Mozart - String Quartet No.15 in D minor, K. 421/K.417b

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's String Quartet No. 15 in D minor K. 421/417b, the second of the Quartets dedicated to Haydn and the only one of the set in a minor key, is believed to have been completed in 1783. The quartet is, however, undated in the autograph. It is in four movements:
1. Allegro moderato
2. Andante (F major)
3. Menuetto and Trio (the latter in D major). Allegretto
4. Allegretto ma non troppo
The first movement is characterized by a sharp contrast between the aperiodicity of the first subject group, characterized by Arnold Schoenberg as "prose-like," and the "wholly periodic" second subject group. In the Andante and the Minuet, "normal expectations of phraseology are confounded." The main part of the Minuet is in minuet sonata form, while "the contrasting major-mode Trio ... is ... almost embarrassingly lightweight on its own ... [but] makes a wonderful foil to the darker character of the Minuet." The last movement is a set of variations.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 -- 5 December 1791), baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era.

Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty.

At 17, he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position, always composing abundantly.

While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons.

He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and his influence on subsequent Western art music is profound; Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote that "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years."

Creative Commons license: Public Domain.