SOME ASPECTS OF VERTICAL TYPOLOGIES IN THE LAST STRING QUARTET OF W. A. MOZART, KV 590, F MAJOR

Abstract

As a part of the Prussian Quartets, commissioned by the notorious amateur cello player and music lover, Frederick William II, King of Prussia, the String Quartet in F, KV 590 occupies a particular place in Mozart’s chamber music. In spite of emphasizing the cello part, Mozart found a middle course between his quartet style and the specific demands of the commissioner. This consists of  an intensive polyphonic writing applied mostly to the final part of the last quartet, a solution which keeps the “appearance” of emphasizing of a single voice (in our case - the cello) between the condition of keeping the balance of all voices, as a characteristic solution of the polyphonic techniques. Our analysis is focused on identifying the main vertical typologies as specific composition methods like: the unison, as an opening technique, repeated sounds in the context of isorhythmic changing harmonies, arpeggios, the setting up of vertical sounding planes, poly-metric components, and contrapuntal techniques. The complexity of these vertical structures in this Mozart’s late composition, bear closely upon the monumentality of the construction, and in such a meaning it has a modern effect in comparison with the musical language of the epoch, anticipating those stylistic elements which are characteristic to the first creative period of Beethoven.