Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was prodigious composer and performer.

Master of Classicism,
considered to be one of the most influential musicians in history. His work covers all the
musical genres of his time and includes more than seven hundred compositions, most of
them recognized as masterpieces of music, thus achieving great popularity and international
diffusion. He could read music at first sight, he had a prodigious memory and an
inexhaustible ability to improvise musical phrases. He began composing when he was very
young and in turn gained the appreciation of the aristocracy and royalty with his abilities as
a performer. Wolfgang's father, Leopold Mozart was also a musician and he took Mozart on
a tour of europe several times with his sister. They visited cities such as Prague, Paris,
Rome, Versailles, Mannhein, London and Munich, among many others. During their stay in
Rome he had the privilege of listening to Gregorio Allegri's Miserere once during a
performance in the Sistine Chapel. This work was secret, since it could only be performed in
that place and the publication of its score was prohibited under pain of excommunication.
However, as soon as he arrived at the place where he was staying, the young composer
showed that he could write a very approximate version of the full score from memory. Pope
Clement XIV, admired for his talent and he named him Knight of the Order of the Golden
Spur.

In 1773 Mozart returned to Salzburg, where he worked for Colloredo, the new prince-
archbishop of Salzburg. Mozart developed a relationship with the members of the famous
Mannheim orchestra, the best in Europe at that time. This orchestra was known because, in
a very characteristic and special way, they very explicitly exaggerated the difference
between soft and strong passages. This style spread as "Mannheim style" and a few decades
later it would be a main feature of Romantic music.

In 1778 Mozart had to face an economically difficult time in his life, to the point where he
had large debts to pay. Mozart moved to Vienna, where he began a new stage full of success
and where he married the youngest daughter of the Weber family, Constanze. During the
years 1782 and 1783 he became deeply acquainted with the work of Georg Friedrich Händel
and Johann Sebastian Bach. Although Mozart sometimes worked as an employee of the
archbishop, he worked mostly as a free agent during his mature time. Mozart met Joseph
Haydn in Vienna when Haydn visited the city. In 1780 Mozart's economic situation
worsened again and around 1786 he stopped appearing in public concerts, so his income
was further reduced. That time was of great difficulty for all musicians in Vienna due to the
war between Austria and Turkey and that the level of prosperity and economic status of the
aristocracy, which financed them, had been reduced.

1791 was the last year of Mozart's life.

Since the piece to be analyzed is one of the 6 quartets that Mozart composed in honor of
Haydn, I proceed to introduce a little information in relation to these.

The string quartet became popular in the beginning of the Classical period and was used by
composers to exploit the varied tonal colors of the string instruments. The string quartet
form first came to be used after the middle of the eighteenth century. Joseph Haydn, known
as the “father of the string quartet,” Haydn’s impact on the genre has been felt by some of
the most well known composers in history, such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Shostakovich.

Since that period the string quartet has been prestigious, considered a true test of the
classical composer's art. This may be partly due to the fact that the palette of sound is more
restricted than with orchestral music, forcing the music to stand more on its own rather than
relying on tonal color, or from the inherently contrapuntal tendency in music written for
four equal instruments. These four equal instruments demonstrated the importance of
operating as a team with each member having an equal part in developing the thematic
material. The string quartet became a fashionable aspect of eighteenth-century European
society as wealthy patrons used the quartet as fashionable entertainment in their homes.

Among Mozart's most important works we find 5 concerts for violin and orchestra
composed during his time in Salzburg in 1773, his first symphony composed in 1764, the 6
quartets dedicated to Haydn composed between 1782 and 1785, Figaro's wedding in 1786,
Don Giovanni in 1787, Cosi fan tutti in 1790, the magic flute in 1791, and the Requiem in D
minor unfinished upon his earlier death.

Mozart composed twenty-three string quartets throughout his life. The six "Haydn" Quartets
were written in Vienna during the years 1782 to 1785. Those are carefully considered
response to the Russian Opus 33 String Quartets that Haydn had composed in 1781. Upon
hearing them, Haydn remained standing as a sign of respect for Mozart and he told this
words to Leopold: "Before God, and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest
composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste, and, what is more, the
most profound knowledge of composition.”

Haydn had recently completed his influential String Quartets the year Mozart settled in
Vienna. Mozart studied Haydn's string quartets and began composing this series of six
quartets, published in 1785.

The first reception these quartets had was both enthusiastic and disgusted. One of the first
critics to comment on the work, who wrote anonymously in Cramer's Magazin der Musik,
gave in 1789 an opinion about the Quartets characteristic of the reaction of the time to
Mozart's music, according to which the Works were inspired, but too complex and difficult
to enjoy:

"Mozart's works are not generally as pleasing [as those of Leopold Kozeluch] ... [Mozart's]
six quartets for violin, viola and double bass dedicated to Haydn confirm ... that he has
decided to lean more towards the difficult and unusual . But then, what great and high ideas
do you have, betraying a bold spirit! »

In the late 1780s, Giuseppe Sarti published an attack on the Quartet "of dissonances",
describing the sections as "barbaric", "execrable", and "regrettable" for their use of whole-
tone chords and chromatic extremes. Around this same period, Fétis edited a revision of the
beginning of the Quartet "of the dissonances", insinuating that Mozart had made mistakes.
When the editors of the quartets, Artaria, sent them to Italy for publication, they returned it,
claiming that "the score is full of errors."
However, Heinrich Christoph Koch noted that these compositions were commendable "a
mixture of strict and free styles and the treatment of harmony." 8 Favorable comments for
the Quartets came shortly after their publication by the newspapers in Salzburg and Berlin.
Today, this set of quartets are among Mozart's most famous works. They are regarded as
"the solid cornerstones" of the chamber music repertoire and are frequently performed at
concerts, radio stations, and on recordings.

Bibliografía:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_Quartet_No._18_(Mozart)

- https://www.earsense.org/chamber-music/Wolfgang-Amadeus-Mozart-String-Quartet-No-18-in-
A-major-Op-10-No-5-K-464-Drum/

- https://www.brentanoquartet.com/notes/mozart-quartet-k-464/

- https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/eighteenth-century-music/article/what-beethoven-
learned-from-k464/D41298CFD2EE4AC1639C8CDB3A887E45

- https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart

- https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuartetos_dedicados_a_Haydn_(Mozart)

- https://www.officetimeline.com/blog/image.axd?picture=/2019/01/Wolfgang-Amadeus-Mozart-
Timeline.png