Fugue for String Quartet in D minor (fragment), K. Anh.H 14,21
par Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Fugue for String Quartet in D minor (K. Anh.H 14,21) survives only as an incomplete sketch from Vienna, generally dated to around 1782. Scored for two violins, viola, and violoncello, it appears to preserve the opening of a learned contrapuntal idea rather than a performable quartet movement.
What Is Known
Only a short, incomplete fragment of a fugue for string quartet (two violins, viola, cello) survives under the catalogue designation K. Anh.H 14,21. The Köchel-Verzeichnis entry identifies it simply as a “fragment of a fugue for quartet in d” and gives the older cross-reference “K. Appendix 76 (417c).” [1]
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In the digitized Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (NMA), the piece is transmitted among Mozart’s fragments, where it is likewise labelled as a quartet fugue fragment; the NMA’s catalogue line also reflects the broader editorial uncertainty around its dating and context. [2] Although the musical forces are those of a quartet, some cataloguing traditions associate the sketch with incidental stage contexts rather than a self-standing chamber work—a plausible interpretation given how frequently Mozart drafted short contrapuntal studies and “insertable” materials in Vienna in the early 1780s.
Musical Content
What survives is best understood as the beginning of a fugue: a terse subject in D minor is set out and immediately treated imitatively, with the texture aiming toward four independent voices (appropriate to the quartet medium). In its compressed opening, the sketch suggests Mozart thinking in stile antico (older, “learned” counterpoint), but filtered through his Viennese language—direct, motivically tight, and oriented toward clear entry points rather than expansive development.
Because the notation breaks off before any full exposition and before cadential closure, the fragment does not disclose a complete formal plan (such as a fully worked-out fugue with episodes and later stretto). Its chief value, instead, is as a glimpse of Mozart—at about twenty-six, newly established in Vienna—testing the sound of strict imitation in string texture on a small scale, at a moment when contrapuntal craft was becoming an increasingly audible component of his mature style.
[1] Mozarteum Foundation (Köchel-Verzeichnis Online): work entry for K. Anh.H 14,21 (fragment of a fugue for string quartet in D minor).
[2] Digital Mozart Edition (Neue Mozart-Ausgabe online): table of contents entry listing the fragment as “Fragment of a fugue for quartet in d … K. Anh. H 14/21”.