Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Austrian Composer of Classical Music

[DonRocks]

It's probably inevitable that we have a thread here on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Whenever someone refers to a piece by Mozart, it's with a number ranging from 1 to 626, preceded by the letter K.

The "K" stands for Köchel (pretty much rhymes with Herschel), and refers to a catalogue of Mozart's works issued by Ludwig von Köchel in 1862, during our Civil War.

Köchel attempted to catalog the works in chronological order, but as could be supposed, much of it - particularly the early works - is a guessing game. Nevertheless, the Köchel Catalogue remains the reference standard for listing works of Mozart, and has been revised several times, most recently in 1964. Some pieces also have an Opus Number, but that's a different system altogether, and for Mozart, is nowhere near as complete - the Köchel system is what you want to be using.

K1 through K5 are a series of Minuets written for the fortepiano when Mozart was 5 and 6 years old. They're not particularly important or interesting except for academic reasons, but here they are (I'm assuming the copyright has expired).

EarlyPianoMusic.pdf

[The Hersch]

The "K" stands for Köchel (pretty much rhymes with Herschel)

What a lovely thought.