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BUNT .387/in C, K.465

LM-2167

MOZART QUARTETS in G, K. 387 | in C, K. 465

JUILLIARD STRING QUARTET On Friday evening, February 12, 1785, there was a party

on the first floor of Mozart’s roomy apartment at No. 846

(now No. 12) Schulerstrasse, Vienna. It was a special

occasion. His father, Leopold, had arrived the day before

for an extended visit, and to please the old musician,

-Mozart had invited the great Franz Joseph Haydn. Later

in the evening came young Ditters von Dittersdorf, a

prolific composer of operas and chamber music, and still

another composer, Jan Baptist Vanhal, author of no fewer

than a hundred string quartets. Probably with Haydn as

first violin, Dittersdorf as second, Mozart as viola and

Vanhal as ’cello, they gave a reading from manuscript of

the second three of a series of six quartets composed by

Mozart. The first of the six was K. 387 in G; the last of

the six, played that Friday evening, was K. 465 in C.

Leopold Mozart was much pleased and wrote a descrip-

tion of the evening to his daughter Nannerl back in Salz-

-burg. The great Haydn came up to him and said—so he

reported—*“I tell you before God and as an honest man

that your son is the greatest composer of whom I have ever

heard. He has taste and in addition the most complete

knowledge of composition.”

The admiration was by no means one-sided. Mozart

dedicated the six quartets to Haydn, “for,” he wrote, “from

Haydn I first learned how to compose a quartet.” This was

not literally true, for Mozart had composed over a dozen

earlier quartets. These were in the comparatively simple

Italian and Mannheim styles of the day, constructed largely

as solos for the first violin with accompaniment of the

other three instruments. Haydn’s earlier string quartets

were of the same sort, and it was Mozart’s encounter with

Haydn’s first consistent departure from this style—the six

quartets in Opus 33, known as the “Russian” quartets—

that opened up new possibilities to Mozart and inspired

both the dedication and the extraordinary subtlety, sophis-

tication, deceptive ease, and profound beauty of these

quartets. They are, he also said in his dedication, “the

fruits of long and arduous toil.” Even though it is true

that they came from his pen often in a matter of a few

days apiece—days busy with other labors as well—the

manuscripts (now in the British Museum) indicate that

there was far more revision than Mozart customarily found

necessary. For these quartets were composed not for the

general public but for the revered and beloved Haydn, who

even after Mozart’s death continued proudly to adapt what

he had learned from Mozart’s advances.

The very first of the six quartets immediately illustrates

the advances made in style. These include the development

of fractions of themes, the use of the four instruments on

an equal level of importance, and the prime characteristic

of definitive chamber music: such works cannot be effec-

tively transcribed for full orchestra. Thus, the opening

theme of the first movement (Allegro vivace assai, 4/4)

is characterized by sudden changes from loud to soft in

mid-melody, so to speak, in a manner that would be all but

impossible to project by a large section of strings in a

large hall. And when the second part of the theme is first

heard, the viola announces it, the second violin continues

in the next measure, and the first thereafter. Another

feature is the characteristic late Mozartean use of chro-

matics, which is especially pronounced in this quartet and

prominent not merely in the development section but on

the very first page of the score.

The second movement (Menuetto: Allegro, 3/4) also

contains the sudden piano to forte shifts—so much so that

for a moment or two the consequent syncopation makes it

sound as though the minuet were to be carried out in 2/4

time! The middle section, or Trio, is in minor and features

an extra measure at the end of the third phrase which

seems to be thrown in to startle the listeners into accepting

a new key.

The third movement ( Andante cantabile, 3/4) is a long,

soulful song in strict sonata form which achieves the

height of its eloquence in the serene yet mysterious changes

wrought with the beginning of the recapitulation.

The finale (Molto allegro, alla breve) brings us to a

masterly double fugue within sonata form, the first subject

begun in the second violin, the second in the ’cello. A very

telling touch is the charmingly cheerful and innocent epi-

sode at the close of the exposition which makes an utterly

endearing contrast to the exciting but “learned” configura-

tions of the fugal sections.

More ink has been spilled over the 22-measure introduction

(Adagio, 3/4) to the K. 465 Quartet than over any other

22 measures in music. The ’cellist begins with repeated

low C’s as though establishing the key. But after four of

them, the violist chimes in on the chromatic A-flat, and

after two more, the second violin on an E-flat. For a

moment we seem to be in the key of A-flat; but then the

first fiddle, in a higher octave, comes in on the A-natural

as the viola moves to G. It was so utterly mystifying to

Mozart’s contemporaries (and even to some modern

critics) that they thought he had simply made an error.

However, three measures later he repeats almost the iden-

tical sequence of intervals one tone lower. No mistake this:

Mozart, in a twentieth-century atonal style, was simply

feeling his way toward a dominant seventh in the key of C,

which he reaches, with a sigh in the first violin, after a

series of chromatic passages in each of the instruments—a

triumph of ingenuity and beauty. The Allegro in common

time that follows is in no way an anticlimax, even if the

idiom is more familiar. Of especial beauty is the coda at

the end, where Mozart develops the opening two measures

in an entirely new way, with an exciting interchange be-

tween viola and first violin, and then subsides into a quiet

echo farewell—the first pianissimo in the movement.

The Andante cantabile (3/4) is, for this writer, the

single most beautiful movement Mozart ever composed for

string quartet. Space does not permit pointing out more

than one of its manifold beauties. On its last entry, the

third theme (merely six repeated notes followed by a

seventh a half step down) is built up, both in pitch and

volume, through the upper three instruments; and as the

’cello wanders slowly downwards, the upper voices clash

in occasional dissonance.

The principal section of the minuet (3/4) begins with,

and repeats later in all the instruments, a characteristically

Mozartean chromatic turn of melody. Its middle section

(the Trio) is in minor and, near its close, throws the melody

to the ’cello as the first fiddle runs after it in imitation.

The finale (Allegro molto, 2/4) is a brilliant piece yet

restrained and serious in tone, its biggest surprise coming

in two abrupt changes in key carried on very quietly by

the first violin solo.

Notes by HENRY W. SIMON

The Juilliard String Quartet was founded in 1946 by

William Schuman, President of the Juilliard School of

Music, as the institution’s quartet-in-residence. The mem-

bers of the ensemble, all of whom have distinguished them-

selves as solo performers, are Robert Mann and Robert

Koff, violinists, Raphael Hillyer, violist, and Claus Adam,

cellist. Since its formation, the Quartet has concertized

extensively throughout the United States, Canada and

Europe. © by Radio Corporation of America, 1957

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