Chapter Five - A Tale of Two Quintets: Mozart’s K. 452 and Beethoven’sOpus 16

Summary

In the repertoire of chamber music for piano with wind instruments,Mozart’s Quintet, K. 452, and Beethoven’s, Opus 16, occupy aspecial place. Each of these works stems from a time when its creatorcelebrated signal triumphs as a keyboard virtuoso. Mozart’s quintetdates from the spring of 1784, when he was otherwise occupied with the greatseries of piano concertos beginning with K. 449 to 451, and this work wasoriginally performed at Vienna in concerts alongside his concertos.Beethoven’s quintet was evidently composed during his only extendedconcert tour, a journey in 1796 that took him from Vienna to Prague andBerlin. Both pieces employ oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon in addition tothe keyboard. Although Beethoven also arranged his composition in a pianoquartet version with strings, the quintet was originally written for pianoand winds in a configuration identical to Mozart’s K. 452.

There is evidence of Beethoven’s awareness of Mozart’s modelwhen he wrote his Opus 16. Douglas Johnson has speculated that woodwindplayers at Prague might have given Beethoven the idea of composing such awork, possibly after a performance of Mozart’s K. 452, and thatBeethoven subsequently completed his quintet while in Berlin. Theevaluations of commentators have often been to Beethoven’sdisadvantage. John Warrack wrote, “In the direct line of descent fromMozart’s piano and wind quintet is Beethoven’s work for thesame combination … an inferior work to its begetter.” DonaldFrancis Tovey’s characterization has been particularlyinfluential:

In the quintet for pianoforte and wind instruments, Opus 16, Beethovenis, indeed, obviously setting himself in rivalry with Mozart’squintet for the same combination; but, if you want to realize thedifference between the highest art of classical composition and theeasygoing, safety-first product of a silver age, you cannot find abetter illustration than these two works, and here it is Mozart who isthe classic and Beethoven who is something less.

The conspicuous similarities between the two works indeed go beyond thechoice of instruments. Both quintets are in three movements and employE-flat major as the tonic key, with the dominant B-flat major being thetonic key of the slow movement.