A newly discovered accompanied recitative to Mozart's ‘Vado, ma dove’, K.583

Abstract

The recitative is found in the original conducting score of Martin y Soler’s opera Il burbero di buon cuore, held by the Austrian National Library. While no autograph of the accompagnato survives that would unequivocably identify it as Mozart’s composition, the evidence strongly points to that conclusion. Motivically tight and well-crafted, the accompagnato continues the process of reworking borrowed material observable in K.583 as well as its companion aria ‘Chi sa, chi sa qual sia’ K.582. In the conducting score, the accompagnato is written on the same inserted gathering as K.583 and in the same hand. Even more compellingly, the aria begins on the reverse side of the page on which the accompagnato ends. The aria is labelled by the copyist as ‘del sigr. Mozart’; the recitative, not surprisingly, is not separately identified.