In 1785 Mozart and the music publisher, Hoffmeister, agreed that Mozart would compose a set of six quartets for piano and strings. The first, in g minor, appeared in October and the second, in Eb (K. 493) appeared in the following year. The series was then discontinued for lack of support from the public. By the late 1780's, according to some accounts, the piano quartets were much in fashion in Vienna. "Almost everywhere I went," wrote one social reporter, "a lady, or middle-class girl, or some saucy dilettante appeared with a Mozart quartet... and insisted that one must enjoy the music. One could not enjoy it. Everyone was bored and yawning at the incomprehensible hodgepodge of instruments, which did not harmonize in a single bar. This folly . . . lasted almost the entire winter and was to be met -as I have been told - everywhere and any time."
Despite the lack of public enthusiasm Mozart had contributed two masterpieces for a combination of instruments rarely used up to that time. Their instrumentation's debt to Johann Schubert's quartets that appeared in the 1760's has often been remarked.
For Mozart the key of g minor was dramatic and tragic. It is no accident that this quartet's first movement rivals the great string quintet (K. 516) and the 40th symphony in heroic proportion and power. The opening allegro has an almost Beethoven-like expression. The fierce opening unison sets the mood of the movement. Mozart makes great use of the opening theme in a conversation between the instruments before introducing the secondary subject. The Andante movement that follows is much more subdued and calm. Its lyrical subject and gracefulness achieve a sublime contrast to the terse first movement. Mozart achieves beauty by the constant reharmonization of this theme and the changes in registral play. The last movement is a rondo and, although lighter in character than the first, balances out the three-movement form. It ends in a bright, major key, dispelling any gray clouds that may have settled in.
-- Kendall Durelle Briggs
