[+] Barry, Barbara R. "Debt and Transfiguration: Mozart's 'Haydn' Quartets by Way of Haydn's Opus 33." In The Philosopher's Stone: Essays in the Transformation of Musical Structure, 73-87. Hillsdale, N.Y.: Pendragon Press, 2000.
Mozart includes more revisions than usual in the autograph of his "Haydn" quartets, and this may indicate that he was trying to work out compositional problems that proved more difficult than he expected. To build upon Haydn's ideas of texture, extension, development, and innovation in his Op. 33, Mozart uses two specific types of modeling. First, he replicates certain elements of Haydn's Op. 33. In the finale of his String Quartet in C Major, K. 465, he includes the characteristic Haydn gestures of unexpected silence and a false reprise in the wrong key. Second, Mozart makes selective applications of Haydn's compositional practice. For example, in his String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 33, No. 2, Haydn grapples with how to introduce and continue thematic material. By transforming the function of the closing motive into that of an opening motive, Haydn provides a novel solution to his problem. Similarly, in his String Quartet in E-flat Major, K. 428, Mozart changes the function of the closing material to opening material; however, he also goes a step further than Haydn. When Mozart reaches the dominant key, he unexpectedly delays the second theme. Instead, he transforms another cadential figure into an opening figure, obscuring the usual pairing of the dominant with the secondary theme. Mozart also borrows more general features of Haydn's Op. 33, such as the placement of the scherzo before the slow movement and patterns of dialogues between instruments. Though modeling does exist between quartets of different keys, it is most easily seen when the Mozart and Haydn quartets are in the same key.
Works: Mozart: String Quartet in G Major, K. 387 (76, 83), String Quartet in E-flat Major, K. 428 (78, 80-3), String Quartet in C Major, K. 465 (84-85), String Quintet in C Major, K. 515 (85), String Quartet in D Minor, K. 421 (87); Beethoven: String Quartet in F Major (Razumovsky) Op. 59, No. 1 (85).
Sources: Haydn: String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 33, No. 4 (76), String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 33, No. 2 (78, 80-81), String Quartet in G Major, Op. 33, No. 5 (83, 87) String Quartet in C Major, Op. 33, No. 3 (83-84); Mozart: String Quartet in C Major, K. 465 (85), String Quintet in C Major, K. 515 (85).
Index Classifications: 1700s
Contributed by: Laura B. Dallman
