1. Allegro
2. Andante
3. Rondo: Allegro

The inspiration for Mozart’s famous horn concertos and the Horn Quintet was the Austrian virtuoso Joseph Ignaz Leutgeb (1732–1811). Though sometimes remembered as the victim of some of Mozart’s cruder practical jokes, Leutgeb was by all accounts a magnificent player, and had known the Mozart family ever since joining the Salzburg court orchestra in the early 1760s. When he moved back to Vienna, Leutgeb supplemented his income as a musician by running a cheese and wine shop – but he never stopped performing, and Mozart produced several major works for him to play. The Quintet is in many ways like a horn concerto in miniature. The musicologist Sarah Adams has pointed out that – given Leutgeb’s involvement – it is ‘not surprising that the horn plays a soloistic role, especially in the first movement [which] heightens the impact of the horn’s lyrical entrance by preceding it with tutti fanfares in the strings, a gesture evocative of a concerto’s preparation for the soloist’s entrance.’ This solo role is rather less apparent in the central movement of the Quintet, though it did require Leutgeb’s use of hand-stopping to obtain particular notes on the natural horn of the time (with no valves) – a technique that had attracted praise from critics all over Europe. Scored for horn, violin, two violas and cello, the Quintet was written in Vienna in 1782 – the composer’s first year in the city after his move from Salzburg.

NIGEL SIMEONE 2010

1. Allegro
2. Menuetto: Allegretto
3. Adagio ma non troppo
4. Adagio – Allegro

Mozart’s string quintets are all for the combination of two violins, two violas and cellos, with the two violas allowing for particularly rich inner parts. The Quintet in G minor K516 was completed on 16 May 1787, four weeks after his C major Quintet – and during the final illness of his father Leopold, who on 28 May. Though Mozart and his father had a strained relationship by this time, the composer was alarmed at Leopold’s illness and reacted with the now famous letter written on April 1787 in which he declared that ‘death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relations with this best and truest friend of mankind that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling!’

The G minor Quintet – written by an estranged son who knew that his father was dying – is probably the most tragic of all Mozart’s chamber works. W.W. Cobbett described it as a ‘struggle with destiny’ and found it ‘filled with the resignation of despair’ – though this is rather to overlook the major-key ebullience of the finale. The first movement is full of restrained pathos, both themes melancholy and understated – and all the more wrenching for that. The minuet is sombre and reflective while the slow movement was, for the great Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein, the desolate core of the work. He likened it to ‘the prayer of a lonely one surrounded on all sides by the walls of a deep chasm.’ The element of tragedy is still very apparent in the slow introduction to the finale; but finally Mozart unleashes a more joyous spirit. The French poet Henri Ghéon found an eloquent description for this turning point: ‘Mozart has had enough. He knew how to cry but he did not like to cry or to suffer for too long.’

NIGEL SIMEONE 2010

1. Allegretto
2. Menuetto and Trio. Allegretto
3. Adagio
4. Allegro

Like Haydn before him, Mozart habitually published his string quartets in groups of six (the ‘Haydn’ Quartets) or three (the ‘Prussian’ Quartets). Between these two sets there is a single work, entered in Mozart’s manuscript catalogue of his own works on 19 August 1786 as ‘a quartet for 2 violins, viola and violoncello’. The autograph manuscript (in the British Library) is simply titled ‘Quartetto’. It was published in 1788 by the Viennese firm founded by Mozart’s friend Franz Anton Hoffmeister and it has come to be known as the ‘Hoffmeister’ Quartet as a result. The first movement opens with a theme in octaves that outlines a descending D major arpeggio – an idea that dominates much of the movement despite some startling harmonic excursions along the way. The development section is marked by almost continuous quaver movement that gives way magically to the opening theme at the start of the recapitulation. The Minuet has an easy-going charm that contrasts with the sterner mood (and minor key) of the Trio section. The great Mozart biographer Alfred Einstein thought the Adagio spoke ‘of past sorrow, with a heretofore unheard-of-depth’. It is not only a deeply touching movement but also an extremely ingenious one, not least when the initial idea heard on two violins returns on viola and cello, investing the same music with a darker, richer texture. The finale is fast and playful, but there’s also astonishing inventiveness in the flow of ideas, from the opening triplets with their chromatic twists to a contrasting theme which scampers up and down the scale. A few sudden and surprising dynamic contrasts keep the listener guessing right to the end.

Nigel Simeone