Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Piano Quartet in Eb Major, K. 493
August 8-9, 2007
Commenting upon Mozart’s method of composition, Robert Pitrou has written:
“With him, both stages – the birth of ideas and their elaboration – were probably unconscious. His mind was constantly creating, without ever a break. When he came to the third stage – to committing to paper – he used to give his ideas at one stroke the very form he was aiming at. When at his desk, he always seems . . to have been copying music already fully written down in his mind. We even know, from his letters, that his mind could turn to other music the while. Sending a prelude and fugue to his sister, he wrote: ‘Forgive the untidy arrangement. I had composed the fugue first, and while writing it out, I was thinking out the prelude.” Mozart himself has written: “when I am in the right mood, ideas seem to teem within me. Those I like I retain. Then there are scraps which might go to
the making of many a good dish. When I start composing I draw upon the accumulation
in my brain.”
Mozart began to compose piano quartets in 1785 when he completed his wonderful g minor piano quartet, K. 478. This work was written in response to a commission from the publisher Franz Anton Hoffmeister. The dark nature of the g minor quartet caused Hoffmeister to shudder and send a letter to Mozart quickly asking him to “write more popularly, or else I can neither print nor pay for anything of yours!” This daring comment is hard for us to believe today, but in Mozart’s day there were bounds of harmony, color and structure. Those who pushed the limits met with stern warning and sometimes scorn. Mozart in response to Hoffmeister swore un-mentionable words and the contract was canceled.
However, both remained friends and in the following year Hoffmeister published the Quartet in D major, K. 499. Mozart then completed the Piano Quartet in Eb in Vienna in 1786. Alfred Einstein said of the quartet: “it is bright in color, but iridescent, with hints of darker shades”. Truly, the new Piano Quartet was lighter and easier on the ear but equally as rich in its harmonic daring and contrapuntal skill.
The work, however, was not published by Hoffmeister but by Ataria & Co. The work is cast in three movements: Allegro, Larghetto and Allegretto.
-- Kendall Durelle Briggs |
