Bibliotheca Mozartiana

Full text databases available at the Mozarteum Foundation:

The online edition of Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart

JSTOR Digital Library, Music Collection

The Mozart Collection of the Augsburg State and City Library (scans of printed music editions)

Other Useful Links

Dexter Edge and David Black (eds.) Mozart: New Documents

Mozart Society of America: Early Mozart Biographies Project

ANNO – Austrian Newspapers Online  (Austrian newspapers and periodicals from earlier times)

Digital Auction Catalogues (1930–1945, Heidelberg University Library)

Online Bibliography of Writings on Music

An online edition of Robert Eitner’s Biographisch-bibliographisches Quellen-Lexikon der Musiker und Musikgelehrten

Hofmeister XIX (digitized copies of Friedrich Hofmeister’s monthly reports from 1829 to 1900, including a full-text search function)

RISM online (online catalogue of music manuscripts from all over the world)

Virtual Specialist Library in Musicology (Bavarian State Library)

Since its establishment in 1880, the International Mozarteum Foundation has held important collections, the core of which can be traced back to its predecessor, the Dommusikverein and Mozarteum, founded in 1841. The most valuable parts of the collections, with numerous original manuscripts by Mozart and his family, musical instruments owned by Mozart, and paintings and many personal mementos, were gifts or bequests from members of the Mozart family. Since then, the holdings have been further expanded within the limits of the available funds.

During the period of National Socialism, those in charge of the Mozarteum Foundation, with the help of those in power, made intensive efforts to expand these collections – especially the library – in order to further strengthen the Foundation’s position as a central site for Mozart research. There are indications of various efforts to use the close ties to the Nazi state to profit from its racially or ideologically motivated repressions against individuals or institutions. These efforts primarily involved valuable collections of original documents of Mozart and his family, but also larger music-historical collections.

Despite intensive efforts, the Mozarteum Foundation, due to its legal form as a private association, did not succeed in profiting from the manifold state repressions against Jewish collectors or antiquarians in Vienna, Berlin and other places. In contrast, the foundation was very successful in the Reichsgau Salzburg, where it was directly integrated into the political structures. In Salzburg, it was primarily the Catholic Church that was subjected to repression, confiscation and expropriation. At the same time, those responsible for the foundation, above all its secretary general Erich Valentin, who was also head of the library, and its president Albert Reitter, succeeded in gaining access to important church collections.

In this way, extensive music and book collections from confiscated or expropriated church libraries found their way into the Mozarteum Foundation, which had dropped the word “International” from its name during the Nazi era. After the end of World War II, most of these holdings were returned to their rightful owners. However, since the acquisitions were insufficiently documented and a number of documents were also lost, some works remained in the library of the Mozarteum Foundation (today Bibliotheca Mozartiana), the provenance of which could no longer be determined.

Intensive provenance research in the archives of the Mozarteum Foundation and numerous other institutions has so far led to the identification of several manuscript and printed works from two expropriated ecclesiastical collections in the holdings of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana. The International Mozarteum Foundation has undertaken to return all affected works to their rightful owners in accordance with the guidelines that apply to state institutions in the Republic of Austria.

Provenance research at the Bibliotheca Mozartiana is part of an ongoing research project dealing with the history of the International Mozarteum Foundation during the Nazi era. In 2022, the first results were published in an anthology:

Die Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum und der Nationalsozialismus. Politische Einflüsse auf Organisation, Mozart-Forschung, Museum und Bibliothek, edited by Alexander Pinwinkler and Oliver Rathkolb on behalf of the International Mozarteum Foundation, Anton Pustet Verlag Salzburg 2022.

Provenance research is the subject of a separate contribution in this volume, which sheds light on the background to the events:

Armin Brinzing: Provenienzforschung in der Bibliotheca Mozartiana, in: Die Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum und der Nationalsozialismus, Salzburg 2022, pp. 279–311.

According to the current state of research, two Salzburg collections from which looted property in the Bibliotheca Mozartiana could be identified are affected:

The entire property of the Archabbey of St. Peter was confiscated by the Nazi government in 1940, and a large part of its historical music collection was transferred to the Mozarteum Foundation for administration in 1942. Between 1956 and 1981, the collection of about 900 works was largely restituted. However, several prints and manuscripts were overlooked at that time, as the transfer in 1942 had only been incompletely documented. In the course of the ongoing complete cataloguing of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana and extensive archival research, 12 prints and manuscripts have so far been identified as belonging to the Archabbey of St. Peter. The most important pieces are four contemporary copies of marches and minuets by Wolfgang Amadé Mozart.

