Mozart: String Quintets, K. 593 And K. 614

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791) String Quintets Vol. 3 String Quintet in D major, K.593 String Quintet in E flat major, K.614 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg in 1756, the son of a musician who, in the year of his youngest child's birth, published an initial book on violin-playing. Leopold Mozart rose to occupy the position of Vice-Kapellmeister to the Archbishop of Salzburg, but sacrificed own creative career to that of his son, in whom he detected early signs of precocious genius. With the indulgence of his patron, he was able to undertake extended concert tours of Europe in which his son and his elder daughter Nannerl were able to astonish audiences. The boy played both the keyboard and the violin and could improvise and soon write down his own compositions. Childhood that had brought Mozart signal success was followed by a less satisfactory period of adolescence largely in Salzburg, under the patronage new and less sympathetic Archbishop. Like his father, Mozart found opportunities far too limited at home, while chances of travel were now restricted. In 1777, when leave of absence was not granted he gave up employment in Salzburg to seek a future elsewhere, but neither Mannheim Paris, both musical centres of some importance, had anything for him. His Mannheim connections, however, brought a commission for an opera in Munich in 1781, but after its successful staging he was summoned by his patron to Vienna. There Mozart's dissatisfaction with his position resulted in a quarrel with the Archbishop and dismissal from his service. The last ten years of Mozart's life were spent in Vienna in precarious independence of both patron and immediate paternal advice, a situation aggravated by an imprudent marriage. Initial success in the opera-house and as a performer was followed, as the decade went on, by increasing financial difficulties. By the time of his death in December 1791, however, his fortunes seemed about to change for the better, with the success of the German opera The Magic Flute, and the possibility of increased patronage. Mozart's last two string quintets were written in Vienna in December 1790 and April 1791 respectively. These were published posthumously together by Artaria in May 1793, with the first of them described as \composto per un amatore ongarese (composed for a Hungarian music-lover} and both advertised in the Wiener Zeitung as auf eine sehr thätige Aneiferung eines Musikfreundes (at the very urgent request of a music-lover}. It has been suggested by Ernst Fritz Schmid, quoted by Ernst Hess in his introduction to the Neue Mozart Ausgabe edition of the quintets, that this unknown person was Johann Tost, to be identified with Haydn's violinist and the purveyor of some of the latter's compositions to Paris. Tost, leader of the second violins at Esterházy and seemingly to be identified with the cloth-merchant of the same name, the business to be presumed a consequence of his marriage, had moved to Mor