Sonata Movement (Fragment) in F major, K. 590a
par Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Sonata movement for piano in F major (K. 590a) is a short, unfinished surviving leaf from Vienna, generally dated to 1787–1789, when the composer was about 31–33 years old [1]. Preserved as an autograph fragment, it offers a glimpse of Mozart’s late-Viennese keyboard idiom in mid-thought rather than a complete sonata plan [1].
What Is Known
Only a single incomplete movement for solo keyboard survives under the title “Piano piece in F (fragment),” authenticated as Mozart’s work and transmitted in autograph form [1]. The Köchel-Verzeichnis entry dates the fragment broadly to Vienna, 1787–1789, and describes the source as an autograph leaf (one written page, without an original title) [1]. In the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe it is printed among the keyboard sonatas (NMA IX/25/2), edited by Wolfgang Plath and Wolfgang Rehm [2]. The surviving music is thus best understood not as part of an established, complete sonata, but as a self-standing, abandoned opening (or internal) movement that breaks off before any full multi-movement design can be confirmed.
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Musical Content
In modern catalogues and editions the piece is presented as a single sonata movement in F major for solo piano [2]. What survives suggests the rhetorical world of Mozart’s mature Viennese keyboard writing: balanced phrase structure, clear harmonic direction, and the kind of two-strain thematic economy that naturally invites a sonata-allegro continuation (exposition–development–recapitulation), even though the manuscript breaks off too soon to prove the intended large-scale form with certainty. Heard alongside Mozart’s late-1780s piano works, K. 590a reads as workshop material from a period when the keyboard style is increasingly orchestral in texture—yet still anchored in singing right-hand lines over a lucid, functional bass.
[1] Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, Köchel-Verzeichnis entry for KV 590a (“Piano piece in F (fragment)”), with dating, status, and source description.
[2] IMSLP work page for “Piano Sonata in F major, K.Anh.29/590a,” summarizing forces, dating range, and NMA IX/25/2 (Plath/Rehm, 1986) edition details.