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‘This year someone discovered the autograph manuscript of
the A major Sonata. I hope plenty of other secrets like this will
still be unearthed for many years to come, but even if it proves
necessary to add a note here, change one there, or incorporate a
new variation, the underlying meaning of the work can’t be any
different, whatever new discoveries may be made.’
This recent discovery createda stir in themusicalworld. Itwasmadeby aHungarian
musicologist, Balázs Mikusi, at the National Szechenyi Library in Budapest. What
he found was the first four pages of Mozart’s autograph manuscript, the last
page of which is conserved in Salzburg. As if to corroborate Menahem Pressler’s
remarks above, this source confirms the accuracy of the very first edition, which
Mozart himself supervised. Although that edition was often ‘corrected’ later on, it
is nonetheless the one that has been used by competent editors. So the essence
of the work was indeed there, just as Menahem Pressler had learnt it, with that
memory developed in childhood which initially works through the fingers and the
mechanical process until
‘all of a sudden, the piece becomes part of you: what
is henceforth an indissociable and indelible combination of fingers, mind, and
heart’.
28 MOZART_Piano Sonatas K331, 570 & 576