Mozart: “Die Verschweigung” (fragment), K. 518 (F major)
av Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s song Die Verschweigung (fragment) (K. 518) is an incomplete Lied in F major, notated in Vienna on 20 May 1787, when the composer was 31.[1] What survives suggests a compact, text-led vocal miniature—one of several late-1780s German songs in which Mozart tests a more flexible, speech-close declamation within a simple strophic frame.
What Is Known
Die Verschweigung ("Sobald Damötas Chloen sieht") is transmitted as a holograph manuscript and survives only as a fragment, written for voice and piano.[1] The surviving leaf is described as occurring on f.2v (p. 4) of a single bifolio, which already hints that we are dealing with a portion of a larger notational context rather than a self-contained fair copy.[1]
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The date and place—20 May 1787, Vienna—place the fragment in the same intensely productive Viennese season that led toward Don Giovanni later that year, and show Mozart continuing to cultivate German song alongside his larger public projects.[1]
Musical Content
Even in its incomplete state, the page points toward Mozart’s characteristic Lied texture: a singable melodic line supported by a piano part that appears designed less as continuo-style filler than as a partner in shaping phrasing and cadence.[1] The text incipit (beginning "Sobald Damötas Chloen sieht")—a pastoral vignette by Christian Felix Weiße—suggests a gently narrative tone, and the choice of F major aligns naturally with a warm, plainspoken affect rather than high theatricality.[1]
[1] IMSLP work page: dating (20 May 1787, Vienna), key (F major), text incipit, scoring (voice and piano), and manuscript note (occurs on f.2v of a single bifolio).