Torn Mozart text set for display in UK

Torn into two halves by the composer's widow 170 years ago, the text will go on public display in UK to mark the 250th birth anniversary of the musical genius.

A Mozart manuscript, torn into two halves by the composer's widow 170 years ago, has been put together again and will go on public display in London to mark the 250th birth anniversary of the musical genius.

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The British Library has been home to the lower part of the leaf since 1953 and later it purchased the other half from a private owner.

Mozart was 17 when he wrote the manuscript, which his father hoped would secure his son a position at the imperial court in Vienna at the time.

But his widow, Constanze, who outlived her husband by more than 50 years, separated the manuscript in 1835 to boost its value at a time when the collection of fragments of music manuscripts began to become fashionable.

The upper portion of the manuscript was either sold or given in return for some kind of financial favour to a court musician, Julius Leidke.

Constanze sent the lower portion, later acquired by the British Library, to a local government official in Bavaria.

The manuscript contains two new cadenzas to existing piano concertos, including one that he had compiled from music by other composers at the age of 11.

The reverse side has music to a short minuet for string quartet, later discarded by Mozart in favour of another version.

The British Library's head of music collections Chris Banks said the manuscript shed an "important light" on the composer's development at a transitional phase in his life.

The reunited manuscript will go on display at the British Library from Saturday.