Kleine Gigue in G major for Piano (K. 574)
par Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Kleine Gigue in G major (K. 574) is a sharply wrought solo-keyboard miniature, dated 16 May 1789 during his Leipzig visit, when the composer was 33. In just a few dozen bars, it turns learned Baroque counterpoint into a compact, bright-edged showpiece—at once a nod to Bach and a characteristically Mozartean act of wit.[1][2]
Background and Context
Mozart wrote the Kleine Gigue (K. 574) on 16 May 1789, during his stay in Leipzig, and entered it directly into the notebook (Stammbuch) of the city’s court organist Carl Immanuel Engel.[1][2] This Leipzig moment—near the end of Mozart’s long 1789 journey—also intersected with his well-documented fascination for older contrapuntal styles, especially those associated with J. S. Bach.[1] Although the piece is now often encountered as a standalone piano miniature, its original social function is clear: a rapid, expertly crafted musical calling card, composed and notated on the spot.[2]
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Musical Character
Despite occasional misstatements in secondary listings, the work is in G major (not G minor) and is a true gigue: concise, fugal in impulse, and set in 6/8.[1][3] It spans only 38 bars, yet its two-part design is densely packed with imitation and tight voice-leading, giving the music an athletic, “learned” profile rather than salon sweetness.[1]
A striking detail arrives near cadential points: Mozart writes a bass line that touches all twelve chromatic pitches, producing a momentary saturation of the harmonic palette without turning the passage into anything like a systematic tone row.[1] The opening subject has often been heard as a conscious homage—its profile closely resembling the subject of Bach’s B minor Fugue (WTC I, No. 24)—though some commentators have also pointed to Handelian gigue models as a plausible stylistic shadow.[1][4] In sum, K. 574 compresses an entire aesthetic—late Mozart meeting high Baroque craft—into a miniature that is over almost as soon as it begins, but not before it has made its point.
Partition
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[1] Wikipedia overview with dating (16 May 1789), Leipzig context, bar count (38), 6/8 meter, and discussion of Bach/Handel allusions.
[2] Digital Mozart Edition (Neue Mozart-Ausgabe), PDF preface/critical material for *Gigue in G*, KV 574; notes entry into Carl Immanuel Engel’s notebook and date.
[3] Wikimedia Commons scan of score (public-domain print), confirming key and notated musical details on the page.
[4] Washington Performing Arts program notes (Víkingur Ólafsson recital) describing K. 574 as Bach-referential and dated to 16 May 1789 in Leipzig.