Andante and Variations in G major, K.501

There is no doubt about the date of composition of the Variations in G since the manuscript is dated 4 November 1786. The occasion of its composition is less certain. One suggestion is that it, rather than the G major Andante traditionally associated with the unfinished sonata, was intended to go with the Allegro in G major, K.357. However that may be, it is a similarly unconventional composition. The theme, probably but not necessarily by Mozart, is in two parts of not quite equal length, the second of them beginning not in the dominant but in the relative minor. The same patters is preserved in the first three of the five variations - the second with the main interest in the secondo part, incidentally, and the third with interestingly coloured staccato textures for the four hands. the fourth variation, a serious canonic exchange between the two players, is in the minor but with the same proportions as the first three. The fifth and last variation, however, is an extended construction, brilliantly written with more variations instead of repeats in the two parts, and a not quite literal recall of the theme at the end.