String Quartet No. 17 (Mozart)

17 in B-flat major, K. 458, nicknamed "The Hunt", is the fourth of the Quartets dedicated to Haydn.

[1] It is in four movements: Neither Mozart nor Artaria (the publisher) called this piece "The Hunt."

"For Mozart's contemporaries, the first movement of K.458 evidently evoked the 'chasse' topic, the main components of which were a 6/8 time signature (sometimes featuring a strong upbeat) and triadic melodies based largely around tonic and dominant chords (doubtless stemming from the physical limitations of the actual hunting horns to notes of the harmonic series).

"[2] According to Irving, Mozart's first intention was to conclude with a polonaise and sketched 65 bars (p. 17).

This article about a composition for a chamber music group is a stub.