Sinfonic Movement in G major (Fragment), K. 504a
ヴォルフガング・アマデウス・モーツァルト作
Mozart’s Sinfonic movement in G major (K. 504a) is a tiny surviving symphonic fragment from Vienna, written in late 1786, when he was 30. Preserved in autograph on a single notated page, it stands close in time to the “Prague” Symphony, K. 504, and offers a brief glimpse of Mozart thinking in a large-orchestra idiom that he did not carry to completion.
Background and Context
In Vienna in late 1786 (November–December), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) was balancing theatrical ambition with concert and freelance pressures—exactly the milieu that also produced the Symphony No. 38 in D major, K. 504 (dated 6 December 1786) [1]. The related fragment K. 504a is likewise placed in Vienna, late 1786, and survives as an uncompleted work in Mozart’s hand [2]. Its close association in the catalog with K. 504 suggests it belongs to the same creative window, even if its intended destination—independent symphony, alternate movement, or a compositional trial—cannot be established from the surviving leaf alone [2].
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Musical Character
What can be said securely is largely bounded by its transmission: the autograph consists of one written page (“1 Bl. (1 beschr. S.)”), implying a short continuity of music rather than a fully laid-out movement with orchestration across many pages [2]. Even so, the designation “sinfonic movement” points toward Mozart’s symphonic language—clear tonal rhetoric, energetic Allegro-type momentum, and the expectation of developed thematic working—rather than, say, a self-contained dance or serenade movement [2].
In G major, one would typically expect bright, open sonorities and a natural fit for horn writing; the fragment’s very existence hints at Mozart testing a sonorous palette and a formal “argument” appropriate to public orchestral performance, then setting it aside before the larger plan crystallized [2].
Place in the Catalog
K. 504a sits immediately beside the Prague Symphony in Mozart’s late-1786 output, and the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe groups it among the composer’s surviving fragments [2]. Heard in that light, it functions less as a “missing symphony” than as a documentary sliver of Mozart’s symphonic workshop on the threshold of his late Viennese orchestral style.
[1] Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, Köchel-Verzeichnis entry for Symphony in D major, K. 504: dating (Vienna, 06.12.1786) and general work data.
[2] Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, Köchel-Verzeichnis entry for Sinfonic movement in G major (fragment), K. 504a: status (uncompleted), dating (Vienna, 11–12.1786), and autograph description (1 leaf, 1 written page).