String Quartet No. 15 (Mozart)

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Detail of Lange's 1782-83 Mozart portrait Mozart (unfinished) by Lange 1782.jpg
Detail of Lange's 1782–83 Mozart portrait

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's String Quartet No. 15 in D minor, K. 421/417b is the second of his quartets dedicated to Haydn and the only one of the set in a minor key. Though undated in the autograph, [1] it is believed to have been completed in 1783, while his wife Constanze Mozart was in labour with her first child Raimund. [a] Constanze stated that the rising string figures in the second movement corresponded to her cries from the other room. [3]

Contents

Structure

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1. Allegro moderato
2. Andante
3. Menuetto and Trio – Allegretto
4. Allegretto ma non troppo – Più allegro
Performed by the Strub Quartet
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Performances of the whole string quartet vary in length from 23 to 33 minutes. It is in four movements:

  1. Allegro moderato
  2. Andante (F major)
  3. Menuetto and Trio (the latter in D major) – Allegretto
  4. Allegretto ma non troppo – Più allegro

The first movement is characterized by a sharp contrast between the aperiodicity of the first subject group, characterized by Arnold Schoenberg as "prose-like", and the "wholly periodic" second subject group. [4] In the Andante and the Menuetto, "normal expectations of phraseology are confounded." [5] The main part of the Menuetto is in minuet and trio sonata form, [6] while "the contrasting major-mode Trio ... is ... almost embarrassingly lightweight on its own ... [but] makes a wonderful foil to the darker character of the Minuet." [7] The last movement is a set of variations. The movement ends in a Picardy third.

Arrangements

An arrangement of the Menuetto and Trio for violin and piano is in Suzuki Violin Volume 7. [8]

Notes and references

Notes

  1. ↑ "There is an anecdote, reported by Constanze to Vincent and Mary Novello in 1829, that Mozart wrote the D minor string quartet while she was in labour with their first child, Raimund, and therefore around 17 June 1783." [2]

References

  1. ↑ Finscher 2007, p. X.
  2. ↑ Irving 1998, p. 13.
  3. ↑ Hildesheimer 1991, pp. 164–165.
  4. ↑ Irving 1998 , p. 33
  5. ↑ Irving 1998 , p. 35
  6. ↑ Rosen 1988 , pp. 112–114
  7. ↑ Irving 1998 , p. 36
  8. ↑ Polesky n.d.

Sources

Further reading

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