String Quartet No. 19 (Mozart)

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String Quartet No. 19
String quartet by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart's manuscript of K.465
KeyC Major
CatalogueK. 465
GenreChamber music
ComposedJanuary 14, 1785. Vienna.
PerformedFebruary 12, 1785
PublishedVienna: Artaria. 1785
Movements4
Scoring2 vn, va, vc

The String Quartet No. 19 in C Major, K. 465 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, nicknamed "Dissonance" on account of the unusual counterpoint in its slow introduction.[1]: 76  It is perhaps the most famous of his quartets.

History[edit]

Cover page from Artaria's publication of Mozart's Six String Quartets.
Cover page from Artaria's publication of Mozart's Six String Quartets.

It is the last in the set of six quartets composed between 1782 and 1785 that he dedicated to Joseph Haydn. According to the catalogue of works Mozart began early the preceding year, the quartet was completed on January 14, 1785.

On February 12, Mozart and his father performed the quartet along with two others (K. 458, 464) for Haydn. Anton and Bartholomäus Tinti most likely played the other parts in the ensemble.[2]: 236 

No patron commissioned these quartets, which makes them an unusually personal effort by the composer.[3]: 111  In his dedication, he refers to the quartets as his "children" that he is sending "out into the great world". Mozart continues, "They are, it is true, the fruit of a long and laborious endeavour..."[2]: 250  In these quartets he deviated from his usual practice of short scoring "Hauptstimmen" (main voices) and filling in the rest later. Striving to combine Haydn's quartet language and Bach's counterpoint, he composed all four voices at once.[4]: 155, 160 

Artaria & Company announced the publication of all six quartets on September 17, 1785 in the Wiener Zeitung.[2]: 252  According to Leopold Mozart, the firm paid the composer 100 ducats for the publishing rights.[5]

Form[edit]

I. Adagio-Allegro
Performed by Quatuor Mosaïques
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I. Adagio. Allegro[edit]

Start of first movement

The 22-bar Adagio opens with quiet eighth note Cs in the cello. It is joined by the viola on A♭ and the second violin on E♭. The first violin enters on A, creating the initial "dissonance" that flummoxed so many listeners. The tension between the A♭ and A is a structural feature of the entire quartet. The Adagio acts as a thesis statement for the composition, introducing the major ideas Mozart will revisit throughout the piece.[6]: 291 

While playing with the quality of the sixth scale degree, Mozart assiduously avoids the third to keep the tonality ambiguous. The quartal melodies give rise to whole tone sonorities. The E is only used as a neighboring tone until the first violin plays on the downbeat of measure 14, but the part immediately descends to an E♭ on the next beat.[6]: 288–9 

The entire Adagio is an elaborate preparation of the dominant chord which Mozart emphasizes with a fermata in its final measure.[7] When the Allegro begins, the cello is tacet, and the viola has taken up its eighth note Cs, playing them an octave higher and much more ebulliently than the opening bars.[8]: 700 

The main theme of the Allegro is constructed on a 2-bar motive beginning on the tonic C. Mozart sequences the motive up to D in the next two bars, but instead of continuing up to E in the third statement, he leaps to G. He withholds the expected E in the sequence until bar 167 well into the recapitulation of the movement.[9]: 76–9  In the coda, there is a series of 21 consecutive dissonances in just 3 measures.[4]: 158 

II. Andante cantabile[edit]

II. Andante cantabile (mm. 75–end)
Anonymous performance for acoustic research at Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences[10]
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Start of second movement

The second movement is a 3
4 sonatina in F major. The violin's "dissonant" A natural from the quartet's opening now has pride of place as the mediant scale degree. In bars 93–101, the A♭ returns to prominence as Mozart slips into the parallel minor.[6]: 291 

The movement has been called the "heart" of the entire piece.[1]: 57  Alfred Einstein writes of the coda of this movement that "the first violin openly expresses what seemed hidden beneath the conversational play of the subordinate theme".[11]: 167 

III. Menuetto and Trio. Allegro[edit]

Start of third movement

The third movement is a minuet and trio in C major. The A is often ornamented with an appoggiatura G♯, continuing Mozart's interplay between these two notes. In the trio, the tonality shifts to C minor, returning the A♭ to the fore. The cello's concluding melody in the trio highlights the vacillations between these notes.[6]: 291  The texture is mercurial with unison passages often signaling a shift.[1]: 58 

IV. Allegro molto[edit]

Start of fourth movement

The final movement is a lively contredanse in sonata form. The exposition lasts 136 bars, the development 62, and Mozart includes a 48-bar coda.

There is a great deal of rhythmic variety in the movement. Mozart evokes Haydn's witty deployment of rests, which creates textural variety and contrasts the melodic material. The development is as harmonically audacious as the piece's introduction as it modulates through a circle of fifths in minor keys before returning to the main theme.[1]: 59f 

Reception[edit]

The string quartet is one of Mozart's most analyzed compositions and has a long history of musicological debate that began almost immediately upon its publication.[3]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d Irving, John. Mozart: The "Haydn" Quartets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
  2. ^ a b c Deutsch, Otto. Mozart: A Documentary Biography. Translated by Eric Bloom, etc. Stanford University Press: 1966.
  3. ^ a b Vertrees, Julie Anne (1974). "Mozart’s String Quartet K. 465: The History of a Controversy". Current Musicology, (17), 96–114.
  4. ^ a b Flothuis, Marius. "A Close Reading of the Autographs of Mozart's Ten Late Quartets", in The String Quartets of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven: Studies of the Autograph Manuscripts. Isham Library Papers III, ed. Christoph Wolff and Robert Riggs (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), 154-78.
  5. ^ Küster, Konrad. Mozart: A Musical Biography. Translated by Mary Whittall. Clarendon Press, 1996. 189.
  6. ^ a b c d Baker, James M. "Chromaticism in Classical Music", in Christopher Hatch and David W. Bernstein (eds.), Music Theory and the Exploration of the Past. University of Chicago Press, 1993. 286–94.
  7. ^ Rosen, Charles. The Classical Style. Faber & Faber, 1971. 282.
  8. ^ Brown, Marshall. “Mozart and after: The Revolution in Musical Consciousness.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 7, no. 4, 1981, pp. 689–706.
  9. ^ Cavett-Dunsby, Esther. "Mozart's 'Haydn' Quartets: Composing Up and Down without Rules". Journal of the Royal Musical Association 113 (1988), 57-80.
  10. ^ Leckschat, Dieter (2020-02-02). "Streichquartett-Aufnahme zur Verwendung in der Virtuellen Akustik". Zenodo. Retrieved 2024-05-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  11. ^ Einstein, Alfred. Mozart, his character, his work. Trans. Mendel, A., and Broder, N. Panther, 1971.

External links[edit]

Scores

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