Quartet in E flat, K.493, for Piano and Strings
Allegro
Larghetto
Allegretto
Throughout the 1780s, Mozart pursued any money-making opportunity he could find, and much of his mature chamber music owes its existence to the sheer marketability of music for small forces. In the autumn of 1785 he struck a deal with the Viennese publisher Franz Anton Hoffmeister for three Piano Quartets, and by mid-November he’d delivered the first, in G minor (K.478) and was pressing Hoffmeister for payment. Writing back, the publisher complained that the new work was too difficult and was all but impossible to sell. He cancelled the commission for the remaining two quartets and released himself from the contract by paying off Mozart’s 20 Gulden advance in full.
The G minor Piano Quartet is an intense and dramatic work, typical of Mozart’s music in this key, and of a difficulty and emotional range far beyond what was expected in 18th Century domestic music. When Mozart found another publisher for the second of the planned Piano Quartets, he produced a far sunnier piece; this Quartet in E flat major, completed on 3 June 1786 during the first run of Le Nozze de Figaro and published by Artaria the following year. Although less emotionally demanding than the G minor Quartet, it lacks nothing in assurance or finish, and gives no indication that Mozart was working with what was, for the late 18th century, a relatively unusual instrumental combination. He was not, however, coming to the Piano Quartet completely "cold". At the age of 16 he’d written three little "piano concertos" arranged from piano sonatas by J.C. Bach and scored for two violins and ‘cello or bass, and it’s clear that the piano concerto form was at least at the back of his mind when he conceived the mature Piano Quartets. The piano writing, while brilliant, is not florid or showy, but the three-movement form, the spacious manner in which the thematic material is presented and developed, and the way in which the string trio is used as a separate unit, by turns contrasting with and supporting the piano, all help to give the E flat Piano Quartet the character of a "chamber concerto". The broad opening Allegro and the gentle A flat major Larghetto are both in sonata form, and the final Allegretto is a rondo, its episodes allowing Mozart to indulge in beautifully lucid three-part string writing which prefigures the great Divertimento for string trio (K.563) of 1788.
R.G.Bratby, 2001
Copyright Classical Notes.co.uk 2000
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