Ian Sidden

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Mozart Month: Day 16 with his 15th String Quartet

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I enjoyed Mozart’s 14th yesterday very much, so let’s jump into his 15th. Yesterday, I was very much taken by his musical growth over the ten years that passed between his 2nd and 14th, so today I just want to see how he pushed this genre forward.

The Recording

I’m listening to the Hagen Quartet again.

Apple Music

Spotify

Sheet Music

Mozart String Quartet no. 15 in D Minor, K. 421

1. Allegro moderato

  • Dramatic sounding at first.
  • Heavy accents.
  • Some imitation.
  • First violin taking a real lead role when it shifts to major.
  • Lots of trills and oscillating between two pitches.
  • Melodies are begun often with interval leap.
  • Interesting piece.

2. Andante

  • Upward arpeggio figure permeates piece.
  • A dotted rhythm also appears often.
  • Players are very much together. The group moves as one very often here.
  • Wikipedia claims that the harsh intervals are representative of Constanze Mozart’s cries of labor pain.
  • Listening to it, the movement does seem like a mix of ease and sudden screams.

3. Menuetto (Allegretto)

  • Funny. The way the first violin is written makes it hard to feel the downbeats. Very disorienting.
  • Big contrast in the trio. In major and fairly light and bouncy compared to harsh minuet.
  • Pizzicato lower voices as well. Ethereal effect.
  • Nice back and forth between cello and viola during minuet.

4. Allegro ma non troppo

  • Steady dance-like quality.
  • Nice contrast between legato and staccato.
  • Ah, this is a series of variations.
  • Really cool effects. Hard to describe though.
  • Very harsh writing after the switch to Più allegro
  • And then a Picardy third to end it immediately after the harshest music in the piece.

Takeaways

This is an intense piece of music. That partially has to do with the minor key, but it mostly comes from the bursts of intense harshness that appear and recede. This is a piece that more than anything is an exploration in contrast. There’s the contrast in intervals (big leaps next to trills and rolling back and forth on a second and chromaticism). The contrast of dynamics. The key contrasts. The contrast of staccato and legato.

Obviously, every piece has this to some measure, but this feels like Mozart deliberately wanted to explore some extreme version of this idea. I mean, even the Picardy third at the end was almost flippantly tossed off, after the players just attacked their instruments. This quartet is quite the journey.

Until next time.

Mozart Month: Day 15 with the 14th String Quartet

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I’m going to jump to the “Haydn” string quartets, which begin with Mozart’s 14th. These should theoretically be a much more mature set of works compared to his earlier “Milanese” quartets since he was ten years older. Let’s find out!

The Recording

I’m listening to the Hagen Quartet again.

Apple Music

Spotify

Sheet Music

Not the same recording, but it’s the same piece and group.

String Quartet no. 14 in G, K. 387

1. Allegro vivace assai

  • Immediately more interesting than the second string quartet.
  • Balance between players is much better.
  • Just listen to the sixteenth note passages, where players get added to each subsequent phrase.
  • Other players besides first violin also get more solo time.
  • Lots of fun with dynamics.
  • Generous use of silences throughout.
  • Even the pulsing section is more exciting through use of dynamics and some syncopation.
  • There are funny little chromatic phrases that seem to trail off into silence. Cool effect.
  • Little shuffle cadences in piano are delightful.

2. Menuetto/Allegro

  • Lots of playing with chromaticism. Gives it a kind of drunk-but-fun feeling.
  • Each beat in some measures gets a different dynamic marking.
  • Much more dramatic sounding Trio section. In minor. Sharper accents.
  • Very spooky effect near end with some sustained tones in lower voices, while first violin leaps downward.

3. Andante cantabile

  • Cantabile is right. There are some very song-like moments.
  • Lots of accompaniment variety.
  • As an opera singer who tends to be involved in “big” productions, this kind of movement makes me really appreciate chamber music. It feels so intimate. The quiet parts are very quiet. The players are afforded so much flexibility to communicate their ideas. And Mozart has written a music that truly allows this.

4. Molto allegro

  • Don’t let the first notes fool you about the tempo. Those are whole notes.
  • Lots of imitative entrances. Not quite a fugue, but they kind of toy at it.
  • Fairly virtuosic.
  • Each instrument gets its time to shine.
  • Again, a lot of variety here. The tempo and the staggered entrances are really the unifying elements as far as I can tell.
  • Lots of chromaticism again.
  • Love the ending. After the fireworks, it just kind of fades away.

