Violin Sonata No. 31 in C major (fragment; completed by M. Stadler), K. 404
av Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Violin Sonata No. 31 in C major (K. 404) survives only in incomplete form, with later work by Abbé Maximilian Stadler making it performable. Associated with Mozart’s Vienna years, it offers a brief, tantalizing glimpse of his keyboard-led chamber style at a moment of rapid artistic consolidation.
What Is Known
What is transmitted under K. 404 is an uncompleted work for violin and keyboard (listed as violin and clavier) in C major, connected with Abbé Maximilian Stadler as an arranger/completer [1]. Modern scholarship also notes that, for this particular item, the surviving source situation is lopsided: only an autograph leaf for part of the music is known to survive, and the coupling of the movements depends on early publication tradition rather than incontrovertible manuscript evidence [2].
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Historically, Stadler’s role matters for performers because it complicates authorship within what appears, on the page, to be a small two-movement entity (Andante and Allegretto), circulating as a kind of compact “sonatina” in early print [2]. As with other Mozart fragments handled in the early 19th century, the “work” that reaches modern listeners can therefore be partly Mozart’s notation, partly an editor’s or completer’s connective tissue, and partly a publication concept.
Musical Content
K. 404 is generally encountered as two very short movements in C major—an Andante followed by an Allegretto—in the intimate, conversational world of Mozart’s Viennese keyboard-and-violin writing, where the keyboard typically carries the compositional argument and the violin adds color, counterpoint, and brilliance [1]. In practical terms, the fragment’s appeal lies less in large-scale sonata architecture than in Mozart’s gift for clean, singing periods and quick harmonic poise—materials that invite completion, but also reveal exactly where the surviving text runs out and later hands begin.
[1] Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum (Köchel-Verzeichnis): KV 403 page with link and metadata context for KV 404 (status, key, instrumentation, Stadler additions).
[2] G. Henle Verlag PDF (preface/critical discussion of Mozart violin sonata fragments), including remarks on K. 404’s short movements, source survival, and uncertainties of linkage/authorship.