12 Petites Pièces

Includes two 'mystery' pieces – the last discovery this Mozart year!

In the short period between Mozart’s death and the end of the 18th century, it was quickly discovered that he 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 deficiency 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 more transparently described 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, 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, which brings both mystery pieces to the beginning of the sequence.