IV

These quartets are much more broadly planned than earlier works by Mozart in the same form. Not only are the separate movements generally longer; the middle section of the first movements is intricate and extended, and the minuets are not less seriously treated than the other movements. The treatment of the separate instrumental parts is, of course, distinguished and fine.

It would be difficult to characterize each one distinctly. The first, in G major (K. 387), is marked by a certain decisive clearness throughout. The two themes of the first movement are especially clearly differentiated. The development section is long and rather severe. It will be noticed that the minuet takes the second place in the cycle, as in many of Haydn’s quartets. The final movement is in fugal style and not unrelated in spirit to the final movement of the great Jupiter symphony.

The second quartet, in D minor (K. 421), takes both from its tonality and from the nature of its themes a thin veil of melancholy. The opening theme is poignantly expressive, but the fire of it is often covered. The characteristic width of its intervals is used throughout the entire movement, with a strange effect of yearning, now resigned, now passionately outspoken. The andante, in F major, is tinged with the same melancholy. The trio of the minuet is one of the few places where Mozart made use of pizzicato effects. The last movement is a series of variations on a melancholy little theme cast in the rhythm of the Siciliana, one of the Italian rhythms already made use of by Handel and Gluck, among others.

The third quartet, in E-flat major (K. 428), is on the whole reserved and classical in spirit. The opening theme, given in unison, has a gentle dignity which marks the whole first movement. The measures following the second theme are especially smooth and lovely in their slowly falling harmonies. In the second movement, andante con moto, there is a constant shifting of harmonies, and a somewhat restless interchange of parts among the instruments. The trio of the minuet, in C minor, is subtly woven over a drone bass. The final movement is a lively rondo.

The fourth, in B-flat major (K. 458), is, in the first movement, very like Haydn, light-hearted and wholly gay. The following minuet, adagio, and rondo need hardly be specially mentioned. The A major quartet (K. 464), the next in the series, is in a similar vein. The slow movement, again the third in the cycle, is in the form of variations; and the last is full of imitations and other contrapuntal devices.

The last of these quartets, in C major (K. 465), is the most profound and the most impassioned. The boldness of Mozart’s imagination in harmonies is in most of his work likely to fail to impress the modern ear. One hears but half-consciously the subtlety of his modulations. But here and there in his work the daring of the innovator still has power to claim our attention; as in the andante of the last pianoforte sonata in F major (K. 533), and still more in the introduction of this quartet. The sharp harmonies of the first few measures roused hostility; and the discussion as to their grammatical propriety was continued for more than half a century after Mozart’s death.

The whole quartet is full of an intensity of feeling. The andante has that quality of heart-melting tenderness which sprang only from Mozart’s genius. One cannot but place the four movements with the three great symphonies, as something not only immortal, but precious and inimitable in the world’s treasure of instrumental music.

This series of six quartets did not make a decidedly favorable impression upon the general public. The next quartet from his pen was in a much more conventional manner, as if Mozart had tried to suppress the genius in him which prompted him ever to new discoveries in his art. The quartet in D major (K. 499) was composed on the 19th of August, 1786. It is beautifully worked in detail, light in character. No special reason is known why he should have written and published a single quartet like this; and it has been thought that he hoped by it to rouse the public to enthusiasm for his instrumental works.

There remain three more quartets to mention. These were written for Frederick William II of Prussia, at whose court Mozart had been a frequent attendant during the early spring of 1789. The first quartet was completed in Vienna, in June, 1789. The other two were written about a year later. In Köchel’s index the three are Nos. 575, in D major, 589, in B-flat major, and 590, in F major.

All are very plainly written with a king in mind who played the violoncello. In most of the movements the 'cello is given a very prominent part, frequently playing in unusually high registers as in the announcement of the second theme in the first movement of the first of these quartets; in the trio and the finale as well. In many places the viola plays the bass part, leaving the 'cellist free to be soloist, as in the opening measures of the Larghetto in the second sonata. Thus these quartets, fine and free in style as they are, are not the fullest expression of Mozart’s genius, as the series of six dedicated to Haydn may be taken to be.

There are, as we have said, twenty-three quartets in all. The majority of the early ones were written under the influence of a certain mode or style, as experiments or as test pieces; and the last four were written with the purpose of pleasing the public or of suiting the special abilities of a king of Prussia. Only the six quartets dedicated to Haydn may be taken as what Mozart felt to be his best effort in the form, the expression, perfect as far as he could make it, of his highest ideals. As such they are almost unique in his music.

With the quartets may be mentioned the four great quintets for strings, written, two in the spring of 1787, one in December, 1790, and one in April, 1791. Of the combination of five string parts Haydn made little use. Boccherini, however, had written at least one hundred and twenty-five quintets. He was himself a 'cellist and, as might be expected, the added instrument in his quintets was a 'cello.

Mozart added another viola to the group. Though this added no new strand of color to the whole, it rather complicated the problems offered by the quartet. As Otto Jahn has carefully explained, with the volume of sound thus thickened, there came a need for even more active movement of the separate parts. Since the additional part was among the middle voices, the outer voices must be spread as far apart as possible so as to allow sufficient freedom of movement to the inner. The extra viola might be treated as a bass part to the first and second violins, or as the upper part above the other viola and the 'cello. Mozart made use of this possibility of contrast nowhere more clearly than in the opening pages of the quintet in G minor.

The four quintets are respectively in C major (K. 515), G minor (K. 516), D major (K. 593), and E-flat major (K. 614). Of these that in G minor is clearly the most remarkable; and it is indeed conspicuous above almost all his instrumental music, for the passionate intensity of the moods which it voices. Needless to say it still holds its place as one of the supreme master-works in chamber music. More than a similarity of key unites it to the symphony in G minor. The themes in both works seem much alike, and both are equally broad in form and full of harmonic color.

FOOTNOTES:

[62] L. Piquot: Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de Luigi Boccherini; Paris, 1851.

[63] These are Nos. 1-18, inclusive, in Pohl’s index. The opus numbers by which Haydn’s quartets are usually designated are taken from the thematic index prefixed to the complete Trautwein Edition of 1844. These first quartets are: Opus 1, Nos. 1-6; opus 2, Nos. 1-6; and opus 3, Nos. 1-6.

[64] C. F. Pohl: ‘Joseph Haydn,’ Vol. I, p. 331.

[65] Eugène Sauzay: Étude sur le quatuor. Paris, 1861.

[66] Cf. C. F. Pohl: op. cit., Vol. II, p. 293.

[67] Étude sur le quatuor.

[68] Adagio, allegro, minuetto. The finale rondo was added some years later. Cf. ‘W. A. Mozart,’ by de Wyzewa and de Saint-Foix: Paris, 1912.

[69] Cf. Wyzewa and Saint-Foix: op cit. Gassmann was born in Bohemia in 1723 and died in Vienna in 1774. A great many of his works in manuscript are in the libraries at Milan. He had been appointed to a place in Vienna in 1762, and was hardly likely, therefore, to be in Milan when Mozart was; but he had lived at one time in Milan and came back there occasionally from Vienna to superintend performances of his operas.

CHAPTER XVI
THE STRING QUARTET: BEETHOVEN

Beethoven’s approach to the string quartet; incentives; the six quartets opus 18—The Rasumowsky quartets; opera 74 and 95—The great development period; the later quartets, op. 127 et seq.: The E-flat major (op. 127)—The A minor (op. 132); the B-flat major (op. 130); the C-sharp minor (op. 131); the F major (op. 135).