Musical writing that may prove Mozart's sister gave him a helping hand

Portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart circa 1780 painted by Johann Nepomuk della Croce. Photo / Getty Images

She was widely acknowledged as one of the finest pianists of her generation, but scholars have tended to dismiss any suggestion that Mozart's older sister Maria Anna helped nurture his genius.

Though her life and talents have inspired numerous novels and dramatisations, including a play that opens in London this week, scholars found little evidence that Maria Anna directly influenced her brother.

But Prof Martin Jarvis, an Australia-based scholar and conductor, believes he has finally identified Maria Anna's "musical handwriting", a discovery that confirms she composed works used by her younger brother to learn piano.

He said the finding could be used to explore the possibility that Maria Anna may also have played a part in composing works written by her brother, who was five years younger.

"We know that Maria Anna composed but no one has ever been able to identify the music written by her," Prof Jarvis told The Daily Telegraph: "Now we have identified her musical fingerprint, we can look for music in her hand and see whether there is evidence of her helping her brother.

What is distinctly possible is that with the works of Wolfgang Amadeus, she may have had some involvement in it - particularly the earlier pieces. We have not found evidence of it yet."

The five-year study, conducted with a forensic document specialist in the United States and an Australian police forensic scientist, involved analysis of handwriting and music calligraphy by members of the Mozart family.

Prof Jarvis said the research found that one of the three main scribes who wrote in Maria Anna's music notebook - long referred to by scholars as "Anonymous 1" - was likely to have been Maria Anna herself.

The notebook was used by Mozart's father to teach him.

"In the notebook, Mozart's father has written when Mozart learnt to play the pieces," he said.

"If his sister composed them, were they composed specifically for him to play the piano?... As a girl in the 18th century, it was highly unlikely Marie Anna was ever going to put her name on anything - she would not have been allowed."

In a research paper about Mozart's sister, Prof Jarvis concludes: "After 250 years of musical oblivion, the forensic examination has provided evidence that has enabled Maria Anna Mozart to be identified as probably Anonymous 1; and, that she is also the likely composer of over 20 pieces of music in her own Notebook."

He said: "We have only just opened the crack in the door. Maria Anna has always been this mysterious piece in history. What else we can find? Who knows?"

It is not the first time that Prof Jarvis has claimed to have uncovered the hidden hand of a woman in the career of a famous composer.

In 2006, he published controversial research suggesting that Bach's Six Cello Suites were more likely to have been composed by Anna Magdalena, his second wife.