Canon in F for 3 voices, “Difficile lectu mihi Mars” (K. 559)
di Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Canon in F for three equal voices, “Difficile lectu mihi Mars” (K. 559), was entered in his thematic catalogue in Vienna on 2 September 1788 and belongs to the composer’s remarkable late flowering of social, often pointedly comic canons. Beneath its mock-scholarly “Latin” lies a piece of private wit—musically economical, verbally mischievous, and still revealing of Mozart’s circle and sense of humor.
Background and Context
In 1788—at the same moment Mozart (1756–1791) was producing some of his most ambitious instrumental works—he also cultivated a very different genre: the short a cappella canon meant for convivial music-making among friends. “Difficile lectu mihi Mars” (K. 559) is one of several canons he dated in his own catalogue on 2 September 1788 in Vienna.[1]
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The work’s notoriety comes from its text, which looks like Latin but is designed to be spoken (or sung) with a German accent so that it turns into a coarse German phrase—precisely the sort of private joke that could circulate safely in a closed social setting, yet later caused editors and performers to bowdlerize words or omit the piece altogether.[2] In this sense, K. 559 sits beside other late canons that mix learned technique with tavern-room comedy: Mozart is both the contrapuntist and the ringmaster.
Text and Composition
The Köchel-Verzeichnis (Digital Mozart Edition / Mozarteum catalogue) identifies K. 559 as a canon in F major for three equal voices and dates it to Vienna, 2 September 1788.[1] The text is attributed there to Christoph Gottlob Breitkopf—a detail that reminds us that “authorship” in such social pieces could be collaborative, with witty friends providing lines that Mozart then set with consummate craft.[1]
Most printed presentations give the opening as “Difficile lectu mihi Mars …,” but the words are intentionally pseudo-Latin: they do not form sensible Latin syntax. Their purpose is phonetic, not semantic.[2] That phonetic game—comedy triggered by pronunciation—helps explain why modern editions and performances sometimes soften, translate euphemistically, or simply avoid the full verbal “payoff.”[2]
Musical Character
As a canon, K. 559 relies on a single melodic idea imitated strictly by three voices—music built to be grasped quickly, sung without instruments, and enjoyed immediately. The F-major setting and compact scale reinforce its function as Gebrauchsmusik (music for use): it is less a “miniature masterpiece” in the concert-hall sense than a perfectly engineered social device.
What makes the canon worth attention is precisely this collision of styles. The technique is learned—Mozart’s imitative writing is clean and unforced—yet the goal is laughter, even embarrassment. In late-1780s Vienna, the canon could operate like an inside joke delivered with academic seriousness: the singers perform disciplined counterpoint while the “Latin” collapses into rude German when voiced in the right accent. That duality—high craft serving low humor—also clarifies the broader place of Mozart’s late canons in his output. They show a composer, aged 32, still delighting in the smallest forms, and using them to capture something essential about friendship, speech, and the theatricality of everyday life.[1][3]
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[1] International Mozarteum Foundation (Köchel-Verzeichnis) entry for K. 559: scoring, key, and catalogue date/place (Vienna, 2 Sept 1788), plus text attribution.
[2] Reference overview discussing the macaronic/pseudo-Latin text and its phonetic joke, plus reception/censorship issues.
[3] IMSLP work page for K. 559 with basic catalogue data and access to public-domain scores.