Variation on a Minuet by Duport (K. 573)
No.1 Variation
It was the Minuet from Duport's sonata for cello and continuo, Op. 4 No. 6 that Mozart chose as the theme for a set of variations with he presumably hoped to win the ear of the musical Prussian Monarch; his catalogue gives the date 29th of April, 1789.
Mirabelle Garden@Salzburg@Austria@
The nine Variations in F major, K. 573 were composed while Mozart was visiting Potsdam on his way to Berlin with Prince Carl Lichnowsky (later Beethoven's stanch friend and patron), in April 1789. They left Vienna on 8th of April, and stopped in Prague, Dresden and Leipzig, and arrived in Potsdam about 25th of April. There Mozart met the cellist and composer Jean-Pierre Duport, who had been appointed to Frederick the Great's musical establishment in 1773 and subsequently became cello tutor to Frederick Wilhelm II.