Mozart and the Keyboard Culture of His Time

Count Karl Firmian
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This is one of the most commonly reproduced misattributed portraits. The boy is actually a young Count Karl Firmian, who was a childhood friend of Mozart. Note the keyboard’s odd assortment of black keys.

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Oil Painting by Thaddäus Helbling, ca. 1767. Original owned by the Mozarteum, Salzburg
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Introduction
From Sketch to Completed Work
From Print to CD
How did Mozart Compose?
The Mozart Myth: Tales of a Forgery
Mozart's Images
Mozart's Images Imagined
What the Score Doesn't Tell Us
The Piano Lesson
The Cult of Mozart
Commodification & Kitsch
Credits
Cornell University Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections Cornell University Library

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