Haydn Quartets (Mozart) - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Early reception of the "Haydn" Quartets was both enthusiastic and disgruntled. An anonymous early reviewer, writing in Cramer's Magazin der Musik in 1789, gave a judgment characteristic of reaction to Mozart's music at the time, namely that the works were inspired, but too complex and difficult to enjoy:

Mozart's works do not in general please quite so much as ... six quartets for violins, viola, and bass dedicated to Haydn confirm ... that he has a decided leaning towards the difficult and the unusual. But then, what great and elevated ideas he has too, testifying to a bold spirit!

Giuseppe Sarti later published an attack against the "Dissonance" quartet, describing sections as "barbarous", "execrable", and "miserable" in its use of whole-tone clusters and chromatic extremes. Around this same time, Fétis printed a revision of the opening of the "Dissonance" quartet, implying that Mozart had made errors. When the publishers, Artaria, sent the quartets to Italy for publication, they were returned with the report "the engraving is full of mistakes". However, Heinrich Christoph Koch noted that these works were praiseworthy for "their mixture of strict and free styles and the treatment of harmony". Favorable reports of the quartets came soon after their publication from newspapers in Salzburg and Berlin. In the early 19th century, Jérôme-Joseph de Momigny wrote an extended analysis of No. 15 in D minor, K. 421. Momigny used the setting of text based on Dido's Lament to discuss the emotional and expressive qualities of the first movement of this work.

These works stand as some of Mozart's most famous works. They are considered "established keystones" of the chamber music repertoire and are heard frequently in concerts, radio broadcasts, and recordings.