String Duo No. 1 (Mozart)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's String Duo No. 1 in G major for violin and viola, K. 423, was written in 1783. It was the first of two duos that Mozart wrote to complete Michael Haydn's set of six for the Archbishop Colloredo.
Background[edit]
The String Duo No. 1 in G major for violin and viola, K. 423 was the first of two duos that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote to complete Michael Haydn's set of six for the Archbishop Colloredo.
Description[edit]
It was written in the summer of 1783.[1] It is in three movements:
- Allegro, common time
- Adagio, C major, 3/4
- Rondeau: Allegro, cut time
Whilst the duos by both Mozart and Haydn give the viola many double stops, Mozart's duos differ in that the viola also gets many passages in semiquavers (sixteenth notes), almost in equal proportion to the violin. The American musicologist H. C. Robbins Landon noted of the duo that Mozart used the knowledge he gained in writing his String Quartet in G major, K. 387,[2] the finale of which was in turn influenced by Haydn's Symphony No. 23.[citation needed]
The set of six duos was presented as having all been composed by Haydn, and Colloredo was unable to "detect in them Mozart's obvious workmanship".[3]
By transposing the viola part down an octave, and replacing the viola part's alto clef to the bass clef, the piece is readily playable by a cellist. In 2012, the Austrian composer Gerhard Präsent made an arrangement for string trio (two violins and violoncello), which has been performed several times by the ALEA Ensemble.[4]
The duo is almost always paired with the String Duo No. 2, K. 424. The Hungaroton label has a 2-CD set of the Mozart and Haydn duos with Barnabas Kelemen and Katalin Kokas. The Avie label prefers to put Mozart's duos (played by Phillipe Graffin and Nobuko Imai) on a 2-CD set with other pieces by Mozart, such as the Violin Concerto in G, K. 216, and the Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat major, K. 364. The Odeum Guitar Duo has recorded a transcription of K. 423 for two guitars.[citation needed]
References[edit]
- ^ Bensieck, Anja (1997). "Vorwort" [Preface] (PDF). Mozart Streichduos (in German and English). G. Henle Publishers. Retrieved 25 April 2024.
- ^ Robbins Landon 1990, p. 296.
- ^ Burk 1959, p. 140.
- ^ "Werkdetails". ALEA (in German). ALEA Ensemble. 2016. Retrieved 25 April 2024.
Sources[edit]
- Burk, John Naglee (1959). Mozart and His Music. New York: Random House. OCLC 753002715.
- Robbins Landon, Howard Chandler, ed. (1990). The Mozart Compendium: A Guide to Mozart's Life and Music. New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 0500278849.
Further reading[edit]
- Carter, Stefan (2005). Mozart: A Meditation on his Life and Mysterious Death. Winnipeg, Canada: Heartland Associates. ISBN 978-18961-5-025-3.
- Einstein, Alfred (1971). Mozart: His Character, his Work. London; New York: Granada. ISBN 978-05860-3-277-0.
External links[edit]
- String Duo No. 1: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
- Performance of String Duo No. 1 by Chad Hoopes (violin) and Matthew Lipman (viola) from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format
