Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791)

I   Allegro vivace assai

II Menuetto: Allegro – Trio

III Andante cantabile

IV Molto allegro

Finished by Mozart on the last day of 1782, this quartet was the first he composed of six dedicated to Haydn, his only peer among his contemporaries, and from whom he admitted to have learnt most about string quartet writing. In the dedicatory inscription, Mozart described these quartets as the ‘fruit of long and laborious effort’. Leaving evidence of - for him – an unusually large number of sketches and corrections, Mozart spread the composition of the quartets over the best part of three years. He was not intimidated by Haydn’s example – on the contrary, he was remarkably free of what his biographer Maynard Solomon calls ‘the anxiety of influence’. Rather he chose to work without a commission or the pressure of concert deadlines to achieve a major statement in the quartet medium. Solomon sees in this as an emblem of Mozart’s pioneering of economic independence for composers. He was well rewarded: the fee Artaria paid him for the complete set, 450 florins, was equivalent to the usual fee for an opera.

Not surprisingly, the first of the quartets makes a particularly concentrated and thoroughly worked out statement. In its first and last movements, in particular, it discovers the solution of the problem of reconciling the ‘learned’ and the ‘galant’ styles, showing that contrapuntal writing and fugue could be incorporated in the Viennese style, provided its sonata principles took precedence. The results were too demanding for most of his potential audience, and helped gain Mozart the reputation of a radical, difficult composer. His colleague Dittersdorf complained of the ‘overwhelming and unrelenting artfulness’ of Mozart’s Haydn quartets, but we don’t experience this G major quartet as Dittersdorf did. Balancing light-heartedness with shafts of darker, more disturbing emotions, Mozart achieves a masterly balance: amazing polyphonic invention and delightful playfulness, such as we find in his comic operas.

Hans Keller has shown how the first and second subjects of the first movement, including their development with great contrapuntal and chromatic ingenuity, derive from the first three notes – unity is sensed behind the marked surface contrast. The Minuet, placed second, compresses its material in sequences of a rising chromatic scale, later heard in descending form as a counterpoint, with loud and soft notes alternating, making the listener uncertain whether the music is in double or triple time. Belgian commentator Harry Halbreich calls this Mozart invention a ‘counterpoint of dynamics’, unprecedented in the classical style. The unison G minor opening of the trio provides balancing contrast, but the chromaticism soon returns. Where Mozart comes closest to paying Haydn tribute is in the richly ornamented first violin part of the slow movement; this is the prelude to a fantastic voyage into remote tonalities, then Mozart finds his way back with a sleepwalker’s assurance. Haydn, in his Op. 20 quartets, had composed entirely fugal finales, but Mozart prefers to use fugally presented themes as one element enriching the drama of sonata form, as he did, six years later, in the finale of his ‘Jupiter’ Symphony. Sonata form wins in the reprise, where the fugal beginning is omitted. The fugue subject opening notes do, however, get the last word.

First published for Musica Viva, 2005