The Steiermärkisches Landesarchiv Graz preserves a manuscript written in Vienna around 1791 with the title: Thema con | Variazioni | per il | Clavi Cembalo | Del Sig re Wolfg: Amade Mozart. The scribe worked for Johann Traeg's publishing house, which was closely associated with the Mozart family. The theme comes from a ballo by Mozart for the Serenata teatrale Ascanio in Alba (KV 111, Milan 1771) and is also known from the nine piano pieces (KV 3 Anh. 207, KV 6 Anh. C 27.06). The variations on the theme from 1771 fall into a gap of at least seven years from which no keyboard works by Mozart are known. The cycle has so far only been mentioned three times in the literature without ever having been published. The work deserves an unprejudiced study, which can begin with the first print and Carsten Wollin's reconstruction of its transmission history.
