Minuet for String Quartet in B♭ major (fragment), K. 458a
ヴォルフガング・アマデウス・モーツァルト作
Mozart’s Minuet in B♭ major for string quartet (fragment), K. 458a, survives as a brief, unfinished sketch from Vienna, preserved on a single autograph leaf. Although minor in scale, it sits close to the sound-world of Mozart’s mature quartet writing of the mid-1780s—music in which dance rhetoric is sharpened into genuine chamber conversation.[1]
What Is Known
Only a fragment of this Menuetto survives: the International Mozarteum Foundation’s Köchel-Verzeichnis entry describes an autograph source (dated 1784) consisting of one leaf, written on one side, labelled “Menuetto Allegrett°”.[1] The scoring is explicitly for string quartet—two violins, viola, and violoncello—and the work is classified as uncompleted.[1]
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Because the notation is fragmentary, modern performances (when attempted) typically depend on editorial completion or reconstruction; the surviving page does not transmit a full, performable Minuet and Trio in the manner of Mozart’s finished quartets. The attribution to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) is treated as secure in the Mozarteum catalogue.[1]
Musical Content
What can safely be inferred from the source description is modest but concrete: this is a B♭-major minuet marked Allegretto, written in score layout for four string parts.[1] In practice, that combination points to a movement conceived less as a mere “dance tune” than as a compact chamber texture—exactly the arena in which, in Vienna in the mid-1780s, Mozart refined a style of poised phrase symmetry animated by conversational inner parts.
[1] International Mozarteum Foundation (Köchel-Verzeichnis): KV 458a — work entry with authenticity, dating, key, instrumentation, and source description (autograph, 1 leaf; “Menuetto Allegrett°”).