String Quintet No.1 in B-flat major, K. 174

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) String Quintet No. 1 in B-flat major, K. 174 (1773) 00:00 - Allegro moderato 08:47 - Adagio 14:21 - Menuetto ma allegretto 18:14 - Allegro Violin: Arthur Grumiaux & Arpad Gérecz Viola: Georges Janzer & Max Lesueur Cello: Eva Czako "Mozart's first quintet, written long before the others, must be considered by itself. It was composed at Salzburg in the spring of 1773, and in December of that year Mozart replaced the trio of the minuet by a new one and revised the finale so radically that one may almost regard this as a new piece too. The immediate occasion for the writing of this work (in B-flat major, K. 174) is unknown, unless it was the desire to compete with a Quintet in C by Michael Haydn; and Wyzewa and Saint-Foix have shown that the later version of the work was very probably occasioned by a new Quintet in G by Michael. Joseph Haydn could not have offered a model this time because he never wrote any quintets. When he was asked why he had neglected to do so, he is said to have answered that no one had ever commissioned one from him. But another reason might have well influenced him also, namely that there already existed an internationally celebrated composer of quintets, Luigi Boccherini of Lucca, the fame of whose quintets began to spread through the world in the late 1760's. Boccherini cannot have been wholly unknown to Mozart even as early as 1770, and perhaps his influence had something to do with the origin of Mozart's later, Vienna quintets. Meanwhile Mozart held to a model nearer home—Michael's. And there arose a singular work that is not easily pigeonholed. The category of the quintet with two violas was, about 1770, rather closer to the symphony than to the true quintet—one cannot help recalling that in many symphonies of this period Mozart divided the violas. (It may be mentioned in passing that Boccherini himself apparently did not write quintets for any other combination of strings: he does indeed call the second viola 'alto violoncello,' but its part is notated in the viola clef throughout and is almost unplayable on the violoncello. And Beethoven follows both Boccherini and Mozart; Schubert was the first to make the change to the greater sonority afforded by two violoncellos. In addition, however, the category is close to concertante chamber music—a chamber music that is not true chamber music. I cannot boast that I know all of Boccherini's 113 quintets; but in those I do know the first violin and 'alto violoncello' always dominate and relegate the other three participants to the position of accompanying instruments. And so the string quintet of this period acquires something of the character of the divertimento, even of the serenade, or 'notturno' —one can easily imagine it played under starry skies. "Mozart's early quintet is a mixture of all these things. The first movement has the character of chamber music, and the development section especially, with its agitated triplets (an agit