Mozart: *Andante* for Winds in B♭ major (fragment), K. 384b
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Andante for wind octet in B♭ major (K. 384b) is a brief surviving torso from his first Vienna years, sketched in 1782–83 when he was 26. Preserved on a single autograph leaf, it hints at the kind of Harmonie (wind-ensemble) writing that would soon culminate in the great Vienna serenades.
What Is Known
The International Mozarteum Foundation’s Köchel-Verzeichnis lists K. 384b as an uncompleted and extant fragment for wind ensemble in B♭ major, dated to Vienna, 1782–83 and authenticated as Mozart’s work (“Authenticity: verified”).[1]
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The surviving source is an autograph score consisting of one leaf (“Partitur: 1 Bl.”) with only one side written (“1 beschr. S.”), which helps explain why the piece has not entered the standard repertory as a performable movement.[1] The work is transmitted for an eight-part Harmonie scoring typical of Mozart’s Viennese wind music:
- Winds: 2 oboes, 2 clarinets
- Brass: 2 horns
- Winds (low): 2 bassoons[1]
Musical Content
Because only a small portion survives, K. 384b reads less like a complete slow movement than the opening of an *Andante* idea—a carefully balanced, chordally grounded B♭-major sonority for paired winds, with the clarinets and bassoons positioned to supply the warm “inner choir” that characterizes Mozart’s mature Harmonie sound.
What the fragment chiefly shows is Mozart’s instinct, already in 1782 Vienna, for writing sustained cantabile lines that can be shared among winds without losing continuity—an approach that would become central to the large serenades for winds and to the wind writing in his operas of the same decade.
[1] International Mozarteum Foundation, Köchel-Verzeichnis entry for K. 384b: status (fragment, uncompleted), dating (Vienna 1782–83), key (B♭ major), scoring, and autograph description.