Edito de Mozart: Homage - The Six Quartets Dedicated To HaydnMOZART: THE SIX QUARTETS DEDICATED TO HAYDN In 1784 the young English composer Stephen Storace, then living in Vienna, hosted what he called a ?quartet evening??he invited a group of friends to his home to play and hear string quartets. The performers that evening were distinguished indeed. The violinists were Joseph Haydn, then 52, and Carl von Dittersdorf, then 45; the violist was the 28-year-old Wolfgang Mozart, and the cellist Johann Baptist Vanhal, also 45. The relations between these four composer-performers were long and complex. As Kapellmeister for the Esterhazy family Haydn had conducted Dittersdorf?s music, Vanhal had studied with Dittersdorf, and as a boy Mozart had performed Vanhal?s concertos and copied out Dittersdorf?s scores as a way of studying them. No one knows when Mozart met Haydn. Presumably it was sometime in the three years since Mozart moved to Vienna in 1781, but he had known Haydn?s music since he was a boy. Now these four men sat down to play quartets at Storace?s home, and tenor Michael Kelly, who left an account of the evening, said that the quartets were followed by ?an excellent supper [that] became joyous and lively in the extreme.? If only that ?quartet-evening? could have been recorded! A recording of that evening might reform our sense of the entire era. We could learn what those four men talked about and what they thought of the quartets they were playing. We could hear them play and learn much about performance practice at the end of the eighteenth century. And we could know what they played that evening. Was it some of Vanhal?s myriad quartets? Did they play any of Haydn?s Opus 33, a set of six remarkable quartets that had been published two years earlier? Or did they?perhaps?play some of the string quartets that Mozart had written in response to Haydn?s Opus 33? Three of those quartets had been completed at this point, and while they had not been published, perhaps these four composer-performers played through them from handwritten copies. It is tempting to believe that they might have, to believe that those three quartets came to life for the first time on this occasion. For Mozart?not an easy person to impress?had been more than impressed by Haydn?s Opus 33. When he published those quartets, Haydn described them as having been written ?in a quite new, special manner,? and the quartets?Haydn?s first in eight years?represent a re-thinking of the form. Gone are all traces of the old divertimento-style quartet, and in its place is an increasingly subtle approach to the possibilities of the form: a new clarity of texture, greater use of all four voices (particularly of the viola and cello), full exploitation of the motivic possibilities within themes, polished contrapuntal writing, and the replacement of the minuet movements with scherzos. Much has been made of Mozart?s lightning ability to assimilate new musical styles, and this does not mean putting on borrowed robes or aping a different manner. Rather, Mozart had the extraordinary ability to comprehend a new style, make it his own, and write his own music within those newly-discovered possibilities. Like Haydn, Mozart had written no quartets for nearly a decade when he encountered Haydn?s Opus 33, and now?with this example and its possibilities before him?he returned to the form and wrote six quartets of his own. This did not happen all at once: he wrote the first three between December 1782 and July 1783, then waited well over a year before writing the final three between November 1784 and January 1785. When he published them in 1785, Mozart dedicated the set to Haydn and in the process revealed that the older composer had come to know these quartets in manuscript, noting that ?you, yourself, my very good friend, expressed to me your approval of these compositions.? Usually a very quick worker, Mozart spent a great deal time and care on these quartets?he used the occasion of this dedication to confess that they had been ?the fruit of long and laborious study.? If Haydn knew that his Opus 33 quartets represented something ?quite new,? now Mozart was aware that his own ?laborious study? had resulted in something new of its own, and he confessed that ?the hope which many friends have given me that this toil will be in some degree rewarded, encourages me and flatters me with the thought that these children may one day prove a source of consolation to me.? Mozart?s premonition has proven correct?two centuries later, these quartets are regarded as one of his supreme achievements. Yet for all Mozart?s fulsome gratitude to Haydn, it should be said immediately that these quartets do not sound like Haydn?they sound like Mozart, and Mozart has made Haydn?s ?special manner? very much his own. There are passing moments, ephemeral flashes, when Mozart?s quartets seem to echo a phrase from Haydn?s, but these are gracious nods rather than borrowings. Mozart?s act of homage in these six quartets was to understand Haydn?s achievement and then to write his own music based on that understanding. In many ways, particularly in the extension of thematic material and the complex contrapuntal writing, Mozart goes well beyond the master whom he set out to honor in this music and from whom he had learned so much. String Quartet in G Major, K.387 Mozart completed the first of the set on December 31, 1782. There is nothing remarkable formally about the first