Takeaways

I believe that a lot of the talk about Mozart often revolves around the “story” of him: namely, his prodigious musical gifts. But in jumping from yesterday’s second string quartet to this, I am reminded that above all, people change. People grow if they keep applying themselves to something. 16 year old Mozart did not write string quartets as well as 26 year old Mozart did. It’s night and day. But to get there he had to write twelve other string quartets, in addition to the wealth of other genres he composed.

It’s funny that one of my chief criticisms yesterday was the fairly banal accompaniment. It was a lot of “chunk chunk chunk chunk”, while in the 14th he seemed to try and show off how many ways he could write an accompaniment. While listening, it seemed he would change it up every four to eight bars and move on to something else.

Additionally, this feels like a piece for four musicians of equal caliber. Rather than just a vehicle for the first violinist, this feels more like a swirling mass of music where each player tells his/her own story.

Anyway, that was exciting. I think I’ll linger with the string quartets for a few days. I don’t have enough chamber music in my life.

Until next time.

Mozart Month: Day 14 with his Second String Quartet

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I’ve been listening to some pretty long and heavy works, so let’s back off a little bit and listen to something lighter. This is the first of the so-called “Milanese Quartets”, which Mozart wrote while touring Italy. He was sixteen when he wrote this.

The Recording

I’m returning to the Hagen Quartet for this.

Apple Music

Spotify

Sheet Music

String Quartet no. 2 in D Major K. 155

1. Allegro

  • First violin very dominant
  • Lots of parallel harmonies with second violin, which sometimes does similar motions with the viola.
  • First violin melody – when alone – is very vocal sounding to my ears.
  • Viola also gets a few bars of solo time, but the first violin’s part makes me think almost of a violin concerto with a very small orchestra. The end is almost cadenza like. Almost.

2. Andante

  • This is much more even between the instruments.
  • Cello playing steady eighth note pulse.
  • The parallel ascending lines for the violins with the trills on each beat is fun.
  • Sooooo much eighth note pulsing at times from three out of four players.

3. Molto Allegro

  • Short and sweet.
  • Almost a musical joke. A very fun silly piece.
  • Virtuosic writing for the first violin. Lots of very fast sections, some double stops. Other voices have much simpler accompaniment-like parts.

Takeaways

Like his first string quartet, this is the composition of a young composer. I feel that most when viewing the accompaniment by the lower three voices. The latter half of the second movement is particularly rough on this front. His lead writing is very nice though, and that last movement shows he could write exciting albeit brief music. There is some use of internal contrast. For example, there are lots of sudden dynamic shifts and alternating staccato and legato passages.

I will have to listen to the other “Milanese Quartets” and see how he matured during his time in Italy. Or I could just skip them and listen to later quartets. Hmm. Decisions. Decisions.

Until next time!

Mozart Month: Day 9 with his First String Quartet

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Today, I’m listening to Mozart’s String Quartet no. 1, which he apparently composed when he was fourteen. I find the fact of it amazing, but I don’t really know the piece, so let’s dive in.

The Recording

I’m listening to the Hagen Quartet.

Apple Music

Spotify

YouTube

Enjoy!

String Quartet no. 1 in G K. 80

1. Adagio

  • Surprise. A slow first movement.
  • Lots of parallel harmonies.
  • The accompanying players keep time with a steady beat through much of this movement.
  • Creates an attractive atmosphere despite the relative simplicity of the piece.
  • There are many entrances of a single instrument with a sustained high tone in the background slowly crescendoing into prominence. This is clearly an effect Mozart liked from an early age.

2. Allegro

  • Demands a fair amount of virtuosity right from the start.
  • I enjoy the staggered imitative entrances. This is an techniqe used in many of the pieces I’ve already written about.
  • Nice contrast between high and low instruments in the… development?

3. Menuetto

  • Simple and attractive. Especially the trio section.

4. Rondeau (Allegro)

  • Light hearted.
  • Uses sudden dynamic shifts a lot for contrast.
  • I like one section in particular. The viola (I believe, might also be the cello) has a brief solo, and the violins take on a very bouncy accompaniment.

Takeaways

This is attractive but clearly early. It’s simple in a way that I haven’t heard in the other pieces, even the “Sonata facile”. Naturally, with good players, the piece is still worth listening to and very enjoyable. There are a lot of terrific ideas, and some of his writing makes me think of later work, such as “Eine kleine Nachtmusik”.

Until tomorrow!