Rondo for a Piano Concerto in A (fragment, alternative finale to K. 488), K. 488d
av Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Rondo for a Piano Concerto in A (K. 488d) is an eleven-bar fragment from Vienna (dated by the Mozarteum catalogue to November 1785–February 1786), apparently one of several discarded openings for the finale of Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488.[1] Its survival offers a fleeting glimpse into Mozart’s workshop at age 30, as he refined the concerto’s concluding rondo idea in the months around its completion.[2])
What Is Known
K. 488d survives as an uncompleted concerto movement in A major, transmitted as an autograph from 1786 (a single leaf with one written page) and described as the opening of a “brilliant rondo.”[1] The Mozarteum’s catalogue identifies it as one of three attempts Mozart made before settling on the finale theme of Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488.[1]
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The fragment’s scoring, as notated, is unusually bare for a Mozart concerto finale: solo keyboard with strings only (violins I & II, viola, and bass line for cello/double bass), with no winds specified.[1] This likely reflects a drafting stage rather than a firm decision about the concerto’s eventual orchestration.
Musical Content
What survives is the opening gesture of a rondo in A major, breaking off after 11 bars.[1] Even in this tiny span, the fragment suggests a finale designed for momentum: the piano is already foregrounded against a light string accompaniment, as if Mozart were sketching a theme meant to return and be “played” against contrasting episodes—precisely the dramatic premise of concerto-rondo writing in his Viennese maturity (as realized, in finished form, in K. 488’s Allegro assai finale).[2])
[1] International Mozarteum Foundation, Köchel Catalogue entry for KV 488d (dating, instrumentation, length, relation to KV 488).
[2] Wikipedia: Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488 (completion date and finale context).