Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's String Quartet No. 15 in D minor K. 421/417b, the second of the Quartets dedicated to Haydn and the only one of the set in a minor key, is believed to have been completed in 1783.[1] The quartet is, however, undated in the autograph.[2]
Structure
It is in four movements:
- Allegro moderato
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Andante (F major)
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Menuetto and Trio (the latter in D major). Allegretto
- Allegretto ma non troppo
The first movement is characterized by a sharp contrast between the aperiodicity of the first subject group, characterized by Arnold Schoenberg as "prose-like," and the "wholly periodic" second subject group.[3] In the Andante and the Minuet, "normal expectations of phraseology are confounded."[4] The main part of the Minuet is in minuet sonata form,[5] while "the contrasting major-mode Trio ... is ... almost embarrassingly lightweight on its own ... [but] makes a wonderful foil to the darker character of the Minuet."[6] The last movement is a set of variations. Notes
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^ John Irving, Mozart: The 'Haydn' Quartets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1998): 13. "There is an anecdote, reported by Constanze to Vincent and Mary Novello in 1829, that Mozart wrote the D minor quartet K.421 while she was in labour with their first child, Raimund, and therefore around 17 June 1783."
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^ The Ten Celebrated String Quartets (2007), p. X
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^ Irving (1998): 33
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^ Irving (1998): 35
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^ Charles Rosen, Sonata Forms. New York: W. W. Norton (1988): 112 - 114
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^ Irving (1998): 36
References
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Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus; Finscher, Ludwig (preface); Anderson, Kinloch (transl.) (2007). The Ten Celebrated String Quartets. Kassel: Bärenreiter Verlag. ISMN M-006-20118-1
External links
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