Notes for: August 1, 2006
The following announcement appeared in the April 2, 1788, issue of the Wiener Zeitung, and was repeated April 5 and 9:
“Three new quintets for 2 violins, 2 violas and cello which, beautifully and correctly written, I offer on subscription. The price is 4 ducats or 18 gulden in Viennese currency. The subscriptions may be ordered daily from Herr Puchberg at Sallinz’ business establishment in the High Market, where from the 1st of July the works will be available. I request out-of-town music lovers to pay postage for delivery.
Kapellmeister Mozart in the service of his Majesty”
The three quintets – K. 406, 515, and 516 – had been completed a year earlier but had aroused little public interest, and the announcement was an attempt by the debt-ridden composer to stimulate their sale. Although he twice repeated the message, again the public failed to respond. In a follow-up in late June, Mozart confessed: “Since the number of subscribers is still very small, I find myself obliged to postpone the publication of my 3 quintets until 1 January 1789.”
Since other Mozart works were winning public favor and all three quintets are vintage Mozart, why did the quintets meet such impenetrable indifference?
Unlike the string quartet form, which Haydn had brought to a high level of acceptability, string quintets did not appeal to 18th century musicians or audiences. In contrast to the clarity and balance of the quartet, the quintet, with its additional viola or cello, sounded muddy and thick about the middle. Significantly, Haydn wrote no string quintets, and when asked why, he replied, “Because no one asked me.”
Why, then, did Mozart turn to so unpromising a medium for serious composition? One theory is that Mozart wrote the three quintets to win the favor of Frederick William II, the new King of Prussia and a gifted cellist. However, there is no record of Mozart’s ever having submitted the works to Frederick William. Further, the cello enjoys nothing like the understandable prominence that it was assigned in the three subsequent quartets that Mozart did, in fact, compose for the King.
A more likely answer is that Mozart felt that the five-voice texture of the quintet offered more latitude for musical creativity than did the quartet. The five instruments not only made possible greater tonal and harmonic richness but also opened up new groupings. For example, they enabled Mozart to set violin against cello, or violin against viola, with the other instruments in three-part harmony; or to balance a pair of violins against a pair of violas, above the cello; or to contrast a higher trio of strings with a lower trio, one of the violas serving in both camps. It is significant that in converting the quartet into the quintet, Mozart added a second viola, his preferred instrument when playing quartets because of his interest in the inner voices.
Whatever Mozart’s thinking, there is general agreement today that his experiment in five-part string writing was highly successful. In particular, the K. 515 and K. 516 quintets are considered among his most deeply moving compositions. Mozart himself must have liked the results since, notwithstanding the coolness of the public, he returned to the string quintet form in December, 1790 (K. 593) and in April, 1791 (K. 614)
Of the three quintets offered in the Wiener Zeitung, K. 406 is a transcription of the wind serenade K. 388, completed five years earlier, and was probably undertaken to find a second market for the work. K. 515 and 516, on the other hand, were conceived afresh, and the closeness of their completion dates – April 19 and May 16, 1787 – suggests that Mozart intended them as a contrasting pair. K. 515, in C major, is characterized by optimism and confidence; K. 516, in G minor, by pessimism and despair. In this regard, as well as in key, the two quintets are often likened to the G minor and C Major “Jupiter” symphonies.
The G minor quintet begins on a note of anguish, which continues unabated throughout the first movement. The tension is due partly, of course, to the darker coloration added by the second viola. But a number of other devices are equally important – the presentation of the two main themes in broken, plaintive fragments; the continuation in the second theme of the tonic minor instead of the customary shift into a contrasting major; the almost continual undercurrent of throbbing chords in the middle strings; and the liberal use of chromatics (half-steps), starting in the second measure. The overall effect is heart-breaking.
The G minor tonality and despondent mood continue into the second movement, a minuetto in name but hardly in spirit. Any tendency for the tension to relax is crushed by the repeated appearance of two bitter, off-beat, ejaculatory chords.
The following adagio, played with strings muted, prompted Tchaikovsky to write:
“No one else has ever known how to interpret so beautifully and exquisitely in music the feeling of resignation and inconsolable sorrow....I had to hide in the farthest corner of the concert-room so that others would not see how much this music affected me.”
The brief fourth movement is another adagio, even more despairing than the music that has gone before. The middle strings return to the throbbing chords of the first movement while the first violin plays a series of declaratory passages of increasing dissonance and intensity, based loosely on themes from the first and third movements. The tension then relaxes, and the final movement, a graceful rondo, follows without pause.
Some critics have found the rondo anti-climactic; others have argued that still another serving of despair would have been unbearable. In any event, such abrupt changes of pace are not uncommon in Mozart. After Don Giovanni sinks into the fires of hell, it should be remembered, Mozart’s opera ends on a note of relief and rejoicing.