The six string quartets, K. 168–173, were composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in late 1773 in Vienna.
Mozart had been exposed to recently published quartets by Joseph Haydn (Opp.
The slow movement in F minor is a triple-meter canon on the familiar theme also used in the finale of Haydn's Op.
The second phrase of the slow movement contains the opening theme of Haydn's Op.
[2] The finale is a fugue whose subject begins with a descending chromatic fourth.