Mozart's Fugue in A minor KV402 / 385c

My exploration of Mozart's neo-baroque forays led me to this delightful composition, the latter section of a short, miscellaneous work for Violin. It sounds incredibly similar to something that might be found the 'Musical Offering'. Examining Mozart's other fugues, it seems he lifted a number (in fact, most of the stand-alone fugues) straight from Bach, but as far as I can tell, KV402/385c is not exactly the same. As the piece progressed it became apparent fairly quickly that it's not a direct Bach transcription, but the subject and its preliminary treatment were, to my ear, indistinguishable from that of the Musical Offering - initially the work sounds like it's some sort of puzzle canon, cancrizans or hoop-jumping work. Does anyone know anything more about this composition? The CD sleeve says that the recording I have was 'completed by M. Stadler', which suggests Mozart never actually finished the piece, and may explain the shift in the work's character.

P.S. Additional web searching reveals that M.Stadler was one of Mozart's close contemporaries. His copy of KV402 (the earliest we have) states that he completed the composition, but doesn't detail exactly where he began. It's now thought to be around bars 51-55, making the total completion 75 measures. Once IMSLP opens again, I'll check the score.

Check the scores here.

http://dme.mozarteum.at/DME/nma/nmapub_srch.php?l=2

Honestly, I don't know what you mean that Mozart's fugues are all "lifted" from Bach - that's complete rubbish. He transcribed about 6 for string quartet, and wrote preludes. THAT is the only "lifting" from Bach that he did.

Of Mozart's eleven or so surviving stand-alone fugues, six are, indeed, string transcriptions of Bach. The remainder of which I know are:

Galimathias musicum KV32: III. Fuga

Fugue in C min for Two Pianos KV426 (later rearranged for string quartet)

Fugue in A minor KV402-385c - Fuga-Allegro moderato (see above)

Prelude and Fugue in C KV394- 383a - Fuge

Fugue in G min KV401-375e

Therefore it appears the majority comprise transcriptions. Thank you for the link to the score!

Unfortunately, the majority of Mozart's fugues are incomplete. Including some on your list there.

I seem to remember there being two fugues in g minor, as well as one in E flat written about the same time as the later G minor one. (K.401 is the earlier one - the K numbers are wrong in this case).

Here are some (fairly extensive) fragments.

DME::NMA_KB_SYNOPSIS

Great! How exciting.

Not sure if that's sarcasm or not, but judging by the harpsichord in your avatar, I'm going to assume 'not sarcasm'. :P

It wasn't sarcastic. ;)

I just played them through, and, sadly, it's immediately obvious why most were left unfinished. I can't imagine any of these fragments germinating into anything as interesting as the handful of fugues listed above. Nevertheless, they provide an interesting glimpse into Mozart's early attempts at contrapuntal composition.

One of the longer fragments is attached below:

mozartfuguefragment.mid

There's a mistake in that - just a D instead of a C# in bar 16 I think.

Quite nice -- you can clearly see how it prefigures the Kyrie fugue of the Requiem.

Edit: In return, here's part of a C minor fugue.

fugue fragment c minor.MID

Let's not forget:

Mozart's Fantasias K.594 and K.608 for mechanical organ

Yes?