- Mozart composed this work in Mannheim in 1777 or 1778, during an extended job-hunting trip in which he was accompanied by his mother Anna Maria.1
- After their stay in Mannheim, Mozart’s father Leopold sent Wolfgang and his mother to Paris, where she would become ill, and die on July 3, 1778. This turn of events caused a severe strain between Wolfgang and Leopold, who (unfairly) blamed Wolfgang for Anna Maria’s death.
- This work is scored for flute, violin, viola, and cello.2
- This is probably one of a set of flute quartets commissioned by a Dutch patron called De Jean. According to one of Mozart’s letters, De Jean ordered “three small, light and short concerti and two quartets for the flute.” However, Mozart did not complete the commission, only writing some of the requested pieces (and consequently only receiving some of the promised fee – his father wasn’t thrilled about that).3
- Researchers are not 100% sure that this piece is indeed part of the De Jean commission because the manuscript is difficult to date. In fact, some scholars doubt that Mozart is even the composer of this quartet.4
- We don’ know much about De Jean, but we do know that the commission reached Mozart through Johann Baptist Wendling, a flutist of the Mannheim court orchestra and a friend whom Mozart had visited several times while staying in Mannheim.5
Sources
- Cliff Eisen and Stanley Sadie, “Mozart, (Johann Chrysostom) Wolfgang Amadeus,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed October 18, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-6002278233.
- Ibid.
- Jaroslav Pohanka, preface to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Quartette für Flöte, Violine, Viola und Violoncello, KV 285, 285a, Anh. 171 (285b), 298, ed. Pohanka (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2018), IX.
- Ibid.
- Eisen and Sadie, “Mozart, (Johann Chrysostom) Wolfgang Amadeus,” Grove Music Online.
Cut IDs
40700