Contredanse in D major (fragment), K. 565a
de Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Contredanse in D major (K. 565a) is a short, unfinished dance fragment from Vienna in 1788, when the composer was 32. Preserved only in incomplete form, it belongs to the practical world of late-18th-century ballroom music that Mozart supplied alongside his larger concert works.
What Is Known
The Contredanse in D major (fragment), K. 565a, is generally dated to Vienna, October 1788, and survives only as a brief, incomplete piece rather than a finished contredanse ready for performance.[1] Modern reference listings describe it explicitly as a fragment, and no authoritative “completed” Mozart version is known from the surviving sources.[1][2]
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
In Vienna Mozart had strong professional reasons to write (and to keep writing) dance music: from December 1787 he served as Kammermusicus at the imperial court, a post that included supplying dances for court balls.[3] K. 565a is best understood against this backdrop of functional, quickly circulating ballroom repertory—music that could be drafted rapidly, adapted as needed, and, in some cases, left unfinished.
Musical Content
What survives suggests the plainspoken profile typical of a contredanse: a brisk duple-metre dance built from short, regularly repeating strains (often laid out in four- or eight-bar units).[3] Even in fragmentary form, the choice of D major points toward the bright, outdoor-friendly sonority Mozart often favored for festive public music in this period. In 1788—also the year of the final symphonies—such dance fragments show another side of his Viennese craft: concise, rhythmically direct writing designed to set bodies in motion rather than to sustain large-scale argument.
[1] Wikipedia: Köchel catalogue entry listing K. 565a as “Contredanse in D (fragment)” with date/place context.
[2] Wikipedia: List of compositions by Mozart (includes “Contredanse in D K. 565a (fragment) (1788)”).
[3] Köchel Verzeichnis (Mozarteum): background on Mozart’s court dance duties and typical contredanse structure (2/4; repeated sections).