Mozart's String Quintets

Haydn and Mozart attract some parallel between the originality of each other, while there are also other similarities between these two composers of genius. However, there is one genre, where Haydn, the great creator of so many new forms (like the String Quartet and the Piano Trio, where he excelled), did not touch at all, namely the String Quintet (either for two violins, two violas and one cello or one viola and two cellos). On the contrary, the Six Quintets occupy a paramount place in Mozart's magnificent output.

When Mozart came to compose these six magnificent works, the genre was still in its infancy. Boccherini came into this, by composing over a hundred of such works, in different instrumentations apart the classic one (two violins, two violas and a cello). Michael Haydn composed some less important Quintets too.

Apart from the youthful First complex Quintet in B flat, K.174 (1773) and the Second in c minor K.406 (which is a transcription of the wonderful Serenade K.388), the rest of them appear later on in his formidable Opus. It is the great year 1787, when the first two superb late String Quintets (in C major, K.515, and in g minor, K. 516) came to life. Then, in 1789-1790, the two wonders of Chamber Music, namely the Quintet in D major, K. 593, and the last one in his beloved E flat, K. 614, made their splendid appearance. They constitute, beyond any doubt, the outcome of such effort and work on the composer's part. By the pressence of an additional viola, the form provides a wider scope and a more complete as well as ample sound - an early outline of the romantic ideal, later transcended so effectively and with utmost beauty and craft by Brahms or Reger.

Without any obvious difficulty, the divine composer indulges in this unexplored form of composition with a profoundly dramatic musicality, a feeling of musical colour and a quality of the most refined tone, full of the most subtle nuances. In this genre, the wunder Wolfgang has actually achieved to square the circle; he attained the impossible, for over and above the principle of the form itself: he reveals to us an ability to transcend in such a way that is close to the human voice thanks to the way he uses the five instruments, being so capable of expressing the most intimate detail of the innermost emotions. In this way, a poignant tune will touch us fleetingly, a tender melody will charm, a harmony of joy will stir us, while time and space no longer matter.

Are these out of this world works known to you? If yes, which are your thoughts, views and the emotions created by listening to them? Hopefully, we may touch upon each one of them gradually.

Parla

With all due respect to you, Guillaume, and the late Hans Keller, allow me to disagree and underscore the following points concerning the "two and a half" undervalued String Quintets:

- The First String Quintet in B flat, K.174 is an early work of 1773 by the divine prodigy as well as some of other superb scores of the time, like his greatest Symphony of the youth, namely the one in g minor, K.183 (the only minor mode Symphony apart from the glorious 40th, in the same key), the very intelligent String Quartets K168-173, under the inspired influence of Haydn, and his (truly) First Piano Concerto K.175 (with an impressive orchestration, heralding the ones to follow only at the very end of his career).

The First String Quintet is the most elaborated, brilliantly developed work of the youth period and a strong competitor of all the works of the other periods of Wolfgang. It's a quite complex work but with youthful freshness. It contains an incredible number of themes, expanded and developed with full of new (for Mozart) ideas and vitality (see First Movement). The Adagio, in his beloved E flat, is one of th loveliest slow movements from early Mozart, where the the two violins and violas, playing softly, perform as a wonderful foil for the cello. The Minuet is full of wit and vivaciousness, with a very well developed Trio constituting a charming exploitation of the new genre, while the Finale is a movement of exhilarating verve and inventiveness.

-The Second String Quintet, K.406 is indeed a transcription of the Wind Serenade K.388. However, what is strikingly interesting and impressive is the fact that, if you don't know or ever listened to the Wind Serenade, you will never guess the K.406 is a transcription; it sounds as a perfectly original composition for the medium. The use of the five String instruments is amazingly idiomatic. Besides, the original Serenade is considered as the "most un-serenade-like of Serenades", due to its very sombre and solemn key of c minor. Therefore, Mozart, most probably wanted to recast it to a more elevated medium.

The work is an immense masterpiece, second to none of the later works of the great composer. It illustrates Wolfgang's supreme genius, with some moving strokes as the intensification of the lyrical E flat second theme in the recapitulation of the First Movement.

-The last String Quintet in E flat is considered the other one in the "pair" of K.593 and they both were heralded as the two "miracles" of Chamber Music, that made their splendid appearance in December 1790 and April 1791 (Marc Vignal : "Haydn and Mozart", 2001"). I don't know in which way Keller can explain that the work sounds (!) like a "bad arrangement of a wind piece" (!!) in "mock-Haydn style" (?) and "is strictly unplayable" (!!!).

The work is performed regularly without any player's complains for "unplayable" notes or sections of the work. The fact that the two violas imitate hunting horns at the outset of the First Movement, as an evocation of the chase, can hardly make the work look as an arrangement of a (non-existing) wind piece. The Quintet is the most Haydnesque work of his maturity, but I can't see in which way Mozart is mocking his great Master, whom admired and revered so much (in any case, Haydn has mocked himself much more in his numerous works). One of the fascinating features in this full of "joie de vivre" score is the subtle balance between the popular, almost bucolic, character and a natural Mozartian grace and refinement.

Just for the record,

Parla