Movement to a Piano Concerto in C (fragment; in conjunction with K. 453), K. 452c
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Movement to a Piano Concerto in C (K. 452c) is a tiny surviving sketch from Vienna in April 1784, apparently conceived as a slow movement draft related to the Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major, K. 453.[1] What remains is too incomplete to reconstruct with confidence, but it offers a brief glimpse into Mozart’s concerto workshop at age 28.
What Is Known
K. 452c is transmitted as a fragmentary middle-movement draft (Mittelsatz) for a piano concerto in C major, associated in the literature with the concerto project that became Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major, K. 453.[1][2] The sketch is generally dated to April 1784 in Vienna—precisely the period in which Mozart was producing concertos for his subscription concerts and for his pupil Barbara Ployer.[1][3])
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
What survives appears to be fewer than ten bars in Mozart’s hand, including an indication of instrumentation rather than a fully laid-out orchestral score.[1] The scoring noted in secondary descriptions aligns with the standard 1784 concerto orchestra used in K. 453 (pairs of oboes, bassoons, and horns with strings, plus flute), suggesting that the fragment belongs to Mozart’s mature concerto sound-world rather than to a chamber genre—despite occasional cross-references in non-specialist catalog lists.[1]
Musical Content
The fragment is typically described as an Adagio in C major—i.e., a slow movement idea—preserved too briefly to establish a complete form (such as sonata, ternary, or theme-and-variations).[1] Nonetheless, its very premise is revealing: K. 453’s finished slow movement is itself in C major, and K. 452c looks like an abandoned attempt at solving the same expressive problem (how to place a poised C-major interior movement within a G-major concerto) before Mozart arrived at the final Andante we know today.[3])
[1] Chezy (Marimo) Mozart works list entry noting K. 452c as an Adagio in C major fragment (Vienna, April 1784), surviving as under 10 bars with instrumentation indicated; linked with K. 453.
[2] Klassika Werkverzeichnis list entry for KV 6 452c: “Mittelsatz zu einem Klavierkonzert (Fragment)” (1784).
[3] Wikipedia overview of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major, K. 453 (1784) including movement keys (II in C major).