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<\/a>Mm. 122\u2013125, vln 1<\/p><\/div>\n
dominates the whole development after its first occurrence and is, of course, heard once again at the end of the movement. Mozart later scrupulously corrected it wherever and in whichever part it appears as well. And indeed, to be specific, its articulation. If in the first draft he had always put sixteenths together in a large legato phrase, then he later corrected the legato (but did not cross it out or erase it in the autograph) by placing under the respective notes the familiar two-note grouping of slurs and staccatos:<\/p>\n
<\/a>Autograph, mm. 122\u2013125, vln 1<\/p><\/div>\n
To date I have never encountered any other autograph where Mozart made such a striking, systematic change in the articulation. Notes, yes, dynamics, yes, but articulation over such a long stretch? Anyone wanting to look more closely at these passages can consult the wonderful online presentation<\/a> of all the autographs of Mozart\u2019s ten so-called \u201cfamous\u201d string quartets in the British Library, London.<\/p>\n Some readers may shrug their shoulders and point out that even in a composer\u2019s \u201cworkshop\u201d many such corrections arise, and thanks to the printed editions we indeed know the \u201ccorrect\u201d text. For me such corrections represent a wonderful entry into the deeper understanding of the music: Autograph corrections are to some extent the visible marks of a compositional problem that the composer solved by intervening to improve or revise. Upon investigating the marks and trying to understand them we immediately find ourselves inside the music. For musicians wanting to perform such masterpieces appropriately, such an analysis calling for the autograph also helps, in my view, for unlike the manuscript the seemingly smooth and perfect music text of its printed editions does not reveal any kind of such mysteries.<\/p>\n So we might ask why perhaps in the case of K. 590\/IV would Mozart then later change the original, completely legato version of the \u201cspluttering spot\u201d to a succession of two-note groups (staccatos, slur, staccatos, slur, etc.). The original legato phrasing can certainly not be \u201cwrong\u201d in a literal sense, at most only weaker in design. What though could be \u201cweaker\u201d in it?<\/p>\n I\u2019m going to attempt an interpretation: We do fully understand the fundamental compositional idea of this passage (and all related to it) without articulation. The three continuously repeated sixteenth notes are clearly taken from the opening of the movement\u2019s main theme:<\/p>\n Mm. 1-2, vln 1<\/p><\/div>\n We can understand this main theme as a sequence spiraling downward tone-by-tone. Heard at the movement\u2019s start is only a small excerpt of this motoric descending spiral, to then be more spaciously implemented later (I have identified with \u201cx\u201d the sequence\u2019s descending goal tones always falling on the \u201cstrong\u201d beats \u201c1\u201d and \u201c3\u201d):<\/p>\n Mm. 37-42, vln 2<\/p><\/div>\n One of the inexhaustible miracles of this movement is a contrapuntal structure based solely on this sequence figure. (A short video by Richard Atkinson<\/a> offers a successful visualization and explanation of this.)<\/p>\n At the passage in question the figure now no longer comes from the passage, the sequence is almost forcibly reduced to its first three pitches like a motor that suddenly begins to splutter. And just this number three naturally at once induces an awful confusion in the metrically exact structure of the 4\/4 time. For the three tones now persistently begin and end at illogical, irregular spots in the measure structure.<\/p>\n \u201cHurdy-gurdy\u201d or \u201cbagpipes\u201d and jolly music-like \u201cout-of-sync devices\u201d \u2013 that is, in my view, Mozart\u2019s original idea of this passage. Momentarily, the highly artificial melody of the art-music milieu is thus brusquely shifted to the dance floor of the country folk. (That\u2019s indeed a familiar, not really so rare trick of \u201cclassical composers\u201d, especially of Joseph Haydn. It seems to me anyway that with his finale of the 3rd<\/sup> \u201cPrussian quartet\u201d Mozart tangibly alludes to the superb finale in Haydn\u2019s opus 55, no. 1 \u2013 but that would be worth a blog post of its own.) So, the original slur placement also emphasizes the \u201cdrone\u201d or amateurish \u201cbagpipe drone\u201d of this passage: The long slur equalizes, that is, to an extent the persistently repeated three tones; without beginning and goal they keep on droning, as it were, formlessly, naively dilettante-like.<\/p>\n Mozart now corrected this \u201cdroning\u201d articulation later with one considerably more artful. It is more artful because it is subdivided and more patterned. As such, the now new continuous alternation of two thrusting notes with two slurred notes would be a standard articulation of the period. Yet here it behaves entirely differently: the two-note grouping pretends only to clarify uniformity and norm, thus staccato always as upbeat, slurring always for the strong downbeat. In truth, the now sophisticated articulation still accentuates the \u201cconfusion\u201d, while now indeed the strong beats are re-emphasized, but at the same time the original, steadily \u201cdroning\u201d three-note figure is now articulated with each repetition \u2013 systematically-methodically \u2013 in every other configuration:<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>The appeal of these irregular \u201csplutterings\u201d is thereby supported, even enhanced, as the three lower parts stall so to speak, namely on the C-major bordun sound: the two lower parts with their open fifth c<\/em>\/g<\/em> imitate the sound of the hurdy-gurdy or the bagpipes, the 2nd<\/sup> violin syncopatedly sharpening the missing third each time with the dissonant leading tone d sharp<\/em>.<\/p>\n