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The Music Division holds both modern and early editions of Mozart's music. Because printed editions of the composer's music are both plentiful and easy to find using the Library of Congress Online Catalog, this page highlights 19th-century editions that have been digitized and made available through the Library's Digital Collections, early printed editions that are both rare and difficult to locate, critical editions of Mozart's music, facsimile reproductions of the composer's manuscripts held by other institutions, and different editions of libretti to his operas.
Some 19th-century published editions of Mozart's music have been digitized. Many, but not all, are arrangements for piano by others. View and download them on the Library's website by searching "Mozart" and limiting results to "notated music." Find many of these digitized scores in the digital sheet music collections, Early American Sheet Music and Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, ca. 1870 to 1885. Some examples are listed below.
The Music Division holds first and early editions for over 150 of Mozart's works. Find many first editions—but not all—under the call number M3.3 in the Library of Congress Classification Schedule. Many more first and early editions of Mozart's works can be found under the call number for a specific musical genre within the Classification Schedule.
Search for these items by title in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Request and view items that have not been scanned in the Performing Arts Reading Room.
The Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke [New Mozart Edition], published by Bärenreiter between 1956 and 2010, presents a scholarly musical text based on all available sources, which are primarily Mozart’s manuscripts.This critical edition consists of 132 volumes divided into 35 work groups, themselves divided into 10 series. The edition contains 25,000 pages of music, 8,000 pages of critical commentaries, 2,300 pages of forewords, and 1,800 pages of documents. Within each work group, completed works are in chronological order. Sketches, drafts and fragments of works follow in the appendix of each respective volume.
For researchers seeking critical editions available online, since 2006, the Digital Mozart Edition (DME) has worked to present Mozart's music in new digital formats. The DME has also created online editions of letters, documents, and text sources of Mozart's vocal works. The DME also provides information about musical compositions and their sources, including information on their transmission and reception.
The following titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional online content are included when available.
The Music Division holds facsimile reproductions for Mozart manuscripts held by other institutions, such as:
Find more facsimiles by searching in the Library's Online Catalog or by browsing the catalog under the call number ML96.5 .M97.
Mozart composed over 20 operas. Published versions of the libretti for these operas exist in many different iterations and forms. The Music Division's collections include published libretti from the 18th century to the present. Search for them using the following methods:
The Music Division's Albert Schatz collection of opera libretti has been scanned and made available online. The collection includes many editions of libretti to Mozart's operas and other vocal works.
The following resource also compiles the libretti of Mozart's completed operas in two volumes, with International Phonetic Alphabet transcriptions, word for word translations, and notes on the Italian and German transcriptions. The following title links to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.