Talk:Mozart symphonies of spurious or doubtful authenticity

Haydn's Hob I:6
"Identified only as Hob I:6". Hob:I:6 is without a doubt the famous Le matin Symphony No. 6. This must have been an extremely early misattribution because this is one of Haydn's most well-known works from the early Esterhazy era. Also, its the several well-known works depicting sunrises (Sunrise Quartet in Op. 76, The Creation, The Seasons) so the connection to Haydn is not difficult for modern musicologists to surmise. I see Haydn's 47th, 62nd and 75th listed in the same page of Zaslaw, but those are the three that Mozart re-copied the manuscripts in his own hand for study and performance and are written up in Rosen's Classical Style. I realize this is an article on misattributions, but was Hob:I:6 a true misattribution or is it on Zaslaw p. 546 as catalogued copied manuscript? Cheers. DavidRF (talk) 17:15, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Symphony numbers greater than 41
I was curious so I looked up the origin of these. They are from the old complete works publication Mozart-Werke or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts Werke: Kritisch durchgesehene Gesamtausgabe (Leipzig: Breitkopf and Hartel, first published in 1877, revised through 1910). (see p. 334 of The Compleat Mozart: a guide to the musical works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by Neal Zaslaw, William Cowdery). Its abbreviation is usually "GA" (as opposed to "NMA"). Many will refer to the large numbered symphonies as "GA 46" or "GA 54" to eliminate the confusion the large numbers create. Zaslaw does this as well as AP Brown is his symphonic repertoire book.DavidRF (talk) 16:17, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

GA numbers for early Mozart symphonies
copied from the user talk pages of both users involved

There is a problem with both K. 98 and K. 111+120 being labelled as "48". Is one of them a typo for "49"? Double sharp (talk) 11:59, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a good question about "No. 48". These old numbers originate from a very old edition (1877-1910) of Mozart's works Mozart-Werke (or "GA").  I haven't seen the GA numbers spelled out too frequently and many of the doubtful/spurious works have disappeared from modern books (or they don't use the GA numbers).  I can't find the exact discrepancy on wikipedia that you are talking about but I can actually see it in APBrown's Symphonic Repertoire book.  In one table on "authenticity status" (p. 327), he lists K.98/Anh.C.11.04 as GA 48 but on the page of "doubtful" works on the next page, he lists it as GA 56.  His table on "overture symphonies" does not have a column for "GA" so I don't know if K120+111a has a "GA" number.DavidRF (talk) 12:55, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The 10 Anh. symphonies in K1 (lost works)
In K1, there were listed ten lost symphonies (Anh. 214-223). Their current statuses:


 * K1. Anh. 214 = K6. 45b (doubtful)
 * K1. Anh. 215 = K6. 66c (lost)
 * K1. Anh. 216 = K3. 74g/K6. Anh.C 11.03 (doubtful)
 * K1. Anh. 217 = K6. 66d (lost)
 * K1. Anh. 218 = K6. 66e (lost)
 * K1. Anh. 219 = K6. Anh.C 11.06 (spurious)
 * K1. Anh. 220 = K6. 16a (doubtful)
 * K1. Anh. 221 = K6. 45a
 * K1. Anh. 222 = K6. 19b (lost, doubtful)
 * K1. Anh. 223 = K6. 19a

Of the ten, 4 are lost, and of these four, one is doubtful. Of the remaining six, 1 is spurious, 3 are doubtful, and 2 are unquestionably genuine. Double sharp (talk) 12:08, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The "Anh." for K1 doesn't mean that its lost. It just means that it was added after K1.  Anhang means addendum or supplement.  Now in K6, "Anh.C" implies that the work is thought to be spurious (by the specific K6 scholars anyways).DavidRF (talk) 15:03, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I know, but these ten were actually lost. Double sharp (talk) 10:21, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

"Spurious"?
It would be informative, I think, if the first paragraph of this article clarified in a simple sentence or two the difference between "spurious" and "doubtful" as used here.

In my experience, "doubtful" means that there is some reason to question the authenticity of the generally ascribed authorship (Mozart).

"Spurious," however, implies a deliberately perpetrated fraud, as established by some sort of definitive evidence. Were there really people who deliberately wrote symphonies and then ascribed them to Mozart? I suppose there could have been, but it's not clear from the article that this has been the case.

If there are symphonies definitely known to have been ascribed to Mozart, but which solid evidence shows are in fact the work of (an)other composer(s) who did not deliberately sign his/their work "Mozart", then I would call those works neither "spurious" nor "doubtful". They are neither deliberate frauds, nor is their any doubt of their true origin: they have simply been mistakenly ascribed to Mozart, at some point.

If the two terms are being used differently in the article than according to the definitions described above, there really should be some clarification provided in the introduction to the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.249 (talk) 20:48, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Stanley Sadie's assessments
In Mozart: The Early Years 1756–1781. KV 19a and KV 45a are certain: there is also certainly a lost C major work, which he identifies as "probably KV 19b" on p. 144. The attribution of KV 16a is rejected as "groundless", KV 76/42a is rejected as unauthentic, while KV Anh.214/45b is cautiously accepted ("there is however no strong reason to question the symphony's authenticity"). KV Anh.216/74g/Anh.C 11.03 and KV 96/111b are considered "suspect", while KV 75 "is more secure". The four Italian symphonies KV 81/73l, 84/73q, 95/73n, and 97/73m are cautiously accepted, due to their stylistic similarities to each other and the overtures to Mitridate and Ascanio in Alba, although KV 95/73n is noted to be the "weakest and perhaps the most dubious" of the bunch. I didn't find any mention of KV 98/Anh.C 11.04. Double sharp (talk) 03:57, 28 December 2019 (UTC)