three movements, but what distinguishes this music is the glorious writing for string quartet and the organic growth of simple thematic motifs. The Allegro is built around a lyric opening idea (note how Mozart dovetails fragments of that theme into the line even as the theme is still being announced) and a bouncy second subject presented by the second violin and which is itself derived from the opening theme. The graceful development of these ideas is often canonic in structure with the melodic line flowing easily between the four voices. The minuet is massive, both in duration (surprisingly, this minuet is the longest movement in the quartet) and in scope. It features off the beat accents and themes built on long chromatic lines; its powerful trio, in G minor, leaps across unexpected intervals. The elegant Andante cantabile does indeed sing. Mozart was usually sparing in his use of the marking cantabile?he believed that all music should sing?but this movement seems to demand that marking. Its main idea, already ornate on its opening statement, grows more intense as the movement progresses. Most remarkable by far is the finale, which?while not strictly a fugue?is built on fugal material. It opens with the four note tag that would later form the fugal opening of the finale of the ?Jupiter? Symphony. Almost before this contrapuntal complexity is underway, Mozart introduces a second fugue subject, and then?just as a dazzling display of composing virtuosity?he combines the two fugue themes. The movement is actually in sonata form, using fugal ideas as the contrasted material, and Mozart works out the movement with breathtaking ease. The very end may well be the most striking moment of all: the music races to what sounds like a cadence, but it is a false ending, and now Mozart produces the true conclusion, a simple restatement of the opening fugue subject, presented very quietly and?at the end?harmonized. String Quartet in D Minor, K.421 Each of Mozart?s six quartets dedicated to Haydn is distinctive in its own way, yet even in such distinguished company, the Quartet in D Minor, K.421, composed in June 1783, stands out as radically different. The only one of the cycle in a minor key, it is one of the most serious and powerful works that Mozart ever wrote. A minor key quartet was not by itself unusual, and Haydn (who usually published his quartets in groups of six) would often include one minor key quartet in a set. But no Haydn quartet?great a master as he was of that form?ever matched the expressive power of Mozart?s Quartet in D Minor. Individual keys had specific meanings for Mozart, and D minor (the key of the Piano Concerto No. 20 and of the Requiem) was the key he sometimes associated with revenge in his operas. This quartet is by no means program music, but the mood here partakes of that dark spirit?this is somber and unrelenting music. The Allegro opens with the first violin?s falling octave on D, and there follows a long and intense melody?marked sotto voce?for that instrument over unobtrusive accompaniment from the other voices. A more flowing second subject makes brief appearances, but the dark first theme dominates this movement. Mozart asks for the standard exposition retreat, but then offers performers the opportunity to repeat the entire development, as in the present recording. The recapitulation continues to develop the movement?s material, and finally the cello leads the way into the brief coda with an expressive idea of its own. The Andante, in F major, affords relief with its gentle main theme. Mozart had originally intended a somewhat simpler melodic idea here; his manuscript shows that he recognized the limits of that theme and replaced it. While this is not a variation movement, the lyric main idea undergoes a process of continuous evolution, sometimes with the most delicate shading, before Mozart brings back a reprise of the opening and rounds things off with a quiet coda. By sharp contrast, the minuet is fierce, almost clenched in its chromatic intensity. And then Mozart springs one of his most effective surprises: the trio eases into D major, and?over pizzicato accompaniment?the first violin sings an elegant, soaring melody built on Lombard rhythms (dotted rhythms with the short note coming first). The viola joins the second statement before the return to the driven minuet. The finale is a theme and variation movement. Mozart?s dancing main theme bears more than a passing resemblance to the main theme of the finale of Haydn?s Quartet in G Major, Opus 33, No. 5. Perhaps this was intended as an act of homage, but Mozart?s version of this theme is quite subtle: it tints the home key of D minor with hints of D major, and the harmonic tension of this beginning will energize the entire movement. Four variations follow: the second brings a famous syncopated accompaniment from the second violin, the third features the tawny sound of the viola, the fourth moves into D major. At the very end, Mozart brings back his original theme but now marks it Più Allegro, and the music rushes ahead on tense chromatic lines to the sudden end, where the first violin?s falling octave D rounds off this quartet with the same gesture that began it. String Quartet in E flat Major, K.428 Mozart composed the Quartet in E flat Major between June and July of 1783, just after the birth of his first child. Externally, the four movements seem normal enough, though the glory of this music (as