Mozart - Variations for violin and piano

Mozart

Variations for violin and piano

• 12 Variations in G major, "La bergère Célimène", K. 359 (1781)

• 6 Variations in G minor on "Hélas, j'ai perdu mon amant", K. 360 (1781
  

Six Variations on "Hélas, j'ai perdu mon amant" in G minor, K. 360/374b, is a composition for piano and solo violin by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, composed when he was 25 years old (June 1781).

The six variations are nominally on a French ariette, "Hélas, j'ai perdu mon amant" ("Alas, I have lost my lover") by Antoine Albanèse, an Italian-born French singer and composer. However, it appears that Mozart misnamed the melody used, which was actually entitled "Au bord d'une fontaine" ("By the edge of a fountain"). The NMA points out that no French tune bearing the title "Hélas, j'ai perdu mon amant" ever existed. The melody also existed far earlier in France than Albanèse's version, since at least the sixteenth century.^[1]

It is thought to have been written for Mozart's aristocratic piano student, Marie Karoline, Countess Thiennes de Rumbeke.^[2]