Notes for: August 5, 2014
In 1785 Mozart published six string quartets dedicated to Haydn and modeled after Haydn’s pioneering work in expanding and enriching the string quartet form. The six quartets are now considered among the high points of the chamber music repertory. Despite their quality, however, they attracted little public attention at the time of publication, and did nothing to produce what the hard-pressed composer needed more than anything else – commissions for new works.
As a result, Mozart did not again try his hand at quartet-writing for more than a year, and when he did the result was only a single work – K. 499. Apparently to assure publication, he dedicated the quartet to the publisher, Franz Anton Hoffmeister, and there is some evidence that Hoffmeister had also endorsed a promissory note that the composer had given a creditor. Whatever its purpose, the dedication was a demeaning action in a day when composers usually dedicated their music to aristocratic patrons or professional colleagues.
Although the K. 499 quartet may historically be overshadowed by the six “Haydn” quartets, it is fully up to its predecessors in ingenuity and craftsmanship, and is notable for its clarity of texture, Mozart’s explorations in contrapuntal writing, and the dramatic passages in which the first violin soars high above the other instruments.
In the first movement, allegretto, the simple little tune that is the main subject is enriched in a variety of ways – contrasting rhythms, restatements in inversion (played upside down) and fragmentation, a richly harmonized counter-theme, a canon (round) between the violin and cello, an echo of the viola by the first violin, and subtle shifts in key. In the last bar of the exposition, moreover, Mozart introduces a staccato 8th-note figure that suggests a ticking clock, and the development contrasts the main theme with the ticking figure.
The main section of the second movement, a minuet, is seasoned by liberal use of chromatics (half-steps) and the extensive contrapuntal writing between the instruments. The trio is in triplets with sharp contrasts between forte and piano, and imitations first between the violins and then between the viola and the cello.
The florid texture of the slow movement, adagio, is varied by contrasts among the instruments – lower strings against higher strings, violin against cello, and first violin against the other three instruments.
The movement suggests an operatic aria in its long singing melodies.The finale, allegro, is in fast duple time, but the pace is dominated by vigorous triplets and interrupted now and then by sudden pauses and broken phrases. Mozart begins the movement with short hints about the main theme before presenting it intact. After the theme comes to a full stop, the violins introduce the spirited second theme, which is rudely interrupted by the viola. There is then a third theme – a rising triplet figure for the cello answered by the viola. After a brief development, all of this material is revived before the concluding coda.