A 248-year-old Mozart sheet music book was accidentally found in Paris

In Paris will be heard on Sunday afternoon by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Music composed 248 years ago for the first time.

Curator of the Music Department of the National Library of France François-Pierre Goy was looking through a stack of documents in February 2026. By chance, he found an anonymous sheet music. Goy noticed that the handwriting appeared to be Mozart’s.

He confirmed it with a colleague who knows the composer’s handwriting. It was Mozart.

The booklet’s authenticity was verified in April by an Austrian expert from the Mozarteum Foundation.

In the year 1778 Mozart was in Paris. The program of the 22-year-old composer’s trip to Paris included giving composition lessons to a noblewoman named Marie-Louise-Philippine de Bonnières de Guînes.

De Guînes’ father, the duke, was impressed by his daughter’s musical genius and hoped that she would learn to compose sonatas for flute and harp. Duke of Guînes Adrien-Louis de Bonnieres de Souastre played the flute, the daughter the harp.

Apparently, the duke hoped that the daughter would learn to compose pieces that father and daughter could play together.

So Mozart was tasked with giving the duke’s daughter composition lessons. He prepared a 44-page notebook containing study material for composition for Miss de Guînes, as well as seven works for flute and harp.

In addition to Mozart’s handwriting, the handwriting of Miss de Guînes has been identified on the pages of the booklet. The student’s and teacher’s handwritings are intertwined with music lines. It seems that Mozart initially gave de Guînes ideas for the composition, which de Guînes then developed.

Director of the National Library of France Gilles Pécout’n according to the notebook is one of the most significant discoveries of the last decades. It reveals new information about Mozart’s time and everyday life in Paris.

in a 44-page the booklet contains seven pieces for flute and harp. They will now have their premiere in Paris, in the handsome la salle Ovale reading room at the Richelieu campus of the National Library of France on Sunday.

Performs as a flute soloist Mathilde Caldériniand playing the harp Nicolas Tulliez. Caldérini and Tulliez are musicians of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the French Broadcasting Corporation.

The France Musique channel of the French broadcasting company will have the exclusive right to premiere the recording of the work on Monday, June 22. at 3 p.m. The works presented on the radio last about 20 minutes in total.