Canon (K. 562a) in B♭ major
ヴォルフガング・アマデウス・モーツァルト作
Mozart’s Canon in B♭ major (K. 562a) is a compact four-voice puzzle from Vienna, written in September 1788, when the composer was 32. Though far removed in scale from the late symphonies of the same year, it belongs to the same creative moment: a period in which Mozart distilled craft into the smallest possible forms.
Background and Context
In Mozart’s Vienna, the canon was not primarily a concert-hall genre but a social one: a quick, witty form that could be sung among friends, tried out at the table, or used to demonstrate contrapuntal skill without the weight of a grand occasion. The Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum’s Köchel-Verzeichnis describes these canons as short pieces designed for staggered entries of the same melody, closely tied to private circles in Vienna, and often with texts that may even be Mozart’s own invention in other cases [2].
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K. 562a is one of a cluster of canons associated with September 1788, the same month in which Mozart dated (and entered) several such miniatures in his thematic catalogue—a burst of activity that sits strikingly beside the large-scale instrumental works of that year [3]. That juxtaposition is part of the piece’s fascination: it shows Mozart treating learned counterpoint not as an academic exercise but as a living, communal language.
Text and Composition
Unlike many of Mozart’s best-known canons, K. 562a is textless (or at least transmitted without sung words in standard references) and is therefore closer to a “pure” contrapuntal design than to a song-like Geselligkeitslied (convivial part-song). In K. 562a, four voices share a single line in strict imitation—“4 voices in 1,” as catalogues concisely put it—so that the musical interest lies in timing, overlap, and the harmony that results when the same melody is layered against itself [3].
The work is transmitted for four unaccompanied voices and is typically performed a cappella; modern library listings and score repositories likewise present it as a one-section canon for four voices in B♭ major [1]. Its brevity is not a limitation but a premise: the entire point is to make a complete musical argument from the minimum material.
Musical Character
K. 562a’s character is defined by the classical canon’s paradox: it is at once strict (rule-bound imitation) and immediate (something that can be sung on the spot). B♭ major—so often Mozart’s “public” key for warmth and ease—helps the little piece sound open and genial, even as the texture is governed by contrapuntal necessity.
Because the melody must function simultaneously as leader and follower, Mozart tends to write canon subjects that are harmonically “self-compatible”: they imply clear cadential goals, avoid awkward cross-relations, and generate consonant vertical sonorities when offset in time. The result is music that can seem disarmingly simple on the page, yet rewards close listening: each new entry subtly changes the perceived harmony, and the ear begins to hear the tune not as a single line but as a small, turning mechanism.
Why does an obscure canon deserve attention? Precisely because it shows Mozart’s late style in miniature—his ability to compress fluency, balance, and contrapuntal poise into a form that asks for nothing more than four singers and a shared sense of timing. In the shadow of the “great” works of 1788, K. 562a reminds us that Mozart’s Vienna was also a world of intimate music-making, where craftsmanship could be playful, quick, and still unmistakably masterful.
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[1] IMSLP: score and work page for Canon for 4 Voices in B-flat major, K. 562a (instrumentation, key, one-section canon).
[2] Köchel-Verzeichnis (Mozarteum): background note on Mozart’s canons in Viennese private circles and their pedagogical/contrapuntal function.
[3] Wikipedia: Köchel catalogue table showing K. 562a as “Canon in B-flat for 4 voices in 1,” dated September 1788 (Vienna, age 32).