K573 Variations on the Minuet of JP Duport in D Major,

In April 1789, Mozart traveled to Berlin with Prince Carl Lichnowsky (who would become Beethoven’s steadfast friend and patron). En route they stopped in Potsdam where the composer met the eminent cellist/minor composer Jean-Pierre Duport (1741-1818). Duport had landed a plum job chez Frederick the Great, eventually becoming cello teacher to Frederick Wilhelm II. Mozart, ever in search of a stable, full-time position worthy of his genius, took the opportunity to compose—or essentially improvise—a set of variations on a minuet from Duport’s Sonata for Cello, Op. 4, No. 6.