Overture (lost or unidentified) in B♭ major, K. 311A
av Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Overture (lost or unidentified) in B♭ major (K. 311A) is a doubtful, now-lost orchestral work associated with his Paris months of 1778, when he was 22. The Köchel-Verzeichnis dates it to roughly July–September 1778 and links it with a documented Paris performance on 8 September 1778, though no surviving score allows the music itself to be securely described.
Background and Context
In the summer of 1778, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) was in Paris, pursuing commissions and performances while trying to stabilize his precarious professional situation. K. 311A belongs to this Paris interval (dated in the Köchel-Verzeichnis to July–September 1778) and is recorded there as a completed orchestral work whose transmission is lost and whose authenticity is doubtful. The same entry associates it with a performance on 8 September 1778 at the Palais des Tuileries (Salle des Cent-Suisses), an unusually specific breadcrumb for an otherwise vanished piece.[1]
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Musical Character
Because no score (and no reliable set of parts) survives for K. 311A, its musical substance—tempo plan, formal design, and scoring—cannot be described from primary musical evidence. What can be said with some stylistic confidence is that an overture in B♭ major written (or at least circulating under Mozart’s name) in Paris in 1778 would have had to meet French expectations for brilliance and immediacy: bold opening gestures, clear tonal rhetoric, and vivid orchestral color designed to register quickly in a large public hall. The Paris years show Mozart actively absorbing precisely such public-facing orchestral idioms, as in the Paris Symphony, K. 297/300a, with its emphasis on striking effects and animated surface energy.[2])
Place in the Catalog
K. 311A sits beside Mozart’s securely documented Paris orchestral achievements of 1778 and, even as a lost or misattributed item, points to the practical reality of his Paris life: composing (and selling) functional orchestral pieces for specific occasions and institutions, some of which—unlike the best-known symphonies and concertos—did not remain in circulation.[1]
[1] Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, Köchel-Verzeichnis entry for KV 311A (status, dating, and associated 8 Sep 1778 performance; transmission lost; authenticity doubtful).
[2] Wikipedia: Symphony No. 31 in D major (“Paris”), K. 297/300a — overview and context for Mozart’s Paris orchestral style in 1778.