Canon in B♭ major for 6 voices, “Leck mich im Arsch” (K. 231) — doubtful
av Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Canon in B♭ major for six equal voices, “Leck mich im Arsch” (K. 231), is a short, convivial round associated with Vienna in 1782, when the 26-year-old composer was newly settled there. Its attribution is debated, and the text circulated in altered, bowdlerized forms during early publication history.
Background and Context
In Vienna in 1782, Mozart was building a freelance life—teaching, performing, and composing for both public venues and private sociability. Small-scale vocal canons belonged to that informal world of after-dinner music-making, where friends could sing from a single line and let the strictness of counterpoint meet the looseness of convivial humor.
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For K. 231, the modern catalogues and editors are cautious: the piece survives in problematic transmission and is widely described as of doubtful authenticity, even while it remains closely tied to Mozart’s Viennese circle and to a group of similarly bawdy canons long connected with his name.[1][2] What is secure is the work’s identity as a six-voice canon in B♭ major and its later publication history under sanitized words (often titled “Laßt froh uns sein”), a telling sign of how such pieces moved from private joking to public print.[3]
Musical Character
On the page, K. 231 is a compact canon for six equal voices, unaccompanied, laid out so that the same melody is imitated successively at fixed time-intervals—counterpoint made social, as each singer joins the texture and helps complete the harmony.[3] The choice of B♭ major, a comfortable choral key, supports quick ensemble singing and clear triadic sonorities; the effect is more about momentum and blend than about solo display.
The notorious text (“Leck mich im Arsch”) is best understood as part of the work’s comic provocation rather than its musical substance. Indeed, the canon’s durability lies in the neat fit between a simple, easily memorized subject and the accumulating bustle of six-part imitation—an idea Mozart loved throughout his Viennese years, whether in learned finales or in miniature forms meant for friends at close range.[1]
[1] Köchel-Verzeichnis (International Mozarteum Foundation): work entry for K. 231, notes doubtful authenticity and basic catalog data.
[2] Digital Mozart Edition (Mozarteum): NMA-related PDF discussing doubts about authenticity for canons including K. 231 and the transmission problems (English).
[3] IMSLP: Canon for 6 voices in B-flat major, K. 231/382c — general information (key, date, scoring) and publication/lyrics notes.