(Illustration: manuscript copy from St. Peter’s)

The Catholic University Association was founded in 1884 with the aim of re-establishing a Catholic university in Salzburg. In the course of the National Socialists’ massive crackdown on church institutions, the association was dissolved as early as May 1938 by order of SS Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich and its assets confiscated. Its library was assigned to the “Forschungsgemeinschaft Deutsches Ahnenerbe”. As part of the SS apparatus, the “Ahnenerbe” was one of the most important organizations in the Europe-wide theft of art and cultural assets. In 1942, the Mozarteum Foundation received extensive musical holdings from this institution, which, however, are not documented in detail. In 1945, the majority of the music was restituted. In the course of provenance research, however, 13 manuscripts and prints from the 19th and early 20th centuries have so far been traced in the holdings of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana, which belonged to the Universitätsverein. Its legal successor, the Katholisches Hochschulwerk, has generously agreed to leave the affected works in the Bibliotheca Mozartiana. The provenance of all affected works is documented in the catalogs of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana and can thus be traced at any time.

(Illustration: Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Don Giovanni, piano score; manuscript copy from the Katholischer Universitätsverein, 1854)

Restitution of the International Mozarteum Foundation to the Archabbey of St. Peter
As of: March 2022

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: 12 Minuets, K. 103, manuscript copy, c. 1772-1775

Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: Rara 103/1
Detailed description in RISM
Digitized version

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: 12 Minuets, K. 103, arranged for harpsichord, manuscript copy, c. 1775
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: Rara 103/2
Detailed description in RISM
Digitized version

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: March in D, K. 215, manuscript copy, c. 1790
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: Rara 215/1
Detailed description in RISM
Digitized version

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: March in C, K. 408, manuscript copy, end of the 18th century
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: Rara 408/1
Detailed description in RISM
Digitized version

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Trois Sonates pour le Forte-Piano accompagnés d’un Violon [K. 301, 302, 304], print, Braunschweig [1798]
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: Rara 301/1
Detailed description in the catalog of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana 

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Trois Sonates pour le Forte-Piano accompagnés d’un Violon [K. 303, 305, 306], print, Braunschweig [1798]
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: Rara 305/1
Detailed description in the catalog of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana 

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Trois Sonates pour le Forte Piano [K. 330–332], print, Braunschweig [1798]
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: Rara 300h/2
Detailed description in the catalog of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana 

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Trois sonates pour le Forte Piano [K. 502, 542, 548], print, Braunschweig [1798]
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: Rara 502/2
Detailed description in the catalog of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana 

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Ouverture de l’Opera: Le Nozze di Figaro, print, Wien [1807]
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: Rara 492/50
Detailed description in the catalog of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana 

Cajetan Adlgasser: Litaniae de B. V. Mariae, manuscript copy, c. 1770
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: RaraHs Adl 3
Detailed description in RISM 

Edmond Duval: L’Organiste Grégorien, print, Malines 1845
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: RaraDru Duv 51
Detailed description in the catalog of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana 

Michael Haydn: Partitur-Fundament, ed. by Martin Bischofreiter, print, Salzburg 1833
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: RaraDru MH 2
Detailed description in the catalog of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana 

 Restitution of the International Mozarteum Foundation to the Katholisches Hochschulwerk
As of: March 2022

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Der Schauspiel-Director, print, Mannheim [ca. 1829]
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: Rara 486/4
Detailed description in the catalog of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana 

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Don Giovanni, piano score, manuscript copy, Salzburg 1854
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: Rara 527/3
Detailed description in RISM

Hermann Kretzschmar: Musikalische Zeitfragen, Leipzig 1903
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: 146
Detailed description in the catalog of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana 

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Fantasie pour le piano [K. 475], manuscript copy, 1853
Rara 475/2
Detailed description in RISM

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Symphony, K. 543, Minuet, arr. for piano, manuscript copy, c. 1860
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: Rara 543/1
Detailed description in RISM

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Quintette zu 4 Händen, print, Leipzig [ca. 1910]
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: P4 6/1.14
Detailed description in the catalog of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana 

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Don Juan [pour piano à quatre mains], print, Leipzig [1870]
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: Rara 527/62
Detailed description in the catalog of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana 

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Oeuvres complettes, Abt. I, Band 2, print, Leipzig [1798]
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: Rara Sbd 15-I-2/2
Detailed description in the catalog of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana 

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Oeuvres complettes, Abt. I, Band 3, print, Leipzig [1799]
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: Rara Sbd 15-I-3/2
Detailed description in the catalog of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana 

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Oeuvres complettes, Abt. I, Band 6, print, Leipzig [1799-1800]
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: Rara Sbd 15-I-6/5
Detailed description in the catalog of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana

Ignace Pleyel: Trois Grands Duos pour deux violons, print, Offenbach [um 1800]
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: RaraDru Ple 8

Lukas Schubaur: Die Dorfdeputirten [printed libretto], München 1787
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: Rara Lib Dorf 1
Detailed description in the catalog of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana 

Seeliger: Das Abendgeläut, print, Magdeburg [1863]
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: RaraDru See 1

Sigismund Thalberg: Fantaisie pour le Piano-Forte, print, Wien [1832/33]
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: RaraDru Tha 1
Detailed description in the catalog of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana 

Johann R. Zumsteeg: Die Geister-Insel, print, Leipzig [1799]
Shelf no. of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana: RaraDru Zum 1
Detailed description in the catalog of the Bibliotheca Mozartiana