Mozart.

sense of the words. It also uses recurrent motifs. Certain phrases recur throughout the opera,
referring consistently to individual characters and their predominant emotions, including Ilia's grief,
Electra's jealousy and Idamantes' feelings about the sacrifice (Heartz, J1974). The key treatment is
sometimes unorthodox and invariably expressive, as in Electra's D minor first aria, ‘Tutte nel cor vi
sento’. Here Mozart reaches a recapitulation in C minor before returning to the home key; he then
modulates, without changing speed, into the music of the tempest, also in C minor and making use
of a motif similar to that of the aria. The opera's orchestration includes many new and brilliant
details, among them the evocative flute, oboe and violin passages in ‘Fuor del mar’ and the use of
sustained wind against inexorable string triples and muted trumpet fanfares in ‘O voto tremendo’.
Perhaps the most admired number of the opera is the powerful Act 3 quartet, in which Idamantes
resolves to seek death, a tour de force in which intensely chromatic music truthfully embraces four
characters' diverse emotions.
Mozart: (3) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
9. Works, 1781–8.
Possibly as a result of the natural development of Mozart's style, or through a wish to accommodate
his changed circumstances, the extravagance of Mozart's ‘late Salzburg’ works gave way, after his
permanent move to Vienna, to leaner, more transparent textures and a less ornamental manner.
This is true particularly of the six accompanied sonatas published in December 1781 (although only
four of them, k376–7, 379 and 380, were composed there; k296 was written at Mannheim, and k378
at Salzburg in 1779 or 1780). At the same time, however, they are broader in conception than the
earlier sonatas, with greater forward thrust and, in k380, a deepened sense of rhetorical contrast
between full chords and rapid passage-work. Above all, they display a new relationship between the
instruments. Although they remain piano sonatas with accompaniment, and contain passages where
the violin part could be omitted without damaging the sense of the music, the violin nevertheless
increasingly carries essential material, melodic or contrapuntal, and engages in dialogue with the
keyboard. The violin part has even greater prominence in k454, composed for Regina Strinasacchi,
while in k526, arguably the finest of Mozart's accompanied sonatas, the two instruments are equal in
importance. The same trend is evident in the piano trios k496, 502, 542 and 548.
This new equality of partnership is best reflected in the string quartets and quintets of the early to
mid-1780s, including the six string quartets dedicated to Haydn, which Mozart described in his
dedication of 1 September 1785 as ‘the fruits of a long and laborious endeavour’, a claim borne out
by the relatively large number of quartet fragments from this time as well by numerous corrections
and changes in the autographs (fig.14; the thorny question of the textual relationship between
Mozart's autograph and the first edition, published by Artaria in 1785, is described in Seiffert,
N1997). That Mozart sought to emulate Haydn's quartets op.33, but not to imitate them slavishly,
can hardly be doubted: like Haydn's, Mozart's quartets are characterized by textures conceived not
merely in four-part harmony, but as four-part discourse, with the actual musical ideas linked to a
freshly integrated treatment of the medium. Later critics described them as prime examples,
together with those of Haydn and Beethoven, of the ‘classical’ quartet, as opposed to the quartor
concertant or quatuor brillant. According to Koch, they were the finest works of their kind.
Counterpoint in particular takes on a new aspect in the quartets. In the first movements of k421 and
464, each of the principal themes is subjected to imitative treatment; the Andante of k428 follows a
similar procedure, supported by increased chromaticism (which is characteristic of the quartet as a
whole). The coda of the first movement of the ‘Hunt’ Quartet k458, like the coda of the earlier A
major Symphony k201, draws on the latent imitative potential of the movement's main thematic
material, while the famous introduction to the ‘Dissonance’ Quartet k465 represents an extreme of
both free counterpoint and chromaticism. Similar effects can be observed in the C major and G
minor quintets of 1787, k515 and 516.
The finale of k387 represents a different use of counterpoint, which is treated not so much as a

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texture in and of itself, but as a structural topic. Here the main, stable thematic material is
represented first and foremost by fugatos, while transitional and cadential material is generally
composed in a melody-and-accompaniment buffo style. This procedure is reversed in the final
movement of the Piano Concerto k459, where fugato represents transition and is explosively
elaborated in the double fugue of the central episode. The hidden, but inherently contrapuntal nature
of Mozart's material in general is already adumbrated in the C minor Fugue k426 for two pianos and
its later version for strings k546, where the seemingly commonplace Baroque subject erupts at the
end of the movement in the previously unimaginable guise of a melody accompanied by aggressive
sawing-away in the upper parts. No doubt Mozart had conceived this possibility as early as 1782
while arranging for string quartet several fugues by Bach and Handel: a similar procedure is found at
the conclusion of his version of the D minor fugue from book 2 of Bach's Das wohltemperirte
Clavier.
The wind music, including the three substantial serenades k361, 375 and 388, shows Mozart's
interest in texture in different ways, including the use of novel combinations of instruments (Peter
Shaffer, in his play Amadeus, puts into Salieri's mouth an evocative description of the opening bars
of the Adagio from the Serenade for 13 instruments, k361). The C minor Mass k427, meanwhile,
includes grave choruses (some in eight parts, as well as the customary four), among which the ‘Qui
tollis’ is built on an ostinato bass of the Baroque descending tetrachord pattern. Several solo items,
such as the ‘Domine Deus’ duet and the ‘Quoniam’ trio, are almost Handelian in their counterpoint,
figuration and bare continuo textures. The Trio for clarinet, viola and piano k498 and the Quintet for
piano and wind k452 are both uniquely scored.
Mozart's deliberate attention to even the smallest details of texture, scoring, rhythm and articulation
as elements of both affect and style is evident from the numerous erasures, changes and revisions
in his autographs. At bar 106 of the first movement of the D minor Piano Concerto k466, for
example, he originally wrote the upper string parts as alternating quaver rests and quavers,
continuing the pattern of the previous two bars, but he changed these to straight quavers in
anticipation of the approaching imperfect cadence. The second movement was initially conceived to
begin with the orchestra (as an erased piano marking in the first violin part shows) and to include
trumpets and drums, and in a possibly related correction, trumpets and drums were omitted from the
two final bars of the first movement. In the final movement, at bar 181, Mozart for the first time writes
slurs in the accompanying second violin, viola, cello and double bass parts, possibly because their
figure here ascends where previously it had descended.
That texture is also a matter of formal significance for Mozart is especially clear in the case of the
piano concertos. The structures of the first movements have been related to sonata form, Baroque
ritornello forms and aria forms. Although varied in their structural details, they nevertheless follow a
broadly consistent outline, consisting of seven large units: (1) an opening ritornello including a first
theme, a more lyrical group and a concluding group; (2) the first solo, reiterating the first theme and
then modulating to the dominant for a secondary group and a coda; (3) a medial ritornello, usually
based on the opening ritornello; (4) a development-like section, representing the first part of the
second solo; (5) a recapitulation, representing the second part of the second solo and largely
following the first solo (but omitting the modulation); and (6) a concluding ritornello, using material
from the medial ritornello and interrupted by (7) a cadenza. The second and third movements are
more varied. The former include romances, binary movements, rondos and variations; the finales,
although mostly sonata rondos, also include variations and sonata forms.
Viewed chronologically, the piano concertos make increasing use of dialogue between the soloist
and the orchestra (both as a whole and in its individual sections); the solo keyboard writing,
meanwhile, becomes increasingly varied and demanding. A new feature is the use of a soloistic
continuo part in the orchestral outbursts that interrupt the large solo sections. (For a fuller discussion
of structural aspects of the concertos, see Concerto, II.)

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