“Giunse il momento alfine” – “Non tardar, amato bene” (fragment), K. 700 (F major)
av Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s fragment “Giunse il momento alfine” – “Non tardar, amato bene” (K. 700) is an abandoned early state of the accompanied recitative and rondo that became Susanna’s Act IV scene “Giunse alfin il momento – Deh vieni, non tardar” in Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492. Notated in F major and usually dated to 1785–86, it survives only in partial form—yet it offers a rare, concrete window into Mozart’s workshop at the very moment he was shaping one of opera’s most celebrated nocturnal love-scenes.[1]
Manuscript and Discovery
K. 700 is preserved not as a single complete autograph score, but as surviving leaves connected with Mozart’s drafting of Susanna’s Act IV scena in Le nozze di Figaro. The Köchel-Verzeichnis (Digital Mozart Edition / Mozarteum Foundation) describes the work as an authentic, extant, but uncompleted fragment, and notes an autograph source from 1786 consisting of one leaf (two written pages).[1]
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The critical report for the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (NMA) makes clear how dispersed and complex the transmission is: material for this early version (with the text “Giunse il momento alfine” / “Non tardar, amato bene”) existed in at least two parts in private ownership (German and American), described as a draft of the same “early version” of No. 28 (the Act IV recitative and aria in the finished opera).[2] In other words, what we call “K. 700” is less a performable “alternative number” than a documentary trace of composition in progress.
Dating and Context
The Mozarteum’s KV entry dates K. 700 to Vienna, 1785–1786 and explicitly links it to Figaro (K. 492) as a fragment for that opera.[1] This chronology places the sketch within Mozart’s most concentrated period of Italian opera writing in Vienna—when he was not merely setting Da Ponte’s text, but refining characterization through musical psychology.
The finished Act IV scena is central to that psychological balancing act: Susanna sings as if addressing her lover, yet she knows another listener is present and deceived. Even in the completed version, this double perspective—the staged “pastoral” surface with an undercurrent of theatrical intelligence—is one reason the scene carries such distinctive dramatic electricity.[3] K. 700 matters because it lets scholars (and curious performers) observe Mozart searching for the right tone before arriving at the final, universally familiar musical profile.
Musical Content
What survives is brief and incomplete, but the sources identify the fragment as a scena with accompanied recitative and a rondo (Scena con Rondò), and the Mozarteum KV record gives the key as F major.[1] The NMA critical report also labels the item specifically as a draft of the recitative “Giunse il momento alfine” and the aria “Non tardar, amato bene”.[2]
Although the fragment is not long enough to support sweeping claims about large-scale form, its significance lies elsewhere: it shows Mozart treating the number as a concert-like scena (recitative + closed aria) while still inside an operatic act. That hybrid approach—operatic situation, concert-aria refinement—helps explain why Susanna’s final scena feels simultaneously intimate, poised, and formally “self-contained.” In K. 700, one catches Mozart testing how much lyrical “display” the moment could bear before the drama would tip from believable nocturnal improvisation into overt showpiece.
Relation to Surrounding Works
K. 700 stands in direct genetic relationship to the completed Act IV recitative and aria, “Giunse alfin il momento – Deh vieni, non tardar” (K. 492/31 in many modern enumerations).[1] The finished scene is the culmination of a long chain of revisions and alternatives in Figaro’s late stages, with the NMA critical apparatus documenting multiple sketch and draft layers around No. 28 and its neighboring numbers.[2]
Placed against Mozart’s broader 1786 output, the fragment also illustrates something characteristic of his mature operatic method: he was willing to discard workable music if it did not produce exactly the right dramatic “temperature.” For modern listeners, K. 700 deserves attention not as a lost masterpiece to be “reconstructed,” but as a rare surviving footprint of Mozart’s decision-making—evidence that the final Susanna scena was not inevitable, but chosen from genuine compositional alternatives at the desk.
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[1] International Mozarteum Foundation / Köchel Verzeichnis entry for KV 700 (work description, dating, key, source notes, NMA references)
[2] Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (Digital Mozart Edition), Kritischer Bericht for *Le nozze di Figaro* (NMA II/5/16): source descriptions for early versions and sketches related to No. 28, including “Giunse il momento alfine” / “Non tardar, amato bene”
[3] Mary Hunter, *Understanding the Women of Mozart’s Operas* (University of California Press): discussion of Susanna’s Act IV “Deh vieni, non tardar” scene and its dramatic function