Fugue for String Quartet in C minor (fragment), K. Anh.H 12,27
par Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Fugue for String Quartet in C minor (fragment), K. Anh.H 12,27, survives only as a brief autograph page from Vienna, dated to 1782 in the work’s source listing. Although sometimes muddied by catalogue metadata, the surviving notation points to a contrapuntal sketch for four strings rather than a finished quartet movement.
What Is Known
K. Anh.H 12,27 is an extant fragment transmitted in an autograph described as a full score on one leaf (written on one side); later copies are also recorded, including an 1847 copy titled (in German) as the beginning of a fugue for string quartet, attributed to Mozart. The work is listed by the International Mozarteum Foundation as a “fragment of a fugue for quartet” for two violins, viola, and violoncello, and it is included in the appendix of the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe string-quartet volume. [1] [2]
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The same Mozarteum catalogue entry, however, also attaches conflicting descriptors (notably the key given there as C major and a dating of Vienna, 1788), so the familiar modern label “C minor, Vienna 1782” should be treated as a working identification rather than a securely fixed set of facts. [1]
Musical Content
What survives appears to be the opening of a fugue—a contrapuntal working-out for four equal string parts rather than a self-contained quartet movement. The scoring (vl1, vl2, vla, vlc) suggests Mozart was thinking in the conversational texture of a quartet while pursuing the stricter discipline of fugal imitation, a preoccupation that would surface repeatedly in his Vienna years (especially in keyboard and ensemble counterpoint). [1]
[1] International Mozarteum Foundation (Köchel Verzeichnis): work entry for K. Anh.H 12,27 with source description, instrumentation, and cross-references.
[2] Digital Mozart Edition (DME): Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (NMA) VIII/20/Abt. 1/3 table of contents showing the fragment in the appendix (p. 132).