Canon in F for 3 Voices in 1, “Heiterkeit und leichtes Blut” (K. Anh.H 11,15)
av Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Canon in F major, “Heiterkeit und leichtes Blut” (K. Anh.H 11,15; also transmitted as K. 507), is a tiny three-voice unison canon from Vienna, dated 1786—music for convivial singing rather than the concert hall [1] [2]. Though the work survives in autograph and was evidently copied and printed early, its circulation alongside Thomas Attwood materials has sometimes complicated how firmly it is linked to Mozart’s own hand in modern cataloguing [1] [3].
Background and Context
The three-part canon “Heiterkeit und leichtes Blut” is dated to 1786, when Mozart—thirty years old and fully established in Vienna—was producing music for many settings at once: public, theatrical, pedagogical, and private [1]. The transmission is unusually concrete for such a miniature: the Köchel Verzeichnis lists an autograph (a one-leaf score) and several later copies, as well as an early print (1804) and inclusion in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe [1].
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The text is German—“Heiterkeit und leichtes Blut” (“cheerfulness and light blood/spirits”)—and is attributed in the Mozarteum record to Gottfried Christoph Härtel [1]. In the same Viennese orbit, Mozart was closely involved with the young English musician Thomas Attwood (in Vienna 1785–1787), and the canon appears within the Digital Mozart Edition’s sketch/Attwood-related context for 1786 [3].
Musical Character
Scored for three unaccompanied voices (V1, V2, V3), the piece is a compact canon in unisono in F major—one melodic line sung in imitation by three parts, entering one after another [1] [2]. Such canons thrive on clarity: a tune shaped to remain intelligible even as it overlaps with itself, and harmonies that “solve” cleanly when the voices coincide.
The text’s brisk, good-humoured sentiment suits the genre’s social function in Mozart’s Vienna—short pieces meant to be picked up quickly in private circles, yet still offering a glimpse of the composer’s quick contrapuntal wit and his instinct for singable line [1].
[1] Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, Köchel Verzeichnis entry for KV Anh. H 11,15 (“Heiterkeit und leichtes Blut”): dating, key, scoring, transmission (autograph, copies), publications (NMA references), and text attribution.
[2] IMSLP work page: Canon for 3 Voices in F major, K. 507 (alt. title “Heiterkeit und leichtes Blut”)—basic catalog data (key, year, scoring, language) and access point for scores.
[3] Digital Mozart Edition (DME), Neue Mozart-Ausgabe table of contents (NMA X/30/3: Sketches): lists K. Anh. H 11/15 within the 1786 sketch/Attwood-related context (Skb 1786c/02).