MOZART STRING QUARTET K428

In the first movement of Mozart’s third ‘Haydn’ quartet Johanna Staemmler, second violinist of the Armida Quartet, discusses the importance of harmony, colour and intellectual complexity

Teaching & Playing

From Mozart String Quartets Volume III (Haydn Quartets). Urtext edition, paperbound. Ed. Wolf-Dieter Seiffert.Order no.HN7120, ISMN 979-0-2018-7120-2. €20.00. Printed with permission of G. Henle Verlag, Munich © 2021

The Armida Quartet has recorded all 23 of Mozart’s string quartets and this one, in E flat major, is one of my favourites. There is no sense of hierarchy from the first violin down, and its individual voices come together to create a beautiful, special character.

Mozart wrote this piece in 1783, after moving from Salzburg to work as a freelance composer in Vienna. There he paid frequent visits to the Dutch diplomat Baron Gottfried van Swieten, who introduced him to contrapuntal works by Bach and Handel. This influence, combined with the compositions of his friend Haydn – particularly the op.33 string quartets – inspired him to compose using a mixture of the old and modern influences that can be heard in all six of his ‘Haydn’ quartets, of which this is the third.

These works mark a new era of intellectual, complex composition for Mozart. He did not write them for huge public crowds, as he did with his operas, but for the musical connoisseurs and educated composers among whom he wished to consolidate his position.

To understand this piece, it is particularly helpful to look at Haydn’s op.20 no.1 and op.33 no.2 string quartets in E flat major, as well as Mozart’s own earlier E flat major string quartets. All have interesting parallels with K428, sometimes starting on the same notes and using similar themes for the middle movements. Mozart used ideas from some of these pieces and made them his own, in works that cleverly contrast consonance and dissonance, dark and light, singing and speaking, individual and group, and progress and tradition.

Choosing a tempo

THE QUARTET

NAME ARMIDA QUARTET

NATIONALITY GERMAN

STUDIED WITH ARTEMIS QUARTET, HAGEN QUARTET

RECORDS FOR CAVI, NAXOS

FELIX BROEDE

‘We love to surprise each other by finding new ways to bring out our own lines’

The Armida Quartet’s recordings of the complete Mozart String Quartets are available on CAvi

In his original manuscript Mozart wrote this Allegro non troppo in 4/4, giving a feeling of restrained energy. In comparison, his revised alla breve helps us to play with more fluidity and a bigger sense of phrase. It’s important not to begin too fast, of course, or the triplet quavers (e) and semiquavers (s) will sound frantic later on! We play short, playful grace notes where they arise, to fit the character of the music. For us this is more important than following any rule or theory.

Consonance and dissonance

In the opening unison passage Mozart outlines his harmonic language for the whole movement, starting with a pure, perfect octave followed by imperfect, dissonant intervals: a tritone (the devil’s interval) and diminished 2nds. When this motif interrupts itself to restart in forte in bar 12, he takes us unexpectedly into C minor, then to a dominant diminished 7th chord in bar 13. Here he uses the horizontal dissonance of the opening motif vertically, with tritones between the two violins and between the viola and cello. He then returns to the purity of the octave in bar 16, where the second-violin syncopation brings a new energy.

Mystery and colour

Concentrating on perfectionism is never a good idea, so in the Armida Quartet we focus on musical concepts instead. That gives us the freedom to feel the music and find our own interpretation rather than only to think about what is ‘correct’. Our focus in this extraordinary opening is on colour. The singing, homophonic line resembles ancient church music but at the same time it is very modern. There is not one repeated, non-consecutive tone in the opening four bars, so in that sense it is more like a twelve-tone motif than a melody. The piano marking adds a sense of mystery that we emphasise by emulating the sound of the viola, playing slightly more darkly in the violins while the cello becomes a little brighter. We play without vibrato, using the same bow speed and a contact point close to the fingerboard.

Mozart only wrote two dynamics in this movement – piano and forte – but we need to find different colours and levels for each one. The piano in bar 18, for example, has a different colour from the piano at the start.As a guide, it helps to recognise the special colours and characteristics for certain chords and modes that were well known in Mozart’s time. For example, E flat major is earthy, warm and grand, while F major – as from bar 24 – is lighter and more natural. In general, major keys with more flats sound darker; major keys with more sharps sound lighter. This tells us which colours to use for different harmonies.

The second theme

We play as individuals for the recitativostyle second theme from bar 40, creatively, soloistically and differently each time. We love to surprise each other by finding new ways to bring out our own lines here. The theme shouldn’t sound totally different each time, but it can have a new colour, character, bowings and emphases.

The first violinist’s octave jump up to end this phrase in bar 48 could be a humorous homage to Haydn, who uses the same idea in his own writing. It also references the opening harmony of the movement, like a glue that helps to combine its different elements. The viola version of the theme from bar 48 gives a darker contrast to the light material that the first violin has just played, with more diminished 2nds in the triplets from bar 54. This time there is no octave jump to end the phrase in bar 56, where the descending lines of slurred minims (h) act as a reminder of the misterioso opening.

Each quaver should be audible and full of joy and brightness

Varied repeats

When we repeat back to the beginning from bar 68, we try to bring out different characteristics in terms of dynamic, agogic and timing. If I show the second-violin syncopations in bar 16 very intensely the first time, I might hold back on the repeat, to let the viola G shine through. I’ve written più and meno in bars 6 and 10, but this could change the second time around.

We might also grow through the crescendo more gradually in bars 35–36, and play a tiny crescendo into the subito forte of bar 62, for variety. We never play the second repeat. To us it makes no sense to hear the development again when we already know what the conclusion will be.

The development section

For the forte to begin the development section in bar 69 I would suggest playing really marcato, stopping the bow slightly between slurs for a nice contrast to the softer, less articulated theme at the beginning. In the Armida Quartet we talk a lot about articulating the start of a note using different consonants, as in speech.Here a Dor T can work well. It is worth taking the time to work on this because it can really make the music come alive.

From here the different voices of the quartet begin to interact more than they did before, as the music becomes more dramatic. The piano C minor harmony in bar 75, with viola syncopations followed by sudden, eccentric forte first-violin triplets from bar 77, sounds stormy and virtuosic.It could even go a metronome notch faster, for added excitement. Each instrument plays its own solo and can bring out individual characteristics for each harmony and phrase. The unexpected cello C sharp in bar 93 needs an energetic accent before the music calms down again from bar 95, for the beautiful, strange transition to the recapitulation. We like to experiment with our agogic, dialogue and timing here, to find the best way to release the tension that we have built up in the development.

Maintaining character until the end

In the recapitulation from bar 101, bar 109 completes a phrase that was left unfinished in the exposition, adding a new feeling of symmetry and stability. We like to give this bar extra time and weight. When the opening motif returns in bar 113, Mozart juxtaposes it with a Bach-like counterpoint in the viola and cello that gives the music a bright, heroic energy. Each quaver should be audible and full of joy and brightness, as should the trills in bar 120.

The piano in bars 155–157 is not airy, relaxed or sleepy. It’s soft, of course, but the diminished chord in the second half of bar 157 sounds dark and dangerous.We use a slow bow speed to give this an intense colour. The voice leading in bars 158–159 is extraordinary, especially in the viola part, so it is important to experiment with how to bring out the colour of these chords too. To finish, we are careful not to play the last note too loudly or with an accent, so that we don’t destroy the atmosphere of the movement.

INTERVIEW BY PAULINE HARDING

The Armida Quartet’s bowings and fingerings for Henle’s complete Mozart String Quartets are available on the Henle Library app