with all Mozart?s music) lies in the transformation of just those very normal forms. The Allegro non troppo opens with a calm unison theme-shape that will recur in a variety of forms. The second subject?full of dots, turns, and triplets?feels unusually busy after the subdued opening, and Mozart then treats both themes in a concise development that features the smooth interplay of all four voices. The Andante con moto, nominally in the key of A flat minor, proceeds solemnly over the constant pulse of its 6/8 meter. As it continues, this movement wanders so far from the tonality suggested by its key signature that some have been tempted to make out prefigurations here of Tristan, still 76 years in the future. It is a movement like this that makes us understand how one early (1787) reviewer could complain that this music was ?too highly spiced.? The minuet offers another reminiscence of Haydn: its opening gesture seems to recall the scherzo of Haydn?s Opus 33, No. 2, also in E-flat major. The most distinctive feature of this movement is its trio, which turns unexpectedly dark. Mozart moves to G minor here, and the music is haunted by the chromatic winding of its themes before leaping back brightly to the minuet section. The concluding Allegro vivace is aptly named?it is a blistering rondo built on the bobbing, murmuring idea that opens the movement. Mozart may have learned from Haydn the importance of liberating all four voices in a string quartet, but this movement makes unusual demands on the first violinist?the writing here demands a virtuoso player, who is sent hurtling across the range of that instrument. After completing these three quartets, Mozart waited well over a year before he returned to the form. In that interval, he wrote five piano concertos (Nos. 14-18), the Third Horn Concerto, and the Piano Sonata in C Minor. Leopold Mozart detected a change in the three later quartets, feeling that they were ?somewhat lighter, but at the same time excellent compositions.? If the three later quartets do not duplicate the contrapuntal complexity of the Quartet in G Major or the tension of the Quartet in D Minor, they are nevertheless beautifully-made works, and perhaps some of our sense of their relatively ?lighter? character speaks instead of the refinement of Mozart?s technique. String Quartet in B flat Major, K.458 ?Hunt? Nicknames sometimes get attached to pieces of music for the thinnest of reasons. Audiences like to have a handle, a way of identifying or distinguishing a particular piece (and publishers see nicknames as good selling points). Some nicknames are appropriate. Mozart?s Symphony No. 41 truly does sound so Olympian that the nickname Jupiter strikes exactly the right note to identify that great music. But many nicknames are less felicitous, mere convenient tags that?by dwelling on a detail?mislead rather than illuminate the music they name. Mozart?s String Quartet in B flat Major, K.458 falls into the latter category. The nickname ?Hunt? (not original with the composer) comes from the 6/8 theme at the very beginning, which some listeners have identified with the sound of hunting horns. The identification of this quartet with hunting is unfortunate, since the music has not the faintest connection with hunting and such a nickname draws one away from the music?s many distinctive merits. Mozart completed this quartet on November 9, 1784, and it has been admired for the graceful writing for strings, for the easy partnership of four equal voices, and for its many original touches. Though the Allegro vivace assai begins amiably with the so called ?hunting? theme, the development brings a surprise, for it seems based on entirely new themes?only fragments of the exposition material appear here. But the recapitulation brings back the first theme in all its glory, and Mozart pulls all his material together easily at the close. Distinctive as the first movement is, it almost functions as prelude to the middle two movements, the most striking in the quartet. Mozart reverses the expected order, so that the minuet precedes the slow movement. Minuets can sometimes serve as pleasing interludes between more serious movements, but Mozart suffuses this one with rare expressive power. Trills and off the beat accents mark its outer sections, while the trio itself?which begins over a cheerfully ticking accompaniment in the middle voices?grows suddenly expressive in its second strains, with dark shadings and plangent falls. The Adagio begins simply, but soon the first violin spins a long, disconsolate melodic line that turns complex, and darkly-shaded, as it proceeds. Though the movement belongs largely to the first violin, one should not overlook the consummate skill with which the secondary voices shade and merge with the leading voice, sometimes murmuring in the background, sometimes deftly trading parts of the melodic line. After the subdued close of the Adagio, the sonata form finale comes as a burst of sunlight, its eight bar phrases flowing seamlessly between the four voices. String Quartet in A Major, K.464 Haydn may have been impressed by these quartets, but he was not the only composer stunned by this music. A decade later, the young Beethoven, embarking on his own first set of string quartets, copied out the entire last movement of the Quartet in A Major as a way of studying it in detail. Karl Czerny reported that Beethoven once took up the score of this quartet and exclaimed in