Violin Sonata in E♭ major (K. Anh.C 23.04)
沃尔夫冈·阿马德乌斯·莫扎特
The Violin Sonata in E♭ major (K. Anh.C 23.04), sometimes transmitted as “K. 58,” is an 18th-century keyboard-and-violin sonata whose attribution to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) is now rejected by modern cataloguing. Listed with a tentative date of 1784, it survives without a known autograph and is best approached as a small, attractive three-movement duo by an unidentified hand.
Background and Context
The Sonata in E♭ major (K. Anh.C 23.04) is preserved as an extant work for violin and keyboard (originally clav) and is explicitly described in the Mozarteum’s Köchel database as “incorrectly assigned” to Mozart, with a suggested date of 1784 and unknown provenance. In transmission, it appears in copies and in late 18th-/early 19th-century prints, including an early print of 1799 and a Leipzig edition issued by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1804—circumstances that fit the piece’s long life in the Mozart “orbit” despite the loss (or absence) of any autograph evidence. [1]
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If the dating “1784” were to be taken at face value, it would place the work alongside Mozart’s busiest Viennese years—when the mature violin sonatas and large-scale keyboard writing show a sharply individualized handling of dialogue, harmony, and register. Yet nothing in the surviving documentation securely links this sonata to Mozart’s Viennese circle; the safest reading is that it represents the sort of marketable, keyboard-led duo that publishers and copyists readily circulated under famous names. [1]
Musical Character
On the page, K. Anh.C 23.04 presents a compact, three-movement plan:
- I. Adagio
- II. Menuetto. Moderato
- III. Rondo. Allegro assai [1]
The scoring is the standard late-18th-century duo of keyboard with violin accompaniment—in IMSLP’s summary, “Piano and Violin”—with the violin chiefly reinforcing, answering, and lightly ornamenting the keyboard’s discourse rather than consistently leading it. [1] [2]
The opening Adagio favors an unhurried, cantabile surface, well suited to domestic music-making; the Menuetto adopts a poised, courtly gait; and the concluding Rondo (Allegro assai) turns to lighter-footed periodic phrasing and recurring refrains. Taken together, the sequence reads less like a dramatic concert work than a neatly balanced set of character pieces—agreeable, idiomatic, and intentionally undemanding in scale, which may help explain why it remained publishable even as its authorship became doubtful. [1] [2]
[1] International Mozarteum Foundation (Köchel Verzeichnis): work entry for K. Anh.C 23.04, including authenticity status, dating, instrumentation, and movement list.
[2] IMSLP work page: Violin Sonata in E-flat major, K.58/Anh.C 23.04 — authorship note and basic metadata (movements, instrumentation).