Mozart Piano Quartet in E flat Major K493

In 1785 Mozart was commissioned by his publisher friend Franz Anton Hoffmeister to write 3 quartets for piano and strings. In itself the form was unusal, the piano trio being the preferred chamber music idiom in Vienna at the time. Also unusal, was Mozart's treatment of the piano as an equal partner in the music. Other works of that period, with similar instrumentation, were generally constructed like miniature concerti, with the keyboard in an accompaniing role.

Dated June 1786, Mozart's Eb major piano quartet K493 was completed despite the fact that Hoffmeister had cancelled the commission due to the disappointing sales of the first quartet in G minor. It was finally published in 1787 by Artaria, whom Mozart luckily managed to convince to take over the project. Perhaps the viennese audience was reluctant to embrace music so revolutionary in style. It is more likely that the amateur musicians of the time found the challenging piano parts altogether too difficult.

This second quartet, finished only one month after the composer completed his brilliantly successful work, the Marriage of Figaro, shares the exhilaration and subversive humour of the opera. Opening with a virtuosic display in the piano, the spirited runs give way to a lyrical and graceful theme which is revisited in many guises throughout the movement. The exceedingly beautiful A flat Larghetto displays Mozart's mastery in balancing different instrumental weights. The first theme of the Allegretto was described by Einstein as "the purest, most childlike and godlike melody ever sung". This lovely rondo has a quality of the utmost sparkle and finesse, concluding the work as brightly as it began.