Allegro for Clarinet Quintet in B♭, K. 516c (Fragment)
par Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Allegro for clarinet and string quartet (K. 516c) is an unfinished quintet movement surviving in a short autograph score from his Vienna years, usually dated to around 1787–88. Though only a fragment, it already points toward the kind of conversational writing Mozart would later perfect in the Clarinet Quintet (K. 581).
What Is Known
Only a single Allegro movement survives for clarinet, two violins, viola, and cello—a clarinet quintet in the later “Stadler” scoring rather than Mozart’s more usual two-viola string quintet layout [1]. The source is an autograph (two leaves / four written pages), and the work is explicitly transmitted as uncompleted [1]. The dating is generally placed in Vienna and in the late 1780s; IMSLP summarizes this as “1787 (Spring)” while the Mozarteum catalogue gives “Vienna, 1788,” reflecting the usual uncertainty of assigning a precise moment within Mozart’s crowded Viennese schedule [1] [2]. No definitive evidence clarifies whether Mozart intended this as a standalone piece or as the opening of a complete, multi-movement quintet.
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Musical Content
What remains reads as the beginning of a classical first movement: an energetic Allegro in B♭ major (the key of the surviving score as catalogued), in which the clarinet is treated less as a concerto soloist than as a fifth chamber voice—entering into imitation, accompaniment figures, and phrase-completions with the strings [1]. The writing suggests Mozart’s mature Viennese manner: clear periodic themes, quick shifts between lyrical and more “busy” figuration, and a texture that invites timbral play (the clarinet’s rounded middle register against the string quartet’s brighter articulation). In its unfinished state, the fragment offers a tantalizing pre-echo of the fully realized clarinet-and-strings idiom Mozart would later bring to fruition for Anton Stadler in the Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581 [3].
[1] Mozarteum Köchel catalogue entry for K. 516c (instrumentation, autograph, status, dating, key).
[2] IMSLP work page for the clarinet quintet fragment K. Anh. 91/516c (movement, composition year summary, digitized sources).
[3] G. Henle Verlag edition page (K. 581 with appended fragment K. 516c; confirms common pairing and instrumentation context).