Mozart’s piano quartets are effectively the first in the genre, and perhaps stem from his love of viola playing in a chamber context, as the piano quartet adds a viola to the already familiar piano trio. This work, the first of his two piano quartets, was completed in Vienna in 1785, apparently to a commission by Hoffmeister, It is in three movements and is very much a show-piece for the piano. Unlike the piano trios, which tend to show off all three instruments in equal light, in the piano quartets the three stringed instruments tend to act as a mini-orchestra, acting as a foil to some virtuosic writing for the piano.