# What is your favorite Mozart Quintet?



## Guest

Along with 6 String Quintets, Mozart wrote a Horn Quintet, a Clarinet Quintet and and Quintet for Piano and Winds. Wonderful stuff! Forget the "Greatest". What is your favorite?


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## Bulldog

I voted for the wonderful Clarinet Quintet. The Quintet for Piano and Winds would be my 2nd choice.


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## Bettina

K. 515, String Quintet in C Major. I love the dramatic shifts between major and minor that occur throughout much of this piece.


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## mmsbls

I adore Mozart's quintets. K516 is one of my all time favorite chamber works. Schubert's string quintet and Beethoven's Op. 133 (Grosse Fuge) fall in the same category. The K515 and clarinet quintet would be my next choices.


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## Brahmsian Colors

I have to agree with Bettina---the very fine String Quintet No.3 in C Major, K.515.


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## Guest

For me it's the K452 because of the wide pallet of instruments. 

A few quintets that I left out were the Piano Concertos Nos. 11-14. Their Koechel Numbers are 413, 414, 415, and 449. Mozart arranged alternatively them for piano and string quartet.


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## DavidA

Clarinet Quintet for me. But not to say I don't love the others!


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## Pugg

I am with DavidA on this one including the second remark.


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## hpowders

Two String Quintets: Still the G Minor, followed by the C Major.


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## PlaySalieri

One of the hardest polls - I have gone with k452 just because it is such a unique work.


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## Kieran

It's a toughie, isn't it? For me, the twin quintets, c-major and g-minor, are involved in a permanent death struggle for my attention, and K452 is like, default setting, whenever I even hear the word "quintet." Somebody mentions Schubert's string quintet and my mind instantly bellows K452, and I have to readjust and pay attention.

I'll go with K516. For now. It's the opening movement, it's so powerful. Distressed and emotional. And it retains this great turbulence through successive movements, until the genius of the finale, which is still turbulent but he's risen out of despair and the day gets brighter. As it so often does...


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## jdec

stomanek said:


> One of the hardest polls - I have gone with k452 just because it is such a unique work.


I agree. BTW, what's your favorite version of k452? mine is this one:

http://e.snmc.io/lk/f/l/e35f30c115029cef065f5ce7d269205e/4774902.jpg


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## jegreenwood

An easy choice for me. I've worked on the clarinet part of K. 581. I can stumble through it over and over again, and it still maintains its beauty.


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## PlaySalieri

jdec said:


> I agree. BTW, what's your favorite version of k452? mine is this one:
> 
> http://e.snmc.io/lk/f/l/e35f30c115029cef065f5ce7d269205e/4774902.jpg


I have the Lupu version on LP - which seems to me impossible to improve upon - I have heard that the Brendel version is good too - I dont know the Levine version.


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## DavidA

stomanek said:


> I have the Lupu version on LP - which seems to me impossible to improve upon - I have heard that the Brendel version is good too - I dont know the Levine version.


Perahia is superb


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## PeterF

I would pick the clarinet quintet as it is my favorite wind quintet from any composer, though the Brahms clrinet quintet is a close second.
The string quintets and the piano and winds quintet are also marvelous and I would not want to be without them in my collection.


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## Brahmsian Colors

Can't help it: After threatening to do so for quite a while, The stylish elegance and dulcet tones of the K.452 Quintet for Piano and Winds. has vaulted into position as my new favorite. I can't see it being challenged in the near future.


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## Heck148

Haydn67 said:


> Can't help it: After threatening to do so for quite a while, The stylish elegance and dulcet tones of the K.452 Quintet for Piano and Winds. has vaulted into position as my new favorite. I can't see it being challenged in the near future.


Yes!! agree completely - wonderful piece...I've played it many, many times....always a joy...the dialogues Mozart sets up between the piano and winds is really delicious....we often program this work with the Beethoven 5tet for same instrumentation. Beethoven was inspired by the Mozart...
We usually play the Beethoven firs, then Mozart. the Beethoven is an early work, Beethoven's mature style not yet developed, tho one can see it coming...the Mozart is a mature work, of an great master. We would program not chronologically, but rather by where it was written in the composer's output.


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## tdc

For me the K516 stands out amongst these quintets to the same extent Bach's chaconne stands out amongst his works for solo violin.


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## Pugg

PeterF said:


> I would pick the clarinet quintet as it is my favorite wind quintet from any composer, though the Brahms clrinet quintet is a close second.
> The string quintets and the piano and winds quintet are also marvelous and I would not want to be without them in my collection.


Necessary in _anyone's_ collection .


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## Olias

K452 because of just how amazingly well composed it is. All those different timbres have to work perfectly together.......and they do. I especially like it performed on period instruments.


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## hpowders

In real time: still the magnificent G minor.


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## Pugg

Close call between: K516, String Quintet in G minor/ K581, "Stadler" Clarinet Quintet in A


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## Mandryka

Lately I've become interested in K614, this is part of a project I have of exploring Mozart's last style, which, to be honest, I mostly find quite difficult. The thing that fascinates me is that, in this quintet, which prima facie seems naively diatonic, there are fleeting episodes of dissonance which appear out of the blue. The appearance of child-like, folksy naivety is only superficial.

I wonder if the Mozartians here think he was "losing it" in the late music. Transitional music is often difficult for me, in Mozart and in Beethoven, though sometimes (in Mahler for example) it's the best!


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## Brahmsian Colors

Haydn67 said:


> "...the K.452 Quintet for Piano and Winds. has vaulted into position as my new favorite. I can't see it being challenged in the near future.


That was six months ago. It HAS been challenged by the String Quintet No.3 (K.515), which had preceded K.452 as my favorite, and has now re-asserted its #one position. Interesting how from time to time taste seems to have a "mind of its own".


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## Bettina

Haydn67 said:


> That was six months ago. It HAS been challenged by the String Quintet No.3 (K.515), which had preceded K.452 as my favorite, and has now re-asserted its #one position. Interesting how from time to time taste seems to have a "mind of its own".


K. 515 is my favorite too. That moment when the arpeggio-type theme changes into a minor key...it's so heartbreaking and emotionally intense! I'm not sure why I enjoy being moved to tears by music, but somehow it's cathartic in a pleasurable way.


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## Brahmsian Colors

The unfolding of beautiful or lovely melodies often brings me to respond in the same manner. Sometimes, it may be something that is said or expressed in a movie or when I feel happy for someone or some group whose long struggle for just treatment has finally been realized. Wonderful life experiences.


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## ST4

Eflat piano and winds for me


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## Pugg

Haydn67 said:


> The unfolding of beautiful or lovely melodies often brings me to respond in the same manner. Sometimes, it may be something that is said or expressed in a movie or when I feel happy for someone or some group whose long struggle for just treatment has finally been realized. Wonderful life experiences.


Or someone saying/ writhing it on this site has the same effect one me.


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## hpowders

tdc said:


> For me the K516 stands out amongst these quintets to the same extent Bach's chaconne stands out amongst his works for solo violin.


Yes. K516! Except that I would argue that the Fugue from the C Major Third Sonata for Unaccompanied Violin is the "emotional heart" of the "great six" and not the Chaconne from the Partita No. 2.


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