Allegro for String Quintet in E♭ major (fragment), K. 613b
de Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Allegro for string quintet in E♭ major (K. 613b) is a brief surviving scrap of a projected viola-quintet (2 violins, 2 violas, cello), probably written in Vienna when the composer was around 30. What remains is too short to stand as a complete movement, yet it offers a glimpse of Mozart’s chamber-music thinking at a moment when his Viennese style was at its most conversational and harmonically alert.
What Is Known
The work is transmitted as an uncompleted, authentic “quintet movement” in E♭ major for 2 violins, 2 violas, and violoncello—Mozart’s characteristic string-quintet scoring in Vienna. The International Mozarteum Foundation’s catalogue records it as a fragment (K. 613b), with the surviving material described in score form and tied to a short autograph source; the entry also situates it among Mozart’s late Viennese interest in the string quintet as a genre.[1]
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The dating is not entirely straightforward in modern reference tools: the Mozarteum catalogue associates the fragment with Vienna and places it in the mid-1780s (with older catalogue cross-references pointing to 1786), while IMSLP’s work page—reflecting its own compiled metadata—gives a later date. For practical purposes, the safest statement is that the fragment belongs to Mozart’s Viennese period and survives only in a very short span, without any secure evidence for a finished continuation or a standard performing edition.[1][2]
Musical Content
Only an opening Allegro fragment survives, apparently conceived as the start of a classical first movement: the page suggests a brisk, affirmative E♭-major beginning with the ensemble writing already distributed in the manner of Mozart’s mature chamber works—less “solo with accompaniment” than five-part conversation, with inner-voice interest naturally suited to the two violas.[1]
Even in this incomplete state, the choice of E♭ major is telling: in Mozart’s Viennese chamber music, the key often invites a broad, warm sonority and a generous middle register—precisely the space where the added viola can enrich the harmony. Heard in context of his 1780s Vienna output, K. 613b reads most plausibly as workshop material for a string-quintet project rather than a self-standing occasional piece: an arresting beginning, cut off before the music can earn its formal cadence.
[1] International Mozarteum Foundation (Köchel Verzeichnis): KV 613b work entry (status, key, scoring, transmission notes, NMA references)
[2] IMSLP: String Quintet in E-flat major, K.Anh.82/613b (page metadata and scan listing from Neue Mozart-Ausgabe)