Music at the Close String Quartets by Mozart, Bartók, and Mendelssohn
Har r y Haskell
Valediction is the common thread that binds tonight’s program together. The three quartets that Mozart wrote in 1789–90 for the Prussian monarch Friedrich Wilhelm II, an enthusiastic amateur cellist, are his last and among his finest contributions to the genre. Bravura writing for both first violin and cello gives K. 589 an extra dollop of sparkle. By contrast, the last of Bartók’s six quartets, composed in Switzerland and Hungary just before and after the outbreak of World War II, is very much a work of its time: the prevailing mood is conveyed by the expressive marking mesto, or “sad,” attached to each of the four movements. Although Mendelssohn seldom used music as a vehicle for expressing his innermost feelings, the F-minor Quartet is an exception; his last and arguably greatest piece of chamber music, it was prompted by the death of his sister Fanny in May 1847, less than six months before his own demise. A Northern Tour The feverish compositional activity that marked the last year or two of Mozart’s life was partly induced by the precarious state of his finances. Poor health notwithstanding, he brought forth one masterpiece after another in a wide variety of genres. Così fan tutte, the last of the three great comic operas that he wrote with Lorenzo Da Ponte, premiered at the court theater in Vienna in January 1790; it was soon followed by Die Zauberflöte and La clemenza di Tito. Some-
