Mozart's Thematic Catalogue - ff.2v-3r

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December 1784 to March 1785

Mozart had moved to Vienna in 1781. He married the following year, and his first child was born in June 1783. He was entering the most fruitful and successful period of his life, working as a freelance musician and earning a living from commissions from patrons, performing and conducting his compositions at concerts, teaching composition and publishing his works. In December 1784 he became a freemason, and subsequently composed several masonic works. On this page Mozart listed the last two of the six quartets he dedicated to his fellow composer Joseph Haydn. Mozart and his friends performed the quartets for Haydn in January and February 1785. Mozart's father Leopold later reported Haydn as saying "your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name."

11 December 1784

K459. A piano concerto in F sometimes known as the second "Coronation" concerto, as Mozart is believed to have played it along with K537 on 15 October 1790 in Frankfurt during the celebrations for the coronation of the new emperor Leopold II.

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10 January 1785

K464. This string quartet in A is the fifth of the "Haydn" quartets, which were published in September 1785 and dedicated to Haydn. In his dedicatory letter Mozart described them as "the fruits of a long and laborious endeavour". To judge from state of the autograph manuscript, this one may have given Mozart the most difficulty.

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14 January 1785

K465. This string quartet in C is the sixth and last of the "Haydn" quartets. It is known as the "Dissonance" quartet from the exciting harmonic audacities of its introduction.

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10 February 1785

K466. This piano concerto in D minor was premiered by Mozart on 11 February 1785. It is a dark but explosive piece, with something of a foretaste of the sinister, tragic mood of Don Giovanni.

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6 March 1785

K. 469. This aria, "A te tra tanti affanni", was written for the cantata Davidde Penitente. Mozart produced this cantata for two charity concerts for musicians' widows performed on 13 and 15 March 1785. The music was largely adapted from parts of his earlier unfinished mass in C minor (K427/417a).

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Musical extracts recorded at the Royal College of Music, London