Canon in A for 3 Voices in 1, “Caro bell’idol mio” (K. 562)
av Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Canon in A major, “Caro bell’idol mio” (K. 562), is a compact three-voice table canon entered in his Vienna catalogue on 2 September 1788. Modest in scale yet exquisitely finished, it shows how Mozart could turn a private, social genre into something with real melodic poise and contrapuntal clarity.
Background and Context
Mozart composed (and entered into his thematic catalogue) the secular canon “Caro bell’idol mio” on 2 September 1788 in Vienna, when he was 32 years old [1] [2]. The work is scored for three equal voices “in 1” (a single notated line that can be sung successively by three performers), the classic format for a table canon—music designed for convivial music-making among friends, often with minimal rehearsal [1].
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Because canons are frequently associated with Mozart’s jokes or drinking songs, K. 562 can come as a surprise: its Italian text (“My dear, beautiful idol”) invites a more affectionate, even gently theatrical tone. In the autumn of 1788 Mozart was producing some of his most ambitious public works (including the final symphonies), yet he continued to cultivate these intimate contrapuntal miniatures for private circles—music that keeps craft and charm in tight balance.
Text and Composition
The text is Italian, and the piece is an authentic, complete canon transmitted in sources including an autograph dating from 1788 [1]. The scoring is simply “3 voices” without accompaniment [2], which makes the performers’ tuning, timing, and diction the entire “orchestration.”
Although the specific occasion is unknown, the canon belongs to a remarkably concentrated moment in 1788 when Mozart wrote and catalogued several canons. That clustering suggests not only social demand—friends who wanted singable rounds—but also a composer thinking about counterpoint as a living, practical art rather than merely an academic exercise.
Musical Character
In performance, K. 562 typically lasts only around two minutes (often less, depending on tempo and number of completed entries), but within that span Mozart achieves an expressive arc that feels closer to an operatic ensemble than to a mere puzzle [2]. The bright stability of A major helps: the key’s “open” resonance suits equal voices and allows dissonances to register as passing expressive color rather than heavy drama.
What makes the piece distinctive is how naturally the canon’s strict imitation is made to sing. Each entry sounds like a real melodic line with its own rhetorical purpose, even while it must dovetail with the others at close range. That is Mozart’s late-canon gift: the counterpoint is clean enough to satisfy the connoisseur, but the surface remains immediately graspable to amateur singers.
For listeners interested in Mozart beyond the concert hall, “Caro bell’idol mio” deserves attention as a snapshot of his Viennese everyday artistry—an elegant, human-scaled work in which discipline and pleasure are inseparable.
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[1] Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, Köchel Catalogue entry for KV 562 (dating, key, scoring, authenticity, source remarks).
[2] IMSLP work page for Canon for 3 Voices in A major, K. 562 (catalog date/place, general info, duration, instrumentation).