9 Variations on a Minuet by Duport K. 573

It is said that in a recital given on 23 March 1783 with the celebrated composer Christoph Willibald Gluck most likely in attendance, Mozart improvised variations on the song “Unser dummer Pöbel meint” from Gluck’s Singspiel Die Pilgrime von Mekka.

He later put them to paper and had them printed three years later. It is quite possibly Christoph Willibald GlIn April and May 1789, Mozart, along with Prince Lichnowsky, undertook a journey via Dresden and Leipzig to Berlin, where he presumably played before the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II.

No doubt as a friendly homage to the royal chamber music director and cellist Jean-Pierre Duport, he anticipated his meeting by writing – during the journey – nine variations on a Minuet, also by Duport. Today they belong among Mozart’s most beloved variation cycles. uck’s celebrity that was responsible for K. 455 being one of Mozart’s musically most demanding variation cycles.