Canon in B♭ for 4 Voices in 1 (K. Anh.H 10,16)
ヴォルフガング・アマデウス・モーツァルト作
The Canon in B♭ for 4 Voices in 1 (K. Anh.H 10,16) is a tiny vocal puzzle-piece tentatively placed in Vienna around 1788, when Mozart was 32. Its attribution is doubtful, but the work survives in sources connected with the late-18th-century canon tradition that Mozart cultivated with particular relish in his final Viennese years.
Background and Context
K. Anh.H 10,16 is transmitted as a brief four-voice canon “in one” (i.e., a single written line meant to generate four simultaneous parts), and is sometimes dated to Vienna in 1788 in modern catalog listings [1] [2]. No secure autograph is known, and the piece is generally treated as of uncertain authorship—even where it appears alongside Mozart’s authenticated canons [3] [4].
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
The proposed date nevertheless places it close to Mozart’s documented burst of canon-writing in early September 1788, a period when such miniatures served both as learned counterpoint and as sociable music-making among friends.
Musical Character
What is “on the page” is essentially the idea of a canon: one compact melody in B♭ major designed to be imitated strictly by three following voices, producing a four-part texture from minimal notation [3]. In performance, pieces of this type typically sound like a quick contrapuntal weave—each entry dovetailing into the next—where consonant cadences must be engineered in advance to accommodate the overlapping lines.
Because the surviving documentation is thin, it is safest to hear K. Anh.H 10,16 less as a “statement” work than as a functional canonic exercise or table-piece: concise, cleverly self-sufficient, and intended to be realized by capable singers who delight in the moment when a single line blossoms into four voices.
[1] MozartPortal composition page with basic catalog data for K. Anh.H 10,16.
[2] Wikipedia Köchel catalogue table entry listing Anh.H 10,16 as “Canon in B-flat for 4 voices in 1” with September 1788/Vienna placement.
[3] Digital Mozart Edition (Mozarteum): NMA III/10 table of contents listing “Canon for four voices [in B] K. Anh. H 10/16 (562a)” with score/audio links.
[4] IMSLP work page for “Canon for 4 Voices in B-flat major, K.562a,” including an authorship note and public-domain materials/recordings.