'Major discovery': France's National Library brings forgotten Mozart manuscript back to life

By FRANCE 24

A long-forgotten manuscript by composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart will be brought to life this weekend in Paris. The newly rediscovered work – composed in 1778 when the Austrian prodigy was just 22 – will be performed in public for the first time ever at France's National Library. 

A composition notebook by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart containing seven pieces for harp and flute is displayed at
the National Library of France (BnF) in Paris on June 15, 2026. © Kenzo Tribouillard, AFP

Musicians this weekend will for the first time publicly interpret music for flute and harp that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote as a 22-year-old while teaching an aristocratic French student.

The unprecedented concert on Sunday at France’s National Library (BnF), comes after what it has called a "major discovery".

Francois-Pierre Goy, a curator in the library's music department, stumbled across the treasure as he examined a pile of anonymous manuscripts he wanted to get through before retirement.

"I never imagined what I was about to find," he told AFP.

The 44-page notebook includes a dozen daily exercises the Austrian prodigy gave Marie-Louise-Philippine de Bonnieres de Guines from May to July 1778, as well as seven pieces for flute and harp, he said.

She was an excellent harpist and the daughter of the Duke of Guines, himself a renowned flautist.

"It just so happened that I had been looking at some of Mozart's teaching material a few weeks earlier," Goy said.

Soon he noticed similarities – including "the treble clefs that are quite rounded and tilted slightly forward", and bass clefs drawn in the opposite direction from how they usually are in France, he added.

"Could it be him?" Goy said he thought to himself.

Comparisons with Mozart's other handwritten works, the French paper used, and stamps on the notebook identical to those on a French copy of Mozart's "Concerto for Flute and Harp" that the Duke of Guines had commissioned all seemed to indicate he was right.

Armin Brinzing, director of the Austria-based Mozarteum Foundation, authenticated the document in April.

The manuscript "is part of two bundles of music that were confiscated from the home of the Duke of Guines in 1794" during the French Revolution, and eventually ended up at the BnF, according to the library.

Mozart died in 1791 aged 35.

Discoveries like this "for such a famous composer are almost unheard of", said Mathias Auclair, director of the BnF's music department.

Several Mozart compositions have been rediscovered in recent years.

In one case, in 2012, someone found a Mozart piano piece composed when he was 11 in an Austrian attic.

For harpists and flautists, who have "very little repertoire" available to them, the discovery at the BnF is a wonderful surprise, he said.

BnF president Gilles Pecout said the new music sheets shed light on Mozart as a young teacher and documented his last stay in Paris in 1778 – on which there is scant information.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP) - June 19, 2026

Remembering the car that carried Australia

Prime Minister Ben Chifley at the launch of the first Holden car in 1948.

By Helen Musa

Public reaction to Australia’s first locally made car in 1948 was extraordinary. Now an aptly titled exhibition at the National Archives, Rear Vision: the Holden Collection, brings to life the memories and stories of GMH, reports HELEN MUSA. 

“We love football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars,” went the famous advertising jingle from the 1970s.

Small matter that it was a rip-off from the American jingle, “Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet”, it took off here among a populace who probably didn’t know or care that the same company – General Motors – owned both Holden and Chevrolet.

Historically, public reaction to Australia’s first locally made car in 1948 was extraordinary. Around 18,000 people reportedly signed up to buy the car sight unseen and at the height of Holden’s popularity, the EH Holden became the fastest-selling Australian car ever, with more than 250,000 sold in 18 months.

Now an aptly titled exhibition at the National Archives of Australia, Rear Vision: the Holden Collection, brings to life the memories and stories of General Motors Holden.

As visitors walk in the door of the archives, they will be confronted by a large 48-215 (FX) Holden, the property of Canberra Classic Holden Club members June and Tony Pryce, who painstakingly restored it in original duck-egg blue tones sourced from period colours.

NAA curator Anna Edmundson with a Holden 48-215 (FX). The oldest Holden registered in the ACT, it was assembled in Sydney in September 1949. June and Tony Pryce bought it in 1990 and painstakingly restored it in original duck-egg blue tones sourced from period colours. Photo: Peter Hislop

When I catch up with NAA curator Anna Edmundson, I learn that the show, developed originally by the State Library of South Australia with the University of Adelaide, has been augmented in Canberra with patent records, advertising, industrial relations files and material relating to women workers’ campaigns for equal pay, all from the Archives’ collection.

Bookended by the first and last engines Holden produced – yes, the actual engines – Rear Vision traces the company’s journey from a 19th century Adelaide saddlery, through military production during World War II, the creation of Australia’s own car and finally the company’s closure in 2017.

Inside the show are Monaro transmission components, custom paint and trim samples, fibreglass moulds, glasswork, Lego model cars and the original bronze lion statue from the entrance to the Elizabeth assembly plant.

