The idea of creating a counterfeit of a genuine Mozart manuscript is
outrageous, but to attempt the forging of two such compositions for the
purpose of a technical/musical swindle is an order of magnitude more
aggressive. Yet that is exactly what Forger, a counterfeiting genius, and
Librarian, an eighteenth century document specialist, decide to do, their
motivation being a $20,000,000 price tag. They are faced with incredible
impediments not the least of which is the authentication of both documents
by some of the world’s leading Mozart scholars. From any perspective, the
effort appears preposterous.
Their choice of compositions are the lost manuscripts of Mozart’s clarinet
concerto and his quintet for clarinet and strings. Each stage of the effort is,
by itself, an awesome undertaking, what with handwriting, paper, ink,
watermarks, pens, and a great deal of imprecise history surrounding both
works—the originals of which disappeared around 1800. Together, they
combine to create a task so technically difficult that the probability of
success is only slightly less than winning the Irish sweepstakes without
buying a ticket.
The author, one of America’s leading Mozart authorities, is a prize-winning
technical writer who also dabbles in fiction. His imaginative and skillful
handling of the story’s details walks the reader—sometimes not very
gently—through each stage of the awesome effort. This entirely fictitious
story is his contribution to the events of 2006, which are intended to
commemorate the quarter millennium of Mozart’s birth.