wonder: ?That?s what I call a work! In it, Mozart was telling the world: Look what I could create if the time were right!? Yet at first glance there seems nothing unusual formally about this quartet, which was completed on January 10, 1785?it consists of a sonata form opening movement, a minuet, a variation form slow movement, and a quick paced finale. Such a description, though, does not begin to define what is distinctive about this music: the evolution of its themes, the utter ease of the writing for the four voices, or the emotional effect of the very ending. The quartet is neither stormy nor melancholy, but by the time it reaches its understated conclusion, Mozart has distilled unusual emotional power into what had seemed very straightforward music. The Allegro that opens the quartet seems simplicity itself: a flowing and easy first idea (its two opening pulses will recur in various forms throughout the movement), followed by a second subject in the unexpected key of C major. The minuet opens with a firm unison that quickly gives way to a dancing counterstatement from the violins; the trio is also in an unexpected key, this time E major. The Andante is the longest movement in this set of six quartets?and one of the greatest. It is a set of variations on the first violin?s opening idea, and that melody?grave, graceful, and elegant at the same time?evolves sharply across the six variations: Mozart syncopates it, decorates it with dotted rhythms and swirling runs, and passes the melodic line between the four instruments. At the fifth variation, the cello accompanies with a drum like tattoo that beats quietly to the very end of the movement (in some European countries, this quartet has acquired the unfortunate nickname ?The Drum? because of this figure). The finale, marked Allegro non troppo, grows entirely out of its (seemingly) simple opening theme. This may be a monothematic movement, but it is a mark of the subtlety of Mozart?s writing that this idea has subtle thematic and rhythmic links with the main theme of the first movement. Mozart makes this music sing beautifully, and the ending is wonderful: the music grows quiet as fragments of this theme are passed from instrument to instrument, and suddenly the music?like smoke?vanishes before us. Beethoven and Haydn?and everyone else who has heard this quartet?were quite right to be astonished by it. String Quartet in C Major, K.465 ?Dissonant? The ?Dissonant? Quartet, the last of the set, was completed on January 14, 1785, four days after its predecessor. The nickname comes from the first movement?s extraordinary slow introduction. The quartet is in C major and the music opens with a steady pulse of C?s from the cello, but as the other three voices make terraced entrances above, their notes (A-flat, E-flat, and A?all wrong for the key of C major) grind quietly against each other. The tonality remains uncertain until the Allegro, where the matters settle firmly into radiant C major and normal sonata form. The surprise is that after this unusual introduction the first movement is quite straightforward, flowing broadly along its bright C-major energy; an ebullient coda eventually draws the movement to a quiet close. The Andante cantabile develops by repetition, its lyric main idea growing more conflicted as it evolves. The Menuetto sends the first violin soaring across a wide range, while the dramatic trio section moves unexpectedly into urgent C minor. After these stresses, the concluding Allegro, in sonata form, returns to the bright spirit of the opening movement. This finale, which has a brilliant part of the first violin, flies to its resounding close. Mozart may have intended these quartets, at least in part, as an act of homage to Haydn, whose example had challenged his own imagination. But the world at large was not ready to extend the same homage to Mozart when these six quartets were published in Vienna in 1785. We have already seen one reviewer?s discomfort in the face of their harmonic freedom, and Haydn himself admitted confusion before the ?dissonant? introduction of the Quartet in C Major, saying only, ?Well, if Mozart wrote it, he must have meant it.? A more sour reaction came from one of Mozart?s fellow-performers at the ?quartet-evening? at Stephen Storace?s home in 1784. In a letter to his publisher in 1788, Dittersdorf complained bitterly of the ?overwhelming and unrelenting artfulness? of these six quartets. Perhaps the final word should be left to the man who inspired this music. The three final quartets of the set were premiered at another quartet party on February 10, 1785. Haydn was there to hear them, and following those performances he pulled Leopold Mozart aside. What he said to Mozart?s father has been quoted often, but those remarks are worth hearing one more time: ?Before God and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition.? Notes (c) (p) by Eric Bromberger The California Palace of the Legion of Honor, which was modeled on Pierre Rousseau?s Palais de la Legion d?Honneur in Paris, opened in San Francisco?s Lincoln Park in 1924. Home to a distinguished collection of Ancient and European art, the Palace is dedicated to the memory of the 3600 Californians who were killed in France during World War I. Its imposing entrance is guarded by a magnificent pair of stone lions. Rory Earnshaw?s photo of one of these lions was taken at night in a time exposure using only ambient light. Lire la suite