[+] Keller, Hans. "Mozart and Boccherini: A Supplementary Note to Alfred Einstein's Mozart: His Character--His Work." The Music Review 8 (November 1947): 241-47.
Mozart borrowed the opening theme of Boccherini's String Quartet in C several times. The most extensive borrowing occurs in the last movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata in D major, K. 576, where he uses the Boccherini sequence as the incipit and basis of the principal subject. The sequence itself offers numerous possibilities for treatment. Other references are present in the first movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata in C minor, K. 457, the finale of his Piano Concerto in E flat major, K. 449, and the finale of the Sonata for Violin and Piano in D major, K. 306. Mozart was immeasurably more original in "stealing" Boccherini's theme than Boccherini was in inventing it, producing some of his greatest works while using a mediocre model.
Index Classifications: 1700s
Contributed by: Mirna Polzovic
