Talk:String Quintet No. 5 (Mozart)

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The "Zickzackform"[edit]

The attempts to proclaim its artistic possibility will apparently never cease, with its appearance as an ossia even in the Henle Urtext, despite the fact that it makes nonsense out of the entire last page in the AMA (the chromatic figure comes out of the blue in the traditional version, but is eminently motivic in the authentic version). The Amadeus Quartet follows the nonsensical traditional version, but, God be thanked, Grumiaux does it right. It does create more of those delicious dissonances that pervade KV 593 and 614 and are why I rate these quintets perhaps a notch higher even than KV 515 and 516. Double sharp (talk) 19:48, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here's another source on this whole unfortunate saga, which puts forward the suggestion that the alteration may have been done for the sake of a flute arrangement: such chromatic passages are indeed difficult on the flute of Mozart's day (but certainly not the violin). Still, the inconsistency and ineptness of how it was carried out (amazingly, some early sources only remember to vandalise the main theme when it appears descending, and not ascending in inversion) and the fact that Mozart made no mention of a flute arrangement speaks volumes against its authenticity, as does the fact that it first appears in a 1793 edition which obviously cannot have been authorised by the composer. I cannot agree with Einstein's comment that the theme "gains grace and character" through this alteration. Sure, you remove some vertical dissonances and some strikingly futuristic lines, but you also destroy the motivic resemblance to the last page (as I pointed out in my previous comment here, it's a long development) and the development in the lower strings in b.74ff and later. And why remove those vertical dissonances, when they are present in that other masterspiece of Mozart's Spätstil, KV 614 (pace Hans Keller)? (See the end of the first movement and the middle of the second, for example.) What hope do we have for Mozart's contemporaries' understanding of such wonderful harmony, when we cannot even expect it from such an eminent figure? As Hess writes, the zigzag also feels very fussy, as it forces you to stop and break the natural accentuation (one accent every two bars).

There is by the way another textual problem in KV 593: the cello part in bb.14b–28 of the trio was originally very high, and was later taken down a sixth. Both variants here stem from Mozart, but I would prefer the earlier one: the theme is still recognisable in the later version, but is an exact citation in the earlier version, so it feels like a compromise, bowing to technical requirements.

Still, I cannot resist quoting Hess twice more on this issue: "perhaps Mozart was interested in other things besides charm and grace" (a nice riposte to Einstein on this point), and that the Zickzackform "ought to be consigned to oblivion". (I personally really dislike it. Maybe I wouldn't if I heard it that way first, of course. But I find it unsupportable based on the evidence, and even if I had heard it that way first I probably would have come round.) Double sharp (talk) 14:00, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I continue to be amazed at the tribulations this quintet has been put through. I found a performance which repeats back from b.100 to the opening, instead of b.36. Is the repeat sign in Mozart's autograph that hard to see? There is another problem here, though, which is that the repeat sign in b.100 is missing (though the ones at b.36 and b.279 are present) in the autograph. It can readily be supplied, though, as it obviously must exist (we have reached the end of the exposition). Double sharp (talk) 14:13, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(P.S. It seems that I do indeed tend to come round to the composer's version, at least with the Classical repertoire: I now find it intolerable to take Beethoven's Hammerklavier slower than about

= 132. Previously I was OK with such versions, and then I actually played it through at the right speed of 138! ^_^) Double sharp (talk) 08:26, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently the website of the Mozarteum also offers the prefaces to the NMA in English as well: here's the volume of string quintets. for example. Double sharp (talk) 09:08, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]