The idea that Joseph Haydn was the predominant influence on Mozart's 1773 Viennese string quartets (K. 168-173) began with Otto Jahn and has been repeated and elaborated in much of the Mozart literature. Stylistic traits such as motivic development, irregular phrase length, contrapuntal texture, fugal finales, inversion of the subject, slow introductions, and so on are not specific to Haydn, but are either part of a broader Viennese tradition or have precedents in Mozart's earlier works. Nearly every observer of these quartets has noted the thematic similarity of the second movement of K. 168 with Haydn's Op. 20, No. 5, fourth movement. But a more convincing model is Ordonez's Quartet in C minor, Op. 1, No. 3, in which almost every parameter suggests a direct influence. The quartets K. 168-173 were intended for a specifically Viennese taste; many of the movements conform to a character reportedly favored by Joseph II, since Leopold and Wolfgang Mozart made the trip to Vienna in order to be in place if the Imperial Kapellmeister Florian Leopold Gassmann were to die. After they returned to Salzburg, Mozart wrote two symphonies, the first of which, the "Little" G minor Symphony, K. 182, has been linked with Mozart's supposed encounter with the "crise romantique" in Austrian music, as represented by Haydn and Vanhal among others. Yet the symphony is indebted to the music of Gassmann (his Quartet in G minor, Hill 476, No. 2 in particular) and to Mozart's knowledge of the repertoire in the "pathétique" style intended for Joseph II.

Index Classifications: 1700s

Contributed by: Mirna Polzovic