily attributed to him, only to be disqualified on the discovery of contrary evidence.

Köchel catalogue: explanation#

The Köchel catalogue, generally accepted as the definitive listing of Mozart’s works, was published by Ludwig von Köchel in 1862, and has been revised and updated on several subsequent occasions. The original catalogue, known as K 1 , listed incomplete or lost works in an appendix or “Anhang”, without regard to chronological order. These works were identified by an “Anh.”, not a “K” number. In the sixth edition of the catalogue (1964, K 6 ), the Anhang was extended to include doubtful and spurious works, and this is retained in the latest edition (2024, K 9 ). On the basis of the most recent research and discoveries, some of the old K 1 Anhangs were promoted to “K” status, while others were relegated from the main catalogue into the K 6 Anhang. However, as Neal Zaslaw (the editor of K 9 ) pointed out, the K 6 allocations between main listing and Anhang are not reliable indicators of authenticity or otherwise. Zaslaw deemed some of the divisions “arbitrary”, and called for “clearer, more honest categories” for the problematic works. is used to identify works that have not been included in any of the Köchel catalogue versions, but which have at some stage in the past been thought of as Mozart compositions.

See also#

• List of symphonies by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• List of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart