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INTÉGRALE DES QUATUORS À CORDES 45
The
C major Quartet in C major, K.465
may be regarded as a summary of this cycle
of six quartets. It is a logical result of and response to Mozart’s recent Masonic
commitment, while the Quartet in G shows the ground Mozart had covered
since his first quartet composed inHaydn’s honour.
Mozart originally intended to conclude in the initial key of G.That draft remained
unfinished, however, and he finally chose the key of C. The great simplicity and
austerity that we find here serve to illuminate the complexity of the work in its
every detail, whilst retaining a typically Mozartian limpidity and transparency,
except in the dissonant opening
Adagio
, which gave the work its nickname
(‘Dissonance’).
This melancholy, pain-racked opening is undoubtedly an exploration of the
past. In the following movement everything grows brighter. With the Andante
cantabile the struggle between light and darkness resumes in the form of a
movingly deep drone, which is set against a gentle murmuring. There is further
conflict in the following development, in which the exclamations of the Trio
contrast with the fresh innocence of theMinuet. Darkness and anguish seem to
be gaining the upper hand in the finale, when suddenly radiance and sweetness
take over, and bring the quartet to an end.
Apart fromMozart’s very first string quartet, K.80,
the Quartet N
o
. 20 in D major
K.499
is the only one composed and published as an individual work, rather than
aspartofacycle.ItmaybesituatedbetweenthesixQuartetsdedicatedtoHaydn
and the PrussianQuartets.Mozart had just completed
Le Nozze di Figaro
, and the
period was marked by a glorious summer and a welcome lull in his existential
problems.