Quintet for Piano and Winds, K. 452

“I consider it the best piece I have yet completed.” So wrote Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91) in a letter to his father referring to the Quintet in E-flat Major for piano and winds, written in March 1784 and premiered at Vienna’s Imperial Court Theater. High praise, indeed, from a composer who had already written over 35 superlative symphonies, 15 piano concertos, 16 string quartets, Idomeneo and the great C-minor Mass. Certainly, fresh from the Quintet’s premiere, Mozart might be expected to shower the work with some praise; all artists hope that their most recent work is their best. But Mozart did not describe all of his premieres in this way. What did he find so appealing about this Quintet?
As shown by the “Linz” Symphony, the Horn Concerto K. 447, and the Piano Concertos K. 450, 451, and 453, to name a few, the period from late 1783 to early 1784 was both productive and of consistent high quality. Mozart infused some of the Symphony’s grandeur into the smaller texture of the Wind Quintet, specifically mimicking the Linz’s slow introduction. Once the Allegro begins, he looks to the piano concertos for guidance. Earlier in his career, Mozart himself made chamber arrangements of Piano Concertos Nos. 11-13. With the prominent leading voice of the piano, this Quintet similarly delights as a pared-down concerto. Brilliant passagework, in both winds and piano, make the transition sections as engaging as the main themes.
The central Larghetto movement starts in utmost simplicity, but episodic turns to the minor mode create a more expansive structure than is first intimated. In the end Mozart has written a full sonata form, with exposition (and repeats), development, and recapitulation plus coda. The development features dramatic tricks borrowed from Mozart’s symphonic writing, including the slow chromatic descending bassline and mercurial return to tonic. Indeed, the energy from that chromatic development spills over into reprise, which is far from being a pat restatement of the exposition.
Mozart launches the Rondo finale with the main theme as a piano solo. The winds answer, and during the second part of their reply, the piano slips unobtrusively back into the texture. It is an extremely small detail, but it shows the care that Mozart showered on this work. How simple it would have been to entirely separate the two phrases: one for piano, one for winds. Done. Instead, Mozart finds creative ways to overlap their textures. This finale is about as perfect a rondo as he wrote. Witness the deft way the transition back to the first theme takes place, making the rondo’s return feel surprising and yet perfectly timed.