Serenade_No._12_(Mozart)

Serenade No. 12 (Mozart)

Serenade No. 12 (Mozart)

Add article description


The Serenade No. 12 for winds in C minor, K. 388/384a, was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1782 or 1783. The work is sometimes called "Nachtmusik". In 1787, Mozart transcribed the work for string quintet. This transcription survives as String Quintet, K. 406/516b.

Instrumentation

The serenade is scored for 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 Natural horns, and 2 bassoons.

Structure

There are four movements:

  1. Allegro, C minor, sonata form
  2. Andante, E-flat major, sonata form
  3. Menuet & Trio, C minor, Trio in C major, ternary form
  4. Allegro, C minor, ends in C major, variation form with the fifth variation (in E-flat major) augmented.

The minuet is a canon. The oboes carry the melody with the bassoons answering one bar later. The trio is also canonic with the response to the melody played upside down.[1] The finale is a set of variations containing a central episode in E-flat major and a coda that turns to C major near the end.


References

  1. Zaslaw, Neal, The Compleat Mozart: a Guide to the Musical Works, pp. 246–247 (New York, 1990) ISBN 0-393-02886-0

Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Serenade_No._12_(Mozart), and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.