Mozart: Piano Quartets

Featuring

Paul Badura-Skoda
István Kertész
Péter Ligeti
Rezső Pertorini
Festetics String Quartet
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Did you know?

1/6

Compositional Technique

The Piano Quartets combine elements of concertos and chamber music, featuring only three movements and rondo finales like concertos, but with classical sonata form first movements that include repeated expositions like string quartets.

Composition History

Mozart's Piano Quartets were likely intended to be part of a cycle of three or six similar works under a contract with his Masonic Brother, the publisher and composer Hoffmeister.

Critical Reception

The series of Piano Quartets was interrupted, possibly because Hoffmeister, the publisher, found the first Quartet, K 478, too difficult for the public.

Historical Context

The genre of the piano quartet is relatively rare in music history, with few composers attempting it after Mozart, who is considered a pioneer in this problematic framework.

Composition History

Mozart's two Piano Quartets were composed around the time of his opera The Marriage of Figaro, with the first finished in October 1785 and the second in June 1786, shortly after the opera's premiere.

Compositional Technique

In these Piano Quartets, the piano part is as difficult and virtuosic as in a concerto, but lacks cadenzas or extended solos, while the strings are more than accompaniment, forming tuttis or individual chamber parts.