MOZART SCORES AUCTIONED FOR RECORD $4.3 MILLION

The scores of nine symphonies of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the composer’s handwriting were auctioned Friday to an unknown buyer for a record $4.34 million.

The buyer bought the manuscripts, in one bound volume, from a private European collector, who asked for anonymity, for $3.95 million. Sotheby’s auction house charged an additional 10% commission.

Sotheby’s described the work as “the most important music manuscript to be auctioned this century.”

The nine symphonies in the volume, Nos. 22 to 30, represent almost one-quarter of Mozart’s output of 41 numbered symphonies. They were written in the 1770s, before Mozart was 20.

The three acknowledged masterpieces in the volume are No. 29 in A, No. 25 in G minor and No. 28 in C.

The previous record price for an auctioned music manuscript was $544,500 for the working draft of Igor Stravinsky’s “Sacre du Printemps” in London in 1982. That price included the 10% commission.

The bidding for the Mozart manuscript began at $840,000 and went up in $168,000 and $84,000 increments. The sale was over in three minutes.

The buyer, a man who gave his name as Kirkman, refused to say if he had bought the manuscript for himself.

“It could be for anyone,” he said as he dashed out of the sale room, chased by reporters.

A spokeswoman for Sotheby’s, who wasn’t identified, in accordance with British practice, said the auction house didn’t know who the buyer was and that it was trying to contact the man.

The symphonies appear to have been written as they were composed, not copied out afterward, and they were probably bound together by Mozart’s father, Leopold, Sotheby’s said.

The symphonies being in Mozart’s hand made the volume especially appealing to collectors, it said.

The volume is small, less than 7 inches tall by 9 inches wide. The music was written in brown ink on creamy paper and the volume was covered in now-faded blue paper, it said.

The other known manuscripts of Mozart’s symphonies appear to be in public collection, Sotheby’s said.