Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart - Liszt Misattribution

Liszt Misattribution

Franz Xaver Mozart's "Five Variations on a romance from Méhul's Joseph, Op. 23" was published in 1820. But the work was, until 1994, mistakenly attributed to the young Liszt: a copyist's manuscript of the work wrongly noted that it was "par le jeune Liszt" ("by the young Liszt"). The work was published in good faith by the Neue Liszt-Ausgabe in 1990, and catalogued as Liszt's S147a. Liszt scholar Leslie Howard recorded the work in similar good faith in 1992 for his series of recordings of the complete music for solo piano by Liszt (for the disc entitled "The Young Liszt"). But shortly afterwards Howard noted in his sleevenotes for the disc's release: "It has since been established that the attribution is false and that the work is from the pen of Mozart’s son Franz Xaver, and was published as his opus 23 in 1820. But since the work remains unknown and unrecorded, like the vast majority of F X Mozart's output, and since the writing is not vastly different from some of the other pieces in this collection, it was thought best not to discard it."