Fugue for Piano in G major, K. 375g
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Mozart’s Fugue for Piano in G major (K. 375g) is a short, unfinished contrapuntal fragment from about 1776–77, written when he was around 20. Though modest in scale, it offers a revealing glimpse of the young composer testing learned fugal technique at the keyboard.
Background and Context
In 1776 Mozart was a 20-year-old court musician in Salzburg, occupied with a steady stream of commissions and practical duties while also refining the compositional craft that would soon flower in his mature Viennese years. The Fugue for Piano in G major (K. 375g) is generally dated to around 1776–77 and survives only as an incomplete fragment, suggesting a working draft or study rather than a finished concert piece [1]. In broader perspective, such brief fugue fragments align with Mozart’s intermittent engagement with strict counterpoint before his far more intensive studies of Bach and Handel in Vienna in 1782 (encouraged by Baron van Swieten) [2].
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Musical Character
On the page, K. 375g presents a compact fugal exposition in G major: a subject announced plainly and then answered in imitation, with the texture quickly thickening into multi-voice writing typical of keyboard fugue style [3]. The writing is sober rather than virtuoso—more concerned with clean voice-leading and the orderly stacking of entries than with brilliant figuration—so that the listener’s attention is drawn to the conversation between lines. Even in fragmentary form, the piece shows Mozart experimenting with how to sustain momentum through sequential continuation and closely spaced imitative entrances, a technical discipline that would later support his larger fugues and fugal finales in chamber and orchestral works.
[1] PianoLibrary work page for Fugue in G major, KV Anh. 41/375g (date range; notes that the piece is incomplete; edition pointers).
[2] Siegbert Rampel, “Mozart und die Orgel” (PDF) — discussion of Mozart’s early fugue fragments including KV Anh. 41 (375g) and uncertainty about organ vs. keyboard context; mentions van Swieten and later counterpoint study.
[3] Mutopia Project LilyPond edition PDF: “Fugue fragment Anh. 41 (375g)” — notated music for the fragment, used here to describe musical features visible in the score.