so direct and complete, is taken as matter for contrapuntal treatment.
The adagio is also a masterpiece, approached, perhaps equalled, but not
surpassed by Beethoven. Polyphony is the life of these quintets; but it
is not purely scholastic polyphony. Mozart once said to Michael Kelly,
"Melody is the essence of music. I compare a good melodist to a fine
racer, and counterpointists to hack post horses." But in these quintets
the counterpoint is so melodious that the tricks and strainings of the
pedagogue are never brought to mind. Here may also be mentioned the
quintet in A major for clarinet and strings (1789), written for Anton
Stadler, a dissipated fellow, a toss-pot, and riggish. But Mozart loved
him because he blew cunningly the clarinet, and he went about with him,
and ate with him, and drank with him. Although it is freer in form than
the great quartets, and the quintets in G minor, this clarinet quintet
stands beside them in its grace tinged with melancholy, its contrapuntal
skill masterly disguised, its divine melody.
[Illustration: MOZART IN PROFILE.
Cut in boxwood by Posch, a Salzburg sculptor, in 1789. This important
original has served as a model for many posthumous portraits of Mozart.]
A review of the symphonies of Mozart is a summing up of the history of
the symphony in the eighteenth century from childhood to maturity. He
was eight years old when he wrote in London his first symphony. It is
in sonata form: allegro, andante, finale: he uses the orchestra of the
predecessors of Haydn, viz., two violins, viola, bass, two oboes, and
two horns. These early symphonies of Mozart are relics of the time when
German instrumental music was still in a comparatively crude condition,
and they are chiefly interesting from the historical point of view; for
even Köchel, the devoted admirer of Mozart, says that they are wanting in
character and that the motives are without development. Look for instance
at the first symphony. The allegro has one hundred and eighteen measures;
the andante fifty; the presto ninety-one. According to the fashion of the
old suite the three movements are in the same tonality. The symphonies of
1764 and 1765 are in the same form; in two of them the andante is in a
different key from the other movements. It was in 1767 that Mozart first
introduced the minuet, which was, however, without a trio. The seventeen
symphonies written from 1767 to 1772 show an advance in instrumentation
rather than in growth of form. The early ones were composed for the
eight-part orchestra, the foundation of modern orchestral works. In the
second, the two horns are replaced by two clarinets, and a bassoon is
added. Now the use of the clarinet was then rare. Christopher Denner made
the first clarinet in 1701. Gossec wrote for the instrument in 1756, and
it was first heard in England in Christian Bach's opera "Orione" (1763).
Mozart used it also in a symphony written in Paris in 1778, and he did
not introduce it again until 1783.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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