Wolfgang Amadé Mozart (1756-91)
String Quintet no. 6, in E-flat major, K. 614 (1791)
Completed in the spring of 1791, the String Quintet in E-flat major proved to be Mozart’s last chamber composition. And, though there’s nothing really valedictory about the music’s tone – it’s one of the sunniest, most ebullient pieces he wrote – the Quintet is a score that offers intriguing demonstrations of just how similarly Mozart’s late creative impulses were in tune with Beethoven’s mature ones.
The first movement is all rustic charm. Cast in a 6/8 meter, its first (and most important) theme is played right away by the violas and recalls the sound of hunting horns. Mozart treats this gesture almost as obsessively as we’d expect someone like Beethoven to manage it, but his writing is also very graceful: there’s a conversational quality to this movement that’s typical of his High Classical style. True, the first violin leads much of the discussion, but listen for the important points made by some of the ensemble’s other members (like the cello and first viola) as the music proceeds.
A fine example of this balance between the parts comes with the introduction of the second theme, which, in the movement’s exposition, features an extended, lyrical cello solo. The materials here aren’t far removed from the first theme – sure enough, it’s not twenty bars before the hunting-horn motive returns – but they offer a gentle contrast and a short reprieve from what’s come before.
The development section makes a slightly more aggressive effort at leaving behind the opening motive, this time rather dramatic (indeed, almost operatic) and comic in nature. To wit: a driving violin melody hints at the music heading in a new direction but, when the first violin looks back with a soft reminiscence of the hunting-horn gesture, it’s echoed immediately by the second violin and violas. Another abortive effort (this time in the minor mode) leads to the same result and, from there, the music, unable to shake that first theme, works its way to the recapitulation.
The second movement features a recurring, gavotte-like tune that’s gently varied and elaborated upon in a loose adaptation of the traditional theme & variations form; here, Mozart’s transmutation of the form includes a couple of interludes marked by aching dissonances and florid scalar passages.
Descending scales drive the courtly third-movement Minuet. There are a couple of wonderfully unexpected touches – a slithering figure passed between first violin and first viola, for one; some astringent chord progressions at the end of the Minuet sections, for another – plus a Trio that, in its bucolic charm, nicely echoes the opening movement.
And the main theme of the rondo-finale also recalls the first movement (it’s derived from the violins’ response to the violas’ first hunting-horn statement), as does the movement’s brilliant virtuosity. Owing to the latter, everybody gets something exciting to play while, in its balance of parts and integration of motivic materials, the Quintet auspiciously anticipates the world of the Rasumovskys Quartets and beyond.
© Jonathan Blumhofer
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