Mozart’s D Major quintet seems to create a narrative sequence over its movements. Two beautiful slow sections seem to frame the first movement, and the main body of the movement has a fairly straightforward, expository feel.
The second movement, in the manner of an aria, takes elements from the first movement and explores their emotional conditions very beautifully.
The third movement is a minuet full of tricks, machinations, and rhythmic displacements; its trio expands slyly on the arpeggio figure (from the cello) that opens the first movement.
In the last movement everything comes together around a strange chromatic figure in the main theme.
The mood of the last movement is complex: rhythmically quite bright, but tonally unsettled. So what seems like it ought to be a fairly usual concluding rondo turns into a large and argumentative conclusion.
Let’s listen to the music:
