Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's String Quartet No. 15 in D minor, K. 421/417b is the second of his quartets dedicated to Haydn and the only one of the set in a minor key. Though undated in the autograph, it is believed to have been completed in 1783, while his wife Constanze Mozart was in labour with her first child Raimund. Constanze stated that the rising string figures in the second movement corresponded to her cries from the other room.

Structure

Performances of the whole string quartet vary in length from 23 to 33 minutes. It is in four movements: 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 Menuetto, "normal expectations of phraseology are confounded." The main part of the Menuetto is in minuet and trio 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. The movement ends in a Picardy third.

Arrangements

An arrangement of the Menuetto and Trio for violin and piano is in Suzuki Violin Volume 7.

Notes and references

Notes References

Sources