The launch of the 500,000th Holden, 1958 .

And for those feeling nostalgic, there will even be photo opportunities inviting visitors to place themselves back into the “good old days” behind the wheel of a cardboard FX.

I find that although American-owned, Holden quickly became synonymous with Australian nationalism and indeed the names “Boomerang” and “Woomera” were touted for the original car, though they settled on the more commonplace 48-215, quickly known as the FX and later superseded by the famous FJ.

Later models, however, did adopt names drawn from Aboriginal languages: Torana meaning “to fly”, Monaro meaning “high plains” and Camira meaning “wind”.

The exhibition explores Holden’s place in Australian cultural memory.

“We’ve all got a picture in our minds of grandma near a Holden with a Hills Hoist in the background,” Edmundson says.

There is material relating to artist Albert Namatjira, who spent his first tax return on a green Holden truck, and to Jimmy Barnes, who worked at the Elizabeth plant in SA after migrating from Glasgow.

Barnes would go on to perform Shutting Down Our Town, written by Troy Cassar-Daley, at a farewell party for retrenched workers when the Elizabeth factory closed in October 2017.

Holden as an early saddlery in Adelaide… Holden & Frost, Grenfell Street, 1907. Photo: Ernest Gall

The story began in 1856 when James Alexander Holden, a talented inventor as Edmundson points out, established a saddlery business in Adelaide that expanded into carriage trim, leather seats and carriage bodies before moving into early car-body production mounted on to imported Chevrolet chassis and engines. Little known is that in the 1920s Holden also supplied bodies for Melbourne’s W-Class trams.

When it merged with General Motors in 1931, the company retained enough autonomy to develop vehicles adapted to Australian conditions.

The exhibition argues that Holden’s real industrial transformation came during World War II when it shifted into military manufacturing, producing aircraft engines, anti-tank guns, artillery shells, bombs and military equipment.

Among the wartime objects on show is the Gipsy Major engine that powered Tiger Moth aircraft, the first Australian-built Holden engine, contrasted with the company’s final 2017 vehicle, the VF Commodore SS-V Redline, later purchased for $750,000 by a former Holden employee.

Women workers during World War II cleaning dust from bomber tanks, 1943. Photographer: Darian Smith

Pride of place is also given to the Beaufort Bomber program, especially photographs showing the women working on the bomber production.

Edmundson says that around 35 per cent of people working on the Beaufort were women, though they had to strike to demand equal pay with men after intervention by the Women’s Employment Board. 

The exhibition also stresses the multicultural make-up of the workforce, while another section examines the devastation wrought on trades communities after the company’s collapse.

Ultimately, Edmundson says, Rear Visions is less about the physicality of the car than the stories of people.

Rear Vision: the Holden Collection, National Archives of Australia, daily, until October 11. Free.

First published at Canberra City News, June 17, 2026

Beatles great Sir Paul McCartney extends chart record

Sir Paul McCartney has secured his 24th number one album in the UK with The Boys of Dungeon Lane.
(EPA PHOTO)

Sir Paul McCartney has extended his record as the most successful albums act of all time.

The 83-year-old icon has topped the UK charts once again with The Boys of Dungeon Lane, which has become the 24th number one album of his storied career.

“Paul McCartney securing his 24th number one album in the UK is an incredible achievement, and his place as the most successful albums artist in the history of the Official Charts is truly deserved,” Official Charts Company co-managing directors Becca Monahan and Chris Austin said.

“Across seven decades, Paul’s music has found new generations of fans, and this latest milestone is a testament to his extraordinary career.

“As we near the 70th anniversary of the Official Albums Chart on 22nd July, Paul’s continued success highlights his profound and sustained impact across the lifetime of the chart.

“Congratulations to Paul on another historic milestone.”

McCartney has achieved 15 number one LPs as a member of the Beatles, two with the band Wings, six with his solo projects and one alongside Linda McCartney, his first wife, who passed away in April 1998, aged 56.

The Boys of Dungeon Lane has also topped the Official Vinyl Albums Chart and the Official Record Store Chart, meaning it’s sold the most copies in independent UK record shops in the past week.

Meanwhile, McCartney recently confessed to being amazed by the Beatles’ enduring popularity and his solo success.

“It is phenomenal, it is really phenomenal,” McCartney said, appearing on TikTok live.

“When we started out, we were just kids, and rock and roll was just really coming in, and we thought, ‘if we’re lucky, we’ve got a couple of years’ – that’s how long people normally lasted. They couldn’t really sustain much more after that.

“We expected maybe five years max, and then that became 10, and we were kind of still going and the scene’s still there.

“Then it became 20, then 30, and now it’s right up there. It’s great, it is a lovely feeling.”

Published at Australian Associated Press via City News, June 6, 2026