Ergo interest, an quis... Quaere superna, K. 143

A recitative and aria for soprano on a Latin devotional text, catalogued as K. 143 and re-dated by later scholarship to 73a; the manuscript carries no date, and the work is placed variously between 1770 and 1773, in Mozart's Salzburg years. The text urges the listener to seek what is above rather than what passes. The setting follows the pattern of the Italian concert arias he was writing for the theatre at the same time: an accompanied recitative opening onto a single aria for voice, strings and continuo. It is rarely performed.