La Chasse (fragment) in A major, K. 320f
볼프강 아마데우스 모차르트 작
Mozart’s La Chasse (fragment) (K. 320f) is a brief, unfinished orchestral movement in A major, drafted in Paris between May and July 1778, when the composer was 22. What survives—just a single leaf of autograph score—suggests a piece written in a bright, outdoor idiom associated with hunting topics, but its intended dramatic setting remains unclear.
What Is Known
The International Mozarteum Foundation catalogues La Chasse as an authentic but uncompleted “instrumental movement in A for orchestra,” composed in Paris in the period May–July 1778.[1] The surviving source is an autograph score on one leaf (two written pages), headed “// Chaße //,” indicating that only a fragment of the planned stage music has come down to us.[1]
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Instrumentation in the manuscript is classical and festive: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 horns, and strings (violins I & II, viola, cello and bass), a palette well-suited to open-air color and signal-like horn writing.[1] Beyond the title, however, no secure identification of the associated play, pantomime, or ballet scenario is transmitted in the principal catalog record, and the specific dramatic function of the music remains uncertain.[1]
Musical Content
Even in fragmentary form, the title points toward the late-18th-century chasse topic: lively motion, clear periodic phrasing, and horn-led gestures that evoke calls and the bustle of the hunt. The scoring—especially the pair of horns against bright woodwinds—places the fragment close to the public, orchestral sound-world Mozart was absorbing and refining in Paris in 1778, the same stay that produced his “Paris” Symphony, K. 297/300a.[2])
[1] International Mozarteum Foundation (Köchel Catalogue Online): KV 320f “Instrumental movement in A for orchestra ‘La chasse’” (dating, autograph description, instrumentation).
[2] Wikipedia: Symphony No. 31 (“Paris” Symphony), K. 297/300a (context for Mozart’s Paris stay in 1778).