String Quartet No. 22 (Mozart)

[1] Mozart was under financial stress and hoped to hold a position at the court of King Wilhelm II.

Despite such compositional efforts by Mozart to gain employment from the king, these quartets were sold without any dedication and published by Artaria.

[4][5] In 1991, the German-British musicologist Erik Smith discovered a short movement for string quartet in B-flat major, which was long thought to be lost.

It was given the catalogue number K. 589a and received its premiere recording in 1991 for the then work-in-progress Complete Mozart Edition, performed by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields' Chamber Ensemble.

The statement of the secondary theme in the cello is an example of Mozart's hopes of employment from the amateur-cellist-king appearing in his writing.

Many of the thematic ideas are recycled from a fragment of an incomplete clarinet quintet that Mozart had written earlier.

The first violin states the main thematic material of this movement and the other instruments accompany with ostinato figures.

While not given large thematic material as in the previous movements, the cello is given the final note of both sections of the trio without any other voice playing.