Nannerl Notenbuch

• 1. A Gift For The Eighth Name Day

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  Leopold Mozart presented a bound volume of blank music paper to his daughter Maria Anna on the 26th of July 1759. This gift marked her eighth name day and served as a pedagogical tool for learning keyboard music. The book contained forty-eight pages with eight staves on each sheet. It bore the inscription Pour le clavecin, which translates to For the harpsichord in French. Over the next four years, Leopold and anonymous Salzburg copyists gradually filled these pages with pieces. Wolfgang also used the book to record his earliest compositions. Some works were penned by his father while others were written directly by the young boy himself.

• 2. Five Distinct Scribes Identified

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  Wolfgang Plath deduced the existence of five scribes through paleographic study of the handwriting in the notebook. These included Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and three anonymous copyists from Salzburg known as Anonymous I, II, and III. Numbers 58 and 61 are thought to be in the four missing pages but are known only from Georg Nissen's material. Plath assumed that Leopold copied out these two pieces since he was responsible for more than half the contents. Wolfgang is believed to have written out four pieces himself. Curiously none of the pieces were inscribed by Nannerl herself despite being the original recipient of the book.

• 3. Scattered Pages Reconstructed

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  Twelve individual pages were removed from the original volume over time for various reasons. Four of these pages remain lost while eight have been identified by Alan Tyson in global collections. Two pages reside in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. One page exists in the Museum Carolino Augusteum in Salzburg. Two pages are held at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City. Another page survives only as a facsimile containing opening measures of K. 5b. A single leaf with the rest of K. 5b now sits in a private collection. Scholars reconstructed the four lost pages using Nannerl's letters and Georg Nissen's biography of Mozart. The completed state likely contained sixty-four pieces including exercises and unfinished compositions.

• 4. Leopolds Teaching Methodology Revealed

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  The notebook provides evidence of how Leopold taught music theory to his children from the very start. Tables of intervals show that he introduced theoretical concepts immediately alongside practical playing. He also taught composition through given bass lines, melodies to be varied or continued, and structural models. Wolfgang's earliest compositions appear written in Leopold's hand before the father added gentle suggestions for amendments later. This approach combined technical exercises with modulating figured basses to build foundational skills. The book demonstrates a systematic method for developing keyboard technique and musical understanding simultaneously.

• 5. Wolfgangs Earliest Compositions Cataloged

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  Andante in C, designated K. 1a, was probably Mozart's first composition and consists of just ten measures. It was notated by Leopold when Wolfgang was five years old. Allegro in F, dated the 11th of December 1761 in Salzburg, runs to twenty-four measures and is his earliest extant piece in F major. Minuet in F, composed on the 11th of May 1762, represents his earliest work in minuet form. Klavierstück in C, inscribed by young Wolfgang himself, appeared sometime during 1764 as the first piece written directly by him. Andante in B-flat remains the final surviving piece though only a fragment exists today. These works span from 1761 to 1764 and show rapid development in style and complexity.

• 6. Provenance And Current Location Traced

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  The surviving thirty-six pages now exist across international archives and private collections worldwide. The main volume resides in Salzburg while scattered leaves appear in Paris, New York, Leipzig, and private hands. Four pages remain permanently lost despite scholarly reconstruction efforts. The book contains simple short keyboard pieces suitable for beginners including many anonymous minuets. Works by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Georg Christoph Wagenseil also appear within its pages. Technical exercises and interval tables provide insight into eighteenth-century pedagogical practices. Modern piano students still use this collection to learn basic keyboard techniques today.