- Köchel Number
- K9 702 | K6
- Genre
- Piano Music
- Form
- Piano Pieces
- Key
- C Minor
- Date
- 1785–1786
- Age
- 29
Mozart’s Melodic Notation in C minor (K. 702) is a tiny surviving keyboard sketch, preserved only as an autograph fragment and dated by the International Mozarteum Foundation to Vienna, 1785–1786.[1] Though slight in scale, it belongs to the intensely productive mid-1780s, when Mozart was refining a darker, more dramatic C-minor idiom at the keyboard.
What Is Known
The work catalogued as Melodic Notation in C minor (K. 702) survives as an extant autograph and is explicitly classified as an uncompleted work.[1] The Mozarteum catalogue associates it with a sketch sheet labeled “Skizzenblatt 1785c” and dates the fragment to Vienna, 1785–1786 (rather than a more specific day or month). [1] No secure occasion, intended larger context, or early performance tradition is documented in the catalogue entry.
At this point in Mozart’s life (aged 29), Vienna was the center of his activity as composer-pianist; the fragment’s C-minor tonality places it, at least temperamentally, near the expressive world of his major keyboard works of the period.
Musical Content
What survives is best understood as a melodic jotting rather than a complete piano piece: the catalogue describes it as “melodic notation,” and the source as a brief autograph on a single leaf (written on both sides).[1] In other words, it appears to capture an incipit-like idea—enough to fix a musical thought on paper, but not enough to establish full form, texture, or a finished continuity.
Sources
[1] International Mozarteum Foundation (Köchel Verzeichnis): KV 702 “Melodic notation in C minor” — status, dating (Vienna 1785–1